The Green Lama: Scions (The Green Lama Legacy Book 1) (8 page)

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Tsarong felt every day of his life creak in his joints as he made his way to the door. He had grown accustomed to the pain, the muted, arthritic drum roll that reminded him he was still bound to this realm—still able to make a difference before the oncoming storm. If that was still his role to play—there was no way to be certain until the time came—for to know one’s destiny was to void it.

All that mattered was that Jethro, at once his student and master, his friend and brother, was ready to hold back the darkness when the stars aligned.

“Yes?” he said as he opened the door to find a young woman quickly straightening her black hat with velveteen purple and pink flowers.

“Hello. Hi,” the woman said, slightly out of breath as she flattened down the flyaway strands of her golden blonde hair, her brow shining. Tsarong glanced down the hall at the dormant elevator bank; she must have run up the stairs, all twelve stories. “I’m looking for Jethro Dumont.”

So is every other woman in this city, Tsarong thought, his face a blank slate. “I’m afraid he’s not here, Miss…?”

“Of course, he isn’t,” she muttered, pushing past him into the foyer. “Man of mystery that one. You’re
Tah-sor-wrong,
right?”

“Tsarong,” he corrected. “I’m afraid I didn’t get your name.”

“Betty Dale, at least that’s what it says in my byline,” she said offhandedly as she walked purposefully toward the study. “We spoke on the phone, oh, probably a dozen times.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, placing his hands inside his sleeves as he followed after her. “The reporter from the
Herald-Tribune”

She strolled into the study, diligently picking up and examining every item she walked past before carelessly placing them aside. She stopped to look up in muted awe at the circular stained glass window high above. “That’s me, brother. Jeez, would you look at this place? A little sparse, but damn, ten million goes a long way doesn’t it? Just think what it could do for me. Not that I’m interested, mind you. I don’t do blackmail or bribes. I’m all about the Fourth Estate, though this place looks big enough to fit the first three.” She walked over to the golden Buddha tucked into the far bookshelf, the array of butter candles momentarily giving her a bronze complexion. “When are you expecting Dumont back?”

“I couldn’t say, Miss Dale. I am not his keeper.” “Guess we’re just gonna have to wait then.” She dropped down into Jethro’s desk chair. She waved at the rows and rows of books lining the walls. “Does he read all these?”

“Not all at once, and usually one page at a time.” “Now that’s interesting,” she said, ignoring Tsarong’s quip. “By every account, our friend Dumont is little more than an immature womanizer who won’t crack open anything that doesn’t have two legs and here he is with more books than the Library of Alexandria.”

“Only a few more,” Tsarong said dryly. “Would you care for some tea?”

“Coffee. Late night, early morning.” “I’m afraid Mr. Dumont doesn’t drink coffee.” “Millions of dollars and he doesn’t drink coffee,” she said to herself. “Now if that isn’t suspicious, I don’t know what is. Fine. Tea, whichever is caffeinated. Sugar. Milk. Let’s pretend we’re in America for five minutes.”

“Very well, Miss Dale.” Tsarong allowed himself an exasperated sigh before walking off to the kitchen.

Alone, Betty spun around in the chair and rapped her knuckles against the desk. There was something off about this place, skewed sideways and warped like a funhouse mirror. To the untrained eye, everything about Dumont’s penthouse seemed right and proper. But despite the countless shelves of books filling the walls floor to ceiling, the golden Buddha, his desk, and a few chairs, Dumont’s study was incredibly Spartan. Where was the liquor cabinet, the Louis V style chairs, the countless artifacts collected from his travels? That was what was expected. She knew Dumont didn’t smoke, but there wasn’t even a damn ashtray in sight. This felt less like the penthouse of a millionaire playboy and more like what she imagined a monastery to be. She glanced at the desk and noticed a small, yellowed piece of paper taped to the wood. She looked to make sure she was still alone before carefully moving aside another bit of paper covering the copy. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as she read over the three-sentence newspaper clipping about three young children shot down while disembarking the
S.S. Held.

Betty fell back in her chair. “Son of a bitch…” she whispered, remembering Dumont’s piercing blue-grey eyes the night before. “He looks at it every—”

“Tulku
!?
”
a panicked voice suddenly resounded around her.
“Tulku
!
Are you there?!”

Betty shot up straight, clumsily knocking various sheets of paper over the newspaper clipping. “Um… Yes. Hello?”

“Who is this?” the voice asked just as Betty was beginning to believe she had tumbled down the rabbit hole.

Betty frowned. “Who is this?”

“I asked you first.”

“Yes, but technically you called me. If that’s what you did,” she added under her breath, nervously looking at the walls. There had to be speakers and a microphone hidden somewhere…

“It’s Clayton,” the voice eventually answered. “Is this Evangl?”

Betty’s mind raced. Evangl? Evangl who? The only Evangl she knew was that prissy Evangl Stewart-Brown who had been kidnapped by the Crimson Hand back in the day. “Yes,” she replied, affecting her best upper classaccent, which she assumed was vaguely British. “Yep. It’s me. Hello.”

“Where is the
Tulku
?”

“The
tool-kool
is um… He’s ah… um…” she stuttered as she dug her notebook and pencil out of her purse. “Out
tool-kooling.
Can I help you, um… Clayton?” She rolled the named over and over in her mind.
Clayton! Clayton?
Who did she know named Clayton? Surely not Ken Clayton the actor?

“Tell him he’s got Jean. The bastard’s got Jean!”

“He does?” Betty asked as she rapidly scribbled into her notebook. “Who’s got Jean?”

“I—He didn’t exactly stop to introduce himself, Evangl,” Clayton said, frustration pouring through each word. “It was all punching and shooting and then a little bit of head meet wall.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

Clayton hesitated. “He had black eyes and his face…”

“Black… eyes…”

“Are you writing this down?”

“Can’t remember otherwise,” Betty said as a matter of fact. “Now, what were you saying about—?”

“Evangl, just get the Green Lama now!” Clayton shouted before hanging up the phone.

The tip of Betty’s pencil snapped off. “Oh my God…” she breathed, her heart beating madly. She had been wrong, so damn wrong. It all fit together, perfectly and beautifully. It was so goddamn obvious, plain as the nose on her face and she had missed it completely. How could she have not seen it? The death of his parents, the ten-year sojourn to Tibet, the three children gunned down… It all fit the pattern. Jethro Dumont wasn’t tied to the mob, he was the—!

“It seems that we did have some coffee, Miss Dale,” Tsarong said evenly from the other side of the study, a steaming cup and saucer in hand.

Betty dared to meet his piercing gaze. She wasn’t afraid, she told herself; she had been in more dangerous situations than this. Besides, what could an old man do to her? “Who was that?”

Tsarong momentarily gazed at the golden Buddha statue on the other side of the room. “That was Mr. Ken Clayton,” he said after a moment.

Betty’s golden eyebrows shot up. “The actor?”

“I have never seen one of his performances so I cannot comment.”

“He asked for the ’
Tool-kool.’
He asked for the Green—”

“Tulku
is what one sometimes calls a Buddhist teacher, though technically it means ’an incarnation of a previous lama.’” He placed her coffee on the desk. “And Mr. Dumont is a
Bodhisattva
in his own right. As to the second, you may have misheard—”

“Don’t play coy with me,” Betty said sharply. “I know what I heard.”

Tsarong sighed, but kept his eyes trained on her. “So you do.”

Betty’s nails dug into the armrests. “I guess this puts us in an awkward position, doesn’t it?”

“An impasse,” he corrected, tucking his hands into his sleeves. “One I’m sure we can find a way to circumvent.”

“I could run.”

“You could try.”

“The public deserves to know,” she said defiantly.

Tsarong nodded. “They do and they will. But now is not the time.”

“And why is that?”

Tsarong looked to the stained glass window above them and frowned. “Because this is only the beginning.” He gestured to the cup. “Your coffee is getting cold.”

Betty looked at the coffee suspiciously. “What’s in it?”

“Sugar and milk, as you requested.”

Her lower lip began to tremble. “Are you going to kill me?”

Tsarong studied her for a moment, his face frighteningly bereft of emotion. “I’m Buddhist, Miss Dale,” he replied. “We will just have to be… patient.”

Caraway sat hunched over his desk, feeling the exhaustion take hold. How long had he been awake now? Twenty-four hours? Thirty? Thirty-six? It was all a blur save for the voices, which had followed him back to the station, whispering like rats in the walls. He tried to ignore them, but couldn’t help but listen. Sounds of madness, words without meaning or purpose. It was like an itch in the back of his head, worsening the more he scratched.

“You look like shit.”

Light flooded in as Caraway jerked up to find Commissioner Woods standing over him.
Dammit,
he thought as he massaged his eyes. He had drifted off

“Well, you know how I like to look pretty for you, Sir,” Caraway grumbled as he sat up in his chair, his mouth tasting like an old toothbrush.

“And you’re doing a piss poor job of it. At least put on some makeup fer God’s sake. Feel like I’m lookin’ at a goddamn gorilla.”

Caraway allowed a crooked grin. “You don’t pay me enough to get the good stuff.”

Woods chuckled as he slid open the bottom drawer of Caraway’s desk and brought out the bottle of whiskey and two glasses. “I hear our guest’s still not talking,” he said as he poured. “Think your friend could help?”

Caraway shook his head, taking a glass. “Girl’s still jumpin’ at shadows. Last thing she needs is some guy who lives in them. Let her sleep if she can. We’ll talk to her after and start piecing it all together.”

They tapped their glasses. Woods took a sip while Caraway gulped his down.

“Dammit, John,” Woods swore, hissing at the burn. “I miss the days when all we had to deal with were bootleggers and Johns with their pricks out.”

“Oh, we still do, Sir,” Caraway said, his voice hoarse from the liquor. “We just also have to deal with mad men in masks, supernatural nuts and the occasional mass murderer.”

“The Tipton Murders were a walk in the park compared to this shit, at least he only killed gangsters. This though…” He took another sip of his drink and stared off into the distance. “I don’t know, John. There are times I feel like we’re not in reality anymore. Like someone changed the rules without us knowing and now everything’s… weird.”

Caraway struggled not to roll his eyes and poured himself another glass. “At least you can say it’s interesting.”

“Cheers to that…” They tapped their glasses again when there was a knock on the door.

“Yes?” Caraway called.

Officer Heidelberger risked his head in. “Boss?”

Caraway grimaced, knowing it could only be bad news. “What is it, David?”

“You got a visitor.”

“Is he dressed in green and making profoundly ridiculous statements about life and justice followed by some unpronounceable words that we’d need footnotes to understand?”

Heidelberger furrowed his brow. “No… Just Jethro Dumont.”

“Of course,” Caraway sighed, giving Heidelberger a beckoning wave. “Let’s see what the playboy wants.” He quickly downed the remainder of his drink and hid the glass and bottle in his bottom drawer while Woods paced the room, nursing his own. “Did the Stork Club close early, or are you just making a social call?” he said as Dumont entered.

“And a good morning to you too, John,” Dumont said with a somber smile. He was wearing a grey three-piece suit and, by the rumples, had been wearing it for a day or more.

“Nothing good about this morning, and you know it Jethro.” Caraway walked out from behind his desk and shook Dumont’s hand. He had known Dumont for almost five years after the wayward millionaire came to police headquarters to report the descriptions of the men who had gunned down the little girl on the pier. After Dumont’s third or fourth inquiry, Caraway told him that there was so much graft in the department it was unlikely the killers would ever be caught. Dumont looked Caraway in the eye for several moments before he said: “You’re more than you appear, Lieutenant.” Since then they had become good friends, though Caraway likewise suspected Dumont was more than he appeared to be. “Commissioner, you know my friend, Jethro Dumont.”