The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective: Tenzing Norbu Mystery) (13 page)

The van sped off. Rabbi Fishbein and the other young man climbed in the Acura and followed. I scanned the shadows. No telephoto lenses. No inquisitive journalists. No vultures. They’d pulled it off.

I joined Bill and Heather by the building entrance. The ME and Summer were back inside, conferring.

“Here’s your caffeine,” I said to Bill. “Hope I’m not too late with it.”

He grabbed it like a man starved.

“You look like roadkill,” I said.

“Thanks, honey.”

I handed the other cup to Heather. “I believe this one’s for you.”

“You’re a saint.” She cupped her hands around the coffee and sipped.

“They’ve issued the certificate of death, pending,” Bill said. “At least the family can bury Marv later today. That’s something.”

He drained his coffee.

“I’m not looking forward to the press conference, I can tell you that. Talk about a big goose egg. They still don’t have a fucking clue how he died. And neither do I.”

“So what’s next?”

“It pretty much rests with the toxicologists, and that could take months. Needle in a haystack, you know? If they don’t know what to look for, they don’t know what to test for. There were no drugs on the scene. Nothing out of the ordinary in Marv’s medicine cabinet. His medical records checked out with what the early blood tests show. I mean, he’d been drinking a lot, and there was some very high-grade pot in his system, but contrary to what our mamas told us, those drugs don’t kill.” Bill scrubbed his face with his hands. “Whoever did this to Marv was one slick fucker, that’s all I have to say. We’ll keep poking around, but it’s more or less up to these guys for the time being.”

“What about the knife?” I said. “What about the tat?”

“What about them? They didn’t cause his death, Ten. And until we know what did . . . “

“What about the daughter, Harper? This guy I met, one of the paparazzi? He said . . . “

“Jesus Christ, Ten! Now you’re talking to the paparazzi? What the hell is going on in your brain?” Bill’s face was the color of a beet.

“Bill, slow down.”

“Right. I know. Take a deep breath. You know what? I’m beat. I’m going back to bed. I recommend you guys do the same.” He stomped off.

Heather was staring at Bill’s receding back. “He doesn’t do well when he’s tired,” I explained, though my insides were stinging.

Heather nodded. She lifted her coffee and drank. I noticed the knuckles of her right hand were a little red and chapped. She shuddered.

“Are you okay?” I said.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I just hate that this case is so . . . unfinished.” She crumpled the coffee cup. “It’s freezing. I thought L.A. never got cold.”

“Do you want my coat?” I started to take it off, but she shook her head.

“I’m exhausted, Ten. Sorry, but I guess I need sleep more than anything.” She threw me an apologetic smile and followed Bill to the lot.

“So glad I came,” I said, to no one in particular.

I stewed about things all the way home. Thankfully, the freeways were empty, and I was back under the covers by 8
A.M.
An hour later, my phone woke me up all over again. It was just going to be one of those days.

“Lox and bagels, Mr. Norbu,” I heard.

“Excuse me?”

“Lox and bagels from Nate ‘n’ Al’s.”

“Is this Mr. Rosen?”

“Yes. Yes it is. So. I’ve been sitting in my favorite room, thinking,” he said.

“Ruminating.”

“Yes. And I ruminated up an image of lox and bagels from my favorite deli. Now, I could call and get them to deliver, but I thought instead you might visit me and bring with. I have something I want to discuss.” His voice sounded slurry. If I didn’t know about the Parkinson’s, I’d assume the guy was high on something. “How’s that sound?”

First soy lattés, then bagels. Maybe the universe was training me for my next career, as a delivery boy.

“It sounds fine,” I said. I pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and left Tank scrutinizing his bowl of crunchy treats for hidden messages.

“Back in a few hours,” I said. Tank flicked his tail, unconvinced.

I fired up the Mustang. Extended unemployment meant I could drive her whenever I pleased, and I pleased. I pleased a lot. Nate ‘n’ Al’s was wall-to-wall with Sunday morning enthusiasts. I took a number and watched the passing parade of humanity for 20 minutes, trying to guess their stories. I walked out with half a dozen bagels, lox and cream cheese, and a container of egg salad.

Ten minutes later, the same guard waved me through, and I was rolling up the drive to the Rosen mansion. This time Julius was out the front door before I’d finished parking. No sign of Señor Beefy. Julius slowly caned his way over—he was noticeably less spry today—and surveyed my car, swaying slightly.

“Nice-looking Mustang,” he said. “Not a mark on it. You buy it like this?”

“More a matter of spending a couple hundred hours restoring her,” I said. “Me, and some expensive geniuses in Santa Monica who specialize in Shelbys.”

“Carroll Shelby?”

“Yes.”

“I used to know Carroll Shelby,” Julius mused. “Good man.” His eyes drifted. Then he focused on mine again. “What was I saying?”

“Carroll Shelby,” I prompted.

His nod was vague. “I used to know him. Good man,” he repeated. Then, “You want to see my baby?”

He led me to the large, covered behemoth parked nearby. He patted the hood. “Here. Take a look.”

I set down the bag of bagels and lifted up the front flap of the nylon cover. The gleaming creamy brown nose of a classic Bentley emerged, chrome grille topped by the famous flying B, feathered wings and all. Julius Rosen did like his wings.

“T-two. Three-speed automatic,” he said. “I bought her in nineteen eighty.”

“Beautiful,” I said. “How does she drive?”

His face clouded. “She
drove
like a dream. It’s been a few years since I got behind the wheel of anything.”

I touched the front panel. “I love the color. Rich. Like chocolate.”

“Ha!” Julius said. His eyes narrowed. “I don’t say this often, but maybe you’d like to take her for a test drive one day.”

“I’d be honored.” I rolled the cover back over his Bentley with care.

Julius pointed to the deli bag.

“I see you got the goods,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

He led me through a large kitchen, and then a pair of sliding glass doors, to a sunny, enclosed breakfast nook. The air was filled with the dense, smoky fragrance of fresh-brewed coffee. If there’s a better scent on five hours of sleep I haven’t found it.

Otilia was at a round wooden table, setting two mugs next to a coffee carafe, a pitcher of cream, and various sweeteners.

Julius said, “Have you met my dear Otilia?”

“I have,” I said, and bowed in her direction. Otilia cracked a half smile, which was about 50 percent more than I’d gotten last time. Maybe she was warming up to me. She took the bag and disappeared into the kitchen. “Otilia’s been with Dorothy and me for twenty-five years,” Julius said. His eyes filled. I busied myself with the first sip of coffee.

Otilia reappeared, bagels and fixings beautifully arranged on a large platter. She placed a slender vase with a perfect pink rose at the center of the table. I bowed again. Her eyes narrowed, saying,
Don’t push it.

“I bring your pills in one hour, Señor Julius.”

Julius spread a generous smear of cream cheese on half a pumpernickel bagel, added a translucent slice of onion, and topped it off with two thick, slightly oily slices of lox. I admired the colors, the contrast of salmon pink and creamy white, the loving attention he put into assembling his bagel. I spooned a big dollop of egg salad on my own slice of chewy rye dotted with caraway seeds.

“Bon appétit,” I said.

I glanced over at Julius. His jaws were already at work. For a slight man, he ate heartily. He waggled his eyebrows at me and kept chewing. We ate in contented silence.

I poured us each a second mug of coffee. “In the monastery, breakfast consisted of a small hunk of bread and a cup of yak butter tea.” I shuddered slightly. “This is better.”

“Takes me right back to Brooklyn,” Julius said. “When I still lived over Aunt Esther and Uncle Abe’s candy shop. I helped them out after classes. Then Uncle Abe dropped dead of a heart attack, and I quit school to run the shop. Times were lean, but we still managed to have lox and bagels every Sunday.”

“A candy shop?”

“I know. Death camp to candy store—talk about bizarre.” He shook his head. “Less than a year after my uncle left us, my aunt started wasting away—cancer, just like Dorothy, only in her stomach. Before she died, she told me to look under her bed, she had a surprise for me. I pulled out a pickle jar, stuffed with bills. She’d put away close to forty thousand dollars, can you believe it?”

He shot a look at me. The amount seemed high, for a candy shop, but what do I know? I nodded.

“I ended up buying the building, plus the one next door. I converted them into low-rent apartments.” He shook his head. “A pickle jar. Good old Aunt Esther.”

I felt a wave of affection for this odd, endearing person. He might have one of the highest net-worths in Los Angeles, but it was his personality that struck me as rich. Which reminded me . . .

“Julius, yesterday you started to give me some advice, insights you thought might save me a bit of trouble in the future.”

“I did?” he said. “What were they?”

For a moment I thought he was joking, but his eyes were blank. He truly didn’t know what I was talking about. Too bad. I’d been lucky. Except for one glaring exception, the elders in my life had been great sources of wisdom. These days, I could use some.

It was not to be. Not today, anyway.

“I want to show you something,” Julius grabbed his canes. The man did not like to stay put for long. I followed him down a hallway off the kitchen. He propped open a swinging saloon-type door with one cane, and motioned for me to go through. I stepped into a little kid’s fantasy: shelves of candy, glass counters of candy, and bins, hundreds of bins, all filled with colorful varieties of candy.

I walked around, marveling. “Is this a replica of the store in Brooklyn?”

“Nope,” he said. “This
is
the store in Brooklyn. Had it taken apart and packed up when I remodeled the old building.” His words ran together in a stream. I had to concentrate to understand him. “A team of carpenters put it back together here. Most of the candy’s from the original store, you know, for show.” He picked up a small brown square, wrapped in waxed paper. “Not these. Caramel marshmallows,” he said. “Delivered fresh. My favorites. Sadie’s, too.”

“Sadie’s?”

“What? What? Sorry, no. Dorothy’s. Dorothy loved her caramels right until the end.”

He looked at the candy as if wondering how it got in his hand.

“You want one?”

I shook my head. I could see the autopsy report: Cause of Death—caramel-salmonella. Julius unwrapped his and popped it into his mouth.

“Julius, what happened to Sadie?”

Panic illuminated his face, disappearing as quickly as it came. He swallowed. “They tracked us down. Came for us. The soldiers threw me on a truck.” A slight sheen of sweat coated his forehead. “Her face. Her little face. Women and children staring from a cage like animals.” He looked at me, his eyes pleading. “What could I do?”

As a young monk-in-training, I’d spent hours with the older, ailing lamas; some sick, others dying. My father thought it would be good for me. I read to them, chanted with them, but mostly I listened. I listened to them talk, of course, but I also learned to listen to their breathing, to the flickering energy of their being; to read the subtle messages their aging bodies were trying to tell me. At times I resented the work—what child wouldn’t?—but I acquired my keenest tools of attention from the practice. I brought that attention into play with Julius. I focused on his breath. It was thready—the breath of a frightened man. Maybe also a guilty one.

“I can’t imagine what that time must have felt like,” I said.

He lifted his head. “I quit feeling a lot of things the day I lost Sadie.”

“I have times like that. Times when I shut down because I can’t tolerate the pain.”

He made a gruff sound in his throat. “Yeah, well, plastered a whole damn wall over mine. It took Dorothy to bring me back. And now . . . “ He pushed himself up. “Enough. Give me your elbow?”

Now what?
I glanced at my watch
.
I’d been here for almost two hours already. Clinging to my arm, Julius led me down another hall and into yet another room, this one lined with wooden shelves crammed with books—thousands of them, floor to ceiling. A massive mahogany desk dominated the center. I helped Julius into a leather office chair behind his desk. He waved me into the chair opposite.

“I’ve got a business proposition for you, Ten.” He pushed a file across the desk to me.

I leafed through the contents.
What is this?
Snapshots of Dorje Yidam Monastery, as well as my mother’s apartment building in Paris. My official LAPD ID. Case reports on burglaries and homicides through the years. The missing persons report regarding Harper Rudolph. Even my two recent failing scores on the P.I. exams. Photographs, articles, pages of print, all concerning a single subject. Me. I tasted anger, with a backwash of shame. I was too exposed.

“Thorough,” I said. “You know more about me than I do.”

“Due diligence.” If Julius noticed the edge in my voice, he chose to ignore it.

“Somebody worked overtime,” I said.

“Double overtime,” he said. “Plus weekend rates.”

“Why?”

His eyes shifted away. He licked his lips, and I sensed a quickening of his pulse.
He’s nervous.

“I’ve got an eye for people, Ten. Always have. But maybe more important, I’ve got an ear. I listen to people. Not the talking, but when they’re quiet. People give off a hum. That hum tells me everything I need to know.”

I had just been practicing my own version of exactly that technique on Julius. Weird. But he still hadn’t answered the question. “Why the extensive due diligence on me?”

He shrugged. “You don’t give off a hum. Could be you’ve done so much meditating it canceled yours out. Or maybe you give off a hum, and I just can’t perceive it. Either way, I had to make sure you were legit. I want to offer you a job, a consulting arrangement. Something right up your alley, I should think.”