The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective: Tenzing Norbu Mystery) (21 page)

“You do the recycling,” I said.

He hurried to the bright blue bins, and loaded his bags with comparatively clean paper and plastic.

We lugged eight bulging sacks back to the lobby. If anyone had stopped us, I would have just said “Moving sucks, eh?” and carried on. But no one did. We hauled our loot to my Mustang and piled the bags on the fiberglass shelf in the back, where a second seat should have been.

The entrance to the Robinsgrove was still propped open.

“Let’s take a quick look at the roof, okay?”

Clancy shook his head.

“You go,” he said. “I’m starting to feel pretty skeeved out about this. You sure it’s cool?”

I’d forgotten Clancy was intuitive. Well, I wasn’t about to tell him the truth, that my actions weren’t cool. That they were fueled by hurt feelings and bruised pride. I might lose impetus.

“Thanks for helping,” I said. I opened my wallet to pay him.

“No, man,” he said. “We’re good.”

“I owe you then, Clancy.”

He waggled his hand over his shoulder as he hurried away. I added the pang of remorse to a growing pile inside.

As I started back to the apartment building, my phone chimed. I didn’t recognize the number.

“Tenzing Norbu.”

“You’ve been nosing around some things that interest me.” The Latino edge was worn soft from years of speaking English.

“Who is this? Is this Raul Mendoza?”

“We need to meet.”

“I might want to hear what you have to say, but why in person?”

“I want to discuss something. Privately. Having to do with Marv Rudolph.”

I’ll show them.
“Okay. Where?”

“Getty View Park, just off the four-oh-five. I’ll be there in one hour.”

I reached the entrance in half that time, but it was blocked off, the lot crawling with workers in hard hats undergoing yet another futile attempt to widen the freeway. I called Raul back and got his voicemail.

“The park’s closed. I’ll be waiting for you at the sculpture garden by the lower tram station at the Getty.”

I parked in the underground lot. I slipped my Halo Microtech in my pocket—I wasn’t making that mistake twice. I took the stairs to the tram station, where a large group of tourists stood in line, waiting to be transported to the sprawling collection of buildings. Like so much else about Los Angeles, the theme-park tram ride to the museum perfectly combined culture and kitsch. I stepped around a retaining wall to the Fran and Ray Stark sculpture garden, a small, private gem mixing natural and manmade works of art. I skirted thick rows of dark purple succulents, shooting lime green blooms, and passed a gigantic hanging bronze nightshirt, near a small bench at the far side of the garden. I sat facing a large marble sculpture, stone curves hinting at a reclining mother, baby in her arms.

I half closed my eyes. Other than the distant white-noise roar of the freeway, it was quiet. Birds twittered. A dog barked out a message and was answered by another’s woof.

The crunch of footsteps warned me of company. He was here. I slipped my hand in my pocket.

Raul was older than his website photograph. His muscles had softened into paunch. A graying braid trailed down his back. Black leather motorcycle jacket and black jeans tucked into black cowboy boots. Raul wheezed from the short hike, a smoker’s rasp. I sniffed the air. No nicotine reek. Maybe he’d quit.

My cell phone buzzed. I glanced at the screen. Bill. No way was I taking that call, especially considering my current activities.

Raul glanced at the dangling bronze nightshirt.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Art. I know. Probably cost more than a house,” I said. “Two houses. Yours and mine, both.” I was trying to put him at ease

“I’m a pacer,” Raul said. “You okay with walking?”

I stood up. “Fine with me.” A concrete pedestrian walkway led to the Getty, paralleling the tracks. As we started up on foot, a tram sped past. Faces pressed against the glass.

Raul shot me a sideways glance. “I’m going to stick my hand in my pants pocket and pull out a piece of paper. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t, if you won’t,” I said. “You carrying?”

“No. You?”

“No. Except for the Wilson Combat Supergrade.”

He stiffened.

“Relax. It’s in my car. In the lot.”

“Mine’s in my S&S saddlebag. Forty-four Mag autoloader.” Just as I suspected, he couldn’t resist.

I thought about his gun. The .44 Magnum kicks like a horse but it can blow a through-and-through in one side of a car and out the other, like it was nothing. “So, you like to shoot elephants, do you?”

That got a smile. “You’re one to talk. Wilsons sight like a mother.”

I faced Raul. “Okay,” I said. “Enough male bonding. Why are we here?”

He glanced around, suddenly nervous—not that there was anywhere on this concrete walkway for a bad guy to hide.

“You know what? I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “Something doesn’t smell right.”

I smiled. “Is that Raul Mendoza the fake cop, or Charles Raul Montoya, the Low-riding Lawyer, talking?”

He looked startled.

“Relax,” I said again. “I’m not here to harm you. I think maybe we can help each other.”

“Charlie Montoya,” he said, shaking his head. “Yeah, that used to be me, but old Charlie’s gone. You’re looking at the new me.”

I doubted that, but I wasn’t going to push it.

He hesitated, clutching his piece of paper. He seemed to make a decision. “Listen. I know who Marv was poking,” he said, “besides his wife, I mean. I’ll give her up to you if you tell me why you’re so interested in a dead movie producer. Who hired you?”

I was faced with a small integrity dilemma. Such moments are inconvenient for a private investigator, but that’s how I was raised. Should I tell him I was pretty sure I already knew who Marv’s mistress was? Or should I play along, see if I could extract more information?

I thought about my fight with Bill, and the bags of garbage piled up in my back seat, like so many betrayals.

There’s no such thing as a small integrity dilemma, Ten. They’re all the same size.

“I already know Tovah’s name. And nobody’s hired me to look into Rudolph. Let’s just say I have personal reasons for doing so. As for why I’m interested, why are you?”

We had started walking again; we were almost at the museum.

“Look,” he said. “You seem like an okay guy. It’s like this. I work for some of the nastiest sons-a-bitches you’ll ever run across. They do business, very big business, out here,” his voice rose. “And they are very fucking committed to staying in that business for a long time.” He swallowed. “So when some slanty-eyed
vaquero
rides into their territory, they take note. Paranoia? You haven’t seen paranoia until you’ve met these
pendejos
. I’m on the fringe, but they still pay me a butt-load of money just to sit on my ass, unless and until they need me for something.”

“So what are you saying?”

“Disappear. Lose your curiosity. Go be a detective somewhere else. You got no business with these guys.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

We had reached the museum. The beige, rough-hewn buildings of stone gleamed in the sunlight. Raul gazed at the sparkling surfaces, but he didn’t seem to see them.

“I’m telling you, you don’t want to be on their radar.” He tried to keep his voice casual, but his forehead broke out in sweat. “You’re close to your ex-partner. Bill, right? His wife, Martha? His two little girls?”

My jaw clenched. Hot anger, so recently tamed, spilled through my body again. My hand reached to my pocket for my knife, almost involuntarily. Not here. I took a deep breath. Exhaled, slowly, before responding.

My voice was steel. “Are you threatening me? Are you threatening my friend, his family?”

He met my eyes, and for the first time, I caught sight of the fear hunkering behind the bravado. “I have twins, too, amigo,” he said quietly. “Girls. They’re in high school now. I’m trying to do you a favor, okay? Think of this as a polite invitation to back off.”

“Does it come with a stiletto? Like my visit from Pretty Boy yesterday?”

He went white. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he said. “We’re done here.”

He scurried back down the walkway, his braid swinging from side to side as he inspected the grassy borders, as if looking for rattlesnakes.

The sweep and curl of a building to my right caught my eye, like stacked grand pianos formed from limestone bricks. Everywhere I turned, the central plaza offered a glimpse of one of Los Angeles’ myriad faces. Here, the pink and brown San Gabriel Mountains, there, the slate glow of the Pacific Ocean, and everywhere, a vast quilt of city- and landscapes. The hilltop site, with its magnificent complex of fossilized architectural structures, satisfied some longing in me for beauty. The exhibits themselves would have to wait—this was all the uplift I had time or tolerance for today.

Gridlock, all the way home. I was in a foul mood by the time I pulled up my driveway. I stashed the garbage bags in the back of the carport, retrieved my gun from the glove box, and stomped into the kitchen. Tank’s bowl full of tuna chunks lay lukewarm and untouched, a silent reproach.

“Tank?” I checked the windowsill and under the table. He wasn’t in the kitchen.

“Tank? Where are you?”

I heard a piteous meow from the living room, a call bordering on “I’m dying.”

I hurried in, and found him crouched on the hardwood floor, frozen between the sofa and armchair.

“What is it? Show me.”

His green eyes widened, and he lowered his head. His tail swept back and forth.

What was going on? I tuned in to him and shrank inside. Tank’s world, normally centered and inviting, had turned foreign and unsafe, like a hostile planet.

I softened my voice, made it more inviting. “Show me?”

Tank hopped onto the armchair, and stared at me, willing me to understand.

Make me safe. Build me a safe space.

He jumped off and waited. I got a spare blanket from the bedroom. I draped it carefully over the arms of the chair. The front edge trailed to the floor.

No. I need to be able to escape.

I repositioned the blanket, so only a small flap hung over the front of the chair. Tank gave a soft
prrrttt
and slipped under the flap. He curled up, eyes closed, nose to paws, protected by his makeshift fort and finally at ease.

I retrieved my Wilson from the gun bag and checked the perimeter of the house. Everything seemed fine, but Raul’s threats hung in the air like a rancid smell, disturbing my normal sense of peace. Maybe Tank had picked up on that.

Or maybe he was just mad at me for yelling at him.

I came back inside.

Over on my desk, my message light was blinking. It was Heather. I called her back, postponing the other, harder call awaiting me.

“Hi! I was just thinking about you.” Her warmth actually pained me.

“Hello,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” How could she tell anything was wrong? We barely knew each other.

“Nothing. I’m just tired,” I said. “I’ve had a couple of long days.”

“Tell me?” Her voice was soft, inviting.
Show me?

But I gave her the shorthand, and it was very short indeed, as I edited out the Dodger Stadium stiletto encounter, the near-shooting of a trick-or-treater, the dumpster dive, and the fight with Bill, especially the fight with Bill. In other words, anything that mattered. The more I censored, the more separate I felt. One secret piled on top of another, until I was trapped inside my own kind of fort, only this one didn’t make me feel safe at all.

Heather was silent.

“Hey, so anyway, guess what? I signed up for the retreat,” I said. “I even drove by there, to check it out.”

“That’s great,” she said, but her voice was subdued. “Listen, I have to go. Thanks for calling back.”

After we hung up, I felt terrible. I realized I hadn’t asked her one thing about her day.

I checked on Tank again. He was sound asleep.

I grabbed his food bowl and dumped the uneaten contents into the trash. Then I washed and dried the dish with care, and refilled it with fresh-squeezed tuna water, and nothing else. I loved Tank. Why had I felt the need to disregard him, to impose my will?

Because I, too, felt disregarded, by someone who I’d thought had loved me.

I stepped onto the deck. A thick fog had obliterated any sunset, and the overcast sky bled into the dark gray water. The irony of my situation stung: I might lose Bill if I told him how hurt I was; I
would
lose him if I didn’t. I was afraid to call Bill back; I was more afraid of becoming the kind of man who never called anyone back, because he was so afraid.

I pulled out my cell phone. “Call Bill Bohannon,” I commanded. “Mobile.” As my phone dialed automatically, I heard a beep indicating an incoming call. “Bill’s cell” appeared on my screen. We were calling each other at the same time.

I answered first.

“Bill, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been, I’m . . . “—for some reason the French phrase flashed through my mind first:
je suis bete.
“I’m an idiot.”

“And I’m a horse’s ass,” he answered. “Can I come by first thing in the morning? I’m on bath-and-bed duty with the girls tonight. And I need to see your ugly mug to do this properly.”

Relief wet my eyes.

“Wherever and whenever you want.”

“Good, because I’m pretty far up shit creek right now, and you may be my only paddle.”

I called Heather back immediately.

“Hello?”

“Hi. I would like to acknowledge, fully, and without reservation, that I’m not great with phone conversations, especially when I’m starving and exhausted. I would like to invite you to dinner. I happen to know the perfect restaurant for people who don’t like restaurants.”

She didn’t answer right away.

“It doesn’t have to be an actual date. It can just be a friendly meal, okay? I’d really love to see you.”

I sensed her smile. “Okay, but I’ll meet you there, big guy. I need my own wheels, in case you go AWOL, emotionally speaking, and I need to make a quick escape.”

“I know a cat you’d love,” I said.