The Third Rule Of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (19 page)

Mike keeps my iPhone GPS on his computer—he doesn’t trust me to know who or where I am at any given point in time. I glimpsed a dog-tired man in the mirror behind the cashier, and it was two beats before I realized the man was me. Maybe Mike had a point.

I called him on the way home, putting him on speaker.

“Guess what?” Mike sounded jazzed. “Your Guard-on unit just showed up for sale on Craigslist.”

“That was quick. What makes you think it’s mine?”

“Timing. Plus, from the pictures I can just make out a few digits on the serial number, and they match your receipt. Plus, you almost never see one of these for sale used. At six grand, people feel pretty committed to loving them, even if they hate them.”

“How much are they asking for it?”

“Two grand.”

I felt vaguely insulted at the steep discount, which made no sense, considering it was a gift to begin with. “Okay, can you send me the details?”

“Texting as we speak. Hey, Boss, you need any backup on this?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got it covered.”

I was an occasional bad-boy motorist, guilty of texting and driving. This time, though, I pulled over to extract the information from Mike’s text. I checked the time. Probably way too late to call. On the other hand, they did just post the item. I punched in the number.

A high-pitched male voice said, “
Si
.”

“Is this”—I checked the information—“Manolo?”

“Yeah.”

I slipped into Conscious Lying mode. “Hey, my name’s … Bill.” I mentally apologized to my ex-partner. It was late, and I had only a few brain cells still working.

“Yeah, what you want?” He spoke with a pronounced Hispanic accent.

“I got your number off Craigslist. I’m looking for a Guard-on.”

“Yeah, okay. We got a nice one, looks pretty much brand new.”

It ought to
, I thought.

“Where did you get it?” I asked. “Those are hard to find.”

He had his story all ready. “My uncle give it to me,” he said. “He don’ need it no more.” He was about as convincing at Conscious Lying as I was.

“I’d like to buy it,” I said, “but the problem is, I only have seventeen hundred.” No Craigslist seller would take me seriously if I didn’t try to bargain him down a little.

“No, man,” he said, falling into the universal singsong cadence of deal-making. “That’s too low. Tell you what, though—how ’bout you coming off a hundred, I coming off a hundred?”

“Nineteen then?”

“Yeah, okay, deal. Cash, though. Gotta be in cash.”

“Cash is fine. How soon can I pick it up?” I was banking on him being in a hurry to unload the stolen property.

He held a hasty conference in Spanish with someone in the background. He came back on and said, “Where you calling from?”

“Santa Monica.” That seemed far enough from Topanga Canyon to keep any suspicions at bay.

Another rapid-fire exchange in Spanish.

“You know Tuna Canyon Park, just before Malibu?”

“Sure do.”

“Okay. The park there? It’s no open this time of night, but we parking across from the entrance and waiting for you. Okay?”

“That’s where you want to do this?”

“No, man. We meeting you there, then you follow us, okay?”

“Got it.”

“We driving a Ford van. Black.”

Now that was interesting.

“What you driving?”

Oops. I hadn’t thought this through. The Corolla had gone to the graveyard, and my Shelby was, well, if these guys had anything to do with the other crew that broke in, my Shelby was a dead giveaway, no pun intended.

“I’ll call you right back,” I said.

My mind sorted through options. I tried calling Bill first, but his phone went straight to voice mail. Either he was on a case, or, more likely, sick of my 2:00
A.M.
calls. Mike, however, was just getting going. But Mike motored around on an electric pedal bike. I’d never braved the eROCKIT solo, and I wouldn’t fit behind him, even riding sidesaddle. Mike’s girlfriend, on the other hand …

I called Mike back. He and Tricia both worked the vampire shift, so I had no fears he’d gone to bed.

“Mike, is that offer of backup still good?”

“Absolutely! What do you need?”

“You, and, uh, Tricia’s MINI?” I heard the murmur of voices, one low and pleading, the other high and a little resistant. Low had the last word.

“It’s on. How about artillery?”

That gave me pause. Before he went upscale by purchasing a downtown loft, Mike lived, as he put it, “in Manson country.” He still had an ancient shotgun he’d acquired at the time, for premise-protection. I had to balance the danger to my own well-being if Mike wielded a shotgun against the impression Mike carrying a shotgun might make. Come to think of it, they both landed on the wrong side of the protection scale.

Still karma was karma. I couldn’t count on my current streak of bullet-dodging luck to hold forever. And he sounded so excited.

“Fine, bring artillery.”

I called Manolo back. “I’ll be in a Brown MINI Cooper.” Mike’s girlfriend, Tricia, drove a MINI, a car the color and size of a Hershey’s Chocolate Kiss. All the better if they thought I was a wimp.

“Okay, we meeting you there in maybe half an hour.”

“Better make that an hour,” I said.

I turned into my drive just in time to see the chocolate-colored MINI up ahead, chugging through the gravel to my house like a piece of fudge on wheels. Mike’s long torso was slightly bent as he drove; even so, his curly halo of hair nearly brushed against the inside roof of the compact car. He rolled down the window and offered a sharp salute. His eyes gleamed. Even his goatee stood at attention. The fact that he was packing heat had clearly gone straight to his head.

“Five minutes,” I said. “Try not to shoot anything.”

I ran to my closet safe and counted out a thick fistful of hundreds. My Julius Rosen–funded cash stash was shrinking by the hour. Tank stalked the bedroom perimeter, tail high. I explained the situation to him as best I could. That, plus a nightcap of tuna water, seemed to satisfy him.

I ducked into the passenger seat of the MINI still in ninja-wear, still armed. “Let’s go.”

Mike urged the little go-cart down Topanga as I provided background information, talking over the rattle and vroom of the engine.

“So I want you to stay in the car and cover me while I deal with these guys,” I concluded. I glanced at the shotgun in the backseat. “Never mind, don’t even cover me—just keep the gun within reach, in case things get rough.”

Mike nodded happily.

“Cool,” he said. “Very cool.”

The black Ford van sat opposite the Tuna Canyon Park entrance. Wrong license plate number but right everything else, up to the tinted windows and small logo and slogan printed on the side door. The back of my neck prickled, and I patted the Wilson in my windbreaker pocket, double-checking.

“Pull up directly in front of them,” I said, and Mike did so. He, too, was quivering in anticipation.

“Deep breath,” I said, and we both took a moment to breathe in and out.

I reached across the seat and flashed the MINI’s brights a couple of times. The headlights illuminated two males slouched in the front seat of the van. The driver answered with a flick of his lights, executed an awkward U-turn and headed back in the direction of Santa Monica. We followed. After a half-mile or so the van turned onto a narrow rutted dirt road that wound toward the ocean. The van slowed to a crawl. We maintained a slight distance. The road petered out completely at a stretch of dunes. The driver reverse-turned the van to face us.

“Okay, here,” I told Mike. He stopped the car, leaving about 20 feet between vehicles. The male on the passenger side of the van climbed out, clutching a cardboard box. He was just a kid, maybe 18. Narrow face and skinny arms, combined with a shaved head and tattoos. A scrawny scarecrow, trying to be something he was not.

He moved to the middle of the dirt road, took a wide-legged stance, and gave us a flat-eyed stare.

“
Shaun of the Dead
, man,” Mike said.

“What? Who?”

“You know: Mexican stand-off, only with real Mexicans instead of zombies.” I would have to parse Mike’s twisted cultural references later. I climbed out of the MINI and started walking, my right hand in my pocket, my breath shallow.

The kid was nervous, too. His eyes darted from side to side, and his thin arms, holding tight to the box, were trembling. The Guard-on unit, including the little cameras, hardly weighed 20 pounds, so I knew the quivering wasn’t caused by muscle strain. I scanned his body. He wasn’t armed, as far as I could see. Mind you, the waist of his baggy jeans started almost at his knees, but there was no telltale bulge in either pocket.

“Manolo?”

“Pedro,” he said. “Manolo’s back there.” He jerked his chin at the van. “You Bill?”

I nodded.

He set the box down. “Here it is. You bring the cash?”

“Right here.” I waved a wad of bills at him. This was becoming a regular habit of mine. “I need to take a look, okay?”

Pedro nodded and took a step back, crossing his arms.

I moved to the box and knelt, prodding at the contents, although I already knew it was mine. As I bent closer, as if to count the outdoor cameras, my eye caught a telltale arm-swiping movement. I rolled to the left just as Pedro whipped a foot-long piece of pipe from the back of his pants and chopped. I was quick, but not quick enough. A white-hot blast of nerve-pain shot through my right shoulder. I kept rolling, thinking
Stupid! So stupid!
Now my right arm was numb and not taking orders from my brain, which kept begging the hand to grab my gun. I clambered to my feet awkwardly as I attempted to fish the Wilson out of my right-hand pocket with my left hand. Pedro raised his arm a second time. A second glancing blow ricocheted off my upper back as I twisted away.

I was finally able to grab my .38, transfer it to both hands, and point. Pedro froze, mid-lunge, and yelled something at Manolo. No time, or need, to guess what he said. I tucked and rolled as a gun flash-fired from the direction of the van, and a bullet streaked by my left ear.
WHUP!
The sand puffed and settled.

An ear-splitting bellow erupted from the MINI Cooper. I had completely forgotten about my own trusty backup man, but not for long. The air exploded with the sonic blast of a 12-gauge. Now I was wounded in one wing and partially deaf. I tried to shake the ringing from my ears as I checked the vicinity for damage.

An enormous hole gaped in the side of the van. Mike’s shot was at least six feet wide of Manolo, another thin-limbed teenager in over his head. He stared at the mortally wounded van, his mouth hanging open. Maybe Mike’s marksmanship wasn’t great, but give him an
attaboy
for Shock and Awe.

I trained my Wilson.

“Drop it,” I shouted. “Drop your gun. And put your hands up where I can see them!”

Between my .38 and Mike’s cannon, Manolo knew his odds had changed. He placed the handgun at his feet and straightened up, arms raised. I glanced down at it. What the hell was a kid his age doing with an FN Herstal Five-seveN semiautomatic pistol? Pedro made a slight move, and I flicked my barrel at him. He got the message and dropped the pipe onto the sand. I motioned for him to kneel down. He complied. I sensed he was new to the gangster life; a spreading stain of urine darkened the front of his jeans, adding an unpleasant tang to the night air.

“Cover this guy, Mike!”

“Okay!” Mike’s gangly body advanced, shotgun pointed. I worried that he might blow the kid away accidentally. Then I realized I was rooting for a kid who’d attacked me with a pipe not too many seconds ago. I sometimes have difficulty figuring out what’s compassion and what’s being a complete idiot.

“Easy with that thing,” I said.

“Yeah, okay.” Mike turned to me. “What should I—”

Pedro scrambled to his feet and broke into a sprint. By the time Mike got the shotgun raised, his target was already up and over the dunes.

“Mike!” I shouted.

Mike looked over his shoulder at me.

“Let him go,” I told him. “One’s all we need.” Who knows what he’d hit this time. For sure, it wasn’t going to be Pedro.

Mike lowered his shotgun, his expression half relieved, half disappointed.

I moved to the young man by the van, still standing with his hands in the air. His dark eyes were in constant motion, making them hard to read, and his arms, like Pedro’s, were covered with ink. But not his neck. That was a good thing. Neck tattoos as good as shouted to the world, “I do not ever intend to have a real job.” Maybe this kid was keeping his options open. Maybe I could persuade him to step away from the dark side.

“Are you Manolo?”

He nodded, his gaze shifting back and forth, up and down, anywhere but at me.

“I’m giving you a choice here, Manolo. If you answer me honestly, I’ll let you go. You screw around with me … Well, you won’t like it.”

His voice was skeptical. “You’re gonna let me go, huh? You think I’m
loco? Estupido?”

“I mean it. Mike, tell him I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

“He wouldn’t lie,” Mike said.

A confused look came and went from the kid’s old-young face.

“So what do you say, Manolo?”

Manolo’s eyes narrowed, as he aimed his words somewhere to the left of me. “You
la Tira
, you setting me up? You some kind of cop?”

Some kind of cop—that’s me. “I’m a private investigator,” I said. “And no. I’m not setting you up.”

Manolo glanced at the Wilson in my hand. “What that piece cost you? Ten thousand?”

“Who’s your boss, Manolo? Who do you work for?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed a couple of times while his brain tried to calculate what would lead to more harm—telling the truth or lying. I knew the feeling.

“I can’ tell you that, man,” he finally muttered.

I decided to help him out. “Do you work for Chuy?”

His eyes widened, which gave me the answer I needed.

“Uno or Dos?”

He swallowed. “Dos,” he said his voice low. “He work for Uno.”

“So Chuy Uno’s the boss?”

“Uno’s not the
jefe
, the boss, either. Everything’s changed. New jefe now.”