The Third Rule Of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (29 page)

“Doctor K.?” My voice climbed the scales toward high squeak.

“Kestrel. Gustolf Kestrel. Transplant guy, remember? He wasn’t around, but I wound up chatting with one of the nurses in his department. They were all buzzing about Dr. K.’s new patient. Ten, you’ll never guess who checked into hematology this morning for blood tests.”

“Um,” I said, still recovering from the blatant Dr. K. reference.

“I’ll give you a hint. As far as I’m concerned, this patient doesn’t need a new liver, she needs a new brain, preferably cloned from Hillary Clinton’s.”

As her words registered, my heart started pounding so hard in my ears I could barely hear the name I had already guessed.

“Bets McMurtry,” Heather said. She lowered her voice. “She’s right here in County-USC, can you believe it?”

C
HAPTER
17

I drove straight to Boyle Heights, which was becoming a bad habit I couldn’t seem to break. I soon found myself in a vigorous, losing debate with the elderly receptionist the powers that be had chosen to guard the lobby of County-USC. I soon determined why. Myrtle Fishbein may have looked like someone’s granny, but in fact she was a manifestation of the wrathful protector deity, the six-armed
Mahakala
, minus the crown of skulls. She had pulled up Bets’s information and was reading something off her computer.

“I’m sorry, sir, but the patient in question has left strict instructions. In fact, I’m very surprised you were apprised of the patient in question’s presence.” She pulled her attention from the screen, removed her reading glasses, and set them carefully in the pinkish-gray hair on the top of her head. Her fiery eyes bulged, as if to wither me with their stare. “What did you say your name was?”

I hadn’t said, nor was I about to. I didn’t want anyone later connecting the dots between my presence here and Heather’s offhand comment.

“Can you at least let her know she has a visitor?” I said.

She crossed all six arms. “No,” she said.

I played the only card I had left. “Then let me speak to your supervisor.”

She sniffed, but protocol was protocol, even for wrathful Tibetan protectors. She set a “Back in five minutes” sign on her desk and marched off, tiny but mighty, her joints stiff with indignation. As soon as she’d turned the corner, I hustled past the desk and down the corridor to find the hematology ward myself. Maybe I’d get busted, but I’ve discovered through years of experience that there are times it’s easier to beg forgiveness than get permission.

After a quick sidestep into the hospital gift shop for camouflage aids, I placed myself in front of a doctor frowning over a patient’s chart near the elevator. He looked busy, which meant he’d take the easiest route from me bothering him to me being gone.

“Hematology?” I asked, shifting my vase of flowers and box of chocolates to hide the fact that I didn’t have a visitor’s badge.

“Sixth floor,” he answered, without looking up from the chart.

I made a beeline up the elevator and out the door to the sixth-floor duty station. A couple of nurses had their heads together, chatting, their voices low. I quick-scanned the in-patient message board and soon spotted a “Ms. Jane Smith” in room 617. Nothing, if not original, these people. There was a Sally Williams in the room next to hers.

One of the nurses said, “May I help you?”

I shifted the flowers. “Just checking in on Sally,” I said. “Sally Williams. Room 618, right?” She glanced at the board, and nodded, smiling at me. “That way,” she said, pointing at a hallway to her left.

An armed security guard, his hair gone to gray, his belly putting pressure on his shirt buttons, was slouched in a folding metal chair outside a door halfway down the hall. His nose was buried in a
Guns & Ammo
magazine.

Bingo.

As I drew closer he reluctantly tore his gaze from the centerfold, which featured the latest in sexy munitions. He narrowed his eyes with as much gravitas as a minimum wage rent-a-cop can muster. As gatekeepers go, he was a piker compared to the receptionist downstairs.

The patient’s door was open. White curtains bunched across a metal frame, blocking any view into the room.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m here to see the assemblywoman.”

A crease deepened between his eyebrows. “First I hearda this. She expecting you?”

I waved the box of Godiva chocolates before him. I’ve found that sometimes no answer is the best answer. Let him fill in the blanks, work out what I meant by the gesture.

His imagination appeared to be stalled, or at best struggling. I guess I had to spell it out.

“Errand of mercy,” I said. “Chocoholic.”

As he wrestled with this piece of intel, a raucous voice rang like a bell from inside. “Who’s talking? Who the hell’s out there?”

I interpreted that as an invitation. I parted the curtains and stuck my head inside. Bets was propped up in bed with a glossy magazine on her lap, the subject matter, in this case, high fashion; the ammo, clothes and cosmetics. She was dangling her left hand like royalty before a tiny Vietnamese woman, who was sitting on a folding metal chair and applying bright orange polish to Bets’s long nails.

Bets snatched her hand back and pushed herself upright. “Tell me you found her. Tell me you found Clara.”

I shook my head.

“Well, shit,” she said. She flopped back onto her pillow. “Shit on a fucking stick. Now what?”

I shot a meaningful look at the manicurist.

“She’s okay,” Bets said. “Doesn’t speak a lick of English. None of them do.”

I winced, but the manicurist didn’t appear to react. I set the flowers on a side table and moved to the foot of the bed. Up close, I could make out dark circles, like smudged coal dust, under Bets’s eyes, and the unsuccessful attempt to erase them with makeup. And her eyes? Her eyes looked more catlike than ever, with their slightly yellowish tinge. And yet, she exuded charisma.

From my years of observation, both as a cop and as a student of humanity, there seem to be four basic facial types—bird, horse, pig, and fox. Bets was mostly fox. She’d gotten herself a world-class haircut and a brand new color of hair since the last time I saw her: the streaky-blonde cap, short and shiny, was as vivacious as she was. Although her politics repelled me, her animal energy was strangely forceful. A memory from my teenage years flashed through my mind, a fleeting image of the sexy mother of one of the novice monks. I reached for his name. Lama Chodak? No, Choden, that was it. His mother lived in Lower Dharamshala, the lonely wife of a carpet merchant who was away a lot on business. My father had ordered me to accompany the young monk to his mother’s house one afternoon, shortly after he took his initial vows, probably to make sure he didn’t break any. Lama Choden wasn’t the one my father should have worried about.

Choden’s mother greeted us at the door wrapped in a gauzy Indian sari that outlined her curves in all sorts of interesting ways, especially to an 18-year-old. While her son chattered away over cups of tea, she studied my mouth, my shoulders, my hands as I lifted my cup, as if simultaneously appraising and devouring every motion I made. I found the encounter highly confusing, and for weeks afterward that look in her eyes invaded every meditation. Bets McMurtry had the same Sexy Mother energy, and I was sure it had won her more than a few votes.

I handed her the chocolates.

She glanced at the box. “Sweet,” she said. “But not why you’re here. So why
are
you? Take a load off, why don’t you?”

The manicurist immediately moved from her chair and retreated to the other side of the room, her eyes lowered.

Bets didn’t make the connection, but I smiled my thanks to the woman, making a mental note never to assume people don’t understand a language they don’t speak.

“I’ve hit a wall,” I said, sitting. “I need some answers from you.”

Bets nodded. “Go for it.”

I did, a full-frontal assault. Time was awasting. “Bets, why and how are you involved with Chaco Morales? What’s the connection?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Chaco who?”

“Morales. The drug lord. Mexican cartel.” As if she didn’t know.

Her face purpled with rage. “What the fuck are you talking about? Who sent you here? Are you wired? Goddamn Democratic pricks. I should have known. Goodhue told me you weren’t to be trusted. You get the fuck out of here!
Now!
” She swept her arm, knocking over the manicurist’s rolling tray of implements. Little glass bottles of maroon and blue and peach polish clattered onto the floor. One of them exploded, and red liquid dotted the floor and wall like blood spatter. With a small cry, the Vietnamese woman dropped to her knees and started trying to mop the stains with some cotton balls.

I jumped to my feet as the security guard burst in, hand at his gun.

“Everything okay?” he said.

“How dare you,” Bets spat at me. “You’re fired, do you hear me?” She turned to the guard. “Get him out of here!” she ordered.

“I’m leaving, I’m leaving,” I said as I tried to squeeze past the guard, his bulk blocking the doorway. He grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Hey! I said I’m leaving!”

I was face-to-face with a large expanse of overfed solar plexus and sorely tempted to drive my fist straight into it. For once, I practiced restraint, instead executing a police academy-style twist-and-drop to slip free of his grip. I brisk-walked past the stares of the nurses at the duty station. The guard didn’t follow. Bets must have come to her senses and called him off. I got out before one of us made things much, much worse.

Driving home, still trying to breathe through the anger, I received a text from Mac Gannon.
YOU
’
RE OFF THE CASE
, it said.
KEEP THE CHANGE
.

In a way, I felt relieved. If I really was just working for myself now, I didn’t have to be so cagey with everyone. I hadn’t signed any nondisclosure agreements, right?

I called Bill at work.

“I think I may have stumbled onto a connection between the politician Bets McMurtry and Chaco Morales,” I said.

“Jesus Christ, Ten, what’s next?” he said. “Did you figure out where Hoffa’s buried, too?”

“Bill, I’m serious. I met with Chaco last night. He’s changed his appearance, but it’s him. He’s still alive.”

“Oh really? Then why are you?” He sighed. “Do you have any proof?”

“I don’t,” I said.

“I suspected as much. FYI, I sent a few of our drug and gang guys down to San Diego to meet a few of their drug and gang guys, to check out that warehouse. And guess what they found?”

I didn’t have to guess. I knew. “Nothing.”

“
Nada
. Zip-all, my friend. Oh, except for two thousand gallons of organic cleaning solution. All of which have now been tested and therefore contaminated, which means a hefty reimbursement is forthcoming from my department’s already over-stretched budget. Which makes me look like a newly promoted D-Three asshole.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Yeah, well, what are you gonna do?” Bill sighed again. I pictured him rubbing the bridge of his nose. “The hell of it is, I believe you, Ten. But listen: from now on, I need absolute, irrefutable proof before I lift another finger. And I’m not talking about a few baggies of untraceable prescription pills and medical marijuana from a missing woman’s backpack.”

“I understand.”

“And Ten, you know how you get these vibes about things?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m getting a real strong vibe that you should leave this noodle alone.”

One of Bill’s earliest pieces of advice to his overzealous rookie partner came while we were eating rice noodles at Sanam Luang Cafe, a Thai place in North Hollywood. Our case at the time, a hit-and-run vehicular homicide, wasn’t going anywhere. Bill was ready to call it quits for the day and head home to relieve his exhausted wife of babysitting duty. I was lobbying hard to keep knocking on doors.

Bill had pushed his empty plate to one side, while I tried, unsuccessfully, to fork up my three remaining rice noodles. I’d already swished a final mushroom through the last of the spicy black soy sauce and popped it in my mouth.

Bill pointed the tip of his fork at my plate.

“Some cases? They’re slippery.” He nudged at one noodle. “Frustrating, you know, like pushing a noodle around, trying to pick it up. No matter how many different ways you try, you can’t get ahold of it.” He illustrated, and I watched, fascinated, as the noodle kept slithering away. “See?”

“So, what’s the secret?” I remember asking him. “What do you do?”

He shook his head. “There aren’t any secrets. You just keep pushing the noodle around the plate until something happens. Sometimes you break a case with actual detective work. You uncover a clue—some new piece of forensics, say—or you catch a weasel in a lie. Sometimes, it’s more like dumb luck.”

“Luck, huh?” They didn’t talk too much about “dumb luck” at the Police Academy.

He’d shrugged. “Maybe luck’s the wrong word. More like a reward for not giving up. You know, like that old saying,
Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then.
”

“So that’s your advice? Just keep pushing the noodle around until you get hold of it?”

“Or don’t. Sometimes cases just never break.”

I had trouble with that last part. My face must have given me away.

“You know those crime statistics they pass around every month back at the shop?” Bill smiled. “The last one I saw? Guess what? Even the FBI, with all their resources, only closed sixty-five percent of their homicides.”

“So what’s your point?”

“My point is, sometimes you just gotta walk away. Say to yourself,
That’s one mysterious noodle there, and I’m just gonna leave it that way
.”

I remember setting my own fork aside and using my finger and thumb to pincer up the noodle and place it in my mouth.

“And sometimes,” I said, chewing, “you make your own luck.”

Clancy was the next guy to bail on me, for an entirely different reason.

“Bets McMurtry? Man, you didn’t tell me she was part of this deal. My other boss is nutso about her and not in a good way. He catches wind I’m involved, he’ll take away all my intern hours. He already did that to this other dude. They got into a shouting match over McMurtry’s speech dissing Obamacare. Next thing you know, he shows the guy the door, takes away his hours, and now the poor bastard’s back to square one. I want to help, Ten, and I can’t stand that bitch, you know I can’t. But we’re talking about me risking losing two thousand hours …”