The First Rule of Ten (26 page)

“This presents me with a dilemma,” he said. “Vincent Barsotti is the father of my grandchildren. What is best for the grandchildren? Is it better to be raised by a cheating father or to have no father in the house at all?”

I knew which one I’d pick, but I wasn’t standing in the Barsotti children’s shoes. I pictured the two youngsters as I’d last seen them, waiting at the kitchen table for their parents to join them for a family dinner. With that in mind, I tried on both scenarios, and they both felt awful. “I don’t know. I don’t know which is best.”

“Welcome to the complicated world of parenting,” he said. “My daughter is married to a man who cheats, and my son has been known to cheat me. You’re from the East, Ten. Perhaps you can explain to me how bad karma works. I think I am getting my nose rubbed in it.”

How to answer? Every situation comes with myriad karmic influences and conditions. The Buddha himself said that karma is so complex a person could go crazy trying to figure it out: the only way to simplify, he suggests, is to follow the basic principle that it is our
intention
that determines our karma. Good intentions produce good karma; bad intentions produce bad karma. When conditions are right, in this or a future life, effect follows cause, and the seeds of your good and bad actions ripen into the fruits that are your karma. Or something like that. Anyway, Mr. Florio wasn’t asking for a treatise on karma. He was asking for help.

“I’m not sure karma has anything to do with it,” I said. “But I will say this. It seems to me a skillful parent is like a skillful teacher. Such a person is mindful of their charge’s well-being, taking note of their actions and intentions, and steering them straight when they veer off course. Closing our eyes to their wrong actions, choosing to avoid or withdraw from them, can cause the wrong to boomerang back, more often than not, in a harsher form.”

Florio’s chuckle was rueful. “Well put, well put. I guess I’d better find out what I closed my eyes to with both my son and daughter, because the boomerangs seem to be coming faster and faster.”

“May I ask you a couple of questions?”

“Anything,” he said.

“Did your son tell you why he came to see me?”

“He told me you represented a former client of his. He didn’t elaborate.”

No, I’ll bet he didn’t.

“You say he has cheated you. In what way?”

He grimaced. “It’s painful to discuss.”

“As you wish,” I said. I waited.

He went on, “It’s a pattern he’s played out several times, and unfortunately I have been a willing participant. I hire him to work for me. He behaves irresponsibly, creating a mess that someone then has to … no, that
I
then have to clean up. I enable. I grow frustrated. I withdraw all support. Time passes. His mother weeps. He begs, and comes crawling back to me. I am convinced by both him and his mother that he is no longer irresponsible. I hire him again. And so it continues.”

“And now?”

He nodded. “Ah yes. Now. Now I have him working on a real estate deal. Up to this point, everything seems to be progressing smoothly.”

I watched him closely. Did he believe this? “I’m glad for you,” I said.

His eyes bored into mine. “What do you really think, Tenzing? You’ve just spent time with my son. Can I trust him this time?”

I held his gaze, letting my lack of reassurance speak volumes. Mr. Florio gave a short nod, as if I had confirmed something.

“A father knows, you see,” Florio said. “My son grows secretive, yet also agitated. Unlike you just now, he does not meet my eyes. He avoids my calls for days. I know the signs, Tenzing. It is like an addiction, only the drug for Tommy is breaking the law. Thus far, he has never been formally charged with a crime, but only thanks to my timely interventions. I’m afraid he is going to run afoul again.”

Florio picked up his second glass and took a small sip. His voice grew firm. “This time, should it happen, I have taken a vow not to protect him. And I always keep my vows. Always.”

“That sounds painful, but in this case wise,” I said. “Maybe it will break the pattern you describe.”

“I hope it’s wise. I know it’s long overdue.”

I stood up. I felt sad for Thomas Florio, Sr., but there wasn’t much I could do besides send him good thoughts; he would have to do the rest. Life demands that we face the consequences of our actions, and sometimes it boils down to a series of sweaty ten-minute conversations that you’re either willing to have or you’re not. Florio had a few such conversations looming over his future, and I hoped for his sake he wouldn’t put them off for too much longer.

I thought about me and my father. Who was I to talk?

I held out my hand to take my leave, but Florio was unclasping his leather briefcase. He withdrew an envelope, and clicked it shut.

“Still, one prefers to know such things ahead of time, doesn’t one,” he said, as if continuing a conversation in his head. “I’d like to engage your services for the next week, Ten, to keep an eye on my son’s activities.”

This was getting interesting. And tricky. “I’m already conducting an investigation for another client,” I said.

“Please. There’s no reason you can’t report to two people. Unless you’re aware of a conflict of interest?”

I thought it over. Zimmy could only gain by anything I learned on Florio’s dime. And Florio Sr. didn’t know it, but I was already onto some of Junior’s extracurricular shenanigans, thanks to Zimmy.

“We need to be clear on something, right up front,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“If it comes down to a choice—discovering the truth or concealing it to save your son—you need to know that I’m after the truth. Period. I have zero interest in protecting Tommy Junior, or anybody else for that matter, from the consequences of their actions. Are you absolutely sure we’re on the same page there?”

He nodded. “We’re both after the same information, Tenzing.”

I took the envelope, peeked inside, and sealed the deal with a firm handshake.

Immobilized in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way home, I opened the envelope and took a second look. I rolled down my window and stuck my head outside.

“Woo-hoo,” I yelled to the startled driver to my left.

I called Mike and gave him the good news. With ten thousand more in my account, I could finally pay him for his time.

“So, Mike, can you do a detailed, due-diligence report on Thomas Florio Senior, please?”

“Planning to bite the hand that feeds you?”

“More like quietly run its prints. It’s always good to be cautious,” I said, thinking of Florio’s reading material. “Also, I need an in-depth background check on Norman Murphy, John D’s son.”

“Will do. When do you want me to install your new equipment?”

“Now, baby. Now.”

I made a quick side trip to the bank and got there just before closing time. I deposited Florio’s check, less $600 in cash. I liked the feel of the folded Franklins in my back pocket.

I’d just doubled my fee as a private investigator, not to mention tripled my monthly pay at the LAPD, in under two weeks. Everything is impermanent, subject to change, and guess what? That goes for poverty, too. The pleasurable tickle in my belly migrated lower. Apparently, earning big bucks was an aphrodisiac. I pictured Julie, probably hip-chopping something astonishing in my kitchen. I called Mike back.

“Uh, Mike? About installing the office? Let’s make that a job for tomorrow.”

I pressed hard on the accelerator and rode my magic carpet home.

C
HAPTER
25

My turn to cook for the chef. I had made a quick early-morning run to the local market and now was sawing off thick slabs of freshly baked sourdough
boule
. The frittata was in the oven, the coffee was brewing, and Julie was sitting across from me in my button-down shirt, and nothing else.

Her tousled hair spilled over one shoulder in a tangle of rich brunette curls. To me, even sleepy, she looked like a movie star. In Los Angeles, that’s saying a lot.

“So how does a gentleman like Florio end up with a son like Tommy?” Julie said. “It doesn’t compute.”

“I know,” I said. “This is why the notion of having children scares me. I feel like I’m surrounded by sons disappointing fathers, and vice versa.”

Julie opened her mouth then shut it again.

“Listen, I get it,” I said. “I’m probably hyper-aware of this stuff because of my father and me.”

“Like when Martha couldn’t get pregnant,” Julie said.” She’d call me in tears, swearing the entire city was made up of expectant women about to pop.”

I served Julie a wedge of frittata and two pieces of hot buttered toast. My eye happened to catch a shadowed womanly curve, just inside the unbuttoned part of the button-down shirt.

Julie stood. Our mouths met.

We backed into the bedroom, stumbling and laughing and kissing and never once detaching. We fell onto the bed, and the air exploded around me, and inside me, and Julie was right there beside me, with me all the way.

We lay entangled in the sheets and each other.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. That was pretty amazing.”

Julie rolled on top of me, pinning my arms to my sides.

“Pretty amazing? Pretty amazing? I’ll give you pretty amazing,” and she tickled me until I promised to reveal my deepest, darkest secret.

So I told her about Apa and Valerie. How I was a mistake, the accidental result of a Tibetan Buddhist monk’s midlife folly with an ethereal American girl trekking around India in search of enlightenment.

“Well, it
is
kind of romantic,” Julie said.

“Not really. He was almost forty,” I said, “and she was twenty, going on fifteen. For reasons that were never clear to me, they ended up falling in love. Or falling in something, anyway. Whatever it was, they fell out of it just as quickly.”

“Hate when that happens,” Julie said.

“He insisted on a quick marriage. She insisted on a quicker divorce.”

Julie had moved closer to me, and her freckled skin glowed in the morning light. Her hair had devolved from tangled to totally disheveled. Irresistible.

I reached over for a curl. I tugged it into a long, straight lock, then released. It bounced back to a tight spiral. Change is hard.

“Valerie used to say, after a few too many glasses of Bordeaux, that she knew they were going to break up before they’d even gotten together.”

“You called your mother Valerie?”

“She was adamant. She said ‘Mom’ made her feel too old. She shrugged off motherhood instantly, just like she shrugged off my father.”

Pulled another curl straight. Released it.

“Ten?”

I looked up. Julie’s eyes were serious.

“It doesn’t always have to be like that.”

“I know,” I said. “I know it doesn’t.” But I didn’t know any such thing.

Mike showed up in a small U-Haul at noon, with dark circles under his eyes, and an ergonomically correct office chair, a laptop, a computer table, a combination printer-fax-scanner, an external hard drive, a wireless mouse, a docking station, an extra monitor, a work lamp with an adjustable arm, a surge protector, and enough cables to choke a small city.

I’m handy with guns and cars, but digital electronics make me weep with frustration, so I made über-strong coffee and stayed out of the way. After everything was unpacked, Mike downed one last swallow of caffeine, planted his empty mug on the kitchen table, and surveyed my designated office space.

“Southeast corner. Very feng-shui, boss,”

“Very only-spot-available-that-works,” I replied.

He placed the computer table catty-corner facing the front door, and got busy with the transformation.

Mike is a mutterer—he talks nonstop under his breath while he works. I decided to go for a run. I needed to clear my head, and I needed not to stuff a sock in Mike’s mouth.

By the time I got back, the office was up and running, and Mike had news.

“So. Norman Murphy. I got something.” Mike pushed away from the computer table, stepped aside, and offered me a seat with a bow and a flourish.

I sat in my new chair and wheeled up to my new monitor. It felt good, almost official. I scanned the short article on the screen in front of me. It was from the
Antelope Valley Press
again: Lancaster’s go-to place for news, but this time dated four years ago. The item stated that an employee of the Department of Public Works, Norman Murphy, had been disciplined by the County, suspended for one month without pay, and ordered to pay $500 restitution, for using department resources on an off-hours personal project. The story concluded with a brief but recognizably self-pitying statement from Norman, who said he was unfairly targeted, outraged by the accusations, and totally innocent of all charges.

“Good work, Mike,” I said. “And my office is fantastic.” I dug my checkbook out of the kitchen junk-drawer, wrote him a check, and put the checkbook in my new, empty office drawer. Life was good.

“Thanks,” Mike said. “Can I go now? I have a brilliant hottie waiting for me to get home. Living together is awesome. You should try it sometime.” Great. Madly in love for ten days, and now he’s an expert in relationships.

I made a few calls, and finally tracked down Deputy Sheriff Dardon on his cell phone. He didn’t sound too thrilled to hear from me.

“What is it, Detective? You sending more bad news my way?”

“Not exactly. Norman Murphy got in some trouble a while back, got suspended without pay from the DPW. I’m wondering what you know about it.”

Dardon made an unhappy rumbling sound in his throat. “You’re like a dog with a bone, aren’t you, Norbu?”

“I’m very engaged with this case, Deputy Dardon.”

“What makes you think I can add anything?”

“Because it takes a good investigator to know one.”

He sighed, and I knew I had him. “Most of what I know comes from bits and pieces out of the guys at Waterworks. Seems that Norman took home a computer and some other equipment over the weekend, for personal use.”

“What kind of equipment?”

“I’m trying to remember. Some sort of sonar thing, I think, for surveying and such. Anyway, it was expensive—Public Works said it cost the county over twenty thousand, new. That’s why they got their knickers in such a twist when he borrowed it.”