The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4) (26 page)

“As in human DNA?”

“You tell me. Anyway, that’s as far as I’ve gotten.” He shut down his computers. “So. What did you want to ask me?”

What
had
I wanted to ask Mike? I was so overwhelmed with his presentation I had to think a minute. “Oh. Right. Can you check up on a Serbian industrialist, Jovan Stasic, for me? See what he might have been up to in the 1960s?”

“Jovan Stasic. You got it. Once I’ve caught a few z’s with my lady. Nighty-night, boss.”

I was home by noon, my head a whirl of cyber-thoughts, but I still made sure to disarm and lock up the artillery, legally licensed and not. I fell asleep instantly, and woke up three hours later with a pair of green eyes staring at me fixedly. Tank had situated himself on the pillow next to my head, purring. He licked his cat lips, as if he’d just finished a snack.

“I don’t want to know,” I said.

Tank arched his back into a perfect, upside-down U and hopped off the bed.

My sleep cycles were all messed up. Without moving, I tested my own body with a head-to-toe stretch. I was the opposite of limber. Every nook and cranny was stiff and sore from too many hours buckled into an airplane seat. My wild dawn escapade came back to me in a rush. I must have left my good sense, along with my flexibility, somewhere over the Atlantic.

“I got lucky, Tank. Got away with something, for sure.”

As if the very thought caused the universe to reprimand me, my doorbell buzzed—an insistent, irritating sound.

“Crap.” When the front doorbell rings, it’s never anyone I want to see—people I know well come in through the kitchen.

A second series of short buzzes, followed by brisk knocking. Someone was losing patience.

“All right!” I pulled on sweats, crossed the living room, and pressed my eye to the one-way DoorScope I’d installed last year, replacing a far more complex and paranoid security system.

Two officers. Not LAPD. Not L.A. Sheriff’s Department. I ran to the kitchen and checked their patrol car. Ventura County.

Moorpark is in Ventura County.

Double-crap.

I inhaled and exhaled twice. Made my mouth smile. Opened the door. “Come in.”

The older officer—black, midforties, and whip-thin—pointed to his younger, beefier partner with a buzz cut and the ruddy complexion and eyebrows of a redhead. “Deputy Johnson. I’m Deputy Sergeant Thomas Gaines.”

“Tenzing Norbu,” I said. “To what do I owe the honor?”

Johnson frowned. “’Scuse me?”

“He means why are we here,” Gaines translated.

“Oh,” Johnson said. My prejudices kicked in: clearly Deputy Johnson had a long and secure future with the Ventura Police Department.

“Coffee?”

Both men brightened.

I made a big pot of Sumatra, extra strong. Tank wandered in to check his food bowl. Empty. He gave me a long soulful look, stuck his tail in the air, and stalked out again.

I set down three steaming mugs, and pulled up a stool. The officers had already claimed the two chairs.

I decided not to talk. Some information arrived faster in a vacuum.

Gaines looked around.

“Nice place.”

“Thanks.”

“Been here long?”

“About seven years.”

I sipped and waited.

Gaines broke first. He pulled out a plastic evidence bag holding a small white card. “You want to explain what your business card was doing in the pocket of a homicide victim in Moorpark?”

Everything went very still, the way I imagine it feels right before a nuclear bomb detonates.

I swallowed. “Who was the victim?”

Johnson bristled. “We’re asking the question—”

“Who was the victim?”

Gaines again. “Don’t know his name yet. Old. Maybe early seventies.”

I set my mug down carefully. “When?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Johnson growled.

“Johnson,” Gaines warned. He checked his notes. “Mr. Norbu, where were you between the hours of eight and ten this morning?”

They must have killed the old man just a few hours after I’d left.

My fault. All my fault.

“Mr. Norbu?”

“I was with friends, at a loft in downtown Los Angeles. From six o’clock on. They’ll verify.”

I pulled Gaines’s notebook over and jotted down Mike’s number and address. He relaxed visibly.

“You’re the guy that was on television last year. That private detective.”

“Yes.”

“Bet you see a lot of good shit. You know, husbands fucking their secretaries.” This, from Johnson, naturally.

I was gripping my mug so hard my knuckles were white. I relaxed my fingers, one by one. “I do missing persons, mostly.”

“But you used to be LAPD, right?” Gaines said.

“Right.”

“Ever work any Mexican cartel cases?”

I held onto my poker face, but barely. Where was Gaines going with this? My connection to Mexican drug lord Chaco Morales and my part in his untimely death were supposed to be completely off the public’s radar. Had somebody talked?

I played dumb. “Not really. Why?”

“Because this homicide? We think Sinaloa may be involved.”

Now I was completely lost.

“Why?”

Gaines ticked off the reasons. “Execution-style slug to the back of the head. Body found facedown in a field. Simi Valley’s right next door? Crawling with runners connected to Sinaloa. And the bullet came from an assault weapon, ten grand if it cost a penny. Who else uses an HK416 to pop a guy?”

“Excuse me,” I said. I walked into my bedroom and unlocked my gun safe. Walked back out to the kitchen.

“You mean like this one?” I laid the Heckler on the kitchen table.

“Holy fuck,” Gaines said. “You got some serious explaining to do.”

I gave them an edited version of the truth, the “looking for Sasha” version. I mentioned the vans and the school bus. I even gave them a vague description of the warehouse near Van Nuys Airport, but that was all they’d get for now. Gaines seemed smart enough, but I didn’t want Johnson anywhere near Agvan Supply. Not yet. Not when I was getting close to some answers. If Zarko Stasic took off, I would never find him again.

Or learn if he had the two little boys who led Sasha to Los Angeles and instigated everything else.

I wrapped up. “So once I’d disarmed the first driver, the one who threatened me with this Heckler, I determined my missing person wasn’t on either van.”

“And then you just let these guys go?” Gaines frowned. “Didn’t cross your mind to call the authorities?”

“Of course it crossed my mind. But the old man begged me not to. And nobody was paying me to do anything but find a kid. I made a judgment call.”

Nobody said a word. The result of that call spoke for itself.

Remorse choked my solar plexus. Even the partial truth was hard to swallow.

“Anyway. I’m pretty sure this isn’t Sinaloa. More likely traffickers from Serbia or Croatia.” I pushed the rifle toward Gaines. “Take it. Maybe it will help with your investigation. And call if you need anything else.”

They both stood.

“Don’t leave town,” Gaines said.

Johnson had to add his own two bits. “Yeah. Got that, asshole?”

Gaines gave Johnson a look that would stop a charging elephant in its tracks. I didn’t envy the man. Partner like that, you had to work twice as hard.

As soon as they were gone, I got straight to work.

Correction: as soon as they were gone and I’d fed my cat, I got straight to work.

C
HAPTER
24

The Buddha likened the undisciplined mind to an oxcart loaded down with bad decisions. Suffering will follow such a mind, he taught, as inevitably as the wheels of the yoked cart follow its plodding oxen.

Right now, my mind was more like a runaway circus train, and the chimpanzees were loose. When my adrenaline was raging, Bill used to tell me the same thing I suspect the Buddha taught his followers: “Time to slow things down.”

I ate two ripe bananas to placate the simian population and spent the next two hours stretching, lifting weights, and meditating, all on my outside deck. The exposure to afternoon sunlight helped reset my internal clock. The reminder to my body to breathe put the monkeys back in their cages, so I could think clearly.

I had started my meditation by taking refuge in the three jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha—my teachers, their teachings, and my community of fellow travelers. And I realized three things. First, that the Buddha was right. I couldn’t afford to let my primitive mind run the show. Secondly, while I was no longer personally or professionally responsible for the doings of Agvan Supply, a young girl’s haunted eyes, two little boys, and an old man’s brutal ending had shifted my motivation to the most powerful category of all: spiritual calling. Righting such wrongs
was
honoring the Dharma. Why else was I a private detective?

Which brought me to the Sangha, my community. As much as I loved going solo, I needed to ask my friends for help. It was time to call in the Eskimos.

I made up a short but powerful list of names while munching on a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich, washing the gluey bites down with swallows of cold milk. The brilliant Kim had restocked my refrigerator.

First call, Federal Agent Gus Gustafson, formerly ATF, but a few rungs further up the Department of Justice ladder after a big bust in Baja California, Mexico, last year. She and I had bonded over that case, as well as a mutual hatred of departmental stupidity.

“Ten Norbu! How the heck are you?”

Her voice was as I remembered: slightly husky, and full of humor.

“I’m well. How’s the new job?”

“Lovin’ it, thanks.”

“And the new girlfriend?”

“What does a lesbian bring on her second date?”

“Uh …”

“A U-Haul. Get it?”

I wracked my brain for an appropriate response.

“We’re living together, Ten! Officially cohabitating. Do keep up.” Her laugh was full, straight from the belly. She sounded great. “Okay, enough of that. I’m sure you’re not calling to check on my love life. What’s this about?”

“Human trafficking. I may have stumbled onto something.”

“Shit, Ten, you’d better not be nosing around our Crips investigation.”

“What Crips investigation?”

Silence. Then: “You did not just hear that, okay? Seriously.”

“I understand.” I gave her the unedited version of my previous week of travels.

“You’re a trouble-magnet, Ten. You know that?”

“Not on purpose.”

“Right. It’s all karma. Okay, well, first of all, those poor bastards from Kosovo, or wherever they came from? They weren’t heading for any restaurant jobs, well paid or otherwise, I can at least tell you that. Their job site was right under their feet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the strawberry fields. Strawberries are routinely sprayed with methyl iodide, a seriously toxic fumigant. Now that everyone’s caught on, it’s much harder for the agribusinesses to find local pickers, including from Mexico. So they’ve started importing from overseas.”

I was writing everything down. I never knew what would prove helpful.

“Either way, guys like your dead man, they never get out from under their debt. It’s a racket, old-fashioned debt bondage in a new and different form. What’s the owner’s name again?”

“Stasic. Zarko Stasic.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. But that doesn’t mean anything. You know what it’s like around here. The right hand …”

“… doesn’t know what the left is doing. Got it.”

“I’ll pass this information along. If anything helpful comes back, anything I’m authorized to pass along, I mean, I’ll let you know.”

Another call was coming in. Martha. Yesterday, I hadn’t wanted to talk to her because Bill wasn’t coming home. Now, I didn’t want to talk to her because he was.

“Thanks, Gus.”

“
De nada.
I’m really glad you called. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“I won’t.”

“And Ten? Don’t be a cowboy, either. These guys are not to be messed with.”

After we disconnected, I reviewed my notes, and my eye landed on the first one:

CRIPS!

I’d unconsciously underlined Gus’s accidental slip, twice.

Because in my line of work, there are no accidents.

I added the name G-Force to my list, followed by a question mark. I walked out to the deck for a moment, to think. The summer air was still, the wood warm under my bare feet. I could stop right here. Right now. Leave the rest to fate.

I walked inside and called G-Force’s number.

“G-Force Workout. Help you?”

I stared at the phone. “How on earth … ?”

“Heh-heh. Knew it was you. Just practicing for when it’s real, dawg. What’s up?”

I told G-Force what I needed.

His answer followed a long silence, as if he were weighing options. “I get this for you, we square?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then. Later.”

My final call was to Clancy Williams, reformed paparazzo, and backup surveillance guy whenever I needed an extra set of eyes. He was, as usual, thrilled to get the extra work. Freelancers are like addicts, they can never have enough.

I sicced him onto Agvan Supply, starting tonight. He took down the pertinent information, and had me describe the layout.

“What am I looking for?”

“Any traffic in or out, but especially delivery vans.”

“Vans again, huh. Déjà vu.” He was referring to a previous job involving Chaco Morales and his fleet of cleaning service vehicles.

“Can I help it if criminals use vans?”

“Bad juju. Just sayin’.”

“If it helps, you should also be on the lookout for yellow school buses.”

“Now you’re talking.”

I showered and forced myself to lie down. To my surprise, I slept for four solid hours. Then I changed into ninja apparel.

By 11, my Dodge and I were back on the 101 North. Same drive, different choice of weapon. A Jackass Rig shoulder holster occupied the passenger seat floor, stuffed full of four pounds of Wilson Combat Supergrade. The Airlite was good for concealment but seemed a bit puny suddenly, like arming yourself with a squirt gun. I’d taken Gus’s words of warning to heart.

I also had a small but mighty roll of bills, all-American dollars for this job.