The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4) (28 page)

Not as easy to do as it sounds, but well worth the effort. Or non-effort, I should say. The technique is powerful, because human nature, like any other, truly does abhor a vacuum.

I resisted filling the increasingly awkward gap in conversation and put the technique to the test. Ten seconds of spacious listening from my side, and Angry Wife proceeded to pour her personal woes into the charged silence. The words were heavily accented, but the gist was clear: “My husband drive bus, make me clean up sex hotel to pay rent. I not come to America for that.” She covered her mouth with her hand, as if to prevent more confessions.

“
Sex hotel?
Is that what this place is?”

Her intensity was high, but her voice was low. “This side sex hotel,” she said. “Other side apartments.” Now she whispered. “Other side worse.”

I couldn’t hold on to spacious listening—condemnation stepped in, tainting the silence with my harsh judgment. She could tell. She rediscovered her resistance. “No more questions. I don’t want trouble.” She handed me the empty cup. “Thank you for coffee.” She wheeled away without a backward look.

I circled the entire complex by foot, finally finding a name by the front office, which was closed for business.

The Oceanview Vista Motel.

No ocean, and no vistas or views, but I doubted the clientele cared.

I shouldn’t have drunk the vending machine coffee. Pulling away from the motel complex, my mind jittered and jumped like a toad. I quickly checked the passenger seat floor. Jackass Rig holster and Wilson Combat were still there, safe and accounted for. My breath slowly calmed as I turned onto Los Angeles Avenue.

Only a few school buses remained in the yard. The rest were out ferrying young souls to their fields of play, oblivious to a world in which other children were forced to do the unspeakable.

C
HAPTER
25

Martha’s message was frantic.

“Please, please call me, Ten. I need to see you. I just, I don’t know what’s happening.”

Hancock Park was on the way home. Time to behave like a grown man.

I found a Starbucks off the Highland Avenue exit and used my mangled but still valid gift card to purchase four coffees and an assortment of pastries.

The red-white-and-blue ribbons still hung in the branches of the magnolia tree, bedraggled and drooping, as if from exhaustion. Martha opened the door a crack, red-eyed, and another five pounds thinner. She was swimming in a pair of striped men’s pajamas—Bill’s, I assumed—and her breath smelled of wine.

“Drink this,” I said, handing her one of the coffees. I listened for the twins, among other people, but the house was an echo chamber of hurt silence.

“Nobody’s here,” she said. “Julie took them all on a hike up Runyon Canyon.”

“All the more for us,” I said brightly, though her words pinched. I should have left things at that, but some masochistic imp got hold of my tongue. I handed Martha a scone. “So, Homer’s with them?”

“Who told you about Homer?”

“Maude.”

“Maude. Of course. Yes, he’s with them, obviously.”

“What’s … what’s he like?”

Martha waved at the air, distracted. “He’s fine, I guess. The girls seem to like him a lot, even Lola.”

My coffee tasted of acid, my croissant of chalk.

Don’t ask.

“So, where’s Homer sleeping?”

Martha finally focused on me. “In Julie’s bed, if you must know. Are you here to discuss Homer, or can we please, please talk about my life? Which happens to be falling apart, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Martha was slurring her words. She was either still drunk from the night before or she’d started early. My heart contracted, and then hot anger took over.

“Are you
drunk?
”

Martha started to cry. “I know. Mother of the year, right?”

And just like that, compassion doused the heat. I led her into the living room. Her body shrank, as if recalling the explosion there ten short days ago. I so wanted to tell her that Bill was on his way home, that he might land on her doorstep any minute, but I’d given him my word. So I just stood, an awkward witness to her pain.

This is why triangles aren’t a good idea when it comes to intimate relationships. The geometric configuration too easily creates a vortex of confusion.

Buddha came to the rescue.

“Martha, the pain you are feeling right now? It will pass. It will change, I promise.” Martha snuffled. I took her by the shoulders and pulled her into a hug. “What Bill does next is out of your control,” I told the top of her head. “But what you do next isn’t.”

What she did next was lift her face and plant a long, sloppy kiss on me, right on the lips.

“Martha, umm, I didn’t mean …” I disengaged as swiftly but humanely as possible.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said, her cheeks inflamed. “Do you hate me?”

“Absolutely. I’m horrified to discover a woman I love and admire finds me attractive enough to kiss. I may not actually survive.”

She smiled, but her eyes weren’t convinced.

“Sit.” I patted the sofa. She sat, and I took the chair.

“I’m going to say something, and I want you to listen closely. It may be difficult to hear, but it’s time you knew the truth.”

She closed her eyes, bracing for the worst.

“You are a catch. A smart, beautiful, sexy, warm, trustworthy, and irresistibly lovable catch. Any man lucky enough to have you would be a fool to let you go. And Bill may be acting like an idiot, but he’s not a fool.”

A quick sob caught in her throat, but she was taking it in. I could tell by the way her body responded, like a thirsty plant soaking up water. She opened her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said.

I left her as she headed for a hot shower and clean clothes. Sounded like a good plan for me, as well.

But it was not to be. Kim had left me a text:
I AM HERE. WHERE ARE YOU? YOU HAVE A GUEST
.

Agh. G-Force. He’d called late last night to say he needed to see me right away. I’d invited him for breakfast at my house and proceeded to put the entire conversation into cold storage. Good thing it was Saturday, which meant Kim was there to let him in and jog my memory.

THIRTY MINUTES
, I texted back.

G-Force was sitting in my kitchen, a bag of frozen peas pressed against his mouth. He lowered the peas, exposing a puffy upper lip, more like a flesh-colored duvet, really.

“What happened?”

“Thit. Thit happened,” G-Force said, his voice badly muffled by the overhang. “All ’cauth o’ you.” He handed off the peas to Kim. “Now who be owing who?” He shot a hasty look at her. “Not you,” he said, “talkin’ to Ten here.”

G-Force had obviously just completed Kim’s crash course on clarity of speech and intention.

“You want a scone?” I waved my bag of Starbucks leftovers.

“Nah. I’m good. Can’ eat thit w’ thith lip.”

I moved G-Force out to the deck, so Kim could do what she did inside, and in peace.

“Okay, G-Force. What’s so important?”

G-Force attempted a whistle at the view. “Looka’ that. That the othean, out there. Am I right?”

I refrained from discussing the view, and initiated my second round of spacious listening within 24 hours.

G-Force shot me a sideways look, the briefest of eye-flicks. He went back to studying the canyon vista. “You ever hear of a dude named Tory Wigginth?”

My chest tightened. Tory Wiggins was a key gangland presence, a Crip king we’d never managed to dethrone. I breathed past the automatic fight response his name prompted, relaxing again into a state of acceptance. “Yes.”

“Real name Victory, but nobody call him that. Why he named Victory, he born the night Kirk Gibthon hit that home run.”

“Mmm.” It was hard to keep a straight face.

“Tory the man, few yearth back, major playa, you feel me? Weed, mothtly, and some hath. But he a ghetto thtar, no doubt.”

Ghetto star,
my brain corrected.

G-Force kept going, avoiding my eyes. “That carwath I been working at? Tory own it, a couple otherth, too. Tory the one give me the money for my gym. And latht night, he give me thith.” G-Force pointed to his swollen lip, before lapsing into silence.

I entered the conversation, but my heart was open, so my voice was mild. “So you’re saying your business partner is Tory Wiggins,
the
Tory Wiggins.”

I needn’t have bothered withholding judgment—G-Force provided enough for both of us. He jumped to his feet, almost knocking over the deck chair.

“Oh, thweet Jethuth—listen to the man! Where you learn to thling guilt around like that? You th’posed to be thome kind of Zen dude! You thoundin’ like my mom!”

“I wasn’t judging, G-Force. I was confirming your own words. Cops call it
corroborating a statement.
”

G-Force collected himself. “Thorry, man. I wath ’thspecting you to jump my ath, you bein’ ex-po-lithe and all.” He sat back down. “Anyhow, I knew Tory way way back, when he wath Reverend Victory Wigginth, preaching out of Compton.”

Tory Wiggins, a preacher? Now that, I didn’t know. “Why’d he stop? When did he start dealing?”

“Not important. That neighborhood? Everybody get turned, thooner or later.”

G-Force finally met my eye. “But Tory? He turn back. He quit the Cripth, got out, left all of it, a few yearth back. For real. We never knew why. But now, I do.”

“Go on.”

“Latht night, I athk Tory what he know about Cripth running meat. Before I can get out why I’m athking, he pop me one, right in the mouth.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Five yearth ago, he’da ithed me. Heh-heh.”

Tank strolled outside. He pinned his green eyes on G-Force.

“Thee-it. That your cat?”

I nodded. “Tank,” I said.

“That cat got thoul. That cat badath, like Yoda.”

Tank jumped onto my lap, having confirmed that G-Force gave off an acceptable enough vibration to warrant staying. G-Force picked up the thread. Happily, I had finally, fully adjusted to his lisp, and was able to translate accordingly.

“Anyway,” G-Force went on, “Tory got no kid of his own. But he had a big sister, A’lelia. Fine woman, ’til she got shot. Some mofo Blood clipped her.”

I actually remembered this case. About eight years ago, A’lelia Wiggins was walking with her young daughter in Watts when she caught a drive-by bullet meant for someone else. The tribal warfare that followed was brief, but bloody.

“Tory take in the little girl, Yolanda. But Yolanda never get her head right, after her moms gone and all. Four years back, she disappeared. But everyone know, she go with Bone. She in the game.”

“The game?”

“That’s what they call it. Bone a Crip, too, but not one of us. Part of the Rollin 60’s crew. He showed up, promised Yolanda the world. But after that she have to prove herself, understand? Otherwise, he gone. That’s how it works.”

Reel in the vulnerable with treats before imprisoning them with threats.

“Tory track down Yolanda, just the one time, shacked up in some motel. He beg her to leave Bone, but Yolanda, she already deep in the life. She bottom bitch, you know, in charge of all the others in the stable.”

Stable. Like they’re animals.

I reined in my righteous indignation. I was ashamed to remember, but when I was still on the force, some of the guys used to call pulling in prostitutes the “garbage run.” We’d expected trash, and so made sure we found it.

“How old is Yolanda? Today, I mean.”

G-Force grimaced. “Seventeen. If she still alive.”

So she started working the streets when she was 14. Another achingly young casualty of what was beginning to feel like a global war.

“Anyway, Tory give up dealing dope after that. Probably time anyway, weed market slowed way down, and he never into pushing other shit. But still, he stop. Now Tory all about putting money back into the hood, you feel me? S’why he loaned me half the scratch I need. But when I ask him about Crips pimping, it all come back, and Tory lose his shit.”

“You took one for the team, G-Force.”

“No big thing. Once he hit me, he settled down. He wanted to know all about you. That’s why I needed to see you, Ten. Tory send me to ask you something.”

I didn’t know what was coming next, but I knew it was sure to further complicate my life.

“Tory want to hire you,” G-Force said. “Pay you to find Yolanda and bring her home.”

Oh, man.

I told G-Force I’d have to think about Tory’s offer. He left with my promise to let him know, once I’d decided.

Technically, Tory Wiggins was still on the LAPD’s “most wanted drug dealers” list, reformed or not. And who knows if he’d actually reformed? Criminals are con men. Conning is what they do.

On the other hand, people can and do change. If I didn’t believe that, I’d have given up on humankind long ago, starting with myself.

Kim had left. I dug up Tank’s favorite rubber-tipped brush and spent some time tending to his soft fur while my brain dealt with its own tangles.

We were both nice and calmed down by the time Stephanie called with a crisis and a heartfelt request of her own.

“Stephanie? I’ve been meaning to thank you for making those calls to the shelter in Sarajevo. I don’t know how to thank you enough.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank Human Rights Watch. HRW put me together with the active safe houses over there. As for paying me back, not to worry. I have just the thing. My babysitter’s got the flu, and I have an emergency call on a new client and a two-year-old with nowhere to go.”

“Stephanie, I …”

“It’s only for a couple hours, two and a half, tops. Promise. The client’s coming to me, in Santa Monica. Connor’s crazy about you—keeps talking about you. Ten, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency. I’m fifteen minutes away right now.”

“But what do I do with him?” I’d watched the twins several times, but never for more than an hour, unless they were already asleep for the night. And as delightful as Maude and Lola are, those were some of the longest, most exhausting hours of my life.

“Not to worry. He comes with a fully equipped backpack. Vroom-vroom car, blankie, snacks, and a couple of Diegos.”