The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4) (35 page)

“You the boss,” G-Force said, after a moment. I’d love to think it was my forceful argument, but I suspect the reason he capitulated had more to do with the boys. Two of them had crept to G-Force’s side and, just like Belma had, curled up next to him, as if for shelter.

I ran outside, and explained the change in plan.

“You guys okay with this?” They both nodded. “Okay. Let’s head for the Malibu address. Chain-Link, you follow Sasha and me in the Escalade.”

“S’cool,” Chain-Link said.

We backtracked to the 10, which quickly merged onto Pacific Coast Highway. The traffic was fairly light by now, and we sped toward the far end of Malibu, the Escalade maybe two car lengths behind our Tahoe. A patrol car raced by in the opposite direction, its lights flashing, a good reminder to slow down.

Sasha kept fiddling with my laptop, trying to reengage the feed with his mother, but the connection remained severed.

“She’ll be okay,” I said. “She’s strong and she’s smart.”

Our destination was on the northernmost boundary of Malibu, past Leo Carrillo State Beach. If I recalled correctly, this part of the coastline held a scattering of beach houses, some so small they’d be called shacks if they didn’t cost so much.

“Your destination is ahead, on your left,” my GPS announced in a voice much calmer than I felt.

I put on my left-hand indicator light. The Escalade did the same. I peered at the row of little houses, their brightly lit windows signaling inhabitants. The problem was, the homes all looked alike, and not one of them had a visible number.

I guess you paid for anonymity, as well as the ocean view.

During the day, the Pacific side of this highway was jammed with parked cars and eager surfers, but almost all of them had packed up their boards and gone home.

I pulled the Tahoe onto the soft shoulder. Chain-Link parked right behind me.

Sasha and I joined him by the Escalade. “You two wait here,” I said. “I’ll do my thing, and call you if it looks like Mila’s inside.”

I heard a few muttered grumbles from Chain-Link, but no outright argument. My fingers touched the warm wooden grip of the Wilson, buried deep in my pocket. Just making sure. For a moment I considered also taking G-Force’s confiscated MAC-10, but in truth I felt safer without it.

I tugged the hood of my windbreaker over my head and approached the cozy column of houses, moving at a slight diagonal toward the water.

And then I saw him. A man, standing at the corner of the second cottage, just under the jutting roof. His body, while still, seemed coiled with tension.

Lookout man, or eavesdropper—I knew which I’d place my money on.

That probably meant one more lookout, on the beach-front side. I stuck my hands in the pockets of my windbreaker and trudged across the sand until I was skirting the shoreline, pretending I was a lone and lonely beachcomber, contemplating some troubled aspect of his existence. It wasn’t that hard.

Sure enough, a second shadowed figure lurked at the front corner. This guy I knew: the stringy ponytail gave him away. His eyes swept in my direction. I lowered my head and tromped along the hard-packed sand, resisting the temptation to look. It was dark. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize me. I kept walking.

The lifeguard tower, a white wooden shed perched on a metal stand of raised, triangular stilts, was as much cover as I’d get out here. I crawled between the legs and finally looked back. The beach was deserted. The dank, salty smell of the sea filled my nostrils. The air felt damp and gritty, almost alive.

I called Sasha.

“Yes?”

“Put me on speaker, so Chain can hear.”

“Okay.”

“I think they’re at house number two. Guard in back, and one in front.”

“You thinking drive-by? Take ’em both out?” Chain-Link’s voice was eager.

“Slow down,” I said. “I need a lot more evidence before you decide to cancel some guy’s ticket.”

“Just saying,” Chain muttered.

My nostrils filled with an acrid imitation of lavender and musk.

“HANDS UP!”

Ponytail had somehow circled the lifeguard station without a sound. How could someone so intellectually challenged be so good at sneaking up on me? Maybe because he was built like a whippet, and just as fast and light on his feet.

“Do it,” I said, and snapped the phone shut.

“What you say?” Ponytail snapped.

“I said, I’ll do it. Just let me climb out from under here.”

I squeezed between the metal legs and pushed upright slowly, my hands in the air. Ponytail was working on a sparse goatee. Not a good look for him. At least he’d been downgraded from a Heckler assault rifle to an Airlite just like mine. The muzzle aimed directly at my chest. He looked me up and down.

“You again.”

I said nothing.

He waved the Airlite. “Take gun from pocket.”

I did.

“Drop it on ground.”

“No,” I said.

He blinked.

“I’ll hand it over, but I won’t dump it in the sand. It’s a Wilson Combat Supergrade, okay? Made to order.”

He thought this over. Held out his hand.

“Give. Handle first.”

It killed me to do so, but I gave.

He hefted the burled wooden grip. “Nice gun. I like.”

A thought flicked through in my mind:
Don’t get too attached.

“Okay. Move,” he said. I trudged through the sand, vainly attempting to center my breath.

“Faster.” A gun barrel prodded my spine.

Up on the road, squealing brakes pierced the air, followed by the roar of an SUV engine.

I must have flinched.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m nervous,” I said.

“You should be,” he said. “Stop here.”

He had a push-to-talk function on his phone. I saw him thumb the button a couple of times. “Bosko?” He paused and repeated: “Bosko?”

First Bozo. Now Bosko? Were these guys for real? They seriously needed a lesson in re-branding from G-Force.

We’d reached the cottage.

“Bosko?” he again called out. His eyes narrowed, and with a quick jerk he trained my own Wilson at my forehead, “Get on your knees!”

I did, but not before spotting the other lookout man, sprawled facedown. The back of his head was a splintered, bloody mess.

Ponytail’s breath was rapid and hoarse behind me. His voice was a snarl: “You did this?”

“No. How could I? I was with you.”

“Your negroes?”

Issues of political correctness aside, how did he know about Chain and G-Force?

Before I could ask him, help arrived.

“Hands up your-self, mofo!” Chain-Link was planted like a double-barreled redwood trunk, MAC-10 and Uzi up. Then Sasha stepped around the corner, popgun at the ready.

“Fuck,” Ponytail said, reaching two hands and two handguns in the air.

“Weapons on the sand,” Chain-Link said.

“Not the Wilson!” I said, for the second time tonight. Maybe I was the one with the unhealthy attachment.

Ponytail had a better idea, at least in his mind, but before he got off a shot, three
pfttt-pfttt-pfttts
from Chain’s Uzi, center mass, flung him backwards. It was like watching a truck hit a rag doll. He collapsed in a heap, let out a single wet rattle, and bled out in a matter of moments.

I was too disturbed by this violent display of overkill to summon a single chant of ease. Sasha, too, was dumbfounded. His eyes were open, but his brain had vacated the premises.

I extracted my Wilson, gritty after all from the dead man’s final fall. I closed Ponytail’s eyes. His skin was growing cool and clammy to the touch.

And now, the words came:
Om mani padme hum,
I mentally chanted
.
I included his dead colleague, Bosco.
Om mani padme hum.
And I improvised a personal addendum, to address the violence of their passing:
As painful as your dying was, may the lessons learned someday bring an equal portion of bliss.

Someone inside pulled up the blinds, barely ten feet from us, throwing a bright square of light onto the sand. As one, we launched ourselves close against the wall.

A door on the other side of the house opened. If anyone came around the corner, we were perfect targets, all in a row.

“The lock!” I gestured. “Shoot the lock!”

Pfttt.
With a splinter of wood and metal, the lock exploded, along with half of the street-side door. Chain-Link hurled his battering-ram body against the rest, knocking the planked wood inward, onto the entryway floor.

I heard a muffled sound, like an animal in distress. Then I found the source.

Just beyond the foyer was a small living room. In the center, Mila was gagged and trussed and sitting on a wooden chair. Her shirt was ripped, and her forehead bulged with a bruise the size and color of a plum.

Mila’s black eyes flashed above the gag. She rocked and struggled, strapped to the chair with duct tape, her hands bound somehow behind her.

Sasha squeezed past me and dropped to his knees by her side. He clawed and ripped at the tape.

The door to the beach stood ajar. As I ran toward it, Zarko, all in black, rose from the sand like a desert demon. He jerked his rifle up, then down again, and disappeared to my left without shooting. I realized why when I saw who was directly behind me.

He doesn’t want to hit Sasha or Mila. Why not?

My next thought carried with it no words, only an instinctive warning a millisecond after I glimpsed movement at the window.

“Hit the floor!” I screamed while diving as an explosive barrage shattered the glass to the left of the back door, away from Mila and Sasha. The wall erupted, showering great clots of plaster and dust.

I elbow-crawled toward the open gash that used to be the other door. Once through, I half-stood, zigzagging outside and diving off the porch. I rolled to one side, as another round of deadly sound and earth danced around me.

I pushed up and aimed my Wilson, but Zarko ducked and ran off again.

I shouted to Chain-Link, “Go around! Other side!”

I heard the
crack-crack-crack
of Zarko’s assault rifle, deafening in the still evening air. Where were the neighbors? Where were the cops?

A fourth volley of bullets, as spitfire-sharp as firecrackers.

Firecrackers.
We were only a week past the Fourth of July. There was my answer.

Someone howled, an “I’ve-been-shot” howl.

Please. Not Sasha.

Chain’s voice rang out. “We clear back here. Dude is down.”

Zarko gasped for air as he writhed, clutching his left thigh. Chain-Link’s barrel rested about an inch above his left ear. Beneath him, spilled blood was staining the area pinkish-brown.

A part of me wanted to fill Zarko’s mouth and nose with sand. Watch the life ebb from him. The thought of those little boys … that camera.

I called into the house. “Mila! Sasha! Out here!”

Zarko Stasic was their family, his immediate fate was theirs to decide.

Mila knelt beside him. She examined the seeping wound. The sand was soaked by now. He wouldn’t survive without help.

“I should let you bleed to death,” she said, even as she took the cloth that had recently gagged her own mouth. She cinched it just above the wound, stanching the flow.

Zarko spoke through gritted teeth: “If I die here, I say same thing. Whatever else I do, I did not kill your father.”

She sat back on her heels and raked him with her eyes, that internal frisking I’d also experienced once upon a time.

“I believe you,” she said. “Now take me to the one who did.”

“Mila, leave alone.” Zarko was almost begging. “You are not bad person. Leave this be.”

“No.” Mila said. “No. I owe it to him.”

Zarko groaned. “All right. I will take you, but do not expect to find satisfaction.”

“Sasha,” Mila ordered. “Get me clean cloth, sheet, anything, and tape.”

Sasha ran inside, and soon reappeared with a pillowcase and duct tape, as well as a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide he must have found in the bathroom. Mila cleaned the wound, tore the case into strips, and field-dressed the injury, not gently, but as best she could. Her medical school experience was finally serving a purpose.

I sent Chain up the road to fetch the Escalade, but not before confiscating his coat and weapons, and making him and Sasha use the peroxide to clean off any residue on their hands and faces. I wiped down both assault rifles and tossed them into the beach house, along with the silencer. Some forensic team was going to have a challenging time of it, once this crime scene became official.

I still had my Wilson and Airlite, not to mention Zarko’s assault rifle.

A young man finally poked his head out of the neighboring cottage. Tanned skin; bleached, spiky hair; terrified eyes.

“Can you call 911?”

“I j-j-just d-d-did,” he stuttered.

“Call again, and ask for an ambulance as well. There are two men down back there.”

I was coated with fine white dust and speaking from the shadows. I wasn’t too worried about being identified. Anyway, this kid was too scared to swallow, much less focus on my face.

The Escalade pulled up. Sasha and I helped Zarko to his feet and half-dragged, half-carried him to the backseat. Mila climbed inside first, Zarko next, and finally Sasha. I handed Sasha the Airlite, and his eyes thanked me.

“Wait here,” I said to Chain-Link. “I’ll follow you in the Tahoe. Where are we headed, Zarko?”

“Latigo Canyon.” His voice was bleak and devoid of hope.

I sprinted the hundred yards to my rental with the other two guns, using the physical exertion to process some of the adrenaline back into my bloodstream. For a panicked moment, I’d thought I’d lost my keys, but they were in a different pocket.

Faint sirens. Not much time. I wrenched the Tahoe onto the road, my tires spitting soft sand. I pulled up behind the Escalade and flicked the high beams. The Cadillac took off, and I fell in behind.

Flashing LED lights and blaring sirens screamed past us, followed by a wailing ambulance. Emergency responders answered the call for help, and not for the first time tonight. We’d left a veritable gold mine of fallen villains around the city.