The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4) (36 page)

Too bad no one would ever know it was us.

C
HAPTER
31

For a brief moment, I was tempted to turn the Tahoe around and head back to Topanga, to the peace of the canyon and the warmth of my home. The violence had left me drained, scooped out from the inside until I was more husk than man. Even my skin, with its dusting of plaster, was ghostly.

Anyway, what was left? Agvan Supply could not possibly survive this, not with its sites and its leader exposed. Zarko Stasic, if he survived his wound, would soon be behind bars. And if I knew him, he’d take his brother down as well.

They were finished.

“
Ne,
” I heard from the seat behind me, followed by a crackle of static. For a moment, I thought my car was possessed, until I remembered Mila’s button-camera, and the wireless connection between my laptop and her. Then all was silent again.

I stayed two car lengths behind the Escalade. The ocean was a vast expanse of liquid blackness.

If Zarko was telling the truth, if he hadn’t killed Mila’s father, that left only one other candidate, the far more elusive Stojan. I’d only caught the one or two glimpses of him, younger and a little slighter than his brother, with that odd bent arm and fingers that plucked at nothing. His nerves had suffered damage at some point, either literally or from some kind of emotional trauma. And damage breeds more damage.

Maybe it happened during the war.

When the Buddha talked about suffering, how it followed wrong actions as inevitably as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen, he could have just as easily been talking about nations that have lost their way. The Bosnian War was still causing so much harm, perpetuating so much pain. Cycles of hurt, spinning around and around and around.

A car zipped between the Cadillac and me, a Toyota Highlander with an attitude. Automatically, I glanced at its plate: MKNG LV, it said. My brain filled in the vowels: “MAKING LOVE.”

I wish.

I speed-dialed Julie and put the call on speaker just as an idea nipped at my brain. It darted off before I could grab hold.

“Ten?”

“Julie. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“Are you okay? You sound a little weird.”

“I’m exhausted, that’s all. How’s Bill?”

“A little doped up on painkillers. He’s tucked under the covers back at the house.”

“Can you tell him Mila’s okay? Sasha, too?”

“Will do. The minute I get off. Hang on a minute.”

I heard her talking softly.

“I’m back. Tank and Homer want to know when you’re coming home. The boys and I miss you.”

The sensation spreading through my chest was shocking, so warm and bittersweet it almost pained me. Like that first swallow of
chocolat chaud,
with my mother beaming at me from across the table.

Like I could do no wrong.

My breath caught in my throat, and for a moment I couldn’t speak.

I love her.

“I’ll be home as soon as I can,” I said. “I’m really glad you’re there.”

“Me, too, Ten. Me, too.” Her voice was already so dear to me. I wanted to kiss her again.

MKNG LV darted into the passing lane, and I saw that the Escalade was taking the next exit, up toward the canyons.

“I have to go,” I said.
My love,
I thought.

Between Westlake Village and Woodland Hills, a parallel series of twisting arteries link the 101 to the coastline, roads with intriguing names like Kanan Dume, and Trancas, and, of course, Topanga. I had traversed much of the city using one or the other of these byways, but I was unfamiliar with Latigo Canyon.

The road proved to be a steep, somewhat treacherous climb, slithering between rocky shoulders and canyon drop-offs like an asphalt snake. There were no streetlights, and the looming darkness added to my sense of peril.

I called upon Palden Lhamo once again for extra protection.

About seven miles up, the Escalade turned left at a “For Sale” sign that was stuck in the ground by a green metal mailbox and was at the foot of a gravel driveway much like my own. I flashed my lights, and the Escalade stopped.

Chain-Link lowered his window, silent and smooth.

“I can take it from here,” I said. Chain stared at me as if I’d suggested he put on a tutu and twirl onstage. “I mean it. You did your part. This is a family matter now. Thank you.”

He chewed on this, but only for a moment. “S’cool,” he said, and flashed a final metallic smile. The smoked glass rose between us, snuffing out the gleaming grille of gold.

I waited until the rear lights of the Escalade had disappeared into the canyon. Sasha now sat next to me, with Mila and Zarko in the back. My tires crunched as we slowly rolled up the driveway. Maybe 20 yards in, a man waved us to a halt, a black silhouette in the headlights. His bent left arm strummed and fingerpicked the air.

“Stojan,” I heard Mila murmur behind me, but I already knew it was him. Stojan stuck his head inside my window. I smelled stale garlic, and something faintly fruity, like incense, which was odd. His eyes darted and jumped, until they landed on Zarko. They exchanged maybe three Serbian words before he waved us on up the driveway.

We continued in strained silence.

“Okay,” I finally said. “As far as I can tell, we’ve disabled most of the soldiers in this little army. So unless I’m missing something, I expect this won’t take long.”

Zarko snorted. “You miss!” he said. “Miss everything.”

“Shut up!” Mila was a coiled spring of tension.

I thought about Zarko’s words. They changed nothing. Either way, I’d given Bill my word that I’d protect Sasha and Mila. I’d see this thing through to the end.

“Mila, you have to promise me. Promise me this isn’t a mission of revenge.”

“I already tell you. Not revenge,” she said. “The truth.”

“Okay. The moment you have it, I’m calling the police.”

I’d locked my Wilson in the glove compartment, and I kept it there. No way would I be allowed to walk anywhere with a hand cannon. But I made sure to retrieve the Airlite from Sasha.

The driveway ended at a huge, boxy, modernistic house, still under construction. Scaffolding and ladders crisscrossed the outside walls, metal bracings supporting a hollow frame.

I was wrong. There was at least one more soldier, if you could call him that—he was from a different tribe entirely. White and lanky, his skin was pale and smooth, like a baby’s. He wore a kind of tunic, and his neck was so thin you could see the ridged cartilage and the small knob bobbing up and down in his throat.

He opened the back door of the Tahoe. He leaned inside and took Zarko’s arm, pulling him through the opening with one long tug. Zarko bit back a yelp, and fresh blood bloomed on the bandage wrapping his thigh.

For the most part, the man in the tunic seemed almost deferential, treating the rest of us more like guests than a carload of trouble. He didn’t even frisk me, and I regretted leaving the Wilson behind, though the feel of the Airlite in my jeans pocket gave some comfort. The air smelled of smoke.

He ushered the four of us inside, to an unfinished space of exposed beams and sawdust. Two floor lamps were plugged into exposed sockets.

The finished fireplace against the wall was full of ashes and soot, and empty filing boxes lay scattered on their sides nearby. Two laptops were askew, their screens smashed into spidery shards.

“Wait here.”

He left us to stare at a small television set in the corner, and a soccer game underway, with the sound off. Moments later, Stojan walked inside. He opened two folding metal chairs and set them in the middle of the room, facing right.

“Sit,” he said to Zarko. He lowered into the other chair, left-hand fingers twitching and plucking.

Zarko and Stojan exchanged a long look before turning to look straight ahead. They looked like a couple of kids awaiting punishment.

The blue flickering light of the television was distracting. I wished I could turn it off.

Mila had had enough.

“Stojan! You tell me,” Mila said. “Now.”

He answered in Bosnian.

“No,” Sasha said. “Speak English, Uncle Stojan.”

Stojan started, as if realizing who the boy was for the first time. He seemed a little zoned out to me, high maybe, although I hadn’t smelled anything worse than mild garlic on him when he leaned into the car. “Okay. I speak English. Tell you what, Mila?”

“Zarko is injured. He needs a hospital. Stop playing, Stojan.”

“I ask you again. Tell you what? Why you come here?”

“Because it had to be you,” Mila said, almost in tears. “And I want to know why.”

Stojan’s fingers curled and plucked.

“You do not understand,” he said.

“But Zarko says that he did not kill my father.”

“And so?”

Mila’s eyes filled. “Why, Stojan? He was a good man. Why did you have to kill him?”

Stojan turned his head away. Plucking, plucking.

Mila said, “Please, look me in the eye!”

“You look in wrong place,” a female voice said from the shadows, and Irena stepped into the room. “Always.”

“Mother?” Mila turned toward her mother. “Here? But …”

Irena’s eyes were black obsidians. She wore another caftan-like tunic, this one ice blue, down to the floor, with the same combination of one short and one long sleeve. Her headscarf was gauzy and gray and framed her face like fog.

“I am the one. I kill your father.”

Mila howled, lunging toward Irena before buckling, just at her feet. She clutched at Irena’s hem. “Why? Why?”

A movement from Stojan. I wheeled, my hand on my Airlite, but he’d only pulled a necklace from beneath his shirt. He was rocking back and forth, his lips moving. I stared at the strand of carved prayer beads.

What is going on?

“Your father could have lived. But he refuse to understand. The world is broken, Mila. I try to tell you. Only evil can save us now.”

Mila shrank from her mother’s gaze. Irena’s eyes had lost their center—they were like spinning platters of dead light. It occurred to me she had actually slipped off the bindings of sanity.

“Your father think he can stop us. But nothing stop us. You will see.”

She reached into a fold of robe. As if in slow motion, I saw the hand come out, the cold blue steel of a gun barrel at the other end of it.

“Mila, move!”

Everything happened at once. Me tackling Sasha, pinning him under my body. Mila scrambling away on her hands and knees. Irena blasting a hole in Stojan’s chest, then two more in Zarko, one in the throat, one in the heart.

She pointed the barrel of death at me.

Palden Lhamo, protect me.

Irena smiled, a strange, demonic mixture of ecstasy and hate.

“On kaže da ti kažem da on dolazi,”
she said.

She pressed the muzzle under her chin, pulled the trigger, and sent herself to another space and time, or maybe to nowhere at all.

Three bodies: a mother, and her two sons. Three reprehensible acts of violence.

And still, more questions. Why had she spared Mila and Sasha? Why had she spared me?

A thought crashed me into action. “The other guy! Where is he?”

I ran outside. He lay by the front door, his throat gashed, the knife still in his hand.

I called 911.

My mind spun crazily, tipping first in one direction, then another. Sasha walked outside and stood next to me. I placed my palm against his back.

The action steadied us both.

Sasha spoke, his voice cracking. “I can’t … I just didn’t expect …”

“I know,” I said. “No one could have.”

Mila’s soft sobs drifted to where we stood outside.

“But what do I do with this?” Sasha said.

I thought about his question. The answer came easily.

“You’ve already done it, Sasha, by being who you are. You’ve already stopped the cycle. Now let the rest go.”

He nodded. Once again, distant sirens approached. This time, I would stay put and try to help explain this madness as best I could.

“Ten?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to know what she said to you? It doesn’t really make sense.”

I thought about it. I could let the rest go, too. But Irena’s message, however meaningless, had been meant for me.

“Yes,” I said. “What did she say?”

“On kaže da ti kažem—da on dolazi.”

“And what does it mean?”

“He says to tell you—he’s coming.”

C
HAPTER
32

“Where are we going?” Julie was jumping up and down in her seat like a little kid, like Maude on her way to the pony rides in Griffith Park.

“You’ll see.” I reached over and patted her knee. The throaty growl of the Shelby provided the perfect background
thrum
to my singing heart.

I’d decided to take the back route, which meant we exited onto Stadium Way.

“Is it Dodger Stadium? Are we meeting Bill and Sasha at the game?”

“Good guess, but no.”

Back in June, before everything went upside down and inside out, Bill’s biggest problem had been the absolutely abysmal start of his beloved Dodgers’ baseball season. Expectations had been through the roof, but as he kept moaning to me, they’d skidded right to the cellar in April, and stayed there ever since.

But now it was late September, and the team had gone on a crazy winning streak that defied all logic and went against all odds.

Proving to me, at least, that baseball, like life, required the same letting go of expectations to really allow enjoyment.

Bill had quickly roped Sasha in. As long as game days didn’t interfere with Sasha’s training program—he’d been accepted, with a little departmental strong-arming by Bill, as a police cadet, the first step to becoming a rookie in the force—they were either glued to the television or, on mini-plan days, yelling and whooping in Bill’s upper reserve seats.

Martha and I had agreed this was a good thing, as it took the pressure off those of us who maybe didn’t share Bill’s fanaticism.

Mila, meanwhile, had returned to Sarajevo, along with the ashes of her family. She’d buried them next to her stepfather, and planned on returning to medical school, to finally become a doctor. Her hope was to join Doctors Without Borders as soon as she could.