The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective: Tenzing Norbu Mystery) (3 page)

Harper jumped in. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. How about if we just pay you some money and you go away?”

“Babe, he’s not going to do that. He works for your dad, okay?” Keith’s voice was patient.

He stood up and closed the doors. Scooping a rumpled pair of gray cashmere sweatpants from the floor, he stepped into them, cinching them with one hand. Harper’s minuscule panties and featherweight tank top left little—no, make that nothing—to the imagination. With her slim hips and small, firm breasts, she was beautiful, in a waifish orphan kind of way. My taste in women tends toward the voluptuous, not to mention legally aged, but there was no denying it: the girl was hot.

I was a monk, not a saint.

I quickly turned my attention back to Keith. He gave me a half wink, as if to say, “See what I have to deal with?”

“So, detective,” he drawled. “What’s Marv paying you, anyway?”

I found myself wanting to impress him. “I get five grand a day for jobs like this, three-day minimum.”

His eyes widened. I guess he momentarily forgot his own day rate. He gave me a friendly nod. He’d decided to have a little chat, man to man.

“Okay, so now, let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re pretty much obligated to go back to Marv and tell him you found Harper here, and me about to bone her, right?”

“Pretty much,” I said.

In actual fact, I wasn’t sure about getting into the details. Fathers like Marv with sexually precocious daughters like Harper have enough to worry about. The fact that Keith was on Marv’s payroll further complicated things. I wasn’t exactly sure what my next move needed to be.

“Dude,” Keith said. “I’ve got twenty-thousand in cash in the top drawer of my dresser. I’ll hire you for four more days to forget all about this, and you can refund Marv’s money. Or you can keep his money, and take my twenty as a little bonus. I don’t care. I just don’t want to fuck up the movie. I don’t want any bad vibes between me and Marv.”

A $20,000 “little” bonus? He must have remembered his day rate after all.

Before I could respond, loud noises erupted down in the foyer. Heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs.

The double doors burst open for the second time, and there stood all 300 quivering pounds of Marv Rudolph, face clotted with rage.

As he swayed in the doorway, I was fascinated to see how wrath had transformed him. His left eyelid twitched, and a vein on his forehead swelled into a caterpillar of pulsing anger. Hot fury rippled from him like poisonous waves. Behind me, Harper whimpered.

An old monk’s teaching flickered through my mind:
When in doubt, breathe. When not in doubt, breathe
. I focused on my breathing. One. Two.

Before I got to three, Marv exploded. Screeching like a wounded pig, he broke for Keith, who desperately tried to scoot backward. Harper threw herself between her father and Keith. In the resulting collision, she and Marv tumbled to the floor. Keith leaped nimbly over them and trotted out of the bedroom, still holding his sweatpants up with one hand.

I stepped outside after him. He was at the stairs when Marv hurtled past me and made a diving tackle. No contest. Now Harper was screaming,
“Daddy Daddy Daddy”
at the top of her lungs, as Daddy and Keith bumped and slid down the stairs locked in a mutual choke hold. Finally they rolled to a halt on the landing. Both collapsed onto their backs.

“Fuck,” said Keith.

Marv was too winded to do much more than groan.

I was feeling pretty calm, calmer than they were, anyway. I took a seat on the bottom step and waited for Marvin’s panting to subside. Time for a little family mediation.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I told Marv. “But now that you are, you need to cool it. You’re going to hurt somebody, and the somebody I’m worried about is you.”

Marvin twisted his stubbled face toward me, then glanced away. “I can take care of myself,” he muttered. He pushed upright.

Keith, too, sat up, wincing.

“Does this mean I’m fired?” he asked Marv. I found the question absurd. Of course he was fired. Marv considered Keith’s answer longer than I would have.

“You do her?” Marv finally said.

“No!” Keith answered. “Swear to God, no. Ask the monk.”

Keith had assigned me a role in his personal movie: I was The Monk.

Marv grunted, mulling it over. Keith’s eyes entreated. Some wordless understanding passed between the film producer and his lead actor. Then: “Thanks, man,” Keith said. “I won’t let you down.”

Marv grunted again.

When it comes to how the movie business works, I know nothing.

I surveyed the scene: Marvin hunched on the floor, Keith clutching his ribs. A sullen, sniffling Harper, her cheeks striped with mascara, leaned against the banister, seemingly unconcerned with her father’s well-being or with the fact that she was the half-naked cause of all this.

Weariness fell over me like a heavy blanket. I wanted to go home. The sooner I took charge, the sooner I could leave. I stood up.

“Harper, go get dressed, please, then come right back.”

She glared at my authoritative tone but headed up the stairs.

“Marv, take Harper home and put her to bed. Then get some sleep yourself.” Marv stood, groaning under his breath.

“Keith, go into the kitchen and make yourself a cup of tea, if you know how. Sip it, and count your blessings.”

He shuffled into the kitchen, the too-long legs of his sweats dragging behind like reversed flippers.

“How did you figure out Harper was here?” I asked Marv.

“Two plus two equaled Keith,” Marv said. “She’s a star-fucker, just like everyone else in this town.”

I was sorry I’d asked. I marshaled the remaining revelers into the foyer. They were scattered throughout the downstairs like so many discarded empties.

“Party’s over,” I said. “And if I see one word of this on the Internet, I will not only track you down and have you arrested, I will serve your name to Marv Rudolph on a platter. And you don’t want Marv Rudolph as an enemy.”

They hustled out the door.

That was worth at least $5,000 in P.R. repair and maintenance right there. Operation Pothole, at your service.

It took me a few more minutes to shepherd the Rudolphs into Marv’s smoky gray Lexus, parked askew in the driveway. Touching. He drove an LS Hybrid. For over $100,000 he could be comfortable, as well as politically correct.

Father and daughter drove off together in stony silence. I went back inside for one last sweep. Everyone but Keith was gone. The house felt very empty.

“Hey,” Keith called from the kitchen. “Want a cup of Darjeeling?”

“I’m good,” I said. He rejoined me with his steaming mug.

With a sheepish smile, Keith offered, “I still want to pay you.”

“What for?”

“I owe you, man. Three more minutes and my big break would have gone right out the window.”

I thought it over for one, maybe two seconds. “Send it to the Tibet Foundation,” I said. “Twenty grand sponsors a lot of yaks.”

Brrtttt!
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket, buzzing me back to the present. Me. Deck. Returned letter from my friends. The air was chilly, the sky as dark as ink. Tank leapt off my lap and stalked into the house. I rotated my neck and shoulders. I was a little stunned at the almost total recall I had just experienced, especially after months had passed since I had closed the case.

I grabbed my phone and glanced at the screen.

“Hello, Detective,” I said.

“Hey, Ten. How goes it?”

“It goes, Bill. It goes. I was just out here on the deck, taking in the view, winding down.”

“Rub it in.”

So I did. “Let me ask you something, Bill. Can you feel deep down in your bones that this is the only moment there is?”

Without missing a beat, Bill came right back with, “Yeah, I was sitting here looking at crime scene photographs, when suddenly this little voice inside me says, ‘Hey Bohannon—this is the only moment there is.’”

“And what did you say to that little voice?”

He adopted the thundering voice of a Pentecostal preacher. “I just said, ‘
Thank ya, Buddha!’
”

Bill Bohannon, newly appointed LAPD Detective III, Robbery/Homicide, is my former partner and one of my oldest friends in Los Angeles. He and I weathered a lot of weirdness together as Detective II’s, including the ultimate male-bonding experience, shooting back at thugs who were trying to kill us. He’d recently moved to a desk job. Me? I’d just moved on. Bill didn’t waste any more time getting to the point—one of his many virtues.

“We’re working a homicide, Ten. Messy one. Came in late last night. Some big Hollywood producer.”

My skin began to tingle.

“The Captain thought I should give you a call.”

Of course he did.

“The victim is a guy by the name of Rudolph. Marvin Rudolph.”

Of course he is.

C
HAPTER
2

I pictured Marv the last time I saw him, face grim as granite as he drove his daughter home. All that angry bluster, and now he was dead.

“Any guesses on the COD?” I asked. Often the cause of death was pretty easy to determine at the crime scene.

“See, that’s what’s weird, Ten. Nothing is quite adding up.” Bill’s voice sounded strained, as if his chest muscles had constricted. I heard a high-pitched wail in the background, immediately joined by a second one, a lusty duet of protest from his twin toddlers, Maude and Lola.

“Damn it, Martha, I can’t think!” Bill yelled. Cop shoes clunked across the floor, and a door slammed shut.

My own chest tightened. This behavior from my normally unflappable friend was completely uncharacteristic. “Everything okay over there?” I said.

Either Bill didn’t hear me, or he wasn’t in the mood to respond.

“Bill?”

“Yeah, well, like I said, the crime scene makes no sense. Autopsy’s first thing tomorrow. They’ve put a rush on it—family’s super traditional Jewish, and the wife’s hoping to get the body buried before Saturday, though that will take a fucking miracle. Meanwhile, Marv is such a big shot in Hollywood, the media are swarming like a poked nest of hornets. I’d like to know how the hell I’m supposed to do my job when I can’t even walk into Headquarters without twenty microphones getting shoved in my face.” Bill’s voice was climbing the scales. I waited. Heard the unmistakable sound of chugging and the clink of a bottle being set down. Bill was drinking something. I was betting on beer. I thought yearningly of my own six-pack cooling in the fridge.

“Anyway, the Captain seems to think you might have known Rudolph.”

“I do,” I said. “I mean I did.” I gave Bill a recap of my interactions with Marv and his runaway daughter, Harper. If he was impressed with my total recall abilities, he kept it to himself.

“Okay. That helps,” he said, and hung up.

I stared at my phone in disbelief. Not even a thank you? Tank spilled off my lap onto the deck and executed one of his nose-down tail-up, full-body stretches. In yoga they call it the “downward dog,” but that’s just wrong. It’s a cat move, all the way. Tank padded over to the door and gave me his “where’s dinner?” look.

“Sorry, guy,” I said. “Not until I figure out what’s up with Bill.” Tank determined that the only proper response was to sit in front of the door and glare at me. It was like getting pinned by a pair of green headlamps.

I rotated my shoulders to dispel some of the muscle irritation as I called him back.

“Yes?” Bill sounded exhausted, and annoyance morphed into concern.

“Listen, I’d like to help,” I said. “I’m happy to take a look at the crime scene photos. How about I come to you first thing in the morning? I’ll even bring breakfast.”

Bill hesitated. My concern grew. The Bill I knew never turned down a free meal.

“I know I’m rusty, but maybe I’ll see something. Two sets of eyes and all that,” I added.

Bill sighed. “Okay. But for God’s sake don’t come here.” Bill’s laugh was more of a small, grim bark. “The girls are eating real food now, and half the time the kitchen looks like a grocery grenade went off. How about Langer’s?”

Langer’s, home of all manner of deliciously greasy meat products. The bane of vegetarians. “Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll bring the official investigation report I wrote up for Rudolph.”

“Unofficial, you mean. You get your license yet, Sherlock?”

“I passed the second retest, Bill. I told you.”

I fought off the urge to defend myself further. The truth is nine out of ten L.A. cops fail the P.I. exam. It turns out we know plenty about criminal proceedings but almost nothing about civil matters, which is all the state cares about. I’d like to see Bill correctly identifying all 58 counties in California, or what agency department manages marriage licenses. (Public health—go figure.)

“Now I’m just waiting for my liability insurance to come through,” I grumbled.

“Never mind,” Bill said. “I don’t want to know.”

“Wise response.” A second tart ripple of irritation spread through my body, this time aimed at idiotic bureaucracy. It seemed like every time I turned around, something else was standing between me and making my lifelong dream a permanent reality. My first two paying (well-paying, thank goodness) cases—the result, it now seemed, of beginner’s luck more than anything else—had turned into a good long stretch of nothing. Nothing, that is, but flunking the private investigator exam not once, but twice, at over $100 a try. Nothing but finding that the Captain’s final good-bye present, my LAPD “permit-to-carry,” didn’t preclude my owing another hefty gun permit fee to the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services. Nothing but having to take out a $1 million liability policy, merely because I had permission to own and conceal that same firearm, my Wilson Supergrade, which was costing me more than my mortgage. And finally, nothing but crawling to Simi Valley, steeped in humiliation, for private tutoring from another private eye, so I could actually pass the test, hang a shingle on my door, and join the 30,000-plus other private investigators now populating Los Angeles County who could actually charge for their services. Not for the first time, I thought longingly of Keith Connor’s $20,000 offer, long gone to a happy herd of Tibetan yaks.