The First Rule of Ten (10 page)

I changed into dark jeans, a navy T-shirt, and a black windbreaker. Grabbed my Jackass Rig shoulder holster and the Wilson out of the closet. Good thing I cleaned my Supergrade this morning—the tritium night sights might come in handy. My pulse quickened at the thought.

I took my beater car, rather than putting unnecessary rattles through the Mustang’s 40-year-old suspension. The ancient Toyota had proved virtually indestructible, and was my preferred set of wheels for harsh terrain. I figured Antelope Valley qualified.

By the time I got to Van Nuys it was closing in on darkness. Freda Wilson’s house was tucked in a cul-de-sac of one-story bungalows, front lawns studded with “For Sale” signs. People were hit hard here. I felt for them. When things are going well in the economy, it’s easy to justify paying half a million for a two-bedroom box on a quarter acre of dirt. You can sell it in a year or two and make enough to maybe buy yourself an SUV. But when things stop going well, and stay stopped until you can’t remember a time you weren’t worried, you wake up one day and wonder,
What the hell was I thinking?

I looked around. How many of these sellers would become walkaways next? Laid off. Mortgages under water. Only one choice left, to disappear into the night. I shook off the thought. Getting a little too close to my own situation, as of last week.

A battered pickup truck lay askew in the Wilsons’ driveway. A skateboard leaned against the front porch. I sat outside for a couple of minutes, to get myself in the right frame of mind. I’ve found I can learn a lot from uncoached responses to an unexpected visitor. Some people are pissed. Others, curious. They may flare with suspicion or shrink with fear. The possibilities are infinite—just the kind of situation I like. I took a few deep inhales; then headed up the concrete walkway to the front door.

No bell. I knocked on the peeling wood.

After a few minutes, a lanky, gaunt-faced man opened the door. He was wearing a stained white undershirt, polyester track pants, and the dejected look of the long-term unemployed.

“Yes?” he said.

I introduced myself and volunteered my hand, which he stared at for a moment before giving it a perfunctory shake. I don’t claim to be able to see auras, but this poor guy was emitting waves of depression like smoke.

“Wesley Harris,” he said.

A husky voice came from behind him. “Who is it, honey?”

I peered over his shoulder and saw a middle-aged woman wiping her hands with a dish towel. She wore a shapeless tunic over leggings. Her face was still lovely, but there was little else of the “looker” left. Dark smudges of fatigue underlined her eyes. Her hair, dyed fuchsia, spiked upward in a jagged butch-cut.

“Freda?” I asked. “Freda Wilson?”

“Freda Harris, now,” she answered and moved to Wesley’s side. They both stared at me.

They weren’t scared. They weren’t suspicious. They were … absent. Like optimism had long since left the premises.

“May I come in for a moment?”

Wesley roused himself enough to shake his head. “We can talk here.”

A teenager with a stringy ponytail and a face pocked with acne slouched into the foyer to suss out the situation. One look at the three of us and he rolled his eyes and wheelied out of there as if we were contaminated. And Martha wonders why I don’t want kids.

Freda and Wesley listened as I explained that I was a private detective looking into an issue with royalties. The moment the word
royalty
came out of my mouth, I saw anticipation surge in Wesley’s face.

“You found something? You have money for us?” he said. He put his arm around Freda and squeezed. “Well, hallelujah. It’s about time.”

I felt a stab of anger at TFJ & Associates, for putting me in this position. Once again, I was bearing bad news.

“I’m not representing TFJ and Associates. I’m investigating them. For possible fraud.”

“I don’t understand,” Freda said. “We haven’t heard a peep about the royalties in a long time. Now you show up talking about fraud? I’m confused.”

Wesley’s shoulders slumped. “Maybe you’re confused,” he said. “Not me. Nothing’s changed.” He walked back into the house. From behind, he looked like an old man.

Freda’s eyes followed him, darkened with sorrow. She fingered a gold cross hanging around her neck as she turned back to me. She coughed the deep, hacking cough that told me she was, or had been, a heavy smoker. “Don’t mind him,” she said. “Now, what’s this fraud business about?”

I told her my suspicions concerning Florio’s dealings with Zimmy Backus and Buster Redman. She smiled slightly when she heard the two names.

“I never met Zimmy, but me and Buster, we did a few shows together.” The look in her eyes told me she was drifting off into memory-land.

“Did you get a visit from a Tommy Florio?” I asked, reeling her back.

“Sure did. We signed a contract with him last year. He was supposed to go after some money he claimed the record company had stolen. Since then, nothing.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” I said, “how much was he talking about?”

“Well, he said it could be a hundred thousand dollars. I found that pretty hard to believe. I never had but two songs you could call hits.” She coughed again. “Sorry. Last of the flu. I’m not contagious.”

Freda glanced back at the house. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “I still have to put supper on the table.”

I thanked her for her time. Wesley had long since disappeared inside, and I didn’t think he’d mind if I left without saying good-bye to him.

I ruminated in my car for a minute or two. My conversation with Freda led me to one inescapable conclusion, and it was the same conclusion I’d reached after talking to Beulah Redman: Buster and Freda were worth a lot more dead than alive. Mike hadn’t yet found an insurance payout to TFJ from Buster’s death, but I was reasonably sure one would turn up. On the good-news side, Freda’s policy had been in effect for a year and she was still very much alive, and Buster’s death was uncontested.

What if there wasn’t any foul play involved? What if Florio took out the policies because Buster was old, Freda was a smoker, and Zimmy was a recovering addict? It made payouts a pretty good bet. Maybe what they were doing was shady, but not actually illegal. I needed to know more before I could make a realistic assessment of everything, especially whether Freda was in any immediate danger.

As I reached for the ignition, doubt flickered a warning in my gut and my hand paused.

Why threaten Zimmy, then? Follow the First Rule, Tenzing. Don’t let the tickle come back as a gut-punch. Here’s a perfect opportunity
.

I climbed out of the car, hurried to the front door, and knocked before I could talk myself out of it. As I waited, I scribbled my cell phone number on the back of an envelope. I was going to need business cards soon.

Wesley opened the door, his eyes lifeless. I handed him the envelope.

“Call me if Tommy Florio gets in touch,” I said, “or for any other reason. You both take good care, okay? I mean it.” Wesley’s eyes met mine, and for a moment his face brightened, as if remembering what mattering to another human being felt like.

It was nearly 11:00 when I finally turned off the highway onto the gravel road I hoped would lead to the Children of Paradise headquarters. I’d arrived here without a hitch; now I just had to figure out what the heck I was hoping to accomplish.

If I were back at the monastery, I’d already be asleep at this time of night—we were in bed by nine and up at four. But the Children of Paradise were not exactly a conventional religious community. What would
they
be doing at this hour? This being Southern California, they might not even be climbing out of their hot tubs yet.

I rolled along the gravel past acres of trees planted in rows. Fruit trees, maybe. It was hard to tell. The branches were bare, and the withered trunks, washed by moonlight, looked forlorn and ghostly. I wondered if this was their normal state, or if they had been attacked by some disease. Maybe they had simply succumbed to the recession like everything else.

My tires crunched down the road for a little over three miles when I spotted a broken-down building to one side. It was divided into stalls that looked like they had once stabled horses. A quarter mile farther along, a driveway was blocked by a padlocked gate. A hand-lettered wooden sign nailed over the entrance announced:

CHILDREN OF PARADISE SANCTUARY Visitors by Appointment Only 661-555-9040

I punched the digits into my cell phone. I had no intention of calling them tonight, but who knows what Mike could do with a phone number?

I decided to drive past the sign, in hopes of discovering another point of entry. Sure enough, within half a mile I spotted a little dirt road on the right. I turned onto it, killing the headlights, and bumped my way along deep ruts, finally steering my way up a small incline. I parked at the summit and was treated to my first view of Paradise.

I took off my windbreaker. Slipped my holster over my left shoulder and nested the Wilson safely under my arm. Put my windbreaker back on. I pulled a Maglite XL100 out of the glove compartment, fed it fresh batteries, and stashed it in my pocket. Added my Microtech H.A.L.O.—a knife favored by film crews as much as cops—for good measure. I didn’t necessarily expect any trouble, but when you’re nosing around other people’s property in the dark, there’s a certain comfort in having a mini-arsenal within reach. I turned my car around, aiming its nose for the exit, stepped outside, locked it, and moved closer to get a better look.

This particular Eden was definitely a down-market version, the rustic model where angels occupied canvas yurts. Beyond the waist-high fence, set at the base of the hill, I counted eight of the domed tents, each about 20 feet in diameter. The structures were dark and quiet. Toward the rear of the compound loomed a larger yurt, nearly twice the size of the others. Light glowed from its windows.

I patted the comforting contours of my underarm cannon and vaulted the waist-high fence. It felt good to be back in action. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the hum and buzz of adrenaline in my bloodstream. This particular high was even better than the standard cop-speed, because what I was doing was not, shall we say, strictly legal. In my mind I heard Bill’s voice chiding me: “Not strictly legal? Try one hundred percent illegal.” I thanked him and proceeded down the hill toward the yurts.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I grabbed it and flipped it open next to my mouth. Mike’s timing couldn’t have been worse.

“Not now!” I hissed.

There was a pause.

“All righty, then,” I heard Julie say. “Guess I’ll catch you later.”
Click
.

Great.

I called right back, but her voice mail picked up.

“Sorry about that,” I said after the tone, keeping my voice low. “I thought you were someone else…. I mean someone I work with. A guy, a guy I work with …” Why did I call back? Holy crap but I got goofy around this woman. “Anyway, I’m right in the middle of … this thing. I’ll call you later.”

I turned off my cell and stowed it in my pocket. Sighed. My buzz was killed. It wasn’t her fault, but as I picked my way down the hill to Paradise, I found myself blaming Julie anyway.

C
HAPTER
11

The night was cloudless. The full, fat moon spread a blanket of silvery light over the dirt pathway, so my Maglite stayed in my pocket as I worked my way downhill. Crickets sawing a concerto filled the night air with a peaceful rhythm—until I neared the illuminated yurt and heard two angry male voices coming from inside.

I approached from the rear, edging around the perimeter until I reached a window, more of a tent flap, really, with netting to keep the bugs outside. There was no shortage of them here: the mosquitoes dive-bombing my face and arms were intent on a midnight snack.

I sidled up to the flap and peered in. Two men were conversing on the opposite side of the yurt. I couldn’t hear the particulars, but their tone was contentious, the volume rising and falling in tandem with the vacillating tension. The man on the left slouched back in his chair, beefy arms crossed behind his head. Even sprawled, he managed to be imposing. He was in his early 50s, sporting a long white robe of thin cotton, and none too clean. His shaved head gleamed with menace, and his jutting auburn beard moved when he talked.

Crude swords decorated with some sort of scrollwork covered both forearms—primitive blue-inked symbols that shouted time behind bars. A geometric, X-shaped structure composed of small rectangles, like some sort of molecular compound, straddled the nape of his neck. I had never seen a tattoo quite like it. His hands were huge, big as mitts, with flat, spatulate thumbs. Squat toes, wiry with red knuckle hairs, poked out of a pair of leather sandals. His ruddy face looked calm enough under the steady torrent of words from his companion, but I sensed that inside, a suppressed fury was ticking away like a time bomb.

As cult members go, he was a lousy poster boy.

The second man, spidery-thin but with a small paunch, was at least two decades younger. He also had on the white robe and sandals, but he had accessorized his outfit in a unique, attention-getting way: a double-barreled shotgun slung loosely over the crook of one arm. His elder didn’t look worried, though, and the acolyte seemed more clueless than threatening.

I was dying to know what they were saying. I spotted a second window-flap across the way, so I ducked out of sight and inched my way around the structure, doing my best to mimic Tank’s stealth when stalking a lizard. They were right by the opening, too close to risk taking a peek. I hunkered underneath to eavesdrop.

Shotgun was talking. “You keep saying it’s not time yet, but when’s the time ever gonna come?” He had a high, raspy, three-pack-a-day voice.

“You and I both know that God’s in charge of that,” said Thumbs. His low rumble betrayed no trace of the irritation I’d sensed—apparently he was used to dealing with impatient disciples. The cadence suggested some sort of foreign accent, but I couldn’t identify the origin.

“That’s what’s got me wondering,” Shotgun whined.