The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective: Tenzing Norbu Mystery) (10 page)

As I settled into a deep embrace of an overstuffed sofa, on cue my phone signaled an incoming text.

I’
M HERE
, I read. H
OLY SHIT.

In a moment, Bill joined me, escorted by a still-grumpy Otilia.

“You want coffee?” she repeated, and left without waiting for an answer. Bill raised his eyebrows at me, but we didn’t have a chance to talk before the whirr of a small motor signaled more company. A glowering Señor Beefy helped guide a fancy, state-of-the-art wheelchair into the room, Julius enthroned in it like a king.

I tried to control the shock on my face. This Julius looked his age, and more so. His head lolled slightly to one side, and his body swayed back and forth, like a cobra following a flute. What had happened to him? As he waved his keeper out of the room, Otilia marched in with another tray, this one bearing mugs of coffee for Bill and me, and a small sandwich, cut into quarters, for Julius. She held a section up to his mouth. He took a bite.

“Next time, you no wait so long for your medicine, Señor Julius,” she scolded. “You see what happens.”

“I promise, Otilia.” Julius’s voice was meek and hard to understand. “Thank you. I can eat the rest on my own.” Before Otilia left, she grabbed a small throw pillow from an armchair and tucked it behind Julius’s back. Her stern mask dropped, leaving a face blazing with protective love. Interesting.

I introduced Bill. Julius was gracious, though his energy level was noticeably dimmed.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “You’re here about Marv Rudolph, Tenzing told me. What do you want to know?” The words ran together, as if he were speaking through mesh.

“Anything would be helpful,” Bill said. “For starters, what was your relationship with Mr. Rudolph?”

“My relationship?” Julius snapped. “Marv Rudolph was a thieving, lying sonofabitch, and I’m glad he’s gone. I’m not exactly proud of that, but, hell, if Los Angeles had a law against
Schadenfreude
the jails would be overflowing.”

Bill and I smiled as Julius swiped at the corners of his mouth with a napkin, his hand shaking. “And in case you’re wondering, I have an alibi.”

Bill shot him a look. “Sir, we haven’t told you Rudolph’s time of death yet.”

“Doesn’t matter. I haven’t left this property in three years.”

Bill’s cop-eyes narrowed at that. He decided to move on. “Do you know how he died?”

Julius shook his head. “The paper said ‘under suspicious circumstances.’ That’s all I know, or care to. Why?”

Bill said, “Well, it’s just that there are still quite a few missing pieces.” He sat back and opened his notebook. I decided to jump in.

“According to Mrs. Rudolph, her husband was quite passionate about a film project,
Loving Hagar
.”

Julius stiffened.

“I understand you might have been one of its backers . . . “ Bill shot me a look:
News to me,
it said.

Julius’s neck flushed red. “That fucking liar! I never put one penny into that movie. After that scumbag did what he did, I wouldn’t touch the movie, or him, with a ten-foot pole.” Julius’s right hand rubbed at an area just under the left forearm. Almost exactly where . . .

“Julius,” I said. “Did Marv ever show you his tattoo?”

Julius stared at me, his head swinging left to right to left to right. “After doing business in this town for fifty-plus years, I thought I’d seen everything, but Marv and his tattoo, that took the goddamn cake.” His fingers fumbled with the button at his left cuff.

“Do you mind?” he asked me. “The dyskinesia messes with my coordination.”

I unbuttoned the cuff, and he pushed up his shirtsleeve, exposing a faded blue tattoo on the pale underside of his forearm. Numbers.

His right thumb brushed across them, as if trying to rub them out.

“What were you doing when you were ten years old?” he asked Bill.

Bill’s smile was wry.

“Encino. Mrs. Landreth’s fifth grade class, God help me,” Bill said. Julius turned to me.

“Ummm. In a monastery in Dharamshala, memorizing Buddhist texts,” I said.

Julius pulled down his sleeve. “I was teaching my little sister, Sadie, that two times two equals four, in a hayloft near the Polish border. A fine place to hide, if you didn’t mind frostbite and rats. We lasted maybe six months before the Nazis caught us.”

“Where were your parents?” I asked.

His eyes flickered. “Smoke and ash,” he said. “The last memory I have of them was my father stuffing my pockets with oatmeal, raisins, and some gold coins, and my mother screaming at me to take Sadie and run.” His voice faltered. He glanced back and forth at Bill and me. “How did we get to talking about all this?”

“The tattoo on Marv’s arm.” Bill’s voice was gentle.

“Right, the tattoo,” He looked at the floor. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “This sort of thing has been happening to me a lot lately. What was I saying?”

Most of our experience with interviews entailed getting people to tell us things they didn’t want to. Our training didn’t cover what to do when somebody wants to tell you something but can’t figure out how to do so.

“Something about Marv Rudolph,” Bill offered.

Heat flooded Julius’s face. “That fucking liar! Three, four years ago, Marv called about pitching me a movie, a real passion project. Nothing new there—I probably listen to twenty or thirty pitches a year. This one did sound special: a love story between a Palestinian refugee and a third-generation Auschwitz survivor. Right up my alley, and I told Marv so. But Dorothy had just been diagnosed, so I wished him luck and passed. He and his wife, Arlene, had met Dorothy. In a moment of weakness I opened up, told him a little of our story, and that bastard used the information to connect with me. Right after Dorothy died, here comes Marv. He plants himself right where you’re sitting, puts his head in his hands, and starts sobbing.”

Bill and I exchanged looks. Didn’t sound like the Marv we knew.

“I’m sitting there wondering what the hell is going on, and all of a sudden Marv’s rolling up his sleeve and showing me his tattoo.”

Julius paused to take a small bite of sandwich. My breath caught.
Please, we’re so close. Don’t lose track again.

“So then he says we’re like brothers because we were both in the camps, and now he’s lost everything again, and this movie’s probably career suicide, but he has to make it to honor everyone we lost and to show the power of love over evil.”

Julius spat the next words out. “And you know what? He hooked me. Dorothy had just died, and the son-of-a-bitch reeled me in like a fish. If I’d thought about it for ten seconds I’d have realized he was too young to be a survivor, but I wasn’t thinking straight, was I? And the truth is, I’ve done business with the best brass-ball bullshit artists in the world. Wasserman, Kerkorian, Shainberg, Weintraub—you name them, I’ve danced with them. But not one of them would have had the goddamned chutzpah to tattoo numbers on his arm and pretend to be a survivor, just to close a fucking movie deal!”

He made a sound of disgust. “I committed five million then and there, including a million up front to get things started.
Shmendrik!
” His mouth was ringed in white.

“How did you discover the tattoo was fake?” I asked.

“You mean when did I come to my senses? The next morning. Something wasn’t sitting right. I called my lawyers,” Julius said. “Within hours one of them calls me back. ‘You’re right. Marv Rudolph was nowhere near the camps. He was born and raised in the Bronx. Plus, he’s been lying about his age.’ ‘So what else is new?’ I said. ‘Everyone in this town shaves a few years off.’ ‘No,’ my lawyer said, ‘Marv’s started listing his age as ten years
older.’

“I had to hand it to that asshole. Unlike your normal craven person working in Hollywood, where thirty is the new fifty, and anything older might as well be a death knell, he tacks ten years
onto
his age.” Julius leaned close. “Want to know the worst-kept secret in Hollywood? Surviving the Holocaust brings you great . . . “ Julius used his fingers as quotation marks, “‘. . .street cred’ out here. Even better than rehab.” His mouth twitched with humor, and the anger drained out of him. “Marv confessed he’d gotten the tattoo somewhere in the San Fernando Valley.”

“The San Fernando Valley?” I jotted that down.

“Yeah. A long way from Auschwitz. I pulled out of the deal, then and there.” His voice slurred. I concentrated. I didn’t want to miss a word. “Marv and I never spoke again.”

Julius ducked his chin into his chest. His eyes drifted shut. “Anything else I can help you with? I’m sorry; I’m feeling a bit tired.”

Bill stood up and I followed his lead. “Just to recap, Mr. Rosen,” Bill said, “You didn’t kill Marv Rudolph, and you have no idea who did.”

“I like you two,” Julius answered, his voice dreamy. “You don’t beat around the bush like most people.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rosen.” Bill said. “So, that would be a ‘No,’ would it?”

“Yes. That would be a ‘No.’”

On our way out, I paused. “If you don’t mind me asking, sir,” I said, “why haven’t you left the property for the last few years?”

Julius roused himself. One trembling hand offered a vague wave in the direction of the oil painting of Dorothy hanging over the fireplace. “That woman was my lifeline,” he said. “She was the one facing out, running interference for me. After she died, I just . . . I couldn’t . . . “ His mouth twisted. “The truth is, I don’t like people all that much. Never have.” His body shrugged. “Ironic, isn’t it? Me being such a big philanthropist and all. Anyway, there it is. What can you do?”

My jaw tightened. I dislike that phrase
What can you do?,
or, as my highly eloquent contemporaries put it:
Whatever.
The shrug, the attitude, dismisses any possibility of things changing. It’s self-perpetuating paralysis.

And one of your own worst character flaws, Tenzing. So have a little compassion.

I relaxed my jaw muscles. My heart reached toward the frail man in his wheelchair, a gentle and tentative reminder that lifelines can come from more than one source. But Julius was fast asleep, awareness doused, like a lamp. He snored gently.

Bill had parked his car next to mine. We traversed the curved driveway together. His cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen, and his expression flattened.

“Yes?” he said into the phone. “Yes, chief. No, no we haven’t, chief. We’re still waiting on the ME’s report. We’re hoping to release the body later today.” He glanced at me. “Yes, sir, he is.” He listened, his neck turning a dull red. “No, sir, that won’t be necessary. Sully and Mack are already on it.” We reached our cars. Bill’s phone was still pressed to his ear, and he shifted from foot to foot. Finally he said, “I understand, Chief, but we’re moving as fast as we can.” Bill ended the call. He kicked at the gravel. “I fucking hate fucking celebrity homicides,” he muttered.

“So listen,” I said. “I spent a little time on the Internet getting more information on Marv, and . . . “

“On whose authority?” Bill interrupted.

“What?”

“On whose authority? Did the Chief call you?”

“No,” I said. “I just thought you might like a little help.”

“I’ll let you know when I need help, Ten. I’ve got too many cooks as it is.”

Too many . . . cooks? What was he talking about? “I don’t understand.”

“Fuuuck,” Bill groaned.

I waited.

“Ahh! Never mind.” He shook frustration off like a wet dog. “I’ll see you tonight, okay? You’ll be happy to know Martha made me invite what’s-her-name. Blondie.”

If he was trying to distract me, it worked.

“Heather? Heather’s coming?”

“Yeah. Heather. So happy birthday to you. Oh, wait. That would be my wife who turned forty today.” He clapped me on the shoulder, climbed into his car, and sped off.

I leaned against the Mustang, absorbing this new piece of information. On balance, I was glad, though it meant I wouldn’t be nearly as relaxed tonight. I made a vow to leave enough time this afternoon to meditate, as well as shower.

I checked my messages before I started driving. I had three. The first was from Verizon, letting me know I could save more money by spending more money. I deleted it. The second was from my new best friend, Clancy Williams.

“Hey, Ten, yeah, so, I’ve been thinking things over. And I guess I want to help. Just to let you know, Arlene Rudolph hasn’t left the house all day, but the kid, Harper? She took off in one of the family cars this afternoon. Yeah. So, I decided to follow her. Maybe get some grief-shots, or why-isn’t-she-grieving shots. Like that. But anyway, she’s led me somewhere interesting. Call me.”

My heart rate accelerated from stroll to jog. I called Clancy, but it went straight to voice mail. “
Yo, Clancy here. Wassup?
”

“Clancy? Where are you? Call me back.”

The third message was from Heather.

“Hi,” she said, her voice shy. “So Bill invited me his wife’s fortieth tonight, and, umm, I was wondering if you knew what Martha might like for a present? I’ve never met her, so . . . Anyway, if you could help with that, I’d appreciate it. Thanks, oh wait, here’s my number, oh wait, I’m calling your cell, so, well, just call this number, okay? God. Okay, then. Bye.”

I smiled at her awkwardness. I knew that clumsy-message feeling well. You might even say I invented it. My smile faded. I’d completely forgotten about getting Martha a present.

Before I devolved into full-scale panic, I closed my eyes, sensing my way into the essence of Martha.

Her warmth—that was key. Also her humor and innate creativity—Martha’s flower arrangements, culled from her own garden, were little works of art. She was a fabulous cook, too, famous back in the day for her gourmet gatherings for close friends and hungry detectives. And her stamina was legendary. Martha had worked full time as a court reporter right up until she had the twins. I used to tease her, call her Durga, after the Hindu many-armed goddess. And she was stylish, though maybe a little less so since the twins came along. Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember the last time I saw her dressed in anything but sweats.

Right. Something to wear. Something elegant and fiery. One-of-a-kind. A reminder that her Durga-like flame wasn’t out, just banked by motherhood for a little while. I knew just where to go look.