The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective: Tenzing Norbu Mystery) (27 page)

This was a job for me, my Wilson Combat, and my clean-engined Shelby Mustang. I wasn’t getting caught with my pants down again. Within the hour, I was at the restaurant. I circled around to the back and cruised by its private parking lot, set in a narrow alley. A young attendant stood guard over luxury Beamers, Mercedes Benz SUVs, and a couple of high-end, fully loaded choppers. I checked, but I didn’t see Pretty Boy’s there.

I looped around again, and found Bill one block south, on the opposite side of the street. He had a clear sightline to the front of the restaurant. La Cantinela was a pristine stucco and stone structure the warm color of saffron. Like a beauty queen flanked by bums, it was tucked between a grimy pawnshop and a dilapidated check-cashing facility, both heavily tagged with the angry calling cards of rival gangs.

I pulled in behind Bill, glanced up and down the block, and slipped from my car into his. My Wilson lay snug under my windbreaker, tucked in the Jackass rig shoulder holster. Bill scanned La Cantinela with binoculars.

“Can’t see a fucking thing,” he grunted.

“I have an idea,” I said. “There’s a private lot in the back. How about you position yourself near there, in case anybody decides to do a quick split, while I go inside for a look.”

He thought that one over. “You know what I call that kind of plan?”

“What?”

“I call it ‘Ten having all the fun.’”

“Maybe, but what I don’t have is Thing One and Thing Two back at home.”

We’d had this debate before. I had a high desire to make sure Bill was around for the next 20 years. He had an equally high desire to prove that having kids hadn’t blunted his edge.

“How about this? Give me ten minutes. If you don’t see anyone taking off, including me, you can join me inside.”

“Deal.” Bill put away the binoculars and stuck on a Dodger cap. “Do I still look like a cop?”

“Yeah, a cop in a Dodger cap.”

He headed for the back alley. I strolled across First and up the block, and pushed inside the carved wooden doors marking the entrance. It may have been midday, but the room was dim. My eyes adjusted. The owner obviously had a lot of disposable income to spend on décor—the walls and floor were a stunning interplay of decorative tile and distressed wood. The hand-carved booths and tables were peopled with mostly well-dressed clientele of every nationality. Not your usual gangland eatery.

I noticed an opening in the far wall, the size and shape of a large picture frame. It overlooked the busy kitchen, where cooks in hairnets chopped, fried, and folded various ingredients. A waitress passed me with a tray of sizzling, skewered shrimp surrounded by an assortment of salsas. The scent made me rethink everything I thought I knew about shellfish and Mexican food. I wondered if being a vegetarian was such a good idea after all.

A dark-eyed beauty hurried up. “Do you have a reservation?”

“Didn’t know I needed one,” I answered.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re fully booked.”

I leaned closer. “Chaco didn’t say anything about making a reservation.”

She stared. “Wait here,” she said.

She scurried across the restaurant, ducked into a side door, and reappeared inside the kitchen. I drifted left, shifting my viewpoint, until I found her again, standing over a table at the back of the kitchen itself. Six men were seated at the table. She was bent close, talking to one who sat with his back to me. He was of stocky build, and his hair was slicked into a kind of ducktail. Something about him seemed familiar. Intensity radiated from him in waves. I sensed it from across the room.

Turn around. Turn around so I can get a good look at you.

He made a small gesture, and the girl shot a glance in my direction.

“Vayase,”
a voice hissed in my ear.

Way to stay alert, Tenzing.
He was about my age, but a lot worse for wear, with flat, high cheekbones, teeth rotted by a steady diet of meth, and a Gila monster tat curled around his neck. He was so in my face, I could have tallied up his acne scars for extra credit.

“That means get lost,” he said.

“What about my lunch?”

“Sorry. Kitchen closed.”

“Fine. I’ll just get a beer,” I said.

“Bar closed, too.” He moved even closer. He reeked. I thought about pulling my gun on him then and there. With body odor this deadly, I’d get off on self-defense.

Instead, I backed off. I didn’t want him to feel the Wilson rigged against my chest. No need to pour accelerant on the situation, especially with Bill two minutes from joining me.

“No problem. I’m going,” I said.

“Good,” he said, and started to walk away, his limp pronounced.

“Hey, Daniel?”

He turned, startled.

“Thunder sends his best.”

Before he could respond, I slipped outside and trotted around back to grab Bill.

“Time for us to vayase,” I said.

C
HAPTER
18

We drove to Langer’s for a late lunch. Jean herded us to a corner booth and loaded us up with coffee. I ordered an egg salad sandwich, and Bill went with his usual, pastrami with pastrami, and a side of pastrami. I provided Bill with a soundtrack to the silent drama I’d watched in the kitchen.

“So you think it was Chaco?”

“I never saw his face, but I’d say yes. Whoever he was, he was ‘the Man’ in there. And the presence of Daniel Morales is definitely suspicious.” I frowned. “I keep feeling like I’ve seen that guy Chaco before.”

“Mug shot? He’s been around a while.”

“Maybe.”

Jean plopped down our plates. She put her hands on her hips. “Ten-zing, don’t be mad, but look what I got.”

She pulled a little keychain out of her pocket. I squinted at the logo.

“L.A. County Sheriff’s Department? Jean, how could you go to the other side?” LAPD and County have kept a nice little feud going for years.

“Sheriff Baca gave it to me,” she said. “You’re not the only regular in here.” She lowered her voice. “He also gave me a little pillbox. Empty, unfortunately. Should I be worried?’

I laughed.

“Only if he asks you out for dinner.”

A man shouted from a nearby table. “Hey! Sweet Cheeks! Little service here, please?”

I met Jean’s eye. “You want Bill and me to help that fellow with his attitude?”

“Now, now, Ten-zing. You know what I always say. ‘Bless them, change me.’” Jean headed for the diner, armed with a smile.

“Have you ever considered a career change,” I called after her. “His Holiness the Dalai Lama is looking to retire soon.”

Bill’s phone buzzed.

“Yeah? Yeah. Be right there.” He stood up. “Captain needs me. Another gang-banger just turned up dead. Fifth this month.”

“Any idea what gang?”

“Does it matter?” He strode out.

I was itching to take action on some front, any front. I called Mike from the parking lot.

“Do you know,” he said, “that there are about eight hundred Sadie Rosens in the world, and nine of them live in Beverly Hills?”

“No, I did not know that,” I said. “Any luck on the refugee groups?”

“Maybe,” he said. “You can’t rush genius, boss.” He yawned. “I’m beat. I’ll get back on this tomorrow, okay?”

“Sleep tight.” I was getting another call. “Hello?’

“Hey, Ten. It’s Clancy. Clancy Williams.”

I waited.

“So listen, sorry about bailing on you the other day. I mean, fuck. Look at what I spend my days doing. I don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to moral superiority.”

“Who does?” I said.

“So anyway, I’ve been keeping an eye on the Rudolph home, but Harper’s pretty much been in lock-down since her one little escapade.”

I counted the days.

“Right. They’re still sitting shivah.”

“So I was just wondering if you, uh, if you can point me to some other work? I’ll do anything. Stake out anyone, anywhere.” He swallowed. “I’m desperate, man. The wife and I had a little sit-down today. We’re four months behind on the mortgage, and the bank won’t budge. Three years ago they couldn’t throw enough money at us, and now . . . “

“I can send you a couple hundred,” I said. “For work done.”

“Nah,” Clancy said. “Thanks, man, but a couple hundred isn’t going to cut it. I should pay you, for making me feel useful for once. Just keep me in mind for the future, a’right? And let me know how it all turns out.” He hung up gently, another potential drowning victim of the current financial tsunami.

It was too late for the freeway, so I tacked and jibbed down Sunset. I was almost at Pacific Coast Highway when my phone made a booping text-received sound. I needed gas anyway, so I pulled into the 76 Station at the base of Sunset. I checked the phone screen.

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND
? It read.

Well, maybe, but I didn’t much care for the tone. Then my phone buzzed, announcing an incoming call.

“Hello?”

“You get my text?” The voice belonged to Raul Martinez, aka Charles Raul Montoya, biker-lawyer extraordinaire.

“Yes.”

“Well, then, let me ask you again, hombre. Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Nobody’d ever called me “hombre” before. I tried it on for size. Hombre. Hombre Norbu. I liked it.

“Why didn’t you stay the hell away from those guys?” he pleaded and let out a sound somewhere between a grunt and a hiccup. It occurred to me he might be drunk.

“Raul, what’s going on?”

“Aw, fuck,” he said. A gull cried in the background.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“I’m up on the bluffs. Point Dume. You know it? S’beautiful here,” he slurred.

“What are you doing there?”

“None of your business.” He breathed heavily into the phone. “Not that it matters. I’m fucked from here to Sunday, either way.” He faded into silence.

Yeshe believes four simple words, when asked sincerely, are the fastest path to right action in certain situations, especially tricky ones.

It was worth a try.

“How can I help?”

“How can
you
help?” His laugh was bitter. “
You
want to help
me
.”

“You called me. Why?”

He said nothing.

I waited.

He sighed. “I want to get out.”

The moment had an electric quality. My skin tingled. A threshold had been crossed. I looked across the highway to the slow-rolling waves—the same waves Raul was watching. A flock of pelicans swooped and spun over the water.

“I’m looking out at the ocean,” I said. “I wonder where those waves started out.”

“Somewhere north. Alaska, maybe.” There was a long pause. “I hear it’s pretty there.”

“So, you want out,” I said.

“Yeah, but with this
hijo de puta,
you don’t just turn in a letter of resignation, tell him you’re moving on.”

“Right,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

He made a little half laugh. “Complicated. No shit.” I heard him take a swig of something.

“How about if I come to you?” I asked. “I can be there in fifteen minutes. We’ll talk this through.”

“Don’t bother,” he said. “They’ll never let me out. Not how it works, you know? I got nobody to blame but me—I dealt my own goddamned hand. This is it.”

This is it.
I put things together: the call, the drinking, the cliff. He was about to play the last card over which he had any control, the suicide card. I jumped in the car and peeled onto the coast highway. I plugged in my Bluetooth earpiece so I wouldn’t lose him. I figured I was about fifteen miles from Point Dume.

“Talk to me,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Tenshin. What kind of name is that?” he asked.

“Tibetan.” I pronounced it for him. “Now you try.” But his tongue was two swigs past the point of navigation.

“Just call me Ten,” I said.

“Might as well call me Charlie, then. My mother gave me that name.”

“You’re going back to your roots?”

“I guess you have to someday, don’t you?”

I said nothing.

“You and me, we’re not so different,” he added.

That was news to me, but I was too busy steering through Malibu at a high speed to disagree.

“The way I see it, we’re both refugees. Both trying to get to someplace, and away from someplace else at the same time. I saw that in you, up there at the Getty.”

I never turn down an insight, no matter what the source. It did feel odd, though, to be seen so clearly by a drunk thug preparing to jump off a cliff.

“I know what I’m running from,” he said, “but what’s a guy like you running from?”

A guy like me?

“What kind of a guy is that?” I asked.

His words drifted over the phone. “You know—a guy trying to do the right thing. A good guy. I never could figure out how that game worked. How did I get here?”

“Same way we get anywhere. You can figure it out now, Charlie. You got where you are one small, bad choice at a time. You can make a different choice, right here. Right now.”

His breath wheezed into my ear.

“Charlie?” The quick double-beep signaled a lost connection. I urged my car forward.
Come on! Come on!
The coastal road left the ocean and curved inland. I hooked the Shelby up Westward Beach Road and wound around to the public parking lot. Above me, high-end homes with beach views sprinkled the hillside. Below lay the curved sandy bay known as Smuggler’s Cove. Set between the two, the scrubby cliffs and jutting headland of Point Dume State Preserve. I jumped out of my car and ran to the end of the lot, where the trail began. The sun was lower in the sky, and the empty asphalt was streaked with light and shadow. I was relieved to see a custom Harley, with its S&S twin-cylinder engine, parked at the base of the trail, across from a dumpster. The rest of the lot was empty—it was November and close to closing time.

I jogged along a sandy footpath, past scrubby chaparral and succulent ground cover, and darted up the trail as it narrowed and grew steeper alongside the rock-faced point. Soon the sharp incline was bracketed by thick wire handholds, and stapled with railway ties. I slipped and skidded and cursed my leather-soled shoes. Close to the tip of the point, a lone figure took shape. Charles Raul Montoya, Esq. was perched on the edge of the promontory. He had climbed past the lookout deck with its cozy bench and safety railing. He was clutching a bottle of tequila, staring out to sea.