The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective: Tenzing Norbu Mystery) (4 page)

Bill didn’t know how good he had it.

No, Ten, you’re the one who doesn’t know. You never did, and you never will.
And there it was, right on schedule: my inner, incriminating father-voice.

A fresh chorus of girl wails broke out over the phone, interrupting the slide into self-judgment. I could hear Martha’s voice climb over her daughters’, sharp with desperation, no doubt calling for backup.

“I’m too old for this,” Bill said.

He was gone again, just like that, sucked back into the chaotic undertow of young children. After a moment of appreciation for the relative peace and silence of my twinless Topanga Canyon world, I gathered Tank up in my arms and gave him a lift back inside the house. The deck is off-limits to him at night unless I’m also there, due to the increasing boldness of the coyote population. In the hills of Topanga Canyon, coyotes have been known to squeeze through the little pet-doors people have for their cats and dogs. Just last month, one of my neighbors heard a shriek and woke up to find a coyote chasing his cat around the living room.

Safely inside, Tank leapt from my arms and sped across the hardwood floor, pulling up short a yard before his empty food dish. He walked the final three feet in stiff dignity and allowed himself one low cat-growl.

My stomach gave an answering growl: sympathetic hunger—right up there with the sublime Buddhist state of sympathetic joy. I opened a can of mixed grill and a fresh can of tuna. He’s not crazy about tuna itself, but tuna-water is his favorite, so I started with that, squeezing it into his bowl. Tank gave me a quick beam and began lapping. I cracked open a frosty bottle of pale ale for my own treat. I tilted the bottle back and chugged. My exhaled
“Aaahhhh”
wafted across the room.

Tank glanced up.

“One of life’s sacred experiences, Tank.”

Tank lowered his face back into his dish: such thoughts were irrelevant to his feline needs. At times like this, I found myself acutely missing my ex-partner, Bill, and our daily ritual of late afternoon beer-and-casework reviews.

I reheated some leftover Thai food, washed it down with the rest of my beer, and moved to my home office, basically an interconnected snarl of digital equipment personally selected and installed by my tech guru, Mike. At first I’d resisted buying any of it. Now I couldn’t imagine functioning without all of it. Nothing new, there. I’d been experiencing that emotional seesaw regarding technology ever since I first arrived from Dharamshala, 11 years ago. The Buddha urged his followers not to crave material possessions, to seek knowledge instead. But in his wildest imaginings, he couldn’t have anticipated the eventual necessity of digital technology in the pursuit of that same knowledge.

Because Mike believed in following feng shui, my computer lived and slept oddly angled on my long, flat desk. I sat down and woke up the beast with one light tap of the finger: magic. I located the case file marked Marvin Rudolph, and opened and printed out my report for Bill. An eye-watering yawn escaped. I’d changed my bed this morning in a burst of virtuous housecleaning, and the crisp sheets were calling to me.

Don’t do it. Don’t do it, Tenzing. You haven’t been asked, and you’re not getting paid.

My hand snaked over and grasped my mouse. I called up my new best friend and assistant, Dr. Google. I entered Marv Rudolph’s name and pressed
SEARCH
. My eyes widened. Marv had been a very busy boy over the last several years, not to mention the six months since I’d met him.

News of his death was just hitting the Internet, but I skipped past those items to earlier articles—I prefer to get my facts on a celebrity’s sudden demise from those who actually know what they’re talking about. Scanning other relevant subjects, though, I managed to deduce that Marv Rudolph, who had been considered “finished” five years ago, was now “back.” His photograph was everywhere, often in a tuxedo, arms around various luminaries from the worlds of entertainment, civics, and politics, most of whom I didn’t recognize. I did note that Keith Connor and Marv seemed to be together a lot this past month, promoting
Stung,
their just-finished film. From what I could decipher, the “buzz” on
Stung
was good, no pun intended. I also found several earlier articles trumpeting a small “indie” film Marv was casting right around the time he hired me to find Harper—a reinvention of the Romeo and Juliet story called
Loving Hagar
. But then all mention of it seemed to have just disappeared.

Things that disappear interest me. I put in a quick call to Mike. It was just late enough for him to be awake, working on his second cup of coffee.

“Yo,” Mike answered.

“Mike, I have a request.”

“Cool,” he said. Mike was a man of few words before midnight.

“Can you look into the past five years of Marv Rudolph–produced film projects, including any that got dropped? I need to know details, if possible: who backed him, who backed out, who he was in bed with, who he might have pissed off. That kind of thing.”

“What’s ol’ Marv done now?” Mike drawled over the tapping of keys. There was a pause. “Oh, oops. Bummer. So I’m guessing you need this ASAP?”

“Yes, please. And Mike, I may have to defer payment on this one. Sorry. Just keep track of your hours.”

“No worries, boss.” Mike yawned. “Later.”

I hate asking people to work on spec, but Mike was earning six figures as a high-tech data-retriever these days, and he’d probably be in prison doing push-ups if it weren’t for my early intervention. I wasn’t too concerned.

I returned to my screen. When I’d Googled images of Marv, one particular press photograph from two years ago appeared again and again. A portly, tuxedoed Marv, arm and arm with a thin woman who resembled Harper, only older and more muted, smiled into the camera. They stood next to a distinguished older man and his gaunt but elegant companion. This second woman had the hollow eyes and turbaned head that suggested a long battle with an illness, probably involving chemotherapy treatments. I opened the article. The Rudolphs were at a charitable event, apparently raising funds to renovate a Bel Air synagogue, Temple Beth Adel. I squinted at the caption under the photograph. “Marv and Arlene Rudolph greet fellow Temple Beth Adel supporters Julius and Dorothy Rosen.” Julius Rosen: even I had heard of him. His name was plastered on museums and theaters, up there with arts benefactors like Dorothy Chandler and Eli Broad. I printed out the photograph and accompanying article.

Next, I zeroed in on a news item from last year, an incident involving Marv’s notorious temper and a paparazzo called Clancy Williams. It seemed to include a black eye, a smashed expensive camera, accusations of racism and paparazzi brutality, and an out-of-court settlement to Marv from a high-profile celebrity gossip agency, x17. I jotted down Clancy’s name.

Finally, there was a very long feature in
Vanity Fair
entitled, “You Can’t Keep a Good Marv Down,” too long to read.

For every piece extolling Marv’s creativity and talent, there seemed to be three describing angry directors, actors, or fellow producers claiming he had cheated, stolen from, or ruined them in some way. My list of industry people with gripes grew, though I got the feeling that while they might hate Marv, they also feared him and couldn’t afford to shun him. Interesting. If, in fact, Marv had been murdered by a business associate, there were plenty of potential suspects, but how many were rich enough not to need him, powerful enough not to fear him, and vengeful enough to want to kill him? That was the list I’d start with.

I sighed. Who was I kidding? First of all, no one had hired me to look into Marv’s death. Secondly, Marv Rudolph inhabited Hollywood, an entertainment arena of glitter, fantasy, wealth, and power incomprehensible to a lowly Tibetan ex-monk. I had spent most of my youth locked away in a monastery, and the gaps in my early education regarding popular culture were huge. Even now, I knew next to nothing of this world. I might finally have a good computer, but I still didn’t even own a television. Even getting myself to a movie theater was a rare ocurrence. Movies were for dating, and dating for me, currently, was nonexistent. My big concession to new media was to purchase a Kindle last month from my dwindling reserve of funds, and load it up with my usual weird mix of reading material, from ancient Greek philosophies to modern noir mysteries. I figured it was a good investment for an avid reader and would serve me well for stakeouts.

All those long, lucrative stakeouts I was not getting hired for.

The glum direction of my thoughts told me I was too tired to keep working. I staggered to bed, my grateful Persian hugging my ankles, a thick file of printouts stacked neatly by my once-again slumbering computer.

C
HAPTER
3

Bill opened the manila envelope and slid a photograph across the table to me. My favorite waitress at Langer’s, Jean, had ferried us to a corner booth for privacy. Graphic images of corpses don’t do much for people awaiting their breakfast pile of pancakes and bacon.

I pulled the photograph of the crime scene closer and leaned in to take a look. A belly-tightening chill of nausea swept through me. Even after all these years, I’ve never gotten completely comfortable with images of homicide victims, and I had met this corpse while it still housed a personality—in this case, one larger than life. I breathed in and out, long, deep breaths to disperse the queasiness; in a moment my mind cleared enough for me to look at Marv’s body through Ten-the-detective’s eyes rather than Ten-the-human’s.

The victim was slumped in a semisupine position, knees bent, arms spread wide, reclining on some sort of heavy wicker lounge chair. An empty wine glass was set on the ground to his left. His long-sleeved black shirt had hiked up over his belly, and the great mound of flesh was dimpled and pasty white. His eyes were half closed, his mouth wide-open, tongue protruding slightly. An 8-inch black-handled chef’s knife lay to his left.

Bill pushed another photo over. In this one, the knife and Marv’s shirt had been removed, no doubt bagged and tagged as evidence.

“See anything interesting?” he asked.

I mentally divided the photograph into quadrants and scanned each one carefully. I pointed to Marv’s left forearm. “That?”

A ragged strip of skin was missing from his inner forearm, maybe the length of a business card. In its place was a red, raw patch of exposed flesh. I could only hope Marv’s skin had been removed after he was already dead.

I looked up at Bill. “Before or after?” He shrugged.

I pointed to the knife. “That’s the weapon used?”

“That’s where things get even weirder, Ten. According to forensics, no.”

Marv had wound up dead in a crime scene mysterious enough to warrant a visit from Sherlock himself. I returned to the photo. The lounge chair was on a black, tar paper surface, lightly graveled. Three faint sets of parallel drag marks, crisscrossed in places, led from the exit door to the area where the chair was placed.

“Where is this, anyway?”

“Rooftop terrace of Robinsgrove Apartments, that old art deco building in Hancock Park. Not far from my house, in fact. Built in the ‘30s. Pretty pricey rentals. They say Mae West used to live there. Rudolph’s car was parked around the corner, on a side street.”

I knew the place. I passed its ornate façade every time I cut north up Rossmore from Wilshire to get into Hollywood proper. At night, the letters of its name glowed red, a neon invitation looming over the city.

“A couple from a first-floor apartment found him. They were up on the roof having a romantic, late night canoodle and heard this buzzing sound every time they came up for air. It was Marv’s phone. Popular guy, your Marv. He’d gotten maybe fifty, sixty calls in a matter of hours.”

“That’ll keep you busy,” I said.

“Not me. I’m a D-Three now, remember? I’m in charge. I passed the phone numbers along to Sully and Mack.”

“You’re kidding me. They’re your lead investigators?”

“I know. I know. What can I say, they got the call.” Homicide detectives Richard “Sully” O’Sullivan and B. J. Mack, known as S & M to their friends, were good guys, but not endowed with an abundance of native intelligence. Bill was going to have his hands full solving this one.

I returned to my study of the crime scene photo. I pointed to the second set of drag marks. “What happened to the other chair?”

“Good question. Not to mention . . . “ he cocked his head, waiting.

“ . . . the person sitting in it,” I finished. “And what do you know about the knife?”

“It’s a Wüsthof. Only one of the most popular kitchen knives around. We have a whole set of them at home.”

“Me, too, come to think of it. But you can rule me out. I was home in bed all Wednesday night. You can ask Tank. Fingerprints?”

“Lots. Mostly smudged. One partial we maybe can use.”

I moved back to the wound on Marv’s arm. “And this. I’m thinking maybe a telltale tattoo, removed to throw us off?”

“Twisted minds think alike,” Bill said.

A swell of happiness flooded me. It had been a while since Bill and I had talked through a case. I’d given up one of my true pleasures in life when I left the force, and therefore, Bill.

“Oh, no, no, no. Not more dead people,” Jean’s southwestern twang broke in, her voice stern. She stood over us, mock-scowling, as Bill put the photographs away, then set a plate of crisp, fragrant potato pancakes in front of me and a massive pile of bacon and eggs before Bill.

“You’re looking good, Jean,” I said. She was. Her gray-blonde hair was freshly cropped at her chin-line, and her hazel eyes twinkled. She may have been in her 60s, but her energy was decades younger.

“Don’t change the subject,” she said. “Ten-zing, I thought you were through with that bad guy stuff.”

“Just helping out an old friend.” I smiled across at Bill.

“And how’s your other old friend doing, not the cat, the other one. The one who wants to be a chef?”

My smile died. I tried to stave her off by stabbing a bite of potato, but Jean wasn’t finished with me.

“Oh, don’t tell me. You scared that girl off, too? What happened?”