The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective: Tenzing Norbu Mystery) (40 page)

“I don’t want to kill you,” I said. “And you don’t want to die. Give me the gun.”

I waited. The silence grew. I curled my finger around the Wilson’s trigger. Then I heard the scraping slide of gunmetal across concrete. I peered around the back of the Mustang and saw the flimsy little Browning on the concrete. I stretched down and got it.

“You carrying anything else?”

“No. Don’ kill me, okay?”

I stuck the revolver in my pocket. Miguel was lying on his back, arms overhead, palms facing upward. Blood had pooled under his left thigh, but I was pleased to see I had just grazed him as I intended. I did a quick over-and-under frisk and came up empty, as he’d promised.

“Okay,” I said. “You can put your arms down.”

He lowered his arms.

“Now roll over. Put your hands behind your back.”

I used a bungee cord to secure his wrists.

“Stay put,” I said. I stepped outside to survey the damage to my other two assailants. It was extensive and permanent. The end for both of them had come quick. The first body had a hole in the chest, just right of center. The man lay flat on his back, so I couldn’t tell if it was a through-and-through. The other sprawled facedown, his head at an odd angle. I rolled him over and saw that his throat was a ragged mess.

I stood up, feeling slightly light-headed, and focused on my breathing to center myself. A river of feeling was flooding my body.

Relief.

Sorrow.

Remnants of rage.

Swimming up through it all was a deep and sure knowledge that this was a turning-point moment in my life. I had never killed anyone—not in the line of duty as a police officer, not as a private investigator. Now everything was different. I had killed. Not once, but twice.

I had taken two lives.

Nothing in my training as a monk or a cop had prepared me for the feeling that welled up from down in the middle of me, a hot wave of revulsion that felt like my stomach was turning inside out. I tasted the bile on the back of my tongue and bent over to throw up.

The sudden roar of a big engine broke through my nausea. I stood up just in time to see the rear lights of the Hummer receding, wheels spitting gravel like grapeshot.

I went back inside the garage and saw the bungee cord on the floor, sliced in two. During my quick frisk of Miguel I must have somehow missed a hidden blade. I wanted to swear, but in my current brain-overloaded state I had reverted to thinking in Tibetan, which has no real curse-words. My mind just kept repeating the Tibetan phrase that would translate as “I’m upset! I’m upset!”

The Hummer disappeared down the twisting curves toward Topanga Canyon Boulevard. I decided not to give chase—he’d be long gone by the time I got my car cranked up and hit those steep turns myself. I could feel the adrenalin, nausea, and other feelings fading in my body, replaced by grudging respect for the kid. Miguel had managed to get away on a badly wounded leg. He’d done it quickly and so quietly I hadn’t even noticed. Even though he hadn’t come to my house for honorable reasons, he’d certainly made a skillful escape. He was one tough kid. I found myself wishing him well in spite of his abuse of my hospitality.

Then that feeling subsided and I was left with the consequences of my actions rattling around inside me.

What have I done?

The cell phone in my pocket vibrated. I glanced at the screen and saw it was Bill Bohannon, my ex-partner. In that moment, it felt like light years since we’d been Detective II’s in LAPD’s elite Robbery/Homicide division. Now Bill was a Detective III, and I was about to be one of his cases.

“Hey,” I said.

Bill’s voice was thick with sleep. “Your buddy Mike said something triggered the security system. Everything okay?”

I looked at the two still bodies.

“Not exactly,” I said. “I got two men down, one more wounded and at large.”

Bill woke up fast. “Two men down. How down?”

“As down as they can get,” I said.

Bill groaned.

“The kills were righteous,” I said, but I wondered if that was true.

A siren wailed in the distance, drawing closer. My night was about to get even more complicated.

“Bill, I hate to ask, but . . . “

“I’m on my way,” he barked. “Don’t say a word to anyone until I get there.”

The two lifeless bodies lay sprawled on the ground like a pair of unanswerable reproaches. I studied them as a wave of shivers passed through my body.

Tank.

Suddenly I remembered I wasn’t the only member of my household that might be having some feelings. I hurried across the driveway and into the kitchen.

“Tank? Where are you, buddy?”

I heard a muffled squawk from the living room. I ran to the sofa and dropped to my knees, peering underneath it. Tank was huddled flat in his place of ultimate refuge, usually reserved for the rare thunderstorms we have in this part of the world.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m okay.” I stretched out my hand to stroke his head.

He shrank against the far wall and made a small hissing sound. Maybe he was rattled by the smell of blood on me.

As I sat back on my haunches, unsure what to do next, my computer made that odd Skype sound, like a bubble popping.

I looked at the screen.

It was a Skype video call, from “lamalobsang.” My heart rose, choking my throat with bittersweet relief. Yeshe and Lobsang—my lifeline between past and present, Dharamshala and Los Angeles, monk and detective. Always there for me, whenever I needed them.

For years after I’d moved to California, we had communicated through snail mail, and the occasional whispered telephone call between Dharamshala and Los Angeles. Then my father had discovered our ongoing, forbidden contact, and banished them to Lhasa, Tibet, where even snail mail was impossible. But a few months ago, they had been called back from Tibet to become head abbots of my old monastery in Dharamshala—my father’s final act of healing before his death. This change in leadership at Dorje Yidam had brought with it many other changes, a lot of them technological. But I knew my friends’ decision to get in touch with me this morning had nothing to do with modern technology, and everything to do with ancient intuition.

I sat down at my desk and clicked on the icon. Within moments, the gleaming, shaved heads and warm features of my two friends swam into view.

“Tenzing, dear Brother! Greetings to you.” Lobsang touched his forehead. Just to his right, Yeshe did the same.

“Lobsang. Yeshe. I am happy to hear from you,” I said. As I said the words I felt my chest compress, as if two giant hands were squeezing it.

“Are you all right?” Yeshe’s voice was breathless. “We had to reach you. I felt something . . . Something dark.”

I pictured the fresh corpses outside. I opened my mouth to answer, but the words stuck in my throat. These were my dearest friends in the world. But they were also Buddhist monks. They had dedicated their lives to the practice of
ahimsa
—to doing no harm to any and all sentient beings. How could I tell them that I had just killed two men?

Just weeks ago I had made a new vow: to be more mindful of the difference between privacy and secrecy—to make sure my natural shyness wasn’t causing me to hide things from others I ought to be revealing. Now here I was at a crossroads again, deciding whether to risk a relationship by being totally honest. If I told the blunt truth to my brothers, would I lose the rock-solid respect we’d built up over a lifetime of shared secrets?

And if I lied, would I lose even more?

“I’m fine,” I said. “Everything’s great. How are you?”

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