The Third Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery

by Hendricks, Gay

  Cryptic as hell, but I didn’t have time to explain. She was smart. She’d figure out what to do.

  I hustled inside Premier Charters, holding tight to the cooler, a few folded $100 bills damp in one hand. But I didn’t need them.

  “Hurry! They’re waiting for you.” The young man at the desk waved me straight out the back exit.

  A second helicopter was poised on the tarmac, rotors turning slowly. This one was white, with a bright yellow nose and the initials EMS stenciled on its side in red. EMS: Emergency Medical Services. I was looking at the third steed in Premier Charter’s stable, and maybe the most essential one for GTG Services, Incorporated’s new line of business.

  I took a deep breath, crossed the tarmac, and ducked inside. So far, I was getting by with the ruse. Amazing what the right uniform will do for a man. I was also helped by the fact that I didn’t have to pass through any security—the Wilson Combat Supergrade strapped against my chest would have ended this journey before it began, and I’d be begging for forgiveness from inside jail.

  I moved farther into the cabin and nodded to the pilot, seated up front. It was Sam, another piece of luck. I widened my eyes and made the slightest of shakes with my head. He responded with a curt duck of the chin before returning to his instruments.

  The spotless passenger area was about the same size as the other helicopter’s, but the far wall was taken up with a cot the length and width of a stretcher, cushioned with blue foam and belted with several wide red nylon straps. The headrest was slightly elevated, but the bed itself was empty. The surroundings mimicked an ICU. Several medical monitors hung overhead, and the locked metal storage lockers underneath were no doubt stocked with medical supplies. A pair of opaque curtains blocked any view from the large, curved side window.

  Two high-backed leather seats faced each other on the near side of the cabin, each with their own set of plump aviation headsets tucked into a side pocket. One seat was occupied. I took the other and found myself facing a short, bushy-browed man in jeans and a tan linen sport coat, with a hooked nose, prematurely snow-white hair, and piercing black eyes. His hands were clasped in his lap, his fingers strong yet tapered, like a musician’s. He wasn’t so much handsome as compelling. And yes, he resembled a bird of prey.

  I set the container gently on the floor in front of me and strapped in.

  “You’re late,” he said.

  “Sorry. The van got into a little accident on the way here.”

  He jerked backward, as if punched by my words. “Jesus! How’s the liver?”

  Hidago. Liver in Spanish.

  “Don’t know,” I said.

  He reached for the container, but I clamped my legs around it.

  “Sorry,” I said, thinking fast. “Orders. Not until we land.”

  His round black eyes narrowed. “They didn’t tell me anybody else was coming.”

  “They didn’t tell me, either.” I shrugged, indifferent.

  We had a brief stare-down. I mentally crossed my fingers and executed a wild leap, suicidal, if I guessed wrong.

  “My boss likes to keep things separate, Dr. Kestrel,” I said, and that did the trick.

  He moved up front to Sam and tapped him on the shoulder. Sam lifted one cushioned earpiece to hear. “Let’s go,” Kestrel said, before returning to his seat and buckling in. He was clearly used to giving orders and used to people obeying them.

  I studied him surreptitiously, as the helicopter machinery hummed to life. He gave off his own hum, one of sheer power, the total confidence that comes from being the best in your field. Genius carries a charisma all its own. I shook off the image of what his musician fingers might choose to do in their off hours. With Heather, say.

  We lifted off. I took in several deep lungfuls of oxygen and tried to keep my mind on the job and my stomach in the same general vicinity as my head.

  Kestrel watched me curiously. “You get airsick?”

  “Only small aircraft,” I said.

  “You get used to it,” he said. “I’ve got drugs, if you want anything.”

  I’ll bet he does.

  “No, thanks.”

  Kestrel reached for a water bottle, set in a cup holder on his armrest. He twisted it open and fished a small Ziploc out of the front pocket of his sport coat. The contents were like a micro-version of Chaco’s bulging bags of pills. I spotted Oxycodone, Ecstasy, a couple of Xanax bars. He had a tiny trove of mind-altering treasure.

  Dr. Kestrel sorted through the contents, his sharp nose overseeing the search like a predator’s beak. Finally, he pounced on two capsules, half blue, half white. He resealed the bag and returned it to his pocket. Then he tossed the pills back, followed by a chaser of water—a practiced, two-step motion. He noticed my stare. “We call these ‘Physicians’ Assistants’—they’ll keep you going for at least eight hours.”

  “And they are … ?”

  “Diet pills. Phentermine, to be exact. Lousy for weight loss but miraculous when you’re trying to function on little-to-no sleep.”

  “They don’t interfere with your surgery skills?”

  “I guess not,” he said. “I’ve been taking them for years.” His smile was smug. “Once I’m done with this procedure, it’ll be back to business. So no sleep tonight, either.” He patted his pocket. “Never mind, two more of these’ll keep me going until tomorrow night, when I’ll switch to Ambien. Welcome to the romantic life of a surgeon.” He didn’t seem too cut up about it. Maybe the speed had already started to dance in his bloodstream.

  I thought through my next step. Kestrel obviously bought my new role as courier and didn’t seem to notice that I wasn’t tattooed or Hispanic: once again, my “vaguely Asian” looks were helping me pass as something foreign, but not too foreign. I cleared my mind of any distracting jealous tugs and revisited what Heather had told me about Dr. K.: how the man was considered a god in his field. Fine, I would treat him like one.

  “I find your talent humbling,” I said.

  He beetled his brows, but his eyes glinted with interest.

  “I mean, you hold people’s lives in your hands on a daily basis.”

  He chuckled. “Along with their kidneys, lungs, and livers.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” I said. “Clearly, you’re the best, since my boss chose you. If you don’t mind my asking, how much do you get paid for … ?” I nudged the cooler with my foot. “You know …”

  He preened. “Performing a highly complicated emergency transplant procedure in a foreign country under impossibly challenging circumstances?”

  I liked his attitude. I wouldn’t necessarily want a surgeon on uppers swapping out my liver, but as a talker, he was a detective’s dream.

  He settled into his chair. “Maybe seventy grand per, but that’s gross pay. We net a helluva lot less. Not for this one, mind you. This one pays more.”

  “So how long does an operation like this take?”

  He motioned to the container. “This one? Six-to-eight hours. Maybe a little less. I’m fast. All depends on the state of that liver in there. You have to treat organs like newborns. If you put a banged-up liver into somebody, you’re asking for complications.”

  Good to know. I made a vow to treat my liver like a brand new baby from now on. “How can you tell? If it’s damaged, I mean.”

  He shook his head. “Can’t. Not until you remove it from the isosmotic solution. And even then, it’s not obvious.”

  I nodded, as if I knew what he meant. The next couple of questions were delicate, but important.

  “So this procedure, it’s … risky, right?”

  Dr. K’s knee started jiggling. Excitement? Anxiety? I couldn’t tell.

  “I’ve never done a partial before,” he admitted. “Live donor to patient.”

  Partial? Live donor? I hoped he didn’t register the shock these words triggered.

  He ticked off more concerns. “Donor’s almost fifty. Patient’s a heavy drinker until recently. Not to mention the hepatitis
B business. So, yeah, you could say it’s risky.”

  I recalled John D’s tales of Bets McMurtry’s wild early years. “A sordid past, coming back to haunt her, eh?” I hoped he wouldn’t notice I’d switched to a gender-specific pronoun. It was a little interrogation trick that often worked wonders when digging for more information. Sure enough, he walked straight into my trap.

  “Ha! I was part of the evaluation panel that turned her down in the first place. Her MELD score was off the charts.” He caught my raised eyebrows. “Model for End-stage Liver Disease. The higher the score, the faster you move up the list. But the rest of her numbers were in the cellar. Red flags all over the place. Hospitals tend to steer clear of transplants with elevated probabilities of rejection. They’re all about avoiding potential liability claims.”

  “Right.”

  “And even if the graft took, she’d probably require interferon treatment for the hep B afterward. Otherwise, we could be looking at the same story within a few years. So, like I said, the panel turned her down.” He smiled slightly. “And yet here we are. Ironic.”

  “Very.”

  Kestrel stretched his arms in front of him. He was compact, but his biceps were very strong and defined. Maybe he self-prescribed steroids, too. “We’ll see. The liver will take, or it won’t. She’ll stay off the sauce, or she won’t. Either way, I’m the best chance she has. Either way, I’ll get paid.”

  He glanced at his watch.

  “Hope we’re close. Livers last twelve hours max outside of their donor.”

  I pictured Bets, with her cat eyes and acerbic mouth, lying somewhere inside that big white building in the desert, awaiting a second chance at health. She must be so scared. I glanced at the plastic container. What was I doing in the middle of all this?

  But I kept going. I had to. I couldn’t bail even if I wanted to. I was 20,000 feet above sea level without a parachute. “So, they put up that medical facility fast, huh? Any idea who might have picked up the tab?”

  He shook his head. “No idea. The place isn’t finished, but I guess they put a hurry-up on an OR and a single ICU unit when your boss’s numbers started crashing.”

  My integrity machinery let out a small squeak. She wasn’t my boss, not anymore. And I might be about to cause her irreparable harm.

  May I be serving the higher good. May my intentions and action, be noble and true.

  “Whoever built it, though, guy’s a fucking genius,” Kestrel continued. “You wait and see. All those baby boomers desperate to jump the line for new hearts and lungs? We’re talking a multi-billion-dollar business. Standing room only.”

  I glanced up front. Sam had moved one side of his headset just enough to free one ear.

  Kestrel let out a small throat-sound of disgust. “As usual, we doctors will just get served the crumbs.”

  “Pretty good-sized crumbs,” I said. As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to haul them back in. Why risk insulting him now? Plus, I knew better. Never offer logic to a person locked in a personal drama of victimhood. Might as well tell a wounded soldier whose thigh has been shattered by a bullet, “Cheer up, at least you still have one good leg.”

  Kestrel angled away from me. He closed his eyes, resting his cheek on the back cushion. The message was clear: our conversation was done.

  The chopper flew steadily south.

  Kestrel appeared asleep, despite the diet pills. He let out a soft snore.

  I picked up the headset tucked beside my seat and slipped it on. I adjusted the mouthpiece.

  “Sam?”

  The headset crackled.

  “This shit’s fucked up,” I heard. “I was eavesdropping a little bit. Caught the gist.”

  “I know,” I said, my voice low. “Listen, I don’t have much time. After we land, are you supposed to stay put or return to your headquarters?”

  “Stay put,” he said. “Not Jack; he was drop-off only. But they told me I might be needed for a medical transfer.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’m glad.”

  Kestrel shifted positions, his eyes fluttering. I quickly removed the headset and moved across to the curved window.

  Behind the curtains, the sky was light. The sun must have risen. I dared a quick look below, parting the sheer material. Recognizably inhospitable terrain streamed beneath us. I craned my head to look frontward, and soon a small speck of white appeared, swiftly growing larger and larger up ahead. The chopper began to lose altitude, just as the other Premier Helicopter floated by at a distance, already heading back to California.

  I hurried to my seat and buckled up, using deep, slow breaths to keep the descent-flutters from erupting into full-blown nausea. My phobia was slightly better but by no means cured. The story of most of the challenges in my life.

  Kestrel checked his iPhone and frowned. “Do you have service?” he asked.

  I powered up.

  “No,” I said. I hadn’t banked on that. An added wrinkle.

  We settled on the ground with a light bump.

  Sam hurried to the side door and pulled it open. Scalding air flooded the cabin. A man in green scrubs waded through the heat toward us.

  Kestrel was hurriedly unbuckling his seat belt. He pushed to his feet. He held out his hand.

  I passed the container over to Dr. Kestrel. He, in turn, handed it to the other man, who turned and took off. Kestrel followed him.

  “I’ll be back,” I said to Sam.

  And I followed Kestrel.

  CHAPTER 21

  The heat was unbearable. Every inhale was a mouthful of seared oxygen. The nylon coveralls didn’t help. My left armpit, harboring the .38, was literally streaming sweat by the time we reached the entrance to the building. The man in scrubs pushed inside, and we followed. He was Hispanic and harried-looking, his thick black mustache hooking around both sides of his mouth like twin scimitars. He set the cooler down.

  “You’re late,” he barked, echoing Kestrel. A second man appeared, a stone-faced soldier boy. He was dressed in short-sleeved black fatigues; his uniform included handcuffs and a Heckler & Koch self-loading pistol. No safety vest—probably too hot for one. Finally, an older woman hurried up, in nurse’s white.

  Mustachio Man frowned in my direction. “¿Quién es este? Who’s this?”

  Kestrel waved toward the inside of the building. “He’s one of theirs.”

  He said it, not me. I tried to look as crisply official as possible, given the rivulets of sweat freely flowing down my body.

  “Dr. Gomez is assisting me,” Kestrel said to me.

  I nodded to Gomez. “Good to meet you.”

  The expression on his face stated otherwise. “Our nurse, Señora Delgado,” he said. Delgado, at least, had a kind face.

  Niceties over, Gomez waved us in, past the security guard. I checked out his uniform. Mexican Municipal Police. Probably moonlighting as a hospital guard. If I got paid less than $600 a month, I’d moonlight, too.

  The air was as icy inside as it was scorching out. I shivered, surveying the interior with interest. Impressively clean and painted a pale hospital gray-green, the structure was basically one large box. The left side was divided into ten rooms, with ten closed doors. An assortment of unfinished office cubicles in various states of construction lined the other side. A freestanding, diesel-fueled generator hummed away from the far corner of the building, the kind normal hospitals used as backup, in case of a power outage. Maybe these guys had two.

  At present, we seemed to be the only people in the building. It had the hastily vacated appearance of a schoolyard during an air raid.

  Kestrel said, “Have you concluded the pre-op?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Gomez nodded. “Just administered the hundred milligrams of Demerol.”

  I jumped in. “I need a word with Assemblywoman McMurtry before she goes under. Where is she?”

  Gomez checked with Kestrel. He shrugged his okay. “But make it quick,” he said. He nodded to the nurse. “Take him.” She reacted to his
order with an adoring gaze. I guess his particular brand of sex appeal crossed borders.

  Nurse Delgado led me across the empty floor. One of the side doors was ajar, and I saw open cardboard boxes and an empty hospital bed, the mattress still wrapped in plastic.

  “Is Goodhue with the patient?” I asked. My hand crept toward my shoulder holster, hidden inside my coveralls.

  “No. Señor Goodhue take a jeep into town. Doctor Gomez tell him to come back when la Señora is in the recovery room.”

  We reached the last door. She knocked lightly, before opening it. “Señora, your friend would like to speak to you.”

  She withdrew. This room was not only finished but it was a replica of any state-of-the-art pre-op room in any top medical facility. I crossed to the hospital bed, where a very different version of Bets McMurtry lay. No make-up. No sunglasses. No fire. I would have walked right past her on the street without recognizing her. Her skin was parchment and had the telltale yellowish tinge of a liver on strike. Her tawny eyeballs told the same tale. She looked ten years older than the day before.

  The Demerol had worked its magic, and she eyed me with benign amusement, stoned to the gills. “Detective,” she said. “I think I’m mad at you, but I’m not remembering why.” She rested her head back on the pillow. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to help you,” I said.

  “Sweet of you. Why?”

  “Bets, you’re in business with a really bad man.”

  She groaned. “Ah, shit—not that again. Now I’m remembering why I stopped liking you, Norbu.”

  “Listen,” I said. “You have big dreams. If you’re lucky, an even bigger future. Do you really want to tie that to a drug lord and a killer?”

  She rested her eyes on mine. Her pupils were like pancakes. She was too under the influence to think straight, and her next words proved it. “Here’s what I know. Everybody’s hiding a nasty secret or two. My last drug run I was so desperate I gave a stranger a blow job for fifty bucks. Brought me to my knees”—her smile was beatific—“in more ways than one. The next day, I got down on those same knees and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Best day of my life, right after the worst one.” She tried to focus on me, with little success. “I got news for you. I’m going to die without this procedure, and I need someone who’s willing to break a few rules to save my life.”