The Third Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery

by Hendricks, Gay

  I sighed. No matter what events July 5th might bring, anticipated or not, I was fairly certain of one thing: it was bound to be less upsetting than July 4th had been.

  CHAPTER 1

  The long line of cars snaked up and over the hill. Grumpiness emanated from the family-filled vehicles like toxic gas. The July 4th traffic was brutal. Where was everybody going, anyway? Why weren’t they at home cooking burgers?

  My car crawled, too, all the way from Topanga to Bill and Martha Bohannon’s home in Hancock Park, a two-hour drive that should have taken half that. I finally parked outside their house at 5:30. The smell of charred meat let me know Bill was already stationed at the outside grill. I was the first car there, so the bad traffic must be citywide. That fact made me feel a lot better, which tells you what kind of mood I was in.

  I climbed out of my Shelby. Streaming slants of sunlight framed the Bohannons’ bungalow in burnished gold. I tipped my head back, closed my eyes, and then inhaled and exhaled three times, deeply. Children’s laughter floated from Bill’s backyard. I smiled, grateful for the promise of frosty cold beer and friendship, and for the ability to reset my mood at any given time, if only I remembered to reach for that tool, the one that lets go of what was and accepts what is.

  I have two favorite American holidays: July 4th and Thanksgiving, and for the past decade I’ve spent most of them at Bill and Martha’s house. My ex-partner from the LAPD Burglary/Homicide division might be married to a woman of German descent, but Martha’s commitment to celebration was decidedly un-Teutonic—sometimes I think she chose their house primarily because of the annual fireworks display visible from their backyard.

  An American flag flapped merrily from its pole by their front stoop, and red, white, and blue ribbons were tied in bows on the branches of their magnolia tree. Some were tied more neatly than others, signaling that the twins must finally be old enough to participate in decorating.

  I reached into the back of the Mustang for the six pack of Chimay White I’d set on the fiberglass shelf that stood in for the back seat on many ’65 Shelby 350s. Life was good. I had a steady stream of clients in need of the services of a private investigator and willing to pay handsomely for them. The income was enough to support me, my newly licensed friend and co-worker, Clancy Williams, and even a recently hired personal assistant. Even more impressive, at least to me, is that I had made it for more than a year without getting entangled in any romantic relationships—a record.

  Tank seemed to approve. I was a steadier, happier roommate without them.

  For a brief moment, I allowed myself to wonder if Julie might be here, but I brushed away the thought lightly, and it floated off, the faint trace of longing I still harbored for her almost as insubstantial as a feather.

  Besides, Martha would have told me if her sister was coming.

  I smiled. I was looking forward to taking my place on a chaise lounge with a chilly bottle of Belgian ale in one hand and a specially made garden burger in the other. Biting into a burger topped with ketchup, mayo, and a slice of sweet onion was pretty close to a religious experience—even for a vegetarian. Fabulous food and drink, a slew of grimy kisses from a pair of twin redheads, the warm love of best friends, and fireworks: like Martha’s red-white-and-blue bows in the branches, my expectations for the day were predictably elevated, jaunty, and filled with promise.

  Yet even as those thoughts flickered through my mind, a whispered warning slithered into my reverie: Take care, Tenzing. Remember what the Buddha taught: Expectation is the enemy of serenity and a root cause of suffering. I recognized the voice’s source—Lama Yeshe, one of my two best childhood friends. Yeshe and Lobsang had helped anchor me throughout the troublesome early years spent in my father’s Buddhist monastery in Dharamshala, India. In those days my father had served first as monastic disciplinarian and then as head abbot. Whatever his role, he was none too pleased with his rebellious son. Time has a way of changing everything. Now my father had passed, Yeshe and Lobsang were themselves abbots, and I was living thousands of miles away in the City of Angels. But the Buddha’s pearls of wisdom, it turns out, are valuable whenever and wherever you live.

  Let go of expectations. Our Tibetan teachers at Dorje Yidam had urged us to practice this simple yet powerful step at every opportunity. According to legend, a monk once asked the Buddha (the Bikkhu’s voice, in my imagination, plaintive): “But how can I actually live, as you suggest, without expectations?” The Buddha had answered with a question of his own: “How can you actually live if you have expectations?”

  Never mind. Today was a good day, and my expectations were reasonable. Just in case, I dialed back the anticipation of Maude and Lola peppering me with kisses. They were almost three years old, and it had been a few months since we’d spent any extended time together. In toddler years, that’s a long time, and I didn’t know how they might now express affection. Either way, I was hot and grimy from Los Angeles traffic and smog, and aiming to have a good time.

  Martha flung open the door, her smile wide. I stepped into her hug but not before noticing weary rings of gray crumpling the skin around her eyes. I chalked it up to an over-40 mother with twin preschoolers.

  She accepted my six-pack with a quick thanks before calling over her shoulder, “Girls! Uncle Ten’s here!”

  Thundering hoof-beats approached at high speed. I squatted just in time, as Maude and Lola careened into me and wrapped their small, dense monkey-bodies around me. I struggled to stand upright and hefted them, wiggling and squealing, through the foyer and living room and out the open French doors to the backyard.

  “Bring me a brew!” I shouted back to Martha, laughing.

  Bill, as I had guessed, presided over the grill, dressed in full suburban finery. A towering red chef’s toque perched atop his head and a blue apron with the embroidered words “Best Dad in the World” hung around his neck. A bit over the top, but I was inclined to agree. As midlife parents, rewarded after years of IVF with the appearance of twins, Bill and Martha had showered their girls with the freely flowing love and joy reserved for unexpected gifts.

  I set the girls down and looked them over. Lola was wearing black leggings, a puffy pink jacket, and sparkly shoes. She clutched a small blue stuffed monkey.

  “I like your monkey,” I said. “What’s his name?” Lola studied her monkey for a full minute.

  “Monkey,” she finally said. Lola tended to be long on contemplation but short on words.

  Maude was dancing from foot to foot. She had on the toddler version of a sports uniform, the bright blue shorts, long and baggy, the matching top emblazoned with the words Property of the L.A. Dodgers. Bill, a diehard Dodgers fan, had obviously started early with at least one of his girls.

  “Nice uniform,” I said.

  “This isn’t a uniform, Uncle Ten,” Maude scolded. “This is my teamer outfit!”

  “Ahh,” I said, as Maude grabbed at my hand.

  “Did you bring us a treat?” she went on, her eyes bright with hope.

  “Not today,” I admitted. Maude’s face fell. Her eyes glittered with welling tears, and her lower lip started to tremble. A beer magically appeared in my hand as Martha stepped in, her mother-radar sensing imminent disaster. She knelt and cupped Maude’s rapidly reddening face in her hands.

  “Maude, sweetheart, we just talked about this, remember? How sometimes when Uncle Ten comes over he brings you girls a little something and sometimes he doesn’t? How you love him either way, just like he loves you no matter what?”

  “I know,” Maude wailed, tears now streaming down her cheeks. “But in my mind, he bringed us something!”

  The Buddha in me nodded and smiled with compassion.

  “Get your butt over here, Ten!” Bill called, as Martha held Maude against her chest until the flash-storm passed.

  I crossed the yard as Bill deftly flipped a burger. He stepped back from the grill and joined me for our ritual, awkward man-hug.

  “Don’t worry,” B
ill said. “I make Maude cry hourly. It rarely lasts more than two minutes. See?”

  Sure enough, both girls scampered off, Maude no worse for wear.

  “So,” Bill teased. “Good to see you’re still alive and well, Mr. Busy Private Detective-man.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I replied, “Mr. Canceled Lunch Last Week Because You Had to Meet with the Mayor.”

  “Right,” he said, snorting. “Me, plus his personal army of network news reporters. God forbid he shows up when there aren’t any cameras rolling.” His voice was spiked with bitterness.

  I studied my friend with concern. Martha’s eyes may have been ringed with gray, but all Bill’s gray had migrated to his hair. Call me crazy, but the last month alone had added a large swatch of silvery strands, turning his dark blond hair almost platinum. As a police administrator, Bill earned a lot more than he had during our days as lowly Homicide detectives, but the job came with a serious stressor: daily political wrestling matches between the City Administration and Police Headquarters.

  I pointed to the wisps of gray poking out from under the chef’s hat. “Very distinguished.”

  “Just call me George Clooney,” he said. He looked over at Martha and half smiled. “What do you think, honey? Am I sexy, or is it time to break out that bottle of hair dye for men?” Martha was either out of earshot or chose to ignore Bill. As she disappeared into the house, I watched Bill’s smile fade. I stepped in.

  “Or you could get a job that doesn’t bore the living crap out of you.”

  “Ouch.” Bill clutched at his heart. “You really know what buttons to push, don’t you?”

  “I ought to,” I said. “You’re the guy who taught me how to push ’em.”

  That earned me a laugh, and for a moment Bill looked young again. I wanted to go a little deeper, but Martha and the girls reappeared with several more guests in tow. I tipped my bottle at Sully and Mack, still detectives with Burglary/Homicide and joined, as usual, at the hip. Another veteran detective, Marty Shumacher, trailed behind them, his cheeks ruddy and veined from a few too many happy hours. He spotted me and beelined to my side.

  “Norbu! How the hell is civvy life treating you?”

  “Not too bad,” I said.

  “You gettin’ any these days? Or are you, you know, still going without?” Marty was obsessed with the notion of monastic celibacy and convinced I must be a staunch practitioner of sexual abstinence. For once, he was right, but no way was I giving him any satisfaction in that quarter.

  “None of your business,” I said, but he had glimpsed the cooler of beer and sped off. Conversation versus alcohol? No contest.

  Two burgers, three ears of corn, and one soothing of a toddler’s skinned knee later, the sky had grown dark. A few distant booms let us know that fireworks were starting to erupt across the city.

  “Boomie-lights time! Boomie-lights time!” Maude shrieked. Bill slipped next to me.

  “Can you get another bag of ice from the kitchen, Ten? In the freezer.”

  “Of course.” I was glad to do it. I had tired a little of having the same conversation about two dozen times: “Work’s fine. No, I don’t miss the paperwork. Yes, I still carry a gun. No, nobody in my life right now …”

  I took a moment to do a check-in with my self before pulling the freezer drawer open. I felt a little sad, but I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it had to do with the distance I sensed between Bill and Martha. Their adoration for the girls was still palpable, but the normally warm temperature they generated as a couple had cooled considerably.

  A loud knock at the front door interrupted my musing. I crossed into the foyer to welcome the tardy arrivals. Before I opened the door my detective reflexes kicked in, so I glanced through the small barred window of the front door to see who stood outside.

  Two women, neither of whom I knew. They definitely came from the same gene pool, though one was a good 20 years older than the other. Mother and daughter, if I had to guess. The younger woman rapped sharply on the door a second time. She was tall, maybe 40, with a wild mane of brown hair streaked with gray. Her snug jeans and man’s button-down shirt tied into a knot around her waist complemented a strong, lithe body, fit as well as feminine. She was quite lovely. I glanced at her left hand. No tell-tale wedding band. The older woman stood next to her, also tall, also fit, but stockier. Her gray hair was roughly chopped so that it just brushed her shoulders and framed her high cheekbones, prominent nose, and clear, wide-set, brown eyes, characteristics shared by her companion. Her own faded beauty was further marred by the deep downturned creases bordering her mouth. She wore a loose T-shirt, sweatpants that bagged at the knees, and work boots. Her big-knuckled hands were chapped, as if she did manual labor of some kind. No wedding ring, either.

  I opened the door.

  “Hello,” I said. The younger woman appraised me with steady eyes.

  “I hope I am in the right place.” Her accent sounded Eastern European.

  “I’m sure you are. You here for the barbecue?”

  The stockier woman barked a bitter little laugh. Her companion shot her a look. “Mama. Shush!” she said, abruptly silencing her mother.

  So I was right. Mother and daughter.

  “This is Bill Bohannon’s house, yes?” she asked.

  “It is,” I said. “Bill’s out in the backyard. There’s a party going on right now. Would you like to come in?”

  Her nod was curt. With her streaked mane of hair and flaring nostrils, she resembled a restless thoroughbred. I’m not a lover of horses, and I wasn’t taking to her, either.

  “Please to bring him to me here,” she announced and crossed her arms. She was behaving as if giving commands and having them obeyed was normal. Was she military of some kind?

  “Okay,” I said slowly. My intuition was waving red flags right and left. Something wasn’t right here. “Whom shall I—” She cut me off. “Mila,” she snapped. “Mila Radovic.”

  I looked toward the other woman for her name. She glared.

  Mila irritably rattled off something in a language I couldn’t understand. The other woman shook her head, stolid and unmoved. “No,” she stated, glaring at me. “My name not important.”

  This was shaping up to be a fairly unpleasant conversation, so I was happy to take a break. Still, my steps were slow as I retraced my way through the house and into the backyard. The noise of the gathering had risen in direct proportion to the percentage of alcohol in various bloodstreams. Adding to the racket was the tock-tock, tock-tock of four detectives playing drunken doubles ping-pong. Bill had returned to the grill and was swabbing barbecue sauce on a couple of chickens.

  I moved to his side, my pace still reluctant. The noise of revelers seemed to fade. My heart felt heavy in my chest, though specifically why I couldn’t say. Sometimes I wish my gut wasn’t wired like a Geiger counter, able to sense radioactive emotions invisible to the naked eye.

  “Hey, Bill. You’ve got visitors.”

  “Hold on,” he said. He maneuvered the sizzling chickens off the grill and onto a carving board. Sully and Mack fell upon them with carving knives. The aroma of caramelized barbecue sauce on chicken skin smelled intoxicating. When meat starts to smell that good to me, I know an altercation is looming.

  Everything is about to change.

  As I prepared to tell Bill more, Martha appeared. She glanced back and forth between us, eyes laser-sharp and antennae quivering. “What’s up?”

  I opened my mouth, closed it and then made a decision to tell the truth, though everything inside me wanted to lie. “Two women are at the front door. They’re asking for you, Bill. They’re not from around here.”

  A tight look swept over Martha’s face, which rendered it unreadable, only her eyes expressing uncertainty. She turned to Bill. He patted her shoulder and immediately headed through the kitchen door into the house. Now Martha’s entire body stiffened. Sensing trouble, I followed Bill, with Martha huffing along right behind me.

  Bill stop
ped abruptly, just short of the doorway. Mila Radovic let out a sharp cry of anguish. She barreled inside and threw her arms around my frozen friend, not unlike Maude and Lola had done with me a few hours earlier, when the world was simpler. Bill tolerated the embrace, slack-jawed, his arms dangling at his sides.

  His head swung helplessly from Mila to Martha, who had stepped around me.

  Mila loosened her clutch and stared at Bill’s dangling arms. Then she whipped up her right hand and cracked him across the face with an open palm. It was a mesmerizing moment—so much between them and nobody else. Neither Martha nor I could move a muscle. Then a satisfied cackle from “mama,” still standing outside, broke the spell. It seemed at least that she had gotten what she came for.

  But what was that, exactly?

  Mila’s mother now stepped inside and let fly another burst of foreign words, delivered to her daughter at high volume and with considerable passion. As she gabbled, she gestured at Martha and me. Mila replied in kind and moved to grip the woman’s shoulders, giving her a little shake.

  Mila turned, directing her words to Martha. “I am Mila. This is Irena. She is my mother.” Then she wheeled toward Bill, her eyes flashing, willing him to complete the introductions. Bill remained stunned and motionless. Sweat glistened on his forehead and cheeks. He reached up with one hand to swipe at his brow, and the action seemed to return him to the world of the living. He swallowed.

  “Yeah. Uh. This, this is my wife, Martha, and, uh, my best friend, Ten Norbu.”

  Bill’s face roiled with a dire mixture new to me: grief, fear, helplessness, and confusion. I was rattled. He and I had encountered many dangerous situations through the years, some of them life threatening, but I’d never seen him jammed up the way he was at this moment in time.

  Mila stepped forward and grabbed my hand. She was tall enough to look down at me. Her grip was muscular, her palm dry. I registered again the strong beauty of her face and the clear gaze of her brown eyes. Her mother observed us, arms crossed over her chest.