The Third Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery Read online

  I nodded to Pat, his mustache drooping under bristling brows as he stood guard by the kitchen. I received a gruff nod in return and considered that a triumph. Something about him reminded me of my childhood nemesis at the monastery, the grim kitchen monk, Lama Dorje. Both men had an uncanny way of knowing exactly when somebody was about to do something wrong and would pounce on hapless perps with an eagerness that bordered on glee. Luckily, I didn’t have mandatory kitchen duty as part of my life anymore, though Tank might disagree.

  I circumvented a couple of shaggy dogs and helped myself to a cup of excellent fresh-brewed coffee. I claimed a small, rickety wooden table for two in the corner, leaving the long counter and bigger tables free. The local brunch crowd would start drifting in soon, some grabbing seats outside facing the trees, where their welcomed dogs could explore, others lugging their fat Sunday papers indoors for spreading out and passing around. Topanga residents considered Pat’s the next best thing to home sweet home, a place you could gather and chill for hours. But woe to the city visitor who arrived here expecting and demanding fast, courteous service. I’d seen more than one of them scurry off unfed after being politely ignored, if not publicly humiliated, by the man himself.

  I leaned back in my chair, content. In a few hours, some skinny guitarist, barely awake and still scratching his balls, would set up a mike and start strumming and singing ’60s hits, which qualified as brunch entertainment. I would be long gone by then.

  I’d been introduced to Pat’s years ago by one of its most celebrated regulars, Zimmy Backus, an ex-rocker of some fame himself. Zimmy and I were deep in real estate negotiations at the time. I was a rookie cop on a limited budget and desperate to rent Zimmy’s beautiful Zen-like Topanga Canyon getaway. Zimmy was in the throes of a bad divorce from a Japanese wild woman who’d left him for a bass player with a bigger coke habit than both of them combined. For some reason, Zimmy decided almost immediately he liked me, so he gave me a good deal. A fellow vegetarian, he’d hauled me to Pat’s and treated us both to his usual, a Veggie Club sandwich. We toasted our long-term rental agreement with thick chocolate malts.

  I bought the house from Zimmy six years later. By then I had graduated to LAPD Detective I, Burglary/Homicide, so my income was bordering on respectable. Plus, my late mother’s trust had come through, and I could finally afford the down payment. Zimmy and I had returned to his favorite eatery for one final soy bacon blowout. It was the only time I’ve ever seen Pat get a little misty.

  I closed my eyes, picturing Zimmy’s scruffy smile, and sent him some loving-kindness: May you be safe and protected. May you be healthy and strong. May you live with ease. May you be free.

  I’d taken a break from Pat’s for a while—couldn’t afford the long waits, and there are only so many veggie burritos you can stomach—but lately I’d made a point of coming here a lot. I liked the total absence of LAPD cops, for one. For another, I had never brought Heather here. She didn’t even know Pat’s Topanga Grill existed.

  My favorite grumpy waitress, Patrice, her left eyebrow sprouting a freshly planted row of studs, swung by with her pencil and pad.

  “The usual?”

  I smiled. “What else?”

  She wheeled away, and my smile faded. There wasn’t anything usual about my “usual.”

  It was too warm inside for the cashmere blazer, and I slipped it off with a feeling of relief. Heather had made a huge effort for my birthday. She’d booked us “our” table at “our” place, the Inn of the Seventh Ray, and had preordered an exquisite, six-course vegan taster menu, wine pairings included. She’d turned heads crossing the outdoor courtyard in her red silk dress and glossy high-heeled boots. But Heather doesn’t miss much, and she could tell I wasn’t all there. I’d unwrapped and put on the cashmere blazer, smiling hard. It itched a little around the collar, but I resisted scratching. The silence grew. So did the tension.

  Heather had drained her wineglass and set it down with a clunk.

  “Is it your father?”

  “Is what my father?”

  “You know. Ten, when you left for India, we were fine. More than fine. Amazing. But ever since you got back …”

  “I’m just tired,” I said. “Work’s been nonstop, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  She stood up.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Heather …” But it was too late. She’d fled to the restroom. She did that a lot. When she got back, I could tell from her puffy, red-rimmed eyes that she’d been crying, though she reassured me she hadn’t and she understood and everything was fine.

  Everything wasn’t fine, and we both knew it. But how could I put into words what I could barely feel? Everything seemed up for reinterpretation somehow: what I did, what I thought, how I felt.

  Who I was with.

  In the heady days after we’d pledged to be spiritual and romantic partners, Heather and I had floated through time in a bliss-bubble of early love and mutual infatuation. We barely ate and slept even less. We sat together, morning and evening, in deep meditation, which often led to a more physical version of linking up, and called or texted incessantly in the hours between. When Heather dropped me off at LAX on my way to India to spend time with my ill father, we reassured each other the separation would only make us stronger. I left love-struck. I was gone for six weeks. I returned a stranger.

  We never could seem to find our earlier rhythm. I had expected to be gone for only two weeks, but I was wrong. Communication had been spotty—and unsatisfactory. The time difference alone made staying connected a challenge. And now that Heather had finally been hired full-time as a deputy medical examiner for the county coroner’s office, she was on call 24/7. I myself had returned to a long list of new clients clamoring for my help.

  The trip had scarred us both, but neither of us knew how to broach the subject. Heather grew busier and busier, and I grew more and more withdrawn.

  I sipped my coffee, my heart a little heavy. So much loss lately.

  Seemingly mere moments after I landed back on American soil—although in fact two months had passed—another father figure made an abrupt exit, a client in a missing persons case. Julius Rosen’s questionable behavior had let me down in the end, but I still considered him a mentor of sorts. So when his quavering phone call asked me to meet him at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, I didn’t hesitate. “I feel lousy,” Julius said. “I think this may be it.” We met outside, and I accompanied him into the emergency room, trailing behind his wheelchair as Julius, canes waving, mumbled, “No extreme measures! No extreme measures!” to anyone who crossed his path.

  Within 48 hours, the pneumonia had filled both lungs, easily swatting aside any and all non-extreme measures. Parkinson’s disease had rendered his frozen vocal chords almost useless by this time, but somehow I could still understand him. On day three, Julius opened his eyes and motioned me close. It was the eve of our Tibetan New Year, Losar, 2012—the Year of the Male Water Dragon; a year, our pundits predicted, of mixed blessings and great contradictions.

  “’M n’t g’ing t’gt b’tr, ’m I?” he mumbled.

  I touched his arm. “No, Julius. You’re not going to get better.” One of the hardest truths I’d ever told.

  He shuddered. Water leaked from the corners of his eyes, a brief acknowledgment of a lost life, lost in more ways than one. He glanced at the framed photograph of his late wife, Dorothy—the only personal item he’d brought from home—nodded once as if satisfied, lay down, and closed his eyes.

  He died as our new year dawned, a man, too, of great contradictions—and left me a Guard-on security system and $100,000 tax-free to remember him by. The Guard-on unit was set up for all to see. The money was my little secret. I told myself that as long as my ex-partner Bill Bohannon was struggling to pay the bills—Detective-III pay notwithstanding, he still had twin girls going to an expensive preschool—it wasn’t fair to tell him of my good fortune. I told myself that Heather didn’t need to know every single detail of my financial life
. I told myself it was nobody else’s concern—so much easier than exploring why the money felt strangely shameful.

  Two fathers’ lives ended, and immediately the withholding of little truths, here and there, began.

  Meanwhile, my private investigator business had taken off. Somehow, I’d become the go-to guy for heavy spenders in Los Angeles. They all talk to each other, I guess. After I’d landed a notorious Hollywood producer and a billionaire philanthropist as my first two clients, not to mention rubbed shoulders with a young, heartthrob megastar, word of my work swelled from a trio to a chorus, guaranteeing a steady stream of well-paying customers. Everyone loved the idea of a Tibetan ex-monk who promised high-quality service coupled with absolute confidentiality. Buddhism was sexy: who knew?

  Beautiful girlfriend, booming business, fat bank account: I should be feeling liberated on all fronts. Instead, I felt trapped, caught in a snare of my own making.

  Patrice set my plate in front of me.

  “Hunter omelet, whole wheat,” she drawled. I stared down at the bulging omelet, inhaling the gamy scent of bacon, sausage, and thick-sliced ham, with a few grilled mushrooms thrown in for luck. I had become a hunter overnight. After not eating a morsel of animal flesh in decades, I suddenly couldn’t get enough of it.

  I also couldn’t bring myself to admit this to my adamantly vegan girlfriend.

  I took a big forkful of omelet, washing it down with a slug of hot coffee, followed by another bite and another. I could feel the rich animal protein entering my bloodstream like a drug, and for a moment I was tempted to throw back my head and howl.

  A man deserves his privacy. My recent stay at the monastery had reminded me again how precious privacy can be. The total lack of it had been one of the factors that drove me away from the monastic life to begin with. But as my tutor, Lama Sonam, once told me, after catching me fibbing about some escapade or other, practicing noble speech and action requires constant vigilance, and there’s a fine line between privacy and secrecy. One creates healthy boundaries, he said; the other, unhealthy walls. One liberates; the other isolates. One is about honoring one’s self; the other dishonors one’s connection to others. And a withheld truth, even a seemingly inconsequential one, has a nasty way of multiplying, eventually leading to a stampede of secrets and lies that trample any hope for inner ease.

  Noble speech and noble action: I was a long way from either.

  I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. If my life up until now had taught me anything, it was that nothing ever stayed put, and change was not only possible, it was inevitable. True for the Buddha 2,600 years ago. True for me this morning. Julius Rosen himself said it to me once, although from him the message was laced with irony: The key to living a good life? Tell the truth.

  I felt the intention bubble up inside, forming a new rule: I will practice more transparency and keep current with the truth, both with myself and with those close to me.

  I’d better, before this tendency to hedge became a habit, and the habit became an addiction.

  I glanced at my watch. I’d make it to Mac Gannon’s estate with a few minutes to spare. Maybe I’d get to see my favorite redhead first—well, third-favorite redhead, after Bill’s carrot-topped twin toddlers, Lola and Maude. I sopped up the last smear of bacon grease with a corner of toast. My phone buzzed.

  Heather, she of the emotional-Geiger-counter intuition.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey. Sorry I was grumpy earlier.”

  “You? Grumpy?”

  “Ten …” Heather sighed. “Are you at Mac Gannon’s place yet? I just left the house.”

  “Nope. I stopped for a quick coffee and breakfast.”

  “Where? Maybe I can join you. I’m famished.”

  I pushed my grease-streaked plate away and waved at Patrice, tucking a twenty under my water glass. “Just paying the check now,” I said. “Maybe next time. Listen, I’d better get going.”

  Heather said nothing, and my stomach muscles tightened. This was ridiculous. Where was my bold intention now? I was terrified to talk to my girlfriend. Terrified to tell her … what? That I ate meat? That I couldn’t bring myself to meditate? That I had lots of money in the bank and little to no idea who I was without my father looming in the background?

  “Heather, listen. I really do have to go. But I promise you we will talk soon. Really talk. Okay? Promise.”

  “Okay,” Heather said, her voice quiet. We simultaneously took deep in-and-out breaths, and I could feel a slight current of relief pass back and forth. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  I climbed back into the Tesla a little lighter of heart. It wasn’t exactly the noble truth, but it was a start.

  CHAPTER 3

  I texted Mac: ON MY WAY. Soon I had turned onto Pacific Coast Highway and was headed south in the direction of the actor’s estate. Mac Gannon had found fame playing action heroes in blockbuster movies, and he’d done well enough at it to own several large chunks of Malibu on both sides of the PCH. There weren’t a lot of action film screenings at Dorje Yidam, the monastery where I grew up, as in none, and I rarely went to the movies as a working cop in Los Angeles. I don’t own a television. In fact, I still hadn’t seen a single Mac Gannon movie, one secret I was definitely keeping to myself. But I’d researched the man thoroughly, of course, the first time he hired me, and had discovered that among other notable awards, he’d managed to win two DUI’s plus an aggravated assault, later reduced to a misdemeanor, on an officer of the peace. His generous support of the Los Angeles Police Protective League was almost as legendary as his blackout binges. The story inside the stories was easy to decipher. Drunk Mac was a racist nightmare. Sober Mac—the one I met—was a charitable charmer.

  I’d been contacted by Gannon in January on a missing persons job. As was often the case, the misper was a family member, his 16-year-old daughter, Maggie. It had sounded fairly straightforward, and it was—resolved within 24 hours, with little fuss. After I’d made the usual rounds of social media snooping, best-friend interviewing, and judicious asking around, the tip-off was provided by her best friend, a gentle modern dancer with a shock of neon pink hair by the name of Mickey Noona. He let it slip that Maggie, like him, had recently discovered she preferred smooching members of her own gender, one in particular.

  One confession led to another, and it soon emerged that Maggie had been walked in on by her stepmother, Penelope, while goofing around, so to speak, with a classmate, Annie. Maggie had fled rather than face her ultra-conservative Catholic father’s self-righteous ranting about sin and hell. The stepmother neglected to tell Mac what had happened, maybe for the same reason.

  In fact, the only person in that household who seemed completely unafraid of Mac was his other daughter, an intrepid nine-year-old redhead by the name of Melissa. She was clearly the light of all their lives, a blast of energy that rocketed through the airless celebrity existence daily—and usually on roller blades.

  I’d found Maggie hiding out in the Brentwood home of her smug mother, one more example of a joint-custody parent delighted to harbor a disgruntled child while keeping an ex in the dark. I’d returned Maggie to her father pissed off, but safe and sound. Case solved. Necessary follow-up sweaty conversations between family members? Not my business. But the whole incident had stayed off of YouTube, the nightly news, and TMZ. Mac had deeply appreciated my discretion, and now, according to his call late last night, a “mystery” friend of his urgently needed my services.

  I was getting tired of celebrity mispers, lucrative though they might be. Missing-persons cases are, in their own way, intensely affecting, eliciting from clients bursts of raw anger and grief caused by love gone wrong. Easy physically—as far as actual footwork goes—but hard on everyone’s emotional machinery. Just last month, retrieving a film director’s sullen son from a head shop in Hollywood and returning him to his exhausted parents for the third time in as many months, I found myself wishing I’d been trained as a
family therapist as well as a homicide detective. The Buddha got it right again: life is suffering. To which I would add, especially life with an entitled, rebellious adolescent.

  People who hire a private investigator more often than not have issues that are no more solvable by a detective than by a dogcatcher. Take “domestic surveillance,” a fancy term for tracking down wayward spouses and snapping pictures of them doing the things wayward spouses do. The problem isn’t getting proof. The proof reflects the problem. My last sales call, just yesterday, had turned into an un-sales call, as I successfully talked a would-be client out of hiring me. The studio executive was seeking domestic surveillance. The target? His wife. I’d blurted out, “You don’t need a private detective. Spend your money on couples counseling.” Click.

  Mac Gannon’s new “mystery” case wasn’t spouse spying. I’d clarified that with him last night.

  I drove through Malibu proper and turned north onto the narrow private road that led to Mac’s main entrance. As I climbed the hill, a clunky black Ford passenger van with tinted windows trundled toward me. I moved slightly right to let it pass. I didn’t catch the logo on its side.

  I pulled up at Mac’s gate, a massive, 30-by-15-foot bas-relief sculpture of a blue ocean wave cresting across a yellow-orange background. After several exposures, I still couldn’t decide if it was a work of art or a garish monstrosity.