The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4)

by Gay Hendricks

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

  I scanned the swelling crowd. A small spore of dread had somehow planted itself in my gut, in between beers and greetings, and I searched for a cause. The origin didn’t take long to locate. Of the jovial faces surrounding me, only one, the host’s, was unsmiling. But his was the one I most cared about.

  CHAPTER 3

  The first round of food was decimated. The sky was growing dark. A few distant booms let us know fireworks were starting to erupt across the city.

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

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

  “Of course.” I was glad to do it. I had tired 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 did a spot check-in of my mood 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 was considerably cooler today.

  A loud knock at the front door interrupted my introspection. I crossed into the foyer to welcome the tardy arrival. Before I opened the door my detective reflexes kicked in, and I glanced through the small barred window at the top to observe.

  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 a second time. I opened the door.

  She was tall, maybe 40, with broad shoulders and a wild mane of brown hair streaked with gray. Her snug jeans and men’s button-down shirt, knotted around a small waist, complemented a strong, lithe body, fit as well as feminine. The overall impression was striking. I glanced at her left hand. No telltale wedding band.

  The woman next to her stared at the ground. Her floor-length, gray cotton tunic loosely covered a stockier figure, more cinder block than hourglass. One sleeve fell to below the wrist, but the other, the right sleeve, exposed most of her arm, not unlike the monk’s robes of my tradition. Odd—as if the outfit itself were a hybrid of customs and beliefs. A white silk headscarf encased her head and hair, its folds framing the same high cheekbones; prominent nose; and clear, wide-set brown eyes. Her beauty was faded, and somewhat marred by the stubborn set of her jaw and a pair of deep, downturned creases bordering her mouth. Her big-knuckled hands were chapped. No wedding band either, but the fourth finger of her left hand sported a narrow, indented strip of paler skin, hinting at a recently removed ring, if not husband.

  My nod included them both. “Hello,” I said. The younger woman appraised me with steady eyes.

  “I hope I am in right place.” An accent. Eastern European?

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

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

  So I was right. Mother and daughter.

  “This is Bill Bohannon’s house, yes?” the younger woman now asked.

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

  She rejected the invitation with a sharp jerk of the chin. She was tall enough to look down on me. I registered again the strong angles of her face, the defined planes, and the piercing gaze. With her streaked mane and flaring nostrils, she resembled a restless thoroughbred. I’m not a lover of horses, and so far I wasn’t taking to her, either.

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

  “Okay,” I said slowly. My intuition was sending up flares right and left. Something wasn’t right here. “Whom shall I—”

  She cut me off. “I am Mila,” she snapped. “Mila Radovic.”

  “Tenzing Norbu,” I said, offering my hand. She stared at it before responding with a short shake. Her grip was muscular, her palm dry. I turned toward the other woman, but her glare repelled any further niceties.

  Mila rattled off a string of words in a language I didn’t understand. The mother shook her head, stolid as stone. “No, name not important,” she stated, her own accent thick and guttural.

  This was shaping up to be a fairly unpleasant interaction, and I was ready to take a break. Still, my steps were slow as I retraced my path through the house and into the backyard. The noise of the gathering had amplified in direct proportion to the rising percentage of alcohol entering 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, cut into quarters.

  Maude, Lola, and two other kids had somehow roped Sully and Mack into overseeing a prolonged game that required tossing bean bags into a pair of plastic bowls.

  I moved to Bill’s side. The noise of the revelers seemed to fade. My heart felt heavy in my chest, though specifically why I couldn’t say. Sometimes I wish my system 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 sizzling chicken breasts 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 materialized. She glanced between us, eyes laser-sharp and emotional antennae quivering. “What’s up?” she asked me.

  “Two women are at the front door,” I said. “They’re asking for Bill. They’re not from around here. Shall I invite them in?”

  Bill’s body jerked, as if electrified. “No!”

  A tight look swept over Martha’s face, which rendered it unreadable, only her eyes expressing uncertainty. She turned to Bill.

  “I’ll take care of this,” Bill said. He patted Martha’s shoulder and immediately took off. Now Martha’s entire body stiffened. I followed Bill across the backyard and through the living room, with Martha right behind me.

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

  His head swung helplessly back and forth between Mila and Martha, who had stepped around me.

  Mila released her clutch and moved back a foot or two. She stared at Bill’s loose arms. She raised her right arm like a whip and cracked him across the face with an open palm. It was a mesmerizing moment—between them and nobody else. Then a satisfied cackle from “Mama,” still standing outside, broke the spell. It seemed at least she had gotten what she came for.

  But what was that, exactly?

  Mila’s mother let fly a round of foreign words, delivered to her daughter with intensity. She gestured at Martha. Mila moved as if to grip her mother’s shoulders, but the woman stepped back, eyes flashing.

  Mila turned, directing her words to Martha. “I am Mila Radovic. This is Irena Radovic. She is my mother.” Then she wheeled toward Bill, willing him to complete the introductions. Sweat glistened on his forehead and cheeks. He swiped at his brow.

  “Yeah. Uh. This, this is my wife, Martha. Martha Bohannon.” Bill’s face contorted, as if doused with a dire mixture of fear 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 this jammed up.

  Mila faced Martha, her tone softer. “Please. Forgive for the intrusion. I come only because I am desperate.”

  Martha’s reluctance to engage did visible battle with her natural kindheartedness. She offered a weak, pained smile. “Of course. What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Mila shot a second pleading look at Bill, willing him to say something, but he stood mute, as if caught in a hypnotist’s trance. She turned back to Martha, her voice firmer. “Our son is missing.”

  Martha’s smile wavered. “I’m sorry? Your … whose son?” My stomach tightened. Bill stared at the floor and his cheeks flushed scarlet.

  Now Mila, too, looked down. Her mother rolled her eyes. “What I say?” she said to Mila, and moved to take her arm. “Useless. We go.”

  Bill shook off his stupor. He reached toward Martha. “Martha. Mila and I were …” He coughed. “We … we had a … We have a son.”

  Martha shook her head. She stumbled into the living room, her gait a little unsteady, and sat on the couch. The cushions whooshed, as if they, too, had just received a punch in the stomach. I swiftly crossed the room to sit next to her. I placed a steadying hand on her back. Martha looked around wildly, as if hoping to find a different reality somewhere, anywhere. Finally she located Bill’s eyes.

  “This can’t be … . Are you serious?”

  Bill nodded.

  “How old is this … is he?”

  Mila’s eyes flashed. “He has a name! His name is Sasha!”

  Martha’s eyes flared with an answering bolt of aggression, aimed first at Mila, and then redirected at her husband. “How. Old?” she repeated, biting off each word.

  Bill’s voice was low. “Sasha is …” He appeared to be mentally adding up the years. “Nineteen?” he asked Mila. She nodded. “Nineteen,” he said.

  “Nineteen,” Martha whispered, defeated by the number. “Nineteen years old.” Her breath was shallow. I found myself taking several deep inhales, as if by doing so I could provide her with much-needed oxygen. The corded muscles in her neck resembled tightly twisted ropes.

  Bill said, “I’m sorry.”

  Martha gasped a sob-laugh and shook her head. “You’re sorry?”

  Mila made a curt, dismissive movement with her hand. “Please. Sasha is gone. Missing.” She directed her words to Bill. “You are the father. We think he is here, in Los Angeles somewhere. I need help finding him. No time for family drama.”

  Martha’s spine straightened. “Excuse me? Family drama?! We were doing just fine until about fifteen minutes ago!”

  I knew that wasn’t true—they weren’t doing just fine. But she’d just received an unexpected gut-kick and would believe what she needed to.

  Bill held up a hand. “Stop it, both of you. Martha, you need to let her speak.” I heard it in his voice: the Good Cop persona was taking over from the Errant Husband. “Mila, tell me what happened. Exactly.”

  Irena had moved to the corner of the room. She closed her eyes and began to move her lips, as if in prayer.

  Martha slumped, defeated. She clutched at my left arm, finding my wrist and gripping it tightly.

  “Sasha is very smart. Full of passion,” Mila said. “Also, very stubborn.” Mila glanced at Bill. “Like father,” she added, and I felt Martha flinch at the intimacy this observation implied. “He studies to be a journalist,” she said with pride creeping into her voice, “so he can change world. And … but … not a good world, where we are. Terrible people. Gangsters.”

  “Where is that?” I asked.

  “Bosnia,” she snapped, as if it were obvious.

  And the blurry, piecemeal images sharpened into a picture. Bill had served briefly in Bosnia as a rent-a-cop for a private military contractor early on in his career as a policeman. The six-month tour had fattened his pocketbook at a time when he was hoping to settle down with Martha and needed the extra income. He had mentioned his participation in the bloody conflict to me only once or twice—he didn’t like to talk about it. Me? I knew little about that war, or its aftermath; I’d been young, and the struggle took place in the early nineties, around the time of my mother’s suicide. My mind had been preoccupied with other battles.

  “Where we live, everything bad is controlled by these men,” Mila continued. “The drugs, the weapons, and also the sex, young girls. Terrible. Buying and selling like, like they are nothing more than toys for playing. Sasha decides to investigate them. He starts writing about these things on a computer, he write on his … how you say? Log … ?”

  “Blog,” I said. Martha pulled away, as if my providing the word for Mila was a betrayal of some sort. I regretted my impulse to speak.

  “Yes,” Mila said. “Blog, on the Internet. Now I am scared. I am thinking these bad men take Sasha.”

  A tomb-like silence filled the room as random flashes of light and deep, distant booms provided a bizarre background—a mimicked bomb raid, and an apt soundtrack to the drama unfolding inside. Irena now stared out at the light show, as if mesmerized. Martha started to cry, quietly. Mila ignored them both; she was locked in on Bill.

  Bill stroked his mustache. I’d seen him do it a thousand times while thinking through strategies.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “Go wait outside, Mila.”

  Mila’s nod was tight. She and Irena left.

  “Ten,” Bill said. “Can you keep them occupied while Martha and I talk?”

  I was already halfway to the front door. We were a team, Bill and I, and dividing and conquering was second nature to me at the start of any investigation.

  As I shut the door behind me, the soft click of the latch had the sad finality of a coffin lid closing over what had been, so very recently, a vibrant living thing.

  CHAPTER 4

  I caught up with Mila and Irena just as they reached their car, a white Ford Taurus, clean and cheap looking. I checked for, and found, evidence that it was a rental—a small sticker with a bar code on the rear window. The narrow rectangular dimensions told me they’d chosen Avis. Hertz bar codes were fatter, and Enterprise’s longer—just a couple of the many random factoids useful only to cops and P.I.s.

  Mila reached for the handle.

  “Mila, wait. Please, don’t leave yet.”

  Mila shrugged, but stayed where she was. Irena muttered something to Mila, climbed inside, and closed the car door. Again, Irena closed her eyes.

  “Is your mother all right?” I said to Mila.

  Mila’s face tightened. “Ignore her,” she said. “My mother thinks I am wrong to come here. She prefers to rely on her god for help.”

  Now that I had Mila’s attention, I wasn’t sure what to do or say. I was childishly irritated at her, at both of them, for interrupting the party; for hurting Martha and exposing Bill; for dashing my expectations of fireworks, friendship, and a celebration of freedom. From now on, every Fourth of July would be painted in darker hues. But looking at her more closely, my anger leaked away. Her stiff shoulders and tightened lips could not mask her pain, hard as she tried to keep the hurt hidden. It took courage to come here, a brand of courage I wasn’t sure I’d ever possess.

  I touched my chest. “I can’t imagine what you must be feeling.”

  It seemed as if the armor softened slightly.

  “I used to be Bill’s partner on the force,” I continued. “Now I’m a private detective, and I often look for missing people in Los Angeles. Maybe I can help you find your son.”

  Her eyes searched mine intently—it was like being frisked from the inside. I waited.

  “All right,” she said.

  “You say Sasha was a journalist of some sort? Can you tell me anything more?”

  “Sasha writes for a paper, but after a few months he quit. He says there is no room for truth there, at his job. Instead, he makes interviews on a blog he starting, interviews with girls. How they come to the city for a better life, they think. But is a trick. Sometimes they are taken. Sometime
s their fathers, their mothers, too, are selling them for having sex. Thirteen, fourteen years old. One is only twelve!” Mila shuddered. “In war, is bad enough, but this is just for making money!”

  “Was Sasha trying to expose these men?”

  “He says no. Not at first. At first, just wanting to help these girls. But he keeps looking, following the trail, like a dog. He finds something, a lead, he says. Something big. He starts to get threats. Then one day his blog just …” Mila swiped her right hand sideways. “Gone! Disappears! I say to him, ‘Enough, it is dangerous,’ but he ignores me. I am so angry at him!” She shook her head. “But also, so proud. I want to slap him and, and, at the same time a part of me wants him to keep going.” Mila found my eyes. “How is this possible? Do you know what I am saying?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I do. I’m sure it’s pretty common to feel mixed emotions around people we care for. I certainly do. But I’m curious, how did Sasha first get involved with trafficking?”

  Mila’s eyes flicked away, first moving to the car, then to a point over my left shoulder.

  She’s about to lie.

  Rather than lie, though, she evaded. “Sasha wants to be a hero all his life—even as a boy he makes trouble for, how you say, the bulls? The bad ones, the ones who go after the weak.”

  “Bullies?”

  “Yes. Bullies. Where we live there are many such men. During the war they kill everything, after the war they take everything, and now they run everything.”

  “Why not move away?”

  She met my eyes. “Do you, what is it, fly, no, flee from things you know are bad? Do you run from bullies? Or do you face them, try to help?”

  In truth, I’ve done both. Mila watched and waited.

  “Both,” I finally said. “But I like myself better when I face them.”

  “So do I,” she said. “And so does Sasha.”