I put out my hand.
“Tenzing Norbu. We spoke earlier, Mr. Conway.”
He ran his right-hand fingers through his hair, pushing back thin bangs. They resisted his efforts to tame them and flopped back onto his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I wasn’t expecting any appointments this late.”
I waved at the door vaguely. “A misunderstanding,” I said. “No need to apologize.”
His jaw muscles tightened. He wanted to say more, but good manners, like good grammar, are hard habits to overcome, something I was counting on. He gave my hand a damp squeeze and herded me into one of two small armchairs set against the wall to one side of his desk. I sat and looked around the Spartan room, no bigger than a monk’s quarters. The walls were empty and painted an insipid green. The industrial carpet was gray and flecked with tiny blue-and-green accents, like confetti. Between the armchairs, a small, pie-shaped table held a single eight-by-ten silver-framed photograph of a beaming clan, of Conways I assumed, in all their multigenerational glory. Many rows of smiling, straightened teeth. Next to the photograph sat an orchid, also too perfect-looking to be real.
Roland Conway, Jr. took the other chair and angled his body firmly to block any view of his empty desk.
He doesn’t want me near that computer.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Norbu?”
I held up the insurance documents. Best to get straight to the point.
“You can tell me why you are stiffing my client, G-Force.”
His expression hardened. “I already told you …”
“Comma or no comma, you guys don’t have a leg to stand on, and you know it as well as I do.”
He licked his lips and swallowed. His Adam’s apple rose and fell.
What is he so afraid of?
My gut rang like a bell. A clear answer, the kind I have come to trust as truth. I voiced the message out loud.
“Are you being forced into this decision by Horace Latimore’s nephews, Roland? Are they blackmailing you?”
He stood.
“This meeting is over,” he said. “And unless you or Mr. G-Force can afford what it will cost to legally contest our finding, so is his claim. Tell your client if he doesn’t like my decision, he can sue me.”
I arose from my chair, bowed slightly, and left his office without another word, an alternate plan already forming. First, I checked on Grammar-pants. She remained thoroughly engaged in her typing. I reached in my pocket for the Starbucks gift card. I bent it into an L-shape while moving, in silence, to the emergency exit. I leaned against the panic bar until the door cracked open slightly and slipped the bent card between the spring latch and the jamb. Hopefully, somewhere outside this building, a small green edge of plastic was sticking out like a tongue. I let the door return to a closed position, soundlessly. With any luck, the card would hold. With any luck, I hadn’t just destroyed 95 dollars’ worth of free coffee.
I stopped by the front desk on my way out. Miss Grammar-pants was now intently reading her computer screen as she scrolled.
I peeked.
Facebook posts. So I wasn’t interrupting the rolling wheels of commerce.
“May I ask you a question?”
She turned to me, her mild features arranging themselves into a pleasant-enough smile.
“Is CAII family-owned?”
“Family-owned, family-operated,” she said. “We’ve been in business for over sixty years. Mr. Conway, Sr.’s father started the company. After he died, Mr. Conway took over, and then Roland, Jr. joined his father, straight out of Cal Poly graduate school.”
“Are you a Conway, too?”
“Almost.” She held up her left hand. A small diamond winked at me. “I’m engaged to Roland the Third. He’s just finishing up business school at Cal Poly.”
“Just like Dad. Very impressive,” I said.
“Oh, yes. It’s a wonderful company to work for. We’re known for our excellent personal service. Look!” She motioned to the wall of plaques proclaiming said superior service, both civic and otherwise.
“Very impressive,” I repeated.
I smiled my thanks and left. CAII’s website said the offices closed at six, so I didn’t have long to wait. I hunkered in the cramped front seat of the Dodge, out of eye-view, and tried to keep from falling asleep. Soon, an older, rotund version of Roland Conway, Jr. left the premises. The father’s remaining strands of hair, more platinum than sandy, had been reduced by time to a feathery horseshoe of fringe. Junior’s future.
He claimed a dark-blue Audi sedan and took off. Roland, Jr. was next, ear pressed to his cell phone. He climbed into a dark-maroon version of the same Audi. I jotted down the plate numbers, just because. Finally, the female future-Conway locked up and left. She climbed into a lowly Honda Civic with a dented door. Maybe she’d get an Audi for a wedding present.
I moved the Neon to the far end of the lot, by the Dumpsters. I waited for another hour, meditating with one eye and one ear open, which meant not very successfully, and then I waited some more. The sky began to darken slightly, turning the distant hills into smudges of dark brown. Fluorescent office lights blinked off up and down the bland building. Worker bees left their hives, one by one.
My formative years in the monastery, marked by relentless routines, were challenging enough. I’d last ten minutes in a place like this.
Once the area had finally emptied of cars, I reached behind the seat for my go-to nylon sports bag of detective tools and fished out a pair of thin latex gloves; a small Maglite; and the poor man’s slim jim, also known as a wire clothes hanger. I also grabbed my dark-blue hoodie, good for cool nights, or clandestine jobs.
My phone pinged. A text from Bill: HEADED BACK TO YOUR PLACE.
So I’d guessed wrong again. Still, his return meant I wouldn’t have to face another round of feline tail-twitching and flattened ears. HOME BY 10, I typed. HELP YOURSELF TO WHATEVER. FEED TANK, PLEASE?
I pulled on the gloves and hoodie and moved to the back of the building. It abutted an empty expanse of weedy and unkempt land fenced by industrial chain link and claimed by a blaring construction company sign. I was looking at the next Westlake Village lot slated for development. A narrow concrete walkway paralleled the stucco structure, and I jogged along its length until I reached the approximate middle. I aimed my flashlight at a few exit doors and found what I was searching for: a small piece of green plastic beckoned like a little flag, inviting me to enter. Score one for me.
I messed with the wire hanger until I had fashioned a narrow, triple-strength hook at one end. Pressing the protruding flap of card securely against the jamb, so it wouldn’t move or fall, I slipped the curved end of the hanger inside and jimmied it until I managed to catch the hook around the panic bar.
I had one chance to make this work.
I lowered to one knee and tugged downwards, keeping the pressure steady while leaning away from the door. Just as my mind was declaring how ridiculously lame this idea was, the door gave slightly, enough for me to use my fingers to widen the gap and then reach through to leverage the panic bar and pull the door open.
Seconds later, I was inside. My heart was racing. Even though I had checked for motion detectors earlier, my ears half-expected the harsh blare of an alarm.
The dark space waited and watched, silent.
I crossed to Roland, Jr.’s office. It, too, was locked, but this lock was child’s play, and I quickly gained entry with the help of a paperclip borrowed from the desk of Miss Grammar-pants, and my trusty Starbucks card.
I crossed to the computer and used my flashlight to find the power source. I switched it on, and the computer hummed to life.
Let’s see what you’ve got hiding in here.
The screen lit up with some generic space-themed background, and I waited for the parade of icons—access files into Roland’s private world—to start marching across the screen.
And waited.
And waited.
> After a minute, I realized that what I saw was all he had: a single icon denoting his hard drive, and a second image I ignored for the moment. His computer desktop was as empty of clutter as his real one. I clicked to open the hard drive, but it was password protected. I didn’t know nearly enough about the man to start guessing, and my computer-hacking knowledge was just as limited.
I focused on the second icon, which was purple and cream and shaped oddly, like an …
What on earth … ?
A faint sound outside chilled my blood. I powered down the computer, switched off my Maglite, and snuck back to the door. Peering around the doorjamb, I saw a dark figure leaning against the front entrance, his flashlight dancing from wall to wall. He tapped the flashlight against the frosted glass, then cupped his hands around his eyes to look inside.
I held my breath. May I be safe and protected …
He moved on. A security guard, making his rounds. I stayed where I was until any immediate danger of discovery had passed. But I didn’t dare investigate further. Something had made the man suspicious. He’d be back this way soon.
I relocked Roland’s office door, slipped out the back exit, and was in the Neon and aimed toward home within minutes.
An onion.
For some unknown reason, Roland Conway, Jr. had a small, purplish onion icon on his computer desktop. I had no idea what it symbolized, but I had the next best thing: Mike Koenigs, cyber-genius extraordinaire. He was my source for all matters digital, and given his nocturnal habits, he was just about to start his day.
“Onion? Sure, I know what it is.” Mike’s voice rose from the cup holder, where my phone was nestled.
I sped along the 101 at 75 miles an hour listening to my phone while gripping a Starbucks egg salad sandwich with one hand and the steering wheel with the other, just another typical SoCal multitasking driver. A few years ago, I would have pulled me over in a heartbeat.
“Anything else on his desktop, boss?”
“No. Just that and his hard drive, which was password protected.”
“And what did you say the guy does?”
“Insurance adjuster. Works with life insurance claims. Why?”
“Because the man is flat-out paranoid. There’s only one other person I know who is that careful about keeping his digital footprints invisible, and you’re talking to him.”
A glop of egg salad dropped somewhere out of sight. Served me right.
“Explain, please?”
“Dude uses Tor.”
“I’m sorry … ?”
“The Onion Router. T-O-R. Get it? Spells Tor. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it, especially now that you’re so buddy-buddy with that FBI agent.”
“First of all, Gus and I haven’t spoken in months—she’s way too busy with her promotion and her new girlfriend. And second of all, this is me, remember? I’m still getting the hang of my iPhone. Which is why I have you, my friend. So I repeat, explain, please? I have about twenty more minutes of driving ahead of me.”
I heard the distinctive pop of an aluminum top, followed by a slurping sound, followed by a sigh of pleasure. Mike was fueling up with his first Red Bull of the day.
“So, Tor started as a Navy project. Some smart dudes at the Naval Research Lab developed it as a way of protecting top-secret government communications. Ironic, right, because now Tor’s the only way Joe Citizen can protect himself from that same government.”
“But what is it?”
“It’s an anonymous routing tool. You know, so no one can analyze your traffic, get inside your virtual pants, so to speak.”
“How does it work?”
“Like any other browser, except unlike Firefox or Safari, say, this one doesn’t leave an obvious trail. So, most searches? They move in a straight line, from point A to point B, and leave a clear route back to a wealth of data for whoever wants it. Tor directs your requests onto, like, twisty impossible-to-follow paths. Virtual tunnels and anonymous circuit-hops and random encryption keys and erasable footprints. There’s no way anyone can trace your communications back to you, okay? The ultimate protection against Internet surveillance, in all its nefarious forms. It’s genius.”
“And you use Tor?”
“You bet. Me, plus, let’s see, the military, journalists, whistle-blowers, anarchists, human rights activists, corporate wonks, cops—lots of cops, especially underground ones.”
“And criminals?”
“Oh sure. Many, many criminals. Everybody’s got skeletons to hide.”
Roland, Jr. jumping up from his desk. His hot eyes and damp handshake. Everybody’s got skeletons to hide.
I turned into my driveway, tires crunching against the gravel. Bill’s old Volvo sedan was parked to one side of the garage.
“Thanks, Mike. This has been a huge help.”
“No problem, boss. Next time I come by, I’ll set you up with Tor if you like. Shoulda thought of it earlier—God knows what kind of file the NSA’s got on you.”
The kitchen light was on. Through the window, a weary Bill slumped at the table. He lifted a bottle to his mouth, and I could almost taste the cold snap of hops. I headed inside.
“Hey,” I said. I leaned down to stroke Tank as he wove figure eights between my ankles.
Bill half-hoisted the distinctive, chunky amber bottle belonging to one of my prize Redhook Pilsners. He grunted, as if toasting defeat. Two more empties stood guard, witnesses to his glum mood.
I quickly grabbed one of the two remaining Pilsners from the fridge and joined him.
“Martha still mad?”
“Good guess, Sherlock.”
I let the sarcasm pass, choosing instead to enjoy my first swallow of crisp honey and malt. A second long pull, and I was ready to try again.
“How about Mila? Any word from her?”
“Nothing yet.” Bill tipped his bottle sideways and watched as a final droplet of beer gathered and swelled on the glass-necked rim, as if preparing to make a jump for it. At the last possible moment, he stopped the spill with the tip of a finger.
“Ahhh, sooo,” Bill said, and wiped his finger on his pant leg.
“That’s supposed to be my line.”
“Not today, O Mysterious Man of the East. I’ve already had three Redhooks. My turn to dispense some Zen wisdom.”
I decided not to remind Bill, for the millionth time, that my Tibetan Buddhist roots, shared with the Dalai Lama, were from the Gelug—or Yellow Hat—tradition. For Bill, everything spiritual west of Long Beach was Zen.
I took another sip of beer and said nothing.
“I’ve been thinking about this whole marital communication thing, wondering if I ever actually understood the basics.”
“I hope you aren’t going to ask me what they are.”
His chuckle was hollow. “Didn’t used to be anything like it is now, you know? Way I was raised, you never showed your feelings, never let on what was really happening inside.”
I waited. I knew there was more.
“You know, because if you did, nine times out of ten, you’d get the crap beat out of you.”
I reflected on my own past experience, which was mixed to say the least. I’d learned early on not to reveal anything of significance to my father. He wouldn’t beat me, but for sure he’d mock, ridicule, or punish me in some other way. My mother was a different story. Personal confessions didn’t anger her, but rather tended to unleash dual tsunamis—of guilt on her part and shame on mine. I wasn’t sure which reaction made me crazier, but I did know the echoes of these past patterns continued to resonate, warping expectations of all my present relationships.
Bill crossed to the refrigerator and retrieved the last beer. Tank lifted his head from his cat bed. His emerald eyes blinked twice at me, as if to say, “Look out for your pal over there. He’s had three already.”
“I was pretty fucking good at toughing things out,” Bill said, sitting again. “Traffic. Patrol. Security gig at that hellhole called Bosnia—don’
t even get me started on that. Then life in the L-A-P-fucking-D, where most days I see stuff I don’t want to think about, much less talk about after work. So I don’t do either. But Martha, she does. She wants to know how I’m feeling, every fucking minute. I don’t know how to talk to her about my feelings, Ten. I don’t even know how to talk about them to myself. Jesus, I’m so screwed up.”
I knew from past experience that at three beers, Bill had already sailed an unhealthy distance down the river of memory, toward the Sea of Infinite Regret. Pretty soon we’d both be adrift in the Meaninglessness of Life Itself and while we’re at it, Just What the Hell Was God Thinking When He Made It So People You Love Die?
I gently removed the bottle from his hand. His eyelids started to droop, and I was plotting how to get him onto the sofa when his cell phone buzzed. Bill snapped awake like the well-trained cop he was, and snatched up his phone to read the screen.
His face lit up, and he dropped several decades before my eyes.
“It’s Mila!” He answered. “Yes!” Listened for a few moments. “Thank God,” he said. Then, “Right, I’ll work on it and call you back.”
Bill slid his phone into his pocket, his eyes flashing. “Okay, here’s the deal.”
A blip of joy registered as the familiar words transported me to our early days in Robbery/Homicide, when Bill, fully engaged in a case, would present his latest findings to the team. “Okay, here’s the deal.” I was momentarily happy that the Bill I used to know and admire was back. But I dreaded the cause.
“Sasha finally got in touch with his mother,” Bill said. “He’s not dead and he didn’t get kidnapped. He told Mila not to worry, he’s safe. He’s gone underground, says he’s onto some traffickers.”
“That doesn’t sound safe.”
“Yeah, I know. The kid’s got game.” Bill’s pride was unmistakable. I hadn’t realized you could experience paternal pride when you’d only invested 20 minutes or so in being a father, but there’s a lot about being a father I didn’t know. Like, everything.
An unattractive little voice in my head, the one not wearing the red robe and Yellow Hat, piped up: Yes, well, maybe the kid’s got game, or maybe he’s just as dumb as a bucket of bolts. I kept the snarkiness to myself. All I needed was to be jealous of my ex-partner’s newly discovered son, on top of everything else. As it was, I was going to have to chant for days to clear out the growing pile of mental deficiencies I was generating around this current mess.
The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4) Page 6