CHAPTER 24
The Buddha likened the undisciplined mind to an oxcart loaded down with bad decisions. Suffering will follow such a mind, he taught, as inevitably as the wheels of the yoked cart follow its plodding oxen.
Right now, my mind was more like a runaway circus train, and the chimpanzees were loose. When my adrenaline was raging, Bill used to tell me the same thing I suspect the Buddha taught his followers: “Time to slow things down.”
I ate two ripe bananas to placate the simian population and spent the next two hours stretching, lifting weights, and meditating, all on my outside deck. The exposure to afternoon sunlight helped reset my internal clock. The reminder to my body to breathe put the monkeys back in their cages, so I could think clearly.
I had started my meditation by taking refuge in the three jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha—my teachers, their teachings, and my community of fellow travelers. And I realized three things. First, that the Buddha was right. I couldn’t afford to let my primitive mind run the show. Secondly, while I was no longer personally or professionally responsible for the doings of Agvan Supply, a young girl’s haunted eyes, two little boys, and an old man’s brutal ending had shifted my motivation to the most powerful category of all: spiritual calling. Righting such wrongs was honoring the Dharma. Why else was I a private detective?
Which brought me to the Sangha, my community. As much as I loved going solo, I needed to ask my friends for help. It was time to call in the Eskimos.
I made up a short but powerful list of names while munching on a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich, washing the gluey bites down with swallows of cold milk. The brilliant Kim had restocked my refrigerator.
First call, Federal Agent Gus Gustafson, formerly ATF, but a few rungs further up the Department of Justice ladder after a big bust in Baja California, Mexico, last year. She and I had bonded over that case, as well as a mutual hatred of departmental stupidity.
“Ten Norbu! How the heck are you?”
Her voice was as I remembered: slightly husky, and full of humor.
“I’m well. How’s the new job?”
“Lovin’ it, thanks.”
“And the new girlfriend?”
“What does a lesbian bring on her second date?”
“Uh …”
“A U-Haul. Get it?”
I wracked my brain for an appropriate response.
“We’re living together, Ten! Officially cohabitating. Do keep up.” Her laugh was full, straight from the belly. She sounded great. “Okay, enough of that. I’m sure you’re not calling to check on my love life. What’s this about?”
“Human trafficking. I may have stumbled onto something.”
“Shit, Ten, you’d better not be nosing around our Crips investigation.”
“What Crips investigation?”
Silence. Then: “You did not just hear that, okay? Seriously.”
“I understand.” I gave her the unedited version of my previous week of travels.
“You’re a trouble-magnet, Ten. You know that?”
“Not on purpose.”
“Right. It’s all karma. Okay, well, first of all, those poor bastards from Kosovo, or wherever they came from? They weren’t heading for any restaurant jobs, well paid or otherwise, I can at least tell you that. Their job site was right under their feet.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the strawberry fields. Strawberries are routinely sprayed with methyl iodide, a seriously toxic fumigant. Now that everyone’s caught on, it’s much harder for the agribusinesses to find local pickers, including from Mexico. So they’ve started importing from overseas.”
I was writing everything down. I never knew what would prove helpful.
“Either way, guys like your dead man, they never get out from under their debt. It’s a racket, old-fashioned debt bondage in a new and different form. What’s the owner’s name again?”
“Stasic. Zarko Stasic.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. But that doesn’t mean anything. You know what it’s like around here. The right hand …”
“… doesn’t know what the left is doing. Got it.”
“I’ll pass this information along. If anything helpful comes back, anything I’m authorized to pass along, I mean, I’ll let you know.”
Another call was coming in. Martha. Yesterday, I hadn’t wanted to talk to her because Bill wasn’t coming home. Now, I didn’t want to talk to her because he was.
“Thanks, Gus.”
“De nada. I’m really glad you called. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”
“I won’t.”
“And Ten? Don’t be a cowboy, either. These guys are not to be messed with.”
After we disconnected, I reviewed my notes, and my eye landed on the first one:
CRIPS!
I’d unconsciously underlined Gus’s accidental slip, twice.
Because in my line of work, there are no accidents.
I added the name G-Force to my list, followed by a question mark. I walked out to the deck for a moment, to think. The summer air was still, the wood warm under my bare feet. I could stop right here. Right now. Leave the rest to fate.
I walked inside and called G-Force’s number.
“G-Force Workout. Help you?”
I stared at the phone. “How on earth … ?”
“Heh-heh. Knew it was you. Just practicing for when it’s real, dawg. What’s up?”
I told G-Force what I needed.
His answer followed a long silence, as if he were weighing options. “I get this for you, we square?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then. Later.”
My final call was to Clancy Williams, reformed paparazzo, and backup surveillance guy whenever I needed an extra set of eyes. He was, as usual, thrilled to get the extra work. Freelancers are like addicts, they can never have enough.
I sicced him onto Agvan Supply, starting tonight. He took down the pertinent information, and had me describe the layout.
“What am I looking for?”
“Any traffic in or out, but especially delivery vans.”
“Vans again, huh. Déjà vu.” He was referring to a previous job involving Chaco Morales and his fleet of cleaning service vehicles.
“Can I help it if criminals use vans?”
“Bad juju. Just sayin’.”
“If it helps, you should also be on the lookout for yellow school buses.”
“Now you’re talking.”
I showered and forced myself to lie down. To my surprise, I slept for four solid hours. Then I changed into ninja apparel.
By 11, my Dodge and I were back on the 101 North. Same drive, different choice of weapon. A Jackass Rig shoulder holster occupied the passenger seat floor, stuffed full of four pounds of Wilson Combat Supergrade. The Airlite was good for concealment but seemed a bit puny suddenly, like arming yourself with a squirt gun. I’d taken Gus’s words of warning to heart.
I also had a small but mighty roll of bills, all-American dollars for this job.
En route, I had a sudden urge to check up on Sasha. I still had his number on my cell.
“Da?”
“Sasha, it’s Tenzing Norbu. Are you awake?”
“Oh. Hello.” His voice sounded deflated.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Okay, I guess. Audrey’s gone back to England for a few days. Maybe longer.”
That must be the pain I was hearing.
“How’s your mother?”
“Fine. She’s all worried about my grandmother again, though. Hasn’t heard from her. Can’t reach her anywhere. You know Mom.”
“I’m sure Irena’s fine.” My next sentence came out of nowhere, and landed before I could reel it in. “Sasha, did your research ever turn up anything about a place called Agvan Supply?”
I listened to his breathing, how it altered slightly. “No. Why?”
An alarm went off in my head. What was I doing? “No r
eason. Never mind. Just glad to know you’re okay.”
“Ten?”
“Yes?”
“Say hello to my father for me.”
What on earth had prompted me to ask him that?
There are no accidents.
By the time I reached Moorpark, where the 23 narrowed into Los Angeles Avenue, it was after midnight. I started gas station hopping.
First I hit a Chevron. I filled up, using my ATM card, and went inside to trawl for information. The kid behind the cash register was a slight, nervous-looking Hispanic, barely out of puberty. Small, red pimples crawled across his forehead like a column of ants.
“I’m a detective,” I said, and flashed him my P.I. license. He snapped to attention, which told me there was no need to also flash money. “Were you on duty last night as well?”
He nodded. “Yes, sir. Every night.”
“Did you happen to notice a yellow school bus driving by?”
His blank look told me all I needed to know. I headed for the next station. A Shell. Different cashier, same drill. Same result.
But the third, a generic gas and mini-mart combination, produced a mini-jackpot, after I’d fed the female slot machine.
This cashier was ghost-pale, with hair like shredded wheat. She displayed no reaction at all when I showed her my P.I. license, but the mention of a school bus got an immediate response.
“Yep,” she said. “Bus come here about 5 A.M. I remember, because he put in close to a hundred gallons of diesel.” She pulled out a package of gum.
“Gum?” she asked.
“No thanks,” I said.
She shrugged, and loaded in a stick, working her jaws around it.
“He’s gassed up here before.” Her eyes took on an avid gleam. “He in trouble?”
“Probably not. Anything else you can tell me?”
Chew. Chew. Chew. She studied her nails. Chew, chew.
I passed over a 20, and she opened the register, shuffled through some credit card receipts, and dealt me one.
“Give it back. I need it for my boss.”
“No problem.”
The name on the card’s imprint was V. Stankic, the signature an undecipherable scrawl. I shuddered to think what Stankic’s forbearers did.
“Can you describe him for me?”
“White guy, lotta chin.”
“Long hair? Short hair? Age?”
“Real short hair. Black,” she squinted, “like yours. Late-thirties. Five foot ten or eleven.” She was good.
“Accent?”
“Only said a couple words, when he bought smokes. I never noticed an accent.”
“Brand?” You never knew. Bill had tracked down a murderer once because he still smoked Lucky Strikes.
Chew, chew. My meter had run out. I parted with another 20.
“Marlboros,” she said.
“One last question: Which way did the bus go, after it fueled up?”
She thought it over. “Came and went from thataway.” She pointed north on Los Angeles Avenue, which would soon run straight past my gravel road.
I kept driving, and was soon officially in unknown territory, at the mercy of the hovering satellite gods of my GPS. Apparently, I would eventually reach the town of Fillmore. I headed toward civilization, until I found the next available gas station to ask another round of school bus questions.
Private detective work is often comprised of just such a series of inane shots in the dark.
This time, I hit pay dirt on the first try, another generic mart with a couple of rusting pumps outside.
“You’re kidding, right?” this guy said. Bad Mohawk, worse teeth, and a snake tattoo that wrapped around his neck before slithering southward. Little pick-marks dotted his forearms: a meth head, sadly destined to stay right where he was, or worse, if he didn’t clean up his act.
“Why do you think I’m kidding, Bennie?” I wasn’t trying to name names—it was stitched on his shirt.
Bennie slouched from behind the counter and opened the door. He pointed up the road. A few hundred yards away, a blaze of security lights lit up a chain-link corral of yellow school buses, about two dozen of them.
“Maintenance yard for the district,” Bennie said. “School buses coming and going all the time.”
“Right.” My stomach rumbled, loud enough for us both to hear. “Anywhere to eat nearby?”
“Fillmore IHOP’s open. Or Micky Dee’s.”
I returned to my car to think. Something was bothering me, but it hadn’t quite risen to the level of conscious thought. I needed a closer look at the maintenance yard and some caffeine.
I pulled alongside the yard. A stark, black-on-white sign read:
YARD HOURS 5 A.M.–5 P.M.
NO EARLY ARRIVALS PLEASE!
I checked the time: almost one in the morning.
I was too early, or too late.
I continued on into Fillmore and found the IHOP. The coffee was hot, the pancakes as big as river rafts. The worrying thought solidified, and broke into three concerns.
I paid a return visit to Bennie. “Couple more questions.”
“Sure, man.”
“It’s July. Aren’t schools closed?”
“Year-round system,” he said. “Plus, summer camps use the buses. Sometimes on weekends, too.”
“Okay. Second question. Do you always work this shift?”
“Nah, I mostly work days. I been double-shifting this week so the other dude could see his old lady in Orange County.”
“So, when you said you saw buses coming and going all the time, you were referring to daytime, right?”
He scratched his arm. “Yeah. Daytime.”
“What about last night? Or tonight, for that matter? Any school buses?”
He moved to his neck, scratching and picking. “Yeah! Both nights, a bus left the yard, around midnight. Last night, it came back maybe four hours later.”
“Did you happen to see the driver?”
“Not really. White, I think. Crew cut.”
“Has he ever fueled up here?”
“You’re kidding, right?” he said again.
I pasted an expectant look on my face.
“They got their own diesel pumps! Right inside the yard!”
“Brilliant,” I said, as if he were some kind of genius, and he beamed. Let him find his joy where he could.
Still, that was interesting. Why would a district-owned school bus stop to fuel at an obscure mini-pump up the road? It was beginning to look like a rogue driver was doing a little moonlighting on the side, transporting human contraband.
There was a certain evil genius to this. Who would ever think to pull over a school bus? It was hard to imagine a less threatening vehicle.
I was in the mood for action, not a couple of hours of old-fashioned, butt-numbing surveillance. A low buzz hummed in my bloodstream, like a hunting dog catching a scent. I told the dog to lie down, and pulled onto a side road parallel to the stable of buses. I focused my binoculars on the well-lit yard.
The joke in the squad room back in the day was there should only be one question on the detective exam: Can you sit on your ass for long periods of time without needing to pee?
I made it three hours before irrigating a small, defenseless bush. I checked on Clancy.
“Anything?”
“Nothing. Don’t even see any cars in the lot here. How about you?”
“Nothing yet.”
More sitting and watching, until my personal witching hour, 3:43 A.M., brought a school bus along with it. The engine gears ground as the bus downshifted. It halted, brakes squealing, at the front gate. The gate slid open, and the bus pulled into the yard. Moments later, the driver hurried back through the gate. He was middle-aged, a bit thin in the hair department, a bit thick in the torso, and carried a bicycle helmet under one arm. He unlocked a multigeared bike from the opposite end of the chain-link fence and clambered on.
I kept my lights off and rolled to the road. Mome
nts later, he rode past, hunched over his handles, pedaling along the level bike lane at a pretty good clip. I switched on my headlights and pulled onto the road, accelerated past my target, then eased up enough to keep him in my rearview mirror.
We were approaching the thick of town, such as it was, and several more cars joined us. It wasn’t too hard to jockey into a safe position while keeping him in sight.
He stuck his arm up like an L, turned right onto a side street, and right again. He pedaled more slowly into a scruffy-looking complex, a two-story U-shaped building wrapped around a small swimming pool. He dismounted, puffing from the exertion, lugged his bike up some metal stairs to the second floor, and wheeled it to an apartment door, midway along the outside corridor. After fumbling for a key and unlocking the door, he and his bike disappeared inside.
I parked across the street and settled in for another spell of surveillance.
This spell didn’t last long. Fifteen minutes later he hurried out with his bike, dressed in navy pants and shirt, as well as a neon safety vest, like traffic monitors wear. I focused on his face. His eyes were sunken, and the harsh lines across his brow and framing his mouth carved his face into a mask of worry. His hair was wet, as if he’d just showered, and slicked back. The receding hairline aged him even more. I moved my estimate up from early- to midforties. The door slammed behind him. He was halfway down the metal rungs when it flew open again. Out flew a middle-aged woman in a bathrobe and a very bad case of bed-head. Somebody woke somebody up. They exchanged yells, and I checked for wedding rings. Husband and wife.
After a final shout, he hauled his bike to the ground floor, mounted, and whizzed out of the parking lot. Such is the grip of domestic drama that he pedaled right past me, our faces not six feet apart, without noticing a thing. He couldn’t get away fast enough.
I decided to stay put. I was pretty sure he was on his way back to the bus yard, just in time for the 5 A.M. opening—almost as sure as I was that his wife would stay angry. Angry wives are a detective’s dream. They’ll tell you just about anything you want to know about their husbands, and usually for free.
But not at five in the morning. Talking to the missus would require more waiting.
Shortly before seven, the door opened. Angry Wife had changed into a light-blue maid’s uniform. Like her husband, her worn face and thick body suggested years of hard work and unhealthy eating habits. I felt for her. Most of the cops I knew had the same issue, a direct result of long hours and fast food. She hurried down the stairs and disappeared into a door near the front office of the complex. Five minutes passed. She reappeared, pushing a cart of cleaning supplies. She maneuvered it to the rooms across the way.
The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4) Page 21