“I never met Zimmy, but me and Buster, we did a few shows together.” The look in her eyes told me she was drifting off into memory-land.
“Did you get a visit from a Tommy Florio?” I asked, reeling her back.
“Sure did. We signed a contract with him last year. He was supposed to go after some money he claimed the record company had stolen. Since then, nothing.”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” I said, “how much was he talking about?”
“Well, he said it could be a hundred thousand dollars. I found that pretty hard to believe. I never had but two songs you could call hits.” She coughed again. “Sorry. Last of the flu. I’m not contagious.”
Freda glanced back at the house. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “I still have to put supper on the table.”
I thanked her for her time. Wesley had long since disappeared inside, and I didn’t think he’d mind if I left without saying good-bye to him.
I ruminated in my car for a minute or two. My conversation with Freda led me to one inescapable conclusion, and it was the same conclusion I’d reached after talking to Beulah Redman: Buster and Freda were worth a lot more dead than alive. Mike hadn’t yet found an insurance payout to TFJ from Buster’s death, but I was reasonably sure one would turn up. On the good-news side, Freda’s policy had been in effect for a year and she was still very much alive, and Buster’s death was uncontested.
What if there wasn’t any foul play involved? What if Florio took out the policies because Buster was old, Freda was a smoker, and Zimmy was a recovering addict? It made payouts a pretty good bet. Maybe what they were doing was shady, but not actually illegal. I needed to know more before I could make a realistic assessment of everything, especially whether Freda was in any immediate danger.
As I reached for the ignition, doubt flickered a warning in my gut and my hand paused.
Why threaten Zimmy, then? Follow the First Rule, Tenzing. Don’t let the tickle come back as a gut-punch. Here’s a perfect opportunity.
I climbed out of the car, hurried to the front door, and knocked before I could talk myself out of it. As I waited, I scribbled my cell phone number on the back of an envelope. I was going to need business cards soon.
Wesley opened the door, his eyes lifeless. I handed him the envelope.
“Call me if Tommy Florio gets in touch,” I said, “or for any other reason. You both take good care, okay? I mean it.” Wesley’s eyes met mine, and for a moment his face brightened, as if remembering what mattering to another human being felt like.
It was nearly 11:00 when I finally turned off the highway onto the gravel road I hoped would lead to the Children of Paradise headquarters. I’d arrived here without a hitch; now I just had to figure out what the heck I was hoping to accomplish.
If I were back at the monastery, I’d already be asleep at this time of night-we were in bed by nine and up at four. But the Children of Paradise were not exactly a conventional religious community. What would they be doing at this hour? This being Southern California, they might not even be climbing out of their hot tubs yet.
I rolled along the gravel past acres of trees planted in rows. Fruit trees, maybe. It was hard to tell. The branches were bare, and the withered trunks, washed by moonlight, looked forlorn and ghostly. I wondered if this was their normal state, or if they had been attacked by some disease. Maybe they had simply succumbed to the recession like everything else.
My tires crunched down the road for a little over three miles when I spotted a broken-down building to one side. It was divided into stalls that looked like they had once stabled horses. A quarter mile farther along, a driveway was blocked by a padlocked gate. A hand-lettered wooden sign nailed over the entrance announced:
CHILDREN OF PARADISE SANCTUARY Visitors by Appointment Only 661-555-9040
I punched the digits into my cell phone. I had no intention of calling them tonight, but who knows what Mike could do with a phone number?
I decided to drive past the sign, in hopes of discovering another point of entry. Sure enough, within half a mile I spotted a little dirt road on the right. I turned onto it, killing the headlights, and bumped my way along deep ruts, finally steering my way up a small incline. I parked at the summit and was treated to my first view of Paradise.
I took off my windbreaker. Slipped my holster over my left shoulder and nested the Wilson safely under my arm. Put my windbreaker back on. I pulled a Maglite XL100 out of the glove compartment, fed it fresh batteries, and stashed it in my pocket. Added my Microtech H.A.L.O.-a knife favored by film crews as much as cops-for good measure. I didn’t necessarily expect any trouble, but when you’re nosing around other people’s property in the dark, there’s a certain comfort in having a mini-arsenal within reach. I turned my car around, aiming its nose for the exit, stepped outside, locked it, and moved closer to get a better look.
This particular Eden was definitely a down-market version, the rustic model where angels occupied canvas yurts. Beyond the waist-high fence, set at the base of the hill, I counted eight of the domed tents, each about 20 feet in diameter. The structures were dark and quiet. Toward the rear of the compound loomed a larger yurt, nearly twice the size of the others. Light glowed from its windows.
I patted the comforting contours of my underarm cannon and vaulted the waist-high fence. It felt good to be back in action. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the hum and buzz of adrenaline in my bloodstream. This particular high was even better than the standard cop-speed, because what I was doing was not, shall we say, strictly legal. In my mind I heard Bill’s voice chiding me: “Not strictly legal? Try one hundred percent illegal.” I thanked him and proceeded down the hill toward the yurts.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I grabbed it and flipped it open next to my mouth. Mike’s timing couldn’t have been worse.
“Not now!” I hissed.
There was a pause.
“All righty, then,” I heard Julie say. “Guess I’ll catch you later.” Click.
Great.
I called right back, but her voice mail picked up.
“Sorry about that,” I said after the tone, keeping my voice low. “I thought you were someone else…. I mean someone I work with. A guy, a guy I work with …” Why did I call back? Holy crap but I got goofy around this woman. “Anyway, I’m right in the middle of … this thing. I’ll call you later.”
I turned off my cell and stowed it in my pocket. Sighed. My buzz was killed. It wasn’t her fault, but as I picked my way down the hill to Paradise, I found myself blaming Julie anyway.
CHAPTER 11
The night was cloudless. The full, fat moon spread a blanket of silvery light over the dirt pathway, so my Maglite stayed in my pocket as I worked my way downhill. Crickets sawing a concerto filled the night air with a peaceful rhythm-until I neared the illuminated yurt and heard two angry male voices coming from inside.
I approached from the rear, edging around the perimeter until I reached a window, more of a tent flap, really, with netting to keep the bugs outside. There was no shortage of them here: the mosquitoes dive-bombing my face and arms were intent on a midnight snack.
I sidled up to the flap and peered in. Two men were conversing on the opposite side of the yurt. I couldn’t hear the particulars, but their tone was contentious, the volume rising and falling in tandem with the vacillating tension. The man on the left slouched back in his chair, beefy arms crossed behind his head. Even sprawled, he managed to be imposing. He was in his early 50s, sporting a long white robe of thin cotton, and none too clean. His shaved head gleamed with menace, and his jutting auburn beard moved when he talked.
Crude swords decorated with some sort of scrollwork covered both forearms-primitive blue-inked symbols that shouted time behind bars. A geometric, X-shaped structure composed of small rectangles, like some sort of molecular compound, straddled the nape of his neck. I had never seen a tattoo quite like it. His hands were huge, big as mitts, with flat, spatulate thumbs. Squat
toes, wiry with red knuckle hairs, poked out of a pair of leather sandals. His ruddy face looked calm enough under the steady torrent of words from his companion, but I sensed that inside, a suppressed fury was ticking away like a time bomb.
As cult members go, he was a lousy poster boy.
The second man, spidery-thin but with a small paunch, was at least two decades younger. He also had on the white robe and sandals, but he had accessorized his outfit in a unique, attention-getting way: a double-barreled shotgun slung loosely over the crook of one arm. His elder didn’t look worried, though, and the acolyte seemed more clueless than threatening.
I was dying to know what they were saying. I spotted a second window-flap across the way, so I ducked out of sight and inched my way around the structure, doing my best to mimic Tank’s stealth when stalking a lizard. They were right by the opening, too close to risk taking a peek. I hunkered underneath to eavesdrop.
Shotgun was talking. “You keep saying it’s not time yet, but when’s the time ever gonna come?” He had a high, raspy, three-pack-a-day voice.
“You and I both know that God’s in charge of that,” said Thumbs. His low rumble betrayed no trace of the irritation I’d sensed-apparently he was used to dealing with impatient disciples. The cadence suggested some sort of foreign accent, but I couldn’t identify the origin.
“That’s what’s got me wondering,” Shotgun whined.
“What’s got you wondering, Roach?” His voice darkened.
“Oh, so now I’m back to being Roach, hunh?” The whine tightened. “Just because I’m the only one with enough balls to come to you and ask you to your face-”
A low growl made the hairs stand up on my arms. “Stop bumpin’ your gums and get to the point,” Thumbs snarled. His patience was proving paper-thin, as I’d suspected, but hapless Roach plowed on ahead.
“The point is, I’m wondering-well, not just me, a bunch of us are wondering whether you’re getting kinda confused about where God leaves off and Eldon Monroe begins?”
Oh, boy. This Roach needed to brush up on his survival skills. There was a moment of silence, then the creak of a chair, followed by the unmistakable slap of an open-handed blow across the face. With those paws, it probably felt like getting broadsided by a cast iron skillet. Roach’s yelp brought to my mind a whipped dog. Eldon Monroe thought so as well.
“You little cur,” he snarled, the words a hostile burr, “don’t you dare talk shit to me like that.”
Roach was breathing heavily through clenched teeth. I could hear the frantic hiss from outside.
“Don’t call me that,” he whimpered.
“I’ll call you a cur because that’s what you were when you came to me, a stupid lop, a chump nobody but me was willing to school. Is that what you want to go back to? The shoe?”
It sounded like they had served time together. But where? What did ‘shoe’ refer to?
“No.” Roach choked back a sob.
“I’m trying to make you a man and you want to be someone else’s bitch? That’s your goal in life?”
“No!” he moaned, louder this time.
“I can’t hear you, Brother.”
“NO!”
“If you’re not Roach, who are you?”
More heavy breathing. Finally, “I am Nehemiah.”
“That’s right. And what are you, Nehemiah?” Calm again. Almost seductive.
“A night watchman.”
“A night watchman? Is that all you are?”
“No.” As Nehemiah, this guy seemed to recover his confidence. “I’m a night watchman for God, Brother Eldon. I serve God. And I serve you.”
At times like this, I am grateful I somehow learned to value self-discovery over blind obedience to authority. The Buddha himself said we shouldn’t believe his words without question-we must discover the truth for ourselves. “Be a lamp unto yourself,” he counseled his disciples. “Find your own way to liberation.”
Brother Eldon saw things a little differently.
“Obey your God, Nehemiah. Obey me. Go! Guard God’s Paradise!”
I got a sudden urge to “find my own way” out of there, and quick. I scooted around the yurt and hoofed it back up the hill, moving as fast as I could without making any racket. I sprinted toward my wheels, only to slam to a halt, as if collared by the grip of dread. A man stood by my car, his rifle aimed directly at my head.
There was no question of reaching for the Wilson, so I settled for a rapid risk assessment. My opponent was elderly, but built like a barrel. His hunting rifle was an old Marlin, probably from the 1940s. An excellent option for bringing down venison.
Or an unwelcome trespasser.
My eyes further noted the worn jeans and work boots, and my mind tilted, seeking to reconcile his calm demeanor and choice of apparel with the other two members of the cult. The facts didn’t compute.
“Who are you?” I said, finally. It was the best I could come up with on such short notice.
He squinted at me, slowly lowering the rifle.
“You a cop?” he asked, his accent a rough Western twang.
“LAPD,” I said. I figured we could work out the finer distinctions later.
“Thought so,” he said. “Only a cop’d meet a pointing gun with a question. What are you doing way the hell up here, anyway? Them crazy hippies done something wrong?”
He proffered his right hand. “John D. Murphy. Most people call me John D.”
“Tenzing Norbu,” I said, returning his shake. “Most people call me Ten.”
John D worked his brain around my name a few times, then gave up and jutted his chin toward the fields beyond my car. “That’s my farm, across the way.”
“Okay,” I said. “I hope I’m not trespassing.”
“Naw. It’s just I don’t see many folks on the road this late, so I like to take a look.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you. Have you lived out here a long time, John D?”
“Yep, my whole life,” he said. “Made my living off ah-mens, till the blight came.”
For a brief, terrifying moment, I thought I had made a bad mistake and John D was a crazy cult member after all, one of those types who believed they were going to survive some cosmic disaster by rising up into the air, leaving the rest of us sinners behind. Then I realized he was saying the word almonds-his odd, nasal pronunciation a half-sigh, half-benediction-and by blight he meant an actual tree fungus.
“My daddy worked these fields, too,” he went on, “but my kids? They never wanted much to do with raising almonds, and I’m beginning to see their point.”
I opened my mouth to commiserate when a raspy voice rang out through the night air. We both reached for our weapons.
“That you up there, John D?” God’s favorite night watchman, Nehemiah, strolled up the hill, bathed in moonlight, shotgun at the ready.
“Hey there, Brother,” John D called down to him. “Sorry, but I can’t quite recall your name.” John D leaned his rifle against the side of my car, and I removed my hand from under my windbreaker.
“Name’s Nehemiah,” Roach called back. He swung his legs over the fence and sauntered toward us. His eyes darted in my direction. They were narrow and beady, like a ferret’s.
“Who’s this?” he asked, in a none-too-friendly voice.
John D didn’t miss a beat. “This here’s my son, Charlie,” he said. “My older son. You’ve prolly met my other son, Norman, that works for the county water department.”
“Don’t look much alike, do you?”
John D laughed that one off. “Charlie here, he comes from my first marriage, to my Chinese wife.”
Mild irritation spider-walked my spine. If you want to rankle a Tibetan, tell somebody he’s Chinese. I mentally exhaled-this wasn’t the time or place for petty sensitivities. There was a bad man with a gun involved.
Nehemiah strafed my features with his lifeless prison-eyes. He said, “What brings you here in the middle of the night?”
John D clapped me on the back and said, “Charlie here is thinking about coming home, getting back into the family business.” He could lie like a champ.
I played along. “It’s a fact. People are eating a lot more almonds these days.”
Nehemiah wiggled his jaw around. “I wouldn’t know. I got teeth problems. Ain’t crazy about real crunchy things.”
“Well, I guess we oughta get on home,” John D said. “Charlie just got back. Couldn’t wait to see the lay of the land again.”
“Where you been?” Shotgun asked me.
Yes, where had I been?
“Navy Reserve,” John D said. I straightened my shoulders. I was tempted to try out a salute, but that might be pushing things.
Shotgun shook his head. “That wouldn’t work for me. I get seasick.”
I could think of other problems that might interfere with Brother Nehemiah’s navy career as well, but I didn’t want to go there.
We turned to leave.
“John D,” Nehemiah said, “how come you ain’t never joined us for a service? We must’ve invited you a dozen times. It’s where the Real Word is being spoken.”
“You mean to tell me the rest of those words I’ve been hearing my whole life ain’t even been real?” John D’s eyes twinkled.
“Yes sir, that’s right.” Nehemiah’s voice grew fervent. Apparently, irony is no match for a brain washed clean by the Real Word.
John D smiled. “Well, Brother Nehemiah, you are a man of conviction. I respect that.” Nehemiah preened a little at that.
“You take care now,” Nehemiah said. He strolled back to the fence and walked off whistling.
John D looked over at me and grinned. “What do you think, son?”
“I’m impressed,” I said. “Where did you learn to fib like that?”
“I used to be in law enforcement, just like you,” he said.
Which explained his quick draw.
“I worked for the Sheriff’s department for a few years when I was just out of high school. Till I was old enough to take over for my daddy.” John D waved his arms at the dead and dying trees around us. “Good thing Nehemiah there don’t know squat about almonds. He woulda realized nobody’s gonna grow nothing on these trees.” The lines in his face deepened as he surveyed the ghostly grove. “Well, I’d best be off.”
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