The First Rule of Ten Read online

  This provoked a fresh wail out of the woman in the corner.

  “Shut the fuck up, Sis! I did you a favor,” Leon snarled. She slid down the wall and wrapped her arms around herself. Leon fixed his reddened eyes back on me.

  “So I, Leon Monroe Taylor, hereby confess to shooting that asshole over there, Jeremy Pitts. And let the record show I wish I’d offed him a long time ago.” He blinked. “You got all that?”

  “Yes, I got it, Leon. Now, how about putting the gun down?”

  I was close now, maybe a yard away.

  His face split into a wide grin. “Here’s where I really save you some trouble.”

  He jammed the .45 up under his chin.

  “Leon, no!” I lunged. The air exploded with a deafening roar, and what was left of Leon Monroe Taylor slumped sideways.

  I felt a sharp sting on the left side of my head. Blood patterned the walls and floor. Leon’s sister let out a muffled scream and kept screaming as the door crashed open. Two uniforms burst inside, Bill limping along behind them.

  My ears were ringing hard from the explosion. My hands were shaking. I moved to the body to check for a pulse, but there was no carotid artery left to check. I bowed my head, and mentally sent off a second invocation on behalf of a second victim in as many minutes. Leon had just killed a man and then taken his own life. He would need all the help he could get negotiating his way through the bardo.

  Bill pulled me away from the body. He pointed at my head and mouthed something.

  “What?” I said. “I can’t hear you.” He flinched. I must have been yelling.

  “You’re bleeding,” he threw back at me, though it came out gargled, like he was shouting underwater. He gestured to my head. “You. Were. Hit.”

  Roger that. I touched the side of my face. Sure enough, a thick rope of blood was streaming down my cheek and neck. I inched my fingers up and found the source, an inch-long, narrow wound traversing my left temple. That’s the problem with scalp wounds. They’re bleeders, shallow or deep. One of the cops pressed a wad of paper towels to the side of my head as a compress. The other one got on his radio and called for an ambulance. Bill took Leon’s sister aside, both to comfort and to question.

  All I could think was: What a complete and utter cock-up. Two bodies, three victims, and a world of explaining to do to the higher-ups. Way to protect and serve, Tenzing.

  The side of my head began to throb. The adrenaline was already wearing off. Bill nudged me.

  He jabbed at the floor with his finger, his expression grim. “Your lucky day.”

  I looked down. Bill called it right, as usual. A single spent slug was imbedded in the wood. It must have traveled through Leon and ricocheted off a metal joist, grazing my temple. A half inch closer and I’d be getting my oatmeal spoon-fed by a nurse for the next 40 years.

  As it was, I got a ride to the ER, four stitches, and a tube of ointment.

  I emerged from the hospital an hour or so later. I inhaled deeply. The outside air smelled piercingly sweet. Bill rolled up in his new minivan and I climbed in and buckled up, like a good boy. We sat in silence for a moment.

  “So,” I said.

  “So,” he replied. “I sprained my ankle and you got shot. Not our best day.”

  “I’m sorry, Bill,” I said. “I messed up, didn’t I?” Bill glanced over at me. After a moment, he clapped me on the knee.

  “Nothing a cold draft beer won’t fix,” he said.

  I know I’m supposed to practice nonattachment, but there are times the pull of an ice-cold pint of beer trumps the promise of a lifetime, maybe even two, of equanimity. I can attest that one of those times is right after somebody skins you with a speeding bullet. I’ve been shot at before, by people actually trying to kill me, but thankfully, they all missed. So it’s ironic that my one actual bullet wound in the line of duty came from a guy who was only trying to shoot himself. Never mind, though. Never mind that it was only a ricochet bullet and a four-stitch flesh wound. I’d been hit—come this close to losing my “precious human form.” My hands had stopped shaking, but my inner being hadn’t, and while a long meditation might calm me down, right now a beer sounded better.

  We parked at the nearest watering hole and walked, or limped, in Bill’s case, into the cool of the semi-deserted bar. The barkeep set us up with two frosty glasses of ale on tap, and we paused for the Holy Moment of the First Sip. We took our swigs and sighed in unison as the spirit-reviving beverage gushed over our parched taste buds.

  “Homework time,” I said. “Anything we can learn from all that?”

  “Here we go.” Bill rolled his eyes, but the corners of his mouth twitched in amusement. After any kind of heat goes down, I like to think out loud, ask myself if there’s anything useful I can learn from the situation. Call it an old habit from my monastery days. The goal is not to assign blame, but to glean any learning that will help me handle it better next time.

  Bill humors me, especially when I’m buying.

  “Here’s one,” he said. “How about, ‘Wait for backup’?”

  “Touché.” We each took another swallow. Bill said nothing as I sorted through the mix of reactions, giving them time to settle.

  “There’s nothing like getting shot to make you start asking the big questions,” I finally said. “Even more so when you’re sitting in the ER as someone stitches up your temple—which is, by the way, the most fragile portal to your brain. You tend to wonder, ‘Why? What’s the point? What’s the real message here?’”

  “And did you come up with anything?”

  I focused on my glass, staring at the amber liquid.

  “Yeah, I think I did. The way I see it, certain incidents are like cosmic alarm clocks, you know? They jolt us into awareness. ‘Wake up!’ they scream. ‘The time is ripe for your job karma to change!’ We ignore such moments at our peril.”

  Bill was silent.

  “The truth is,” I continued, “I’ve been ignoring too many mornings where I wake up filled with dread at the idea of going in to work. Wishing I had a cold, so I could call in sick. Taking unnecessary risks, once I got there. I’ve been pushing my luck, Bill, just like I used to do at the monastery. And today my luck almost ran out.”

  “I don’t love where this conversation is heading,” Bill said.

  I met Bill’s eyes.

  “It’s time for me to move on. Like the cookie says, destiny is calling.”

  “I don’t get it, Ten. It makes no sense. You’re already the best detective we’ve got and you’re barely thirty years old.”

  “It’s not about that, Bill. It’s about the job moving in one direction and me moving in another.”

  Bill dropped his head. A wave of sadness passed between us. After a moment, he looked up.

  “Okay, then, partner. Okay. Better to get out now before this work starts killing off your brain cells.”

  Regret laced his voice, and I realized it wasn’t just about me leaving. It was about me leaving and him staying. Bill’s put in almost 20 years on the job. A couple more years and his pension will kick in, big time. That’s important, especially since the twins came along six months ago. Twenty years of trying, and he and Martha finally got lucky with the in vitro. Enter Maude and Lola. Enter crazy babyland and over-the-moon parents. Bill, a lifelong Dodgers fan, immediately outfitted the tiny newborns in blue Dodgers caps with MAUDE and LOLA emblazoned across the fronts. I’m surprised he didn’t get them mitts.

  My heart always twinges at the thought of those babies. The idea of parenthood does that to me, part longing, part terror. Mostly the latter.

  Anyway, their family joy came with a price tag, just like everything else in this world. With each day that passed, I’d sensed the growing split in my partner between Bill-the-detective and Bill-the-dad. For months now, halfway through every shift, he’d started checking his wristwatch, as if already counting the minutes until he could get home. I don’t blame him for wanting to be with his beautiful family. But I also ca
n’t help but notice he’s never the first guy through the door into the field anymore, and always the first to volunteer for assignments that keep him around the office. Bill’s heading for a desk job, and he knows it. He knows I know it, too, and it has cast a light pall over our partnership.

  The truth is, I’d already lost my partner. My message came courtesy of a stray bullet, but maybe Bill’s twisted ankle carried a message of its own.

  I set down my beer and turned to face him. “I’m putting in my papers first thing next week. I’m done.”

  Bill held out his hand. I shook it.

  “Congratulations,” he said. “I still don’t like it, but I think it’s the right move.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that,” I said, and meant it. “Anyway, rumor has it they’ll be promoting you to Detective Three before too long.”

  “Yeah. But you and I both know what that means….” He trailed off, gloomily contemplating his desk-bound future.

  I touched the bandage on my temple.

  “Change is hard,” I said. “But inevitable.” I held up my glass. “To change.”

  “To change.”

  We clinked.

  CHAPTER 2

  “No way,” the Captain said. He’d paged through my reports, finally reaching my letter of resignation.

  “So you effed up, Norbu. Don’t eff it up more by having a full-blown tantrum here.”

  I shifted awkwardly, trying not to look down at him. He hadn’t asked me to take a seat yet, part of my reprimand.

  “I just can’t hack the other stuff anymore, sir.”

  The Captain snorted.

  “Not good enough, Norbu. What are you, three years old?”

  He pitched forward and glared hard at me across the mountain of files on his desk.

  “You cannot quit, Ten,” he said. “Not now. Oh, Christ, take a seat, will you? You’re doing that monk-stare. Gives me the creeps.”

  I sat down and softened my eyes—I guess I’d been focusing so intently I was forgetting to blink.

  “You could run this place someday. You could be sitting right here. You know that, right?”

  I felt the walls press closer and my heart rate accelerate, which was unfortunate. Panic does not lend itself to tactful responses.

  “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” I said.

  The Captain’s skin acquired the hue of red brick. Oops. Looks like I pushed the wrong button on someone’s emotional dashboard. I scrambled to recover, pointing to the mound of paper on his desk.

  “Look, sir, you’ve obviously found a way to handle the administrative part of this job. I just haven’t.”

  His eyes flared hot with rage. Not helping, Ten.

  “Goddamn it,” he bellowed, banging his fist on a teetering pile of files. “You think I like this crap? Hell, no, I don’t like it. But that’s what it takes to keep the show running, so I just by God deal with it.”

  I held up my hands in a vain attempt to slow his rant, but he’d already built up a major head of steam. Soon, he was unloading a familiar litany of protest: his victim-hood in the face of the demands of the mayor’s office; the idiotic requests from the Police Commission; the fact that he can’t even effing drop an effing eff-bomb anymore without somebody putting it on effing YouTube; the impossible budget constraints; the growing demands for personal and financial disclosure. All of us in the squad had heard variations on this particular theme dozens of times, another reason I wanted out. I sure as hell didn’t aspire to be this guy in 20 years, sitting at my desk, braying a daily aria to self-pity and resentment.

  I relaxed, took a nice deep inhale and exhale, and tried to listen for any cracks in the wall of bombast, any clues to help my cause.

  His complaint veered onto a slightly different track.

  “And with this boneheaded governor’s new austerity budget and his chickenshit solution to kick all the inmates back down to us, which means overcrowding, which means earlier releases, I’m looking at higher crime rates, escalating costs, and no effing fat to trim.”

  He paused to take a breath, and in that pause, I met his eyes briefly. Bored in. He squinted back: What? Then I saw him rewind a few lines. Actually hear himself. Start to do the math. I decided it was safe to help a little with the calculating. I moved my gaze to the window, to keep it casual.

  “IA reviews. They’re not cheap, are they?” I ventured.

  He grunted. I took that as a sign to keep going.

  “And I’d be on paid leave until they were done investigating me? What’s the average? I’m betting six months, at least?”

  Another grunt.

  “At the end of which, you and I both know you’d be reinstating a detective who is starting to hate his job, and is getting sloppy because of it. Taking unnecessary personal risks …”

  I stopped there. Waited. Gave him all the space he needed. The Captain may be volatile, but he’s also wily like a fox.

  He took off his glasses and polished the lenses with his tie. Straightened a few stacks of papers. Leafed through my reports one more time. Then he picked up my letter of resignation and tore it into precise halves, then quarters. He dropped the pieces into the circular file under his desk. He stood up.

  “Congratulations, Norbu. You are hereby officially laid off, due to the fact that we’re probably looking at adding a minimum ten percent to our costs this year, and due to the other fact that your salary alone will keep at least two eager, fully committed patrol officers on the street where they’re needed. It’s a tough decision, but that’s why I’m here.”

  I met his gaze. His eyes were steely. But his mouth allowed the ghost of a smile.

  “I guess that means the state will have to pay me unemployment for a year, sir,” I said.

  His smile broadened.

  “Bet your sweet monastic ass it does.”

  I cleared my cubicle, turned in my badge, gun, and security key card, and picked up my final paycheck. I took the elevator to the first floor, crossed the spacious lobby, and walked down the narrow hallway to exit my workplace one last time. I wanted to get out of there fast, to avoid all the explanations, all the prolonged good-byes. I checked my gut for any regrets.

  I couldn’t drum up much nostalgia for the police headquarters itself, impressive though it was. It had only been open for business 16 months. The windows gleamed, the helipad worked, and the tenth-floor rooftop patio, dubbed the stogie stage, was a boon to all the smokers. I found it ironic that smoking occurred right next to the memorial to our fallen brothers. I also found the whole place a bit sterile.

  Unlike its predecessor, the Parker Center, the new headquarters had so far eluded an official moniker. Apparently in this era of political correctness, no one past or present passed muster as a namesake anymore. Despite that, the building quickly acquired the nickname “Death Star”—a nod to its monolithic mass, its angled, glassy face, and the sense that at any moment it might open its maw and zap you with a super-laser.

  I stepped into the afternoon sunshine, letting my eyes adjust. I noticed the public “lawn” finally had some grass poking through. The entire site was originally earmarked to be a neighborhood park, but the powers-that-be decided it was a much more civic idea to spend over $400 million on a fancy new home for the brass. They did thoughtfully reserve one lone acre of sod for the public, but promptly tented it over for their annual fundraiser two months in, killing off any and all vegetation.

  Late last month, I showed up at Second and Main to help local volunteers clear weeds, trim overgrown feather grass, and bag up heaps of the usual municipal flotsam and jetsam, from Starbucks cups to discarded needles. Personally, I thought it was pretty ballsy of my superiors to take over land that was designated as a downtown community park, build their new headquarters, then ask that same community to landscape the remaining meager patch of neglected soil—you know, now that the LAPD couldn’t afford the upkeep.

  No, I wouldn’t miss the Death Star.

  I would miss the people, th
ough. I’m an isolator by nature, so the structure of a job, with its enforced social interaction, helped keep me a part of the human race. I’d miss my fellow detectives. Most of all, I’d miss working with Bill.

  On cue, my hip pocket buzzed. I didn’t even have to check the screen of my cell phone. This kind of thing happens to me all the time.

  “Hey, Bill.”

  “Hey, Ten. The Edison. Seventeen hundred hours. We’re holding a happy hour wake.”

  “Who’s it for?”

  “You.”

  I was flattered. The Edison was our high-end after-hours haunt, saved for special occasions. Then again, it was Wednesday, meaning payday, so everyone was feeling flush. I decided to leave my Mustang in the lot and walk. I’d come back for it later. Save on parking, now that I was unemployed.

  Tucked in an alley halfway between the Death Star and Disney Hall, the Edison was an easy stroll. I enjoyed stretching my legs. We’d had a lot of rain and the air felt prewashed, and crisper than usual. I ducked into the little corridor off Second Street, between Main and Spring, and was waved right inside. In a few hours, the line would stretch around the block.

  I headed down the steep flight of stairs, enjoying the sensation of stepping back in time. A century ago, the Edison was a glorified boiler room, a municipal power plant buried in the bowels of downtown. Now, reincarnated as a blend of art deco, speakeasy elegance, and exposed industrial pipes and girders, it generated a different kind of power, the power of “it,” of the place to be. Detectives love coming here. It’s close, and it’s classy. The dress code—no flip-flops, torn jeans, or muscle tees—means no riffraff. And the 35¢ charge for the first happy hour cocktail, a prohibition drink at prohibition prices, makes it seem like a bargain.

  The trick, of course, is to stop at one.

  I headed for the Generator Lounge. Cops tend to congregate there because it has its own exit and is wedged into a back corner, flanked by two walls facing outward. We love to face out. We’re like the Mafia, that way.

  As my eyes adjusted, I found Bill and six or seven fellow detectives from Robbery/Homicide, most of them lifers, already digging into a platter of hot-and-sour shoestring fries. Bill handed me a stein of ale.