Gay Hendricks - The First Rule of Ten

Then, just in case he didn’t pick up my vibes, I carried him into the kitchen and opened one, emptying the entire can in his bowl. Tank’s eyes opened wide in appreciation as he vigorously chomped down the contents, and happiness reigned supreme in our little household of two.

The Buddha tells us our thoughts and emotions, good or bad, never stay put. Rather, they pass like weather systems, so long as we don’t attempt to control them. As I watched Tank eat, I concentrated on just enjoying the feeling of abundance, without trying to staple it to my brain.

I made myself some green tea, and settled on my deck to make some calls. I scrolled through to find Julie’s number, and as I did, sure enough, a wisp of cloud passed over my sunny mood. I was grateful Bill hadn’t asked about us-I still didn’t know where “us” was going.

On the one hand, I liked her a lot. Her humor. Her confidence. Her freckles. But I couldn’t help but wonder if her self-assurance would soon prove to be a facade, as it had every time before with the women I dated. What if she turned around one day and was wearing another face, her real one, her warm, shining eyes replaced by two black holes of neediness?

Maybe it’s your neediness, not theirs.

I pushed that idea away. If anything, I was too self-sufficient for most women.

Okay, then. Don’t call Julie today. It’s still too soon. Better yet, let her call you.

I turned my attention to the Children of Paradise. I decided to check in on John D and see if I could get any more information out of him about the cult. Fortunately, his number was listed.

“Hello!” John D sounded startled, as if he didn’t get a lot of phone calls.

“John D,” I said. “This is Ten Norbu.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “What can I do for you, young fella?”

“I’m wondering if you can tell me a little more about your next-door neighbors.”

“You’re welcome to whatever I know,” he said.

“Besides Nehemiah, have you seen any other members? I’d like to know how many there are.”

I heard his breath wheezing as he thought things over.

“Every now and then they’ll gather in the field in a big circle, holding hands. I reckon there’s maybe forty people, all told.”

So they hadn’t expanded.

“And do they ever leave the place?”

“A few of ’em go down Thursdays to buy groceries.”

“Go down where?”

“There’s a farmer’s market in town every Thursday, down near the Vons. I see ’em there buying vegetables and fruit. I like to go myself-that’s how come I know.”

“Is it always the same people?”

He chuckled. “I’m sorry, son, I’m seventy-seven years old. One robe-wearing hippie looks just about like every other one to me.” He paused, as if revisiting the question. “Come to think of it, though, there is this one woman, she’s got long brown hair, she does the shopping most of the time. I remember her ’cause she’ll smile at me sometimes.”

“The rest of them don’t smile?”

“Nah, they’re a real serious bunch. She sticks in my mind ’cause when you’re old like me, you don’t get a lot of smiles from young women. Maybe I’ll see her at the market tomorrow. You want me to call you?”

“How would you feel about taking your newly adopted son there in person?” I asked.

I heard his rumbling chuckle again. “Danged if my adopted son don’t visit me more than my actual one! Sure, come on out. I’ll show you all the best stalls.”

“If you think of anything else important, just give me a call.”

“If I think of anything else important, I’ll write it down first, then give you a call. These days, by the time I get to the phone, I’ve already forgotten who I was calling.”

The next morning, I put myself through my paces, and was on the road, earning my keep, by nine. I took the Mustang. I wasn’t planning on any off-road surveillance this trip, and truthfully, I wanted to see John D’s reaction to my roadster.

Ninety minutes later, I was kicking dust up the hill into his driveway. He was ready and waiting, rocking on his front porch in a checked short-sleeved shirt and stiff new jeans. He pushed himself upright, and stared. Then he started fanning his face, like my car was giving off too much heat.

“Hoo, boy,” he said. “Will you lookie there.”

I grinned with pleasure.

Soon he was circling my car.

“You win the lottery or something? Pop the trunk, wouldja?”

I did, and stood beside him like a proud parent as he located the battery, lodged in the back. John D closed the trunk, ran his hand across the rear spoiler, and squatted to check the mufflers.

“Nice glasspacks,” he said. “V-8?”

“V-8, three-oh-six horsepower.”

He grunted and opened the driver’s side door to peer inside, letting out a long, low whistle at the steering wheel. “Mahogany, and a horn button. Lordie me, this takes me back. Override traction bars, too, I see.”

Then John D spotted the snake emblem on the glove box. He wheeled on me, his eyes glinting.

“Son, how on God’s green earth did you get yourself a ’65 Shelby Mustang?”

“Hop in and I’ll tell you.”

I spared him no detail as we drove to the market. I hadn’t had such a rapt audience since the time I was stopped on the street by a guy driving a yellow Lotus. It was the same color as mine, but not nearly as rare, therefore sexy, and the poor guy’s face told me he knew it.

“I was on patrol,” I told John D. “Got called to the scene of a drag racing accident, a bad one. One fool was doing ninety blind drunk. He swerved into the other guy, they both flipped, and that was that. Both drivers were pronounced dead on the scene. Vehicular homicide, times two. The cars were pretty much totaled, but something about one of them, a white Mustang with black stripes, caught my eye. The chassis was smashed all to hell, but I pried open the trunk on a hunch, and spotted the telltale backyard battery. The fuel tank was another giveaway-thirty-two gallons instead of the usual sixteen. And of course there was no backseat, just a fiberglass ledge, or what was left of it, for the spare.”

John D nodded. He knew cars.

“They impounded the car as evidence, until all the paperwork was in,” I continued, “but I kept my eye on it. To this day I don’t know why nobody else figured out that it was a Shelby, but when it went up for auction, I put in a quick early bid, and it was mine for just under five thousand.”

John D chuckled. “Just about what it cost brand-new, way back when. What I want to know is, how’d you know what it was in the first place? You being a monk and all.”

“Well, I’m not what you’d call a shining example of commitment to the Noble Eightfold Path. Tourists sometimes visited our monastery, and one of them left behind a classic auto magazine, which I salvaged from the recycling bin. A refurbished ’65 Shelby was featured in one of the articles, and I fell for it, fell hard. I can’t tell you how many meditations I spent trying to free myself from that obsession.”

John D looked puzzled.

“As you can see, it worked really well,” I said.

John D laughed. Then he leaned his head back, and closed his eyes.

“Darcy Forsting,” he said, finally.

“Who?”

“Darcy Forsting. My first, and prolly best, roll in the hay, which wasn’t in hay at all, but the front seat of a ’56 Corvette Stingray Coupe. Tighter than a nun’s you-know-what-the front seat I mean, not Darcy-but that didn’t stop us. It was my uncle’s, and a beaut. Painted shiny red, like one of them fireball candies. Lord, but I loved that car. Talk about muscle.”