Gay Hendricks - The First Rule of Ten

“Yes, he heard it correctly.”

He frowned. “I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said.

“If you don’t mind my asking, why is this of any interest to you?”

“Do you have any children, Mr. Norbu?”

I shook my head.

Florio took a small sip from his second glass. He stared off into the middle distance, then returned his gaze to me. His voice was firm. “Mr. Barsotti is married to my daughter. He is my son-in-law.”

Looks like I stepped right into the middle of an old-school family muddle. I could almost feel the quicksand sucking at my feet.

Florio’s mouth flattened into a horizontal crease of distaste. “Can you give me the details, please?”

I described the horse-riding blonde, the SUV, and the subsequent stakeout at the condo-everything but the girl’s name. Florio’s eyes held mine throughout, without flinching.

“Permit me a few moments to digest this information,” he said. He closed his eyes and sank back in his chair. Suddenly he seemed frail and diminished; the worry lines on his forehead and around his mouth deepened, bathed in the ocher light of an antique lamp on the table.

He firmed up his shoulders and the lines smoothed. When he opened his eyes, they were steely, and for the first time I sensed iron beneath the velvet voice.

“This presents me with a dilemma,” he said. “Vincent Barsotti is the father of my grandchildren. What is best for the grandchildren? Is it better to be raised by a cheating father or to have no father in the house at all?”

I knew which one I’d pick, but I wasn’t standing in the Barsotti children’s shoes. I pictured the two youngsters as I’d last seen them, waiting at the kitchen table for their parents to join them for a family dinner. With that in mind, I tried on both scenarios, and they both felt awful. “I don’t know. I don’t know which is best.”

“Welcome to the complicated world of parenting,” he said. “My daughter is married to a man who cheats, and my son has been known to cheat me. You’re from the East, Ten. Perhaps you can explain to me how bad karma works. I think I am getting my nose rubbed in it.”

How to answer? Every situation comes with myriad karmic influences and conditions. The Buddha himself said that karma is so complex a person could go crazy trying to figure it out: the only way to simplify, he suggests, is to follow the basic principle that it is our intention that determines our karma. Good intentions produce good karma; bad intentions produce bad karma. When conditions are right, in this or a future life, effect follows cause, and the seeds of your good and bad actions ripen into the fruits that are your karma. Or something like that. Anyway, Mr. Florio wasn’t asking for a treatise on karma. He was asking for help.

“I’m not sure karma has anything to do with it,” I said. “But I will say this. It seems to me a skillful parent is like a skillful teacher. Such a person is mindful of their charge’s well-being, taking note of their actions and intentions, and steering them straight when they veer off course. Closing our eyes to their wrong actions, choosing to avoid or withdraw from them, can cause the wrong to boomerang back, more often than not, in a harsher form.”

Florio’s chuckle was rueful. “Well put, well put. I guess I’d better find out what I closed my eyes to with both my son and daughter, because the boomerangs seem to be coming faster and faster.”

“May I ask you a couple of questions?”

“Anything,” he said.

“Did your son tell you why he came to see me?”

“He told me you represented a former client of his. He didn’t elaborate.”

No, I’ll bet he didn’t.

“You say he has cheated you. In what way?”

He grimaced. “It’s painful to discuss.”

“As you wish,” I said. I waited.

He went on, “It’s a pattern he’s played out several times, and unfortunately I have been a willing participant. I hire him to work for me. He behaves irresponsibly, creating a mess that someone then has to … no, that I then have to clean up. I enable. I grow frustrated. I withdraw all support. Time passes. His mother weeps. He begs, and comes crawling back to me. I am convinced by both him and his mother that he is no longer irresponsible. I hire him again. And so it continues.”

“And now?”

He nodded. “Ah yes. Now. Now I have him working on a real estate deal. Up to this point, everything seems to be progressing smoothly.”

I watched him closely. Did he believe this? “I’m glad for you,” I said.

His eyes bored into mine. “What do you really think, Tenzing? You’ve just spent time with my son. Can I trust him this time?”

I held his gaze, letting my lack of reassurance speak volumes. Mr. Florio gave a short nod, as if I had confirmed something.

“A father knows, you see,” Florio said. “My son grows secretive, yet also agitated. Unlike you just now, he does not meet my eyes. He avoids my calls for days. I know the signs, Tenzing. It is like an addiction, only the drug for Tommy is breaking the law. Thus far, he has never been formally charged with a crime, but only thanks to my timely interventions. I’m afraid he is going to run afoul again.”

Florio picked up his second glass and took a small sip. His voice grew firm. “This time, should it happen, I have taken a vow not to protect him. And I always keep my vows. Always.”

“That sounds painful, but in this case wise,” I said. “Maybe it will break the pattern you describe.”

“I hope it’s wise. I know it’s long overdue.”

I stood up. I felt sad for Thomas Florio, Sr., but there wasn’t much I could do besides send him good thoughts; he would have to do the rest. Life demands that we face the consequences of our actions, and sometimes it boils down to a series of sweaty ten-minute conversations that you’re either willing to have or you’re not. Florio had a few such conversations looming over his future, and I hoped for his sake he wouldn’t put them off for too much longer.

I thought about me and my father. Who was I to talk?

I held out my hand to take my leave, but Florio was unclasping his leather briefcase. He withdrew an envelope, and clicked it shut.

“Still, one prefers to know such things ahead of time, doesn’t one,” he said, as if continuing a conversation in his head. “I’d like to engage your services for the next week, Ten, to keep an eye on my son’s activities.”

This was getting interesting. And tricky. “I’m already conducting an investigation for another client,” I said.

“Please. There’s no reason you can’t report to two people. Unless you’re aware of a conflict of interest?”

I thought it over. Zimmy could only gain by anything I learned on Florio’s dime. And Florio Sr. didn’t know it, but I was already onto some of Junior’s extracurricular shenanigans, thanks to Zimmy.

“We need to be clear on something, right up front,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“If it comes down to a choice-discovering the truth or concealing it to save your son-you need to know that I’m after the truth. Period. I have zero interest in protecting Tommy Junior, or anybody else for that matter, from the consequences of their actions. Are you absolutely sure we’re on the same page there?”

He nodded. “We’re both after the same information, Tenzing.”

I took the envelope, peeked inside, and sealed the deal with a firm handshake.

Immobilized in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way home, I opened the envelope and took a second look. I rolled down my window and stuck my head outside.

“Woo-hoo,” I yelled to the startled driver to my left.

I called Mike and gave him the good news. With ten thousand more in my account, I could finally pay him for his time.