The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective: Tenzing Norbu Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

a black eye, a smashed expensive camera, accusations of racism and paparazzi brutality, and an out-of-court settlement to Marv from a high-profile celebrity gossip agency, x17. I jotted down Clancy’s name.
    Finally, there was a very long feature in Vanity Fair entitled, “You Can’t Keep a Good Marv Down,” too long to read.
    For every piece extolling Marv’s creativity and talent, there seemed to be three describing angry directors, actors, or fellow producers claiming he had cheated, stolen from, or ruined them in some way. My list of industry people with gripes grew, though I got the feeling that while they might hate Marv, they also feared him and couldn’t afford to shun him. Interesting. If, in fact, Marv had been murdered by a business associate, there were plenty of potential suspects, but how many were rich enough not to need him, powerful enough not to fear him, and vengeful enough to want to kill him? That was the list I’d start with.
    I sighed. Who was I kidding? First of all, no one had hired me to look into Marv’s death. Secondly, Marv Rudolph inhabited Hollywood, an entertainment arena of glitter, fantasy, wealth, and power incomprehensible to a lowly Tibetan ex-monk. I had spent most of my youth locked away in a monastery, and the gaps in my early education regarding popular culture were huge. Even now, I knew next to nothing of this world. I might finally have a good computer, but I still didn’t even own a television. Even getting myself to a movie theater was a rare ocurrence. Movies were for dating, and dating for me, currently, was nonexistent. My big concession to new media was to purchase a Kindle last month from my dwindling reserve of funds, and load it up with my usual weird mix of reading material, from ancient Greek philosophies to modern noir mysteries. I figured it was a good investment for an avid reader and would serve me well for stakeouts.
    All those long, lucrative stakeouts I was not getting hired for.
    The glum direction of my thoughts told me I was too tired to keep working. I staggered to bed, my grateful Persian hugging my ankles, a thick file of printouts stacked neatly by my once-again slumbering computer.

C HAPTER 3
    Bill opened the manila envelope and slid a photograph across the table to me. My favorite waitress at Langer’s, Jean, had ferried us to a corner booth for privacy. Graphic images of corpses don’t do much for people awaiting their breakfast pile of pancakes and bacon.
    I pulled the photograph of the crime scene closer and leaned in to take a look. A belly-tightening chill of nausea swept through me. Even after all these years, I’ve never gotten completely comfortable with images of homicide victims, and I had met this corpse while it still housed a personality—in this case, one larger than life. I breathed in and out, long, deep breaths to disperse the queasiness; in a moment my mind cleared enough for me to look at Marv’s body through Ten-the-detective’s eyes rather than Ten-the-human’s.
    The victim was slumped in a semisupine position, knees bent, arms spread wide, reclining on some sort of heavy wicker lounge chair. An empty wine glass was set on the ground to his left. His long-sleeved black shirt had hiked up over his belly, and the great mound of flesh was dimpled and pasty white. His eyes were half closed, his mouth wide-open, tongue protruding slightly. An 8-inch black-handled chef’s knife lay to his left.
    Bill pushed another photo over. In this one, the knife and Marv’s shirt had been removed, no doubt bagged and tagged as evidence.
    “See anything interesting?” he asked.
    I mentally divided the photograph into quadrants and scanned each one carefully. I pointed to Marv’s left forearm. “That?”
    A ragged strip of skin was missing from his inner forearm, maybe the length of a business card. In its place was a red, raw patch of exposed flesh. I could only hope Marv’s skin had been removed after he was already dead.
    I looked