Free The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4) by Gay Hendricks

bottle to his mouth, and I could almost taste the cold snap of hops. I headed inside.
    “Hey,” I said. I leaned down to stroke Tank as he wove figure eights between my ankles.
    Bill half-hoisted the distinctive, chunky amber bottle belonging to one of my prize Redhook Pilsners. He grunted, as if toasting defeat. Two more empties stood guard, witnesses to his glum mood.
    I quickly grabbed one of the two remaining Pilsners from the fridge and joined him.
    “Martha still mad?”
    “Good guess, Sherlock.”
    I let the sarcasm pass, choosing instead to enjoy my first swallow of crisp honey and malt. A second long pull, and I was ready to try again.
    “How about Mila? Any word from her?”
    “Nothing yet.” Bill tipped his bottle sideways and watched as a final droplet of beer gathered and swelled on the glass-necked rim, as if preparing to make a jump for it. At the last possible moment, he stopped the spill with the tip of a finger.
    “Ahhh, sooo,” Bill said, and wiped his finger on his pant leg.
    “That’s supposed to be my line.”
    “Not today, O Mysterious Man of the East. I’ve already had three Redhooks. My turn to dispense some Zen wisdom.”
    I decided not to remind Bill, for the millionth time, that my Tibetan Buddhist roots, shared with the Dalai Lama, were from the Gelug—or Yellow Hat—tradition. For Bill, everything spiritual west of Long Beach was Zen.
    I took another sip of beer and said nothing.
    “I’ve been thinking about this whole marital communication thing, wondering if I ever actually understood the basics.”
    “I hope you aren’t going to ask me what they are.”
    His chuckle was hollow. “Didn’t used to be anything like it is now, you know? Way I was raised, you never showed your feelings, never let on what was really happening inside.”
    I waited. I knew there was more.
    “You know, because if you did, nine times out of ten, you’d get the crap beat out of you.”
    I reflected on my own past experience, which was mixed to say the least. I’d learned early on not to reveal anything of significance to my father. He wouldn’t beat me, but for sure he’d mock, ridicule, or punish me in some other way. My mother was a different story. Personal confessions didn’t anger her, but rather tended to unleash dual tsunamis—of guilt on her part and shame on mine. I wasn’t sure which reaction made me crazier, but I did know the echoes of these past patterns continued to resonate, warping expectations of all my present relationships.
    Bill crossed to the refrigerator and retrieved the last beer. Tank lifted his head from his cat bed. His emerald eyes blinked twice at me, as if to say, “Look out for your pal over there. He’s had three already.”
    “I was pretty fucking good at toughing things out,” Bill said, sitting again. “Traffic. Patrol. Security gig at that hellhole called Bosnia—don’t even get me started on that. Then life in the L-A-P-fucking-D, where most days I see stuff I don’t want to think about, much less talk about after work. So I don’t do either. But Martha, she does. She wants to know how I’m feeling, every fucking minute. I don’t know how to talk to her about my feelings, Ten. I don’t even know how to talk about them to myself. Jesus, I’m so screwed up.”
    I knew from past experience that at three beers, Bill had already sailed an unhealthy distance down the river of memory, toward the Sea of Infinite Regret. Pretty soon we’d both be adrift in the Meaninglessness of Life Itself and while we’re at it, Just What the Hell Was God Thinking When He Made It So People You Love Die?
    I gently removed the bottle from his hand. His eyelids started to droop, and I was plotting how to get him onto the sofa when his cell phone buzzed. Bill snapped awake like the well-trained cop he was, and snatched up his phone to read the screen.
    His face lit up, and he dropped several decades before my eyes.
    “It’s Mila!” He answered. “Yes!” Listened