Bad Night Is Falling (30 page)

“What places?” Monk asked.

“Oh,” the voice ahead of the image crackled. “Hawaiian Gardens, Cerritos. Electronics assembly plant, bushings manufacturing … I like to diversify, you see.”

“Absalla sees to your security at these places?” For once, the headache seemed secondary.

“Yes he does.” Another amazing direct answer. There was more stillness, then, “Maybe I'll bring back Hoppy-land.” With that, the delayed image reached a jumpy hand forward and the screen went black.

“God, what a mind fuck,” Jakes said, throwing back her head and laughing.

“More like root canal of the brain.” Monk rubbed his forehead with the heal of his hand. “How in hell did you find him, Dex?”

“Perry's keys. We set to thinking and talking about them some more, Perry's habits and so forth, and I guessed one of them led to a locker down in Vernon. It's in a meat-packing facility that belongs to the brother of his first wife.”

“We, huh?” Monk glanced at Khristi Jakes.

She added, “In the locker Dex found a book, a diary really. Perry had been keeping a record of what he'd done for Mr. DeKovan and where.”

“Blackmail?” Monk wanted a nap.

“That's not clear, since he never hinted anything like that to me,” she said.

“You or I'd have done the same. Just to be thorough,” Grant indicated to Monk. “Anyway, there's some phone numbers listed in it and we start calling around. A voice eventually calls back and tells us to be here.”

The pterodactyl opened the door and said, “I've brought some root beer.” The Dancing Dinosaur employee came in with a tray containing an ice bucket, three plastic cups stenciled with the firm's logo, and a liter bottle of the soda. The tray was set down and the two-legged bird man stalked out. Its wing accidentally brushed against Monk's face.

Grant made their drinks.

“Well, what do you guys think—” Jakes began. She halted when both men held up an open hand.

“I sure like root beer,” Grant said.

“Me too,” Monk piped in.

Jakes popped eyes at them and Grant handed her a glass. “Have some, Khristi.”

She sipped as the two of them gulped theirs down.

The two men finished and Monk lightly touched Jakes's elbow. The three left the room and made their way past a throng of kids screaming for Lord Raydon to pluck the pulsing heart from Lu Kang's heaving chest on a large display of the Mortal Kombat video game.

Outside, the trio walked along the third-floor tier to loiter in front of a sports equipment store.

“What was the deal with the root beer?” Jakes asked excitedly.

“Maybe he wanted us to feel relaxed and loose enough to talk in there.” Grant was sizing up a pair of Shaquille O'Neal-signature high tops through the window. “Do you think it was just coincidence he mentioned Hoppyland?”

“Ah.” She nodded her head. “The Dancing Dinosaur might have been bugged. But how the hell could any one voice be picked out with all that noise?”

Grant worked a toothpick he'd produced from his shirt pocket. “I read
Popular Science
too. You can hide a camera and audio pickup in anything these days.”

Monk was leaning on the rail, looking out at the westside Saturday buyers swinging their brand name shopping bags stuffed with Polo this and Bijon that. “You wouldn't know there was any other way of life,” he observed icily. He turned around. “What did we learn from this excursion, Ancient One?”

“Humble student must see beyond the words and recognize the intent,” Grant teased.

“He's a fucking nut, Dex. And if he ain't, then he gets off putting on this act.”

“Maybe it's a little of both,” Jakes interjected.

Dexter came close. “You did learn something, Ivan. I know this isn't a good situation you're in, but you've got to remain objective, clearheaded.”

He felt like arguing but didn't have the emotional strength. Intellectually, he recognized the value of Grant's point. “Okay, I have maybe Absalla gets work from DeKovan.”

“And that he knew you'd been fired,” Jakes contributed.

Grant flicked the toothpick into the air. “He had to know who you were from the get-go.”

“He talked about wanting peace,” Jakes said. “He sounded very sincere to me.”

Monk regarded the cop's widow and former stripper. “You got a lot going on there, Khristi. But I get the feeling Mr. DeKovan's notion of peace is right along with Stalin's and Kissinger's. Kill 'em all, then hand the survivors the terms of surrender.”

“Kissinger has a Nobel Peace Prize on his shelf.” Grant hitched his pants around the waist.

“Big goddamn deal,” Monk snorted. “DeKovan seemed pretty hep on the Aztec lore. Which may mean he's the conductor orchestrating Maladrone and whatever the hell it is he thinks he's bringing about.”

Grant made a gesture with his large hand. “That's all just so much blue smoke.”

“Absalla,” Grant repeated. “Get on him about his connection to DeKovan. Like you said, it means something the supposedly stolen license came from one of H.H.'s factories. Maybe brother Absalla's security people are at that one in Burbank also.”

“Smells like team spirit to me,” Monk quipped.

“Now who's being cryptic?” Jakes said.

Monk held out his hand. “Thanks, ol' pardner.”

“I didn't do anything yet.” He shook the younger man's hand. “I've still got a couple of leads to run down concerning DeKovan's activities.”

“If he is behind all this, he won't let the burden of the past stop him from moving against you,” Monk warned.

“Nor you,” Grant shot back.

Jakes looked perplexed. “You two seem to take the prospect of painful death a little light, don't you?”

“It's not that,” Grant began, staring at Monk. “Anybody tells you they don't get scared is either a psychopath or a goddamn moron.”

“Then what does that make you two?”

“Late.” Monk laughed. “I'll call you in a couple, Dex.” He trotted off.

Walking arm in arm in the parking structure, Jakes looked at Dexter. “You really care for him, don't you?”

“Men don't admit such things.” He kissed her quickly.

“What do men admit?” She encircled his waist with her strong arms.

“Their mistakes, sometimes.” They walked to his car then drove to a revival moviehouse to catch a showing of
Three Hours to Kill
and
Johnny Apollo
.

Two Tylenols and a snooze in the Saab had Monk feeling fairly spry by the time Kodama pulled to a stop at the motel cabin in the town of Joshua Tree in Little San Bernardino. Stars poked through the early evening sky and the air smelled of smoke trees and piñon pines. The Grey Granite Lodge was a testament to a bygone era of roadside onomatopoetic architecture. The mini lodges looked like slanting, dark grey granite slabs, the doors and windows constructed off center.

“I'll get the cooler.” Monk stretched on his tiptoes as he stood up.

“I got the door,” Kodama said.

The Joshua Tree National Monument was several miles to the south, back down below the Riverside County line. Kodama enjoyed camping, and the brief getaway was her idea, but he got his way insofar as the fact that they were staying in a room and not a tent. The absence of the reassuring comfort of hot running water and the swellness of TV was more than Monk would let slide.

“Man,” he groaned, falling into the bed covered with a Navajo-pattern spread.

Kodama shoved the cooler out of the way with her foot and closed the door. “How do you feel?”

“A slight ache, but much better than this afternoon.” He stared at the ceiling with its pretend crossbeams, trying not to think about Monday.

She sat on the edge of the bed. “What's going to happen should you get convicted?”

“A little late to be worried about your reputation, baby.” He rolled over to look at her.

“I'm worried for you.” She held his face and he kissed her scented palm.

“I know you are, Jill.” He left it unsaid that he was more concerned about getting shot than he was about the trial or doing time. Though the idea of doing eight to ten wasn't all that thrilling either. “We'll make it through.”

He also didn't go on about how conflicted he felt about not actively looking for Keith 2X. Kodama had pointed out that should he do so, the gunners hunting for him would be operating in the same spheres of existence, and would no doubt tag him.

“If this teleconference with DeKovan was a bust, what's next?”

“Jam Absalla up about his connection to the crazy
gavacho
.”

She regarded him and his words for several moments. “If he's carrying water again for Tariq, neither of them will appreciate you meddling in Black Muslim business.”

“As far as I'm concerned, both these cats give Islam a bad name.”

“But you're a heathen.”

“There you go.”

“And it doesn't mean there aren't some folks who take what they do quite seriously,” she said pointedly.

He sat up. “What do you really want to say, Jill?”

“Maybe you should concentrate on your defense, and let the rest of this thing go. For now at least. You back off and could be they, whoever ‘they' are, will too.”

“We just go on with our lives,” he said doubtfully.

“I'm not asking you to quit, Ivan, but be realistic about your priorities. You've got a serious charge to deal with, so why antagonize others needlessly?”

“Absalla may well be involved in this.”

“Agreed.” She got off the bed. “But you can't take another run at him if you have to be in court every day. You're a hell of a detective, but you can't be so divided. Your demeanor, your posture, everything you do while sitting in that seat the jury picks up on, Ivan. After two O.J. trials and the Menendez brothers, everybody's hypersensitive and everybody's a goddamn expert.

“If you look tired, or distracted, sitting next to Parren, that can be misinterpreted as arrogance or aloofness. The jury will think you look like somebody who thinks they got it in the bag, somebody the jury will want to punish.”

Monk considered her admonishment. “I understand what you're saying, Jill. But it's also in my best interest to find out who shot at me. Because it is tied to the Cruzados' murders.”

“I want you safe, Ivan.” She knelt down in front of him and they hugged for a long time.

“We'll beat them, Jill.” He hoped he sounded more confident than he was. He had to hold on to the belief that the luck he'd been making for himself all these years wasn't all used up and he just didn't know it. That his bad night wasn't on him yet.

Kodama leaned over him, pushing him back on the bed. They kissed and nibbled and made love, the warm desert air a balm against their wet bodies.

Later, he sat outside the room in his robe smoking a fat Padron Churchill. The cigar's grey smoke twisted this way and that on the currents as it rose. Monk wondered if his fate was also so easily shuttled about. He smoked and listened to the sounds of the night. The door opened behind him and Jill stuck her head out.

“You going to come out here buck naked and give the grizzlies a thrill?” he asked.

“You talked to the woman?”

“Who?”

“Rosanna I think you said her name was.”

“No. I tried to find where she'd gone, but if you recall, I never exactly made headway among the Latino tenants. She and her surviving daughters may have gone back to Mexico for all I know.”

“You should ask again.”

“What will that get me?”

“You're not working for Absalla. In fact, you two had a falling out. And people in the Rancho know you did Big Loco. As perverse as it sounds, some may think of you as a hero. Including the Latino tenants he also terrorized.” She bowed slightly. “Good night.” She quietly shut the door.

Monk looked at the door and then at the evenly burning ash. He took another puff. “Damn smart woman.”

Twenty-two

M
onk was indicted on a second-degree manslaughter charge and bound over for trial. He made bail by putting up his donut shop for the bond via a procedure worked out in advance by Teague. By one-thirty he was at the window of his lawyer's fifteenth-floor office looking west at a giant Marlboro Man billboard—the cowpoke flinty with testosterone—perpendicular to the Sunset Strip's Chateau Marmont hotel.

The funky digs were infamous as the place where John Belushi fatally OD'd on speedballs, and where Boris Karloff kept residence for years. Monk turned from the window and his guidebook-reminiscing. “It's a funny feeling, Parren. Being able to walk around, but also knowing the hammer has got to drop. It's kinda unreal, man.”

“The first round is coming up, Ivan.” Teague leaned his thin frame back in his imposing banker's chair. Its black leather and brass studs gleamed with an unreality like a computer-generated picture. “The LAPD's case is weak.”