Gods of Manhattan (9 page)

And so he never noticed the hands reaching for the back of his neck.

Not until they were at his throat.

Chapter Four

Doc Thunder and The Ape Detective

Monk had big hands.

Large, hard things, they were. Great clubs of meat and bone and sinew, flexing dangerously, constantly twitching and moving. A carpet of rough hairs growing from the back of each, dirt and grime under the thick fingernails that he could never quite get out. Rough calluses on the fingertips, like sandpaper.

Killer's hands.

He'd taught them gentleness, painstakingly and over too many years. But every so often he would pick up a boiled egg and the shell would crack, or he'd handle a paperclip and it would bend between his fingers. Monk would wince, imperceptibly, and it would haunt him for days, making him hesitant about shaking a hand or putting his arm around a shoulder.

For at least a week after such an incident, he would sleep on the couch downstairs. Doc and Maya had grown to accept it. Gradually, his confidence would return, and so would he. But it always took time.

He had to be careful. So careful, all the time. And he was careful. He was careful when he twisted the cotter pin in the lock of the penthouse suite to let himself in, and careful when he examined the room Donner died in, lifting, inspecting, replacing exactly, each object treated like a Faberge egg, every clue a museum piece of untold worth.

"Go take a look at the crime scene," Doc Thunder had said. "Pick up what you can, then get straight back to me. No risks, understand?"

Monk had shrugged. "Sure, Doc. You think Donner got mixed up with something?"

Doc had laughed humourlessly. "Mixed up isn't the word. He was the man behind Untergang. I could never prove it, but he was. The secret figurehead - businessman and philanthropist by day, inhuman monster by night. And he hated me more than any human being I've ever known."

Monk had raised an eyebrow. "Lars Lomax?"

Doc had almost smiled. "Lars hated me, all right. He would have burned the entire world to see me dead. But... Heinrich Donner would have burned the world to see me stub my toe on the ruins. He was the one who murdered-" Doc had suddenly gone quiet, as if he'd almost said too much. Monk waited.

"We finally had it out in 1959. We were fighting in Paraguay. He had this secret bunker set up... the whole damn place was full of nitro-glycerin and he pulled a gun on me." Doc shook his head sadly. "I had him. I really did. I had hard evidence, I was going to bring him to trial, but he just..."

He'd tailed off, looking into the middle distance. "He knew bullets didn't work on me. He knew that. One of them bounced off my chest, hit the nitro... and boom. Goodbye, Heinrich. Nearly goodbye me." He'd paused. "I think the evil little son of a bitch just wanted to kill us both." Monk remembered being surprised at the venom in Doc's voice. He'd never spoken that way before about anyone, even Lomax. Donner's hatred hadn't all been one-way. "I really thought he was dead. I've taken down Untergang leaders since then - the Purple Wraith, Queen Tiger... they must have been figureheads, like Cobra was. It was Donner. All the time. All the time..." He'd shaken his head, covering his eyes, and Monk had flinched. He'd never seen Doc look that way - that look of despair. "I need to know what he's been doing since 'fifty-nine. I need to know who killed him, and why, and if he's really dead this time. I don't think I can go to the police yet. I just... I don't know, Monk. I don't quite know what to do."

He'd looked at Monk with those steel-blue eyes, and they'd looked lost, like a kid's.

I don't know what to do.

The most frightening words Monk had ever heard Doc say.

"So... you want me to take a look? Bring back some intel?"

Doc had nodded, and suddenly the old certainty was back. "That's what we need." He'd smiled. "Remember, no risks. Take the flare gun. And listen, the slightest hint of anything and you get out of there. This is Untergang we're talking about - old school Untergang. They don't play games. Oh, and one last thing. Maya's had a dream; a man in a red mask, standing over one of us. She thinks it could be connected, so... keep an eye out."

Monk had just smiled. "Sure thing, Boss. No risks. You can rely on me."

And here he was, putting the picture together. A jigsaw puzzle. A portrait of a man's life, a life now ended. Under his breath, he began to murmur to himself. At the orphanage, some funny guy had given him a copy of
The Jungle Book
. Real funny, a laugh and a half for the popular crowd. The joke was on them. He'd devoured it, cover to cover, maybe just to show them, but that one book had started a fire for reading, for knowledge, that'd never gone out. Monk wished he could remember the funny guy's name. He'd wanted to thank him a lot in the years since. Send him a pound cake for Christmas or something.

Anyway, after
The Jungle Book
he was hungry for more Kipling, so he'd moved on to the
Just So Stories
, and there was a verse in that one that came back to him sometimes, on a case like this one.

"
I keep six honest serving-men, they taught me all I knew. Their names are what and why and when and how and where and who.
"

Six questions. Get the answers to all six and you had the puzzle solved.

He was in the where. The police knew the when and the what. They even figured they knew the how.

According to the police, Donner had probably known his killer enough to let him in the door, and to turn his back. There'd been no sign of forced entry.

Monk wasn't so sure. He'd just forced his way in and left no sign of it. Easy enough with hands like his.

They were strong, and they were sensitive. Even under that thick layer of callus, they knew weight, and give, and push. They knew how to open a door with a cotter pin and make it look as though you'd used a key, even to the smartest cop in the world - which the ones who'd checked this place over weren't, not by a long stretch. And more. He knew, instinctively - and it was the smallest twinge in the middle of his gut and on the edges of his subconscious but by God, he
knew -
he hadn't been the first to force that lock.

So the police had it wrong. Donner didn't know his killer. Didn't even know his killer was there until the sword was in his back.

Monk considered it, weighted it in his mind for truth, then continued along the mental path. Donner hadn't gone to the window after letting his killer in. He was already standing, looking out on the city, when the killer had let himself in silently, padded across the carpet, and stabbed Donner in the back. No mercy. Not even an explanation. Just the kill.

That was the how.

He ran his fingers over his sloped brow, as if coaxing the thoughts into life, a physical tic from his childhood. He had the why, too. If Doc was right - and Doc was
always
right - Donner was the leader of Untergang, and that was why enough for a hell of a lot of people. So, five out of six. One to go.

Put the why together with the how, the silent entry, the quiet, instant kill... secret service? Or the Special Tactical Espionage And Manouvres unit? But no, they wouldn't let it reach the papers. And Doc would have been told. Him and President Bartlet had been the best of pals ever since that brain transplant stunt Lars Lomax tried.

Someone else? No love lost between Untergang and N.I.G.H.T.M.A.R.E. - but they weren't about to go to war, either. Besides, N.I.G.H.T.M.A.R.E. was finished. After what Doc had done to them in Milan, they didn't have the manpower to go after a stray dog, never mind a top-flight bad guy. And E.R.A.M.T.H.G.I.N. was just a joke taking itself a little too seriously. It didn't have the chops for this.

Someone new, then.

Monk needed more information. He frowned, took another quick look around the room, then padded across to the bedroom, reaching behind him as he went, unconsciously mussing the pile with his fingers, making sure he left no tracks. An old habit.

In the bedroom, he let those fingers - rough and gentle, club-like and dexterous - tease lightly over the fabric of the bed, while the eyes under the ridged, furrowed brow of his ape-like face scanned every passing detail.

The lamp beside the bed; gold, with a German eagle motif. Monk wouldn't have been surprised to see a swastika there too, but that would've given the game away.

A little rectangle on the bedside, where the dust wasn't so thick. Something had lain there for a while, by the side of his bed. It wasn't there now.

A dent in the wall, like a crescent moon.

The sheets. Expensive. Silk? Or a blend? Either way, they were a little sweaty, a little scummy. Not quite as clean as might be expected.

He looked around, taking another look at the dust on the bedside table. Then he closed his eyes, thinking back to what he'd seen of the living room. Norman Rockwell print on the wall. An ashtray, filled with old cigarettes, a pyramid of them. Not emptied in too long. Food particles caught in the carpet - he'd stopped eating at the table.

Filthy sheets. Filthy ashtrays. He'd stopped doing a lot of things.

On a whim, Monk picked up the heavy lamp and held the circular base to the dent. It matched. A struggle?

No. He'd just thrown the damn thing at the wall.

Depression. Hits a guy that way sometimes. Things stop mattering, people stop caring. The detectives probably wouldn't have noticed. They hadn't been there.

Why hadn't he hired a maid? Because he needed to stay hidden. Stay reclusive. Nobody could know.

Why?

Monk's mind was racing now, cogs whirring in his head, switches flipping.
Think, ape-man.
Why can't the leader of Untergang hire a maid?

Because he wasn't the leader of Untergang any more. He wasn't anything. That stunt in Paraguay Doc had talked about - that was his last run. He might have been the big boss across the big pond, but that didn't mean he didn't have superiors back in the Fatherland. If Uncle Adolf figured he'd been compromised - out he'd go. Exiled.

Monk shook his head, frowning. No, not exile. Storage. He'd been locked away like last year's gramophone, just in case he ever came good again, in case any of the secrets in his head were ever useful to anybody. Instead, he'd been forgotten and left to rot.

So Monk was back to the why. Why now? He scratched the back of his scalp with great club-like fingers. If he only knew why, he'd know who - but then, if he knew who, he knew why. Sometimes it shook out like that.

He needed to know what it was that had been taken from the bedside table. Some kind of book?

He shook his head, then took a last look around the bedroom, hoping against hope that he'd see the damned book or framed photo or whatever it was under the bed or something. No joy.

Best thing to do now would be to head back to Doc, give him what he'd found out, let him figure the next move. One last look around the main room and -

Monk froze.

There was somebody in the main room.

A tall guy, all in black leather, with a big coat and hat. He'd cut his way in from outside, through the window, leaving a big circle of glass on the pile carpet. How the hell had he done that? They were more than forty floors up.

The tall guy bent over the bloodstain on the carpet, brushing gloved fingers over the matted fibres. Monk stilled his breathing, the gentle eyes under that ugly slope of brow narrowing. He moved forward, silent, the soles of his big bare feet falling light as snowflakes on the thick carpet. Silent as the grave.

He was wearing some kind of helmet under that hat. Or a mask.

A red mask.

Almost without thinking, Monk reached forward, those big hands moving towards the back of the tall guy's neck. This was going to have to be done carefully. He was going to have to choke this guy out without killing him.

And he had killer's hands.

He moved fast. Those big, brutal killer's hands wrapped around the tall guy's neck and squeezed - hard, hard enough to cut off air and blood, but at the same time Monk knew he had to be gentle. So, so gentle.

Too gentle, in the end.

The tall guy in the red mask twisted out of the grip and brought the butt of one pistol hard across Monk's face. It would have broken another man's jaw, and it sent him sprawling to the right, cracking his head against the wall and leaving a dent. Red Mask was up on his feet in an instant -

-
Jesus, his face!
-

- and Monk forced himself not to look at those eight featureless lenses, lashing out with those big feet, those ape's clubs on the end of his legs, driving them up and into the taller man's gut. The impact sent the man in the coat flying back in a short arc, landing with a crash that demolished an occasional table.

Monk spat blood, and a molar, then flipped back onto his feet, loping towards the downed man like a charging gorilla. He didn't have room to be gentle any more. He needed to finish this fast, and if that meant mashing that metal mask into the tall guy's face so he never quite looked human again, well, that was just too bad. He'd done his best, but now it was kill or be -