Read Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants Online
Authors: Lee Goldberg
Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants (9 page)
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That deal wasn’t good enough for my daughter. She stunned me by negotiating an escalator clause. If Sorrento’s made five hundred dollars in sales as a result of the advertisement, her rate would go up to fifty dollars for week two.
“Where did you learn to negotiate like that?” I asked her as we were leaving the restaurant. She’d even managed to finagle two slices of pizza for us to nibble on during our walk home.
“Deal or No Deal,”
she said.
she said.
"The game show with the bald guy and the briefcases full of money?”
“It’s quality TV,” Julie said.
She now had a strong incentive to do more than just walk around, showing off her cast. I had a feeling she’d be aggressively drumming up business for Sorrento’s all over campus. I just hoped that she wouldn’t provoke the principal into shutting down her business before it even got started.
After all, if Sharona got my job, we’d have to live on those pizza slices and the advertising dollars.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mr. Monk Takes the Case
It was my neighbor’s day to carpool the kids to school, so that meant I could get a few extra minutes of sleep and that I didn’t have to get dressed right away. I could even laze around in my bathrobe and pajamas for a half hour after Julie left and before going to work.
Which is exactly what I did, enjoying a second cup of coffee and reading the
San Francisco Chronicle
in peace. I was about to go take a shower when there was an insistent knock at the door.
San Francisco Chronicle
in peace. I was about to go take a shower when there was an insistent knock at the door.
It’s surprising just how much personality and character a knock can have. Without even going to the door, I knew that whoever owned those knuckles was irritated, impatient and in a hurry. So just to piss off whoever it was even more, I took my time getting to the door. I walked around the couch twice and the coffee table once just to drag things out.
I peered through the peephole and was surprised to see Sharona standing on my front step. I didn’t have to open the door to know why she was at my door the first thing in the morning. There was no sense avoiding her and pretending I wasn’t home or was already in the shower. She knew where I’d be going later anyway and I figured this was a confrontation I’d rather not have in front of Monk.
So I opened the door wide and invited her in without even saying hello.
“Yes, I went down to LA and I talked to your husband in jail,” I said.
She marched right past me. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that he might be innocent,” I said, slamming the door. “I’m surprised the thought hasn’t occurred to you, too.”
“You don’t know him and you don’t know me,” she said. “Stay out of my life.”
“Stay out of mine,” I said.
“I’m not in it,” she said.
“You are when you start messing with my livelihood,” I said.
She stared at me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that no one was allowed to see Adrian Monk without clearing it with you first. Should I have given you my references, my fingerprints and a urine sample, too?”
“Don’t play innocent with me,” I said. “You didn’t just ‘happen’ to be in Mr. Monk’s neighborhood yesterday. We both know what’s really going on here.”
“You are seriously nuts,” she said. “I have known Adrian for years. I was visiting a dear friend.”
“So dear that you’ve been hiding from him since you returned to San Francisco. But then we showed up in your ER and you discovered that Mr. Monk isn’t pissed at you anymore. And lo and behold, the next morning, you’re at his door with breakfast and whining about how long your hours are and how you wish you had a better job.
My
job.”
My
job.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” Sharona said. “You aren’t the least bit qualified to be caring for Adrian. Do you have any medical training? How about psychiatric experience?”
I got right up into her face, though it’s hard to be intimidating in a pink bathrobe and bunny rabbit slippers.
“You’re right. I am totally unqualified. That just goes to show you how desperate he was for help after you abandoned him,” I said. “I’m the one he leaned on and I didn’t have any experience dealing with someone with his problems. If you think that was easy for me, you’re deluding yourself. But here’s what I’ve learned from it. He doesn’t need a professional nurse anymore. All he needs is someone who cares about him, which clearly you don’t.”
“I will not apologize for choosing to have a life,” she said. “I know I hurt Adrian and I want to make it up to him.”
“By taking my job,” I said.
“He offered it to me,” she said.
“Because you manipulated him into it by telling him your sob story.”
“I told him what’s happening in my life,” she said. “It happens to suck right now. That’s the way it is. But that doesn’t matter. He knows as well as I do that I can take better care of him than you can.”
“This isn’t about helping Mr. Monk,” I said. “You’re looking out for yourself. It’s all about you.”
“You think you’re any different? You didn’t go see Trevor because you think he’s innocent. You’re trying to save your precious job,” Sharona said. “You’re hoping that Adrian can prove Trevor didn’t do it so that I’ll reunite with my husband and go away again.”
“You’re right. That’s exactly what I want,” I said. “What I don’t get is why you don’t want the same thing.”
“Trevor is a liar,” she said. “He always has been.”
“He’s your husband. He’s the father of your child. Now you’re abandoning him when he needs you the most,” I said. “But then, abandoning people who need you is your specialty.”
“Trevor did this to himself,” Sharona said.
“You can save him,” I said. “You don’t have to lose him.”
“I’ve done it before,” Sharona said. “I’m not doing it again.”
“You have no idea how lucky you are,” I said. “I would have given anything for the chance to save Mitch.”
I burst into tears. And I mean burst, shocking myself and probably Sharona, too.
The next thing I knew, Sharona was holding me, my face was pressed against her shoulder, and I was heaving with sobs. I was overcome with grief as sharp as the day I got the news that Mitch was dead.
I don’t know how long we stood there like that with me crying my guts out, but when I finally stopped, and all the tears were gone, I didn’t give a damn anymore. Let her have Monk. Let her have my job. I didn’t have the strength to fight. I was weak from a sorrow I thought I’d finally managed to bury.
“I’m sorry,” I said and I went to the kitchen to look for some tissues.
I couldn’t even find a napkin. I ended up having to settle for a Brawny paper towel.
Sharona followed me into the kitchen. Oddly enough, the fight seemed to have gone out of her, too.
Without asking, she sat down at the table and I poured us both cups of coffee. I took a seat across from her. There was a long, strangely comfortable silence that lasted for a few minutes.
She asked me how Mitch died. I told her how the navy fighter plane he was flying was shot down over Kosovo and how he’d been killed on the ground afterward.
“Trevor isn’t a hero,” she said.
“Mitch wasn’t either, except to me and Julie. The official story is that he was a coward, that he ran away from the crash scene, leaving his injured crew behind. I don’t believe that. I think his instinct would have been to save his men, and if he ran, it was to draw the Serb patrol away from his men. I’ll never know the truth about my husband. But you can know the truth about yours. Mr. Monk can find it for you.”
Sharona chewed on her lower lip. “You believe Trevor, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“Sap,” she said. “I used to be just like you.”
Sharona finished her coffee. I finished mine.
“I guess I still am,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll ask Adrian to look into it as a favor to me. If Adrian thinks something is screwy about the case, then I’ll help him investigate and I won’t ever give up. But if he thinks Trevor is guilty, then I’m dropping it and so are you.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “And I won’t make it difficult for you if Mr. Monk decides he wants you back.”
“I never said I’d take the job if he offered it,” she said.
“He did,” I said. “And you would.”
When Sharona and I showed up together at Monk’s door, he smiled with delight and relief and beckoned us in.
“I knew you two would work it out,” Monk said. “You’re going to be great co-assistants.”
“Co-assistants?” Sharona said.
I’d forgotten to tell her about Monk’s brilliant plan for us to share the bliss of taking care of him.
“You can divide up the responsibilities however you see fit,” Monk said. “For instance, when you work together, you could alternate who carries my water and who carries my wipes. It will be fun for you. Maybe even liberating.”
“How about you liberate my husband from jail instead?” Sharona said.
“You want me to plan a prison break?” he said.
“I want you to prove he’s innocent,” Sharona said.
“But he’s not,” Monk said.
“We don’t know that,” I said.
“She does,” Monk said, gesturing to Sharona. “And I have enormous faith in her instincts.”
“I’m not so sure anymore, Adrian,” she said.
“I am,” Monk said. “He’s guilty as sin. No, he’s even guiltier than that. He’s guilty as dirt.”
“You don’t know anything about the case,” I said.
“I have no doubt the police did a very thorough job. They should lock Trevor up, throw away the key and then forget where they threw it,” he said, “for the sake of humanity.”
“You mean for
your
sake,” Sharona said, narrowing her eyes at him and putting her hands on her hips. “You want him locked up just so I can work for you again.”
your
sake,” Sharona said, narrowing her eyes at him and putting her hands on her hips. “You want him locked up just so I can work for you again.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” he said.
“What’s another way?” she said.
He rolled his shoulders as if that act would put him and the rest of the world back into proper alignment.
“That it would be really great if he stayed in jail and you worked for me again.”
“That doesn’t sound any better, Adrian.”
“Somehow it does to me,” he said.
“We’re going to Los Angeles today, Mr. Monk. Sharona’s sister has agreed to watch Julie and Benji for us,” I said. “Captain Stottlemeyer talked Lieutenant Sam Dozier, the cop on the case, into meeting with us and going over the evidence.”
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