Mr. Monk in Outer Space (6 page)
Read Mr. Monk in Outer Space Online
Authors: Lee Goldberg
Monk didn’t talk to me much about the reunion, but I knew they’d come to some kind of understanding and that their father had stopped to see Ambrose on his way out of town.
“Why do you still have all of this junk?” Monk said, straightening one of the piles of newspapers.
“I’m saving it for Dad,” Ambrose said.
“But Dad came back,” Monk said. “You can stop saving it now.”
“He told me to hang on to it until he has a chance to pick it up.”
“He’s never going to pick it up,” Monk said.
“You were the one who said he’d never come back,” Ambrose said. “And you were wrong. He came back.”
“Only because he needed something from me,” Monk said.
“He needs this from me,” Ambrose said. “He’ll be back for it all.”
“He was blowing you off,” Monk said.
“Are you saying he doesn’t need me?” Ambrose yelled, startling me. “Do you think you’re the only one he needs?”
“He doesn’t need either one of us,” Monk said. “Not until he does.”
“You’re not making any sense, Adrian.”
“Dad isn’t someone you can count on, especially when it comes to considering the feelings of others. Look at how he’s inconvenienced you.”
“It’s no problem for me. I have been doing it for years.”
“That’s my point,” Monk said.
Ambrose ignored him and smiled at me. “Would you like a glass of water?”
“No thank you,” I said.
“How about an Eskimo Pie?” Ambrose asked. “They are quite delicious.”
“I wish I could,” I said, “but I am watching my weight.”
“That must be how you stay so slim and shapely.”
I think there may have been a contradiction in there, but I smiled anyway.
He picked up a stack of books from the coffee table. They were tied with a red ribbon. He presented them to me.
“I’ve been saving these for you,” he said.
“You save everything,” Monk muttered.
“These are copies of my latest books,” Ambrose said.
I glanced at the spines. There was an owner’s manual for the Linknet WMA24Z7 Wireless Router, the installation guide for a low-voltage outdoor lighting system, and instructions in Swedish and English for putting together an elaborate bookcase. I’m sure he wrote both versions.
“Thank you,” I said. “I look forward to reading them.”
“They’re inscribed,” he said proudly.
I opened the cover of the Linknet manual. He’d written:
To Natalie, May all of your connections, wireless and otherwise, enjoy uninterrupted throughput.
To Natalie, May all of your connections, wireless and otherwise, enjoy uninterrupted throughput.
“You’re very sweet, Ambrose,” I said and kissed him on the cheek. “Nobody has ever inscribed an owner’s manual for me before.”
“I have it in Spanish, if you’re interested,” he said. “I wrote that one, too.”
Monk cleared his throat. Ambrose looked at him as if he’d forgotten that he was there.
“Why are you here?” Ambrose said.
“I need to stay for a couple of days,” Monk said. “It’s an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?”
“A coffee stain emergency,” Monk said.
Ambrose nodded gravely. “Why didn’t you say so to start with?”
“I didn’t want to shock you,” Monk said.
Ambrose put his arm around Monk, who immediately went rigid. “If you can’t come to me for support when you’re in trouble, what kind of brother would I be?”
“I made the stain,” Monk said.
Ambrose patted him reassuringly on the back. “It’s okay, Adrian.”
“You don’t understand,” Monk said. “It’s not the first time.”
“I know,” Ambrose said.
“I’m so ashamed.” Monk leaned his forehead against his brother’s shoulder.
I slipped away discreetly and went outside to get the luggage.
5
Mr. Monk and the Free Day
I left Monk at Ambrose’s house and headed out into the big wide world to enjoy my first totally free day in ages.
I drove back into the city and made a detour to Fisherman’s Wharf, an area I usually avoid because of the crush of tourists. But there’s a Boudin Bakery on the waterfront and they make the best sourdough bread on earth. The lure of a hot loaf of bread to bring home for dinner was too strong for me to ignore.
I spent twenty minutes looking for a parking spot and then stood in line for bread, watching the tourists take pictures of themselves in front of the Fisherman’s Wharf sign to prove to everybody back home that they’d actually been there. I wasn’t sure why they bothered. I didn’t think there was anything worth visiting, much less remembering, on the wharf besides the bakery.
The wharf hadn’t been a real shipping or industrial spot in decades. It had degenerated into a brazen touristtrap, a storefront shopping center with a seaside motif and a carnival midway feel. It was all schlocky souvenir shops, dreary fast-food franchises, and tacky seafood restaurants that put more effort into covering their walls with fishing nets and seafaring knick-knacks than making decent food. The wharf had very little left that was authentic or charming, and even less as time went on. That sad state of affairs seemed to be true of just about everything these days, including a lot of people that I knew.
It was a nice, clear day with a crisp, salty breeze blowing off the water, so rather than go back to the car, I wandered up to Victoria Park, which is right below Ghirardelli Square and has a great view of the bay.
The park is also the turn-around point for the cable cars. The tourists line up there in droves waiting for a ride, so there are plenty of street performers, caricature artists, and sidewalk vendors hoping their captive audience would rather spend money on crap than do nothing.
I sat on a bench and looked out at the nineteenth-century schooners permanently docked at the Hyde Street Pier, the sailboats skipping over the whitecaps, and the ferry on its way to Alcatraz. It was nice, and I zoned out for a while.
Before I knew it, I’d absently finished off the entire loaf of bread. So much for watching my weight.
I got up and browsed the jewelry that the vendors were selling on card tables and apple crates. I bought a necklace and some earrings for Julie so she’d know I’d been thinking about her while she was away. I wondered if she missed me. She was probably glad to be on her own for a change, just like I was. I never got the chance to sit in the park, eat bread, and mock tourists. I was having a grand time.
I walked over to Ghirardelli Square, a shopping center in what once was a famous San Francisco chocolate factory. The chocolate is made in San Leandro now, but Ghirardelli doesn’t make a big deal about that. Nobody ever left their heart in San Leandro.
There’s a bookstore in the square devoted to art and architecture books. I browsed through a big book on tiki and Hawaiian style and remembered my trip to Kauai with Monk. I recalled it with far more amusement and affection than I’d felt at the time, but the past is like that sometimes. You remember what you want to remember.
I wondered how Monk was getting along with Ambrose. Were they having fun? Were they fighting? Or were they off in separate corners of the big house, barely acknowledging one another’s presence?
I was tempted to drive over and see for myself. I shook off the thought and called Firefighter Joe, my friend-with-benefits, to inquire if he was free for dinner. Unfortunately for me, Joe was at the firehouse, two days into a four-day shift.
So I tried Dr. Polanski, a dashing dermatologist and recovered leper whom I met on one of Monk’s cases. I struck out with him, too. He was at a leper convention in Miami. Lucky him.
I started to call Scooter, but I came to my senses halfway through keying in his phone number.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I glanced at my watch. Two hours of my first afternoon of freedom had passed and I already didn’t know what to do with myself.
And that’s when I realized that I’d sat down to make my calls on a chair in front of one of those caricature artists. The guy was older, maybe in his fifties, and looked like he’d eaten something so sour it had permanently puckered his sun-beaten face. His would be an easy face to caricature, even for me, and I can’t draw.
The artist was already busy immortalizing me in charcoal by the time I realized I was sitting there, so it was too late to apologize and walk away. I was stuck, in more ways than one.
What had happened to making a change in my life? To taking some chances? To making new friends? San Francisco was full of nightclubs, galleries, and cultural events.
So what was I doing sitting here?
I wondered if Julie and Monk were as lost without me as I apparently was without them. I doubted it. It made me wonder who really needed whom. Maybe Scooter was right about me.
The artist finished my caricature, slipped it into a cardboard frame shaped like a cable car, and proudly presented it to me like it was a priceless heirloom.
I gave it a glance. I suppose the drawing could have been me. It also could have been Barbara Bush, Nicole Kidman, Eddie Murphy, or any of the tourists waiting for the cable car. The face was characterless and unmemorable.
Maybe that’s how I really looked to him. It was certainly how I felt. Perhaps it was my soul and not my face that he’d captured.
I wondered if I looked different when I was with Monk or Julie. I’d have to come back sometime and see Mr. Puckerface when I was with one of them.
I gave him ten bucks, walked back to Boudin Bakery for another loaf of bread, and then drove home.
I did laundry, paid some bills, and for dinner I made myself a tuna fish sandwich and had a glass of white wine that cost almost as much as my caricature.
Do I know how to live or what?
I refilled the wineglass and took it with me for a nice long bubble bath, where I settled in with Ambrose’s installation guide for low-voltage outdoor lighting.
It wasn’t thrilling bubble-bath reading material, but I was impressed by his imagination. You wouldn’t know from the writing that he’d never actually seen a low-voltage lighting system in someone’s yard, much less installed one himself. His descriptions were clear, colorful, and written with authority. The inscription wasn’t bad either:
To Natalie, You’re a high-voltage system as far as I am concerned.
To Natalie, You’re a high-voltage system as far as I am concerned.
Considering that I was spending my first free night in ages sitting in tepid bathwater, sipping cheap wine, and reading an instruction manual, it was reassuring to know I could set off sparks somewhere.
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