Only the Wicked (16 page)

Lonnie grunted and Curtis banged some part of the frame with his tool and hand. Monk's ears were seared with the mechanic's swearing as he crossed the lot and entered the donut shop. A couple of the regulars were there. Teresa, a good-sized woman given to mammoth necklaces, who worked graveyard at the county morgue, was playing chess with Elrod in one of the now pristine booths. Andrade, a sometimes accountant when he wasn't on the juice, was at the counter, studying a racing form. He swirled the contents of his coffee cup listlessly.

“Monk,” Andrade managed in a bored tone.

“Peoples,” Monk said, walking past them to his office. He unlocked it and entered the room. Getting on-line, he searched around in various newspaper archives. He retrieved some cursory pieces on Senator Hiram Bodar's accident and alleged affair from the
New York Times
and the
Boston Globe
. He printed out hard copies, and read them more carefully.

He wanted to read the past articles from
The Jackson Ledger
, but only a smattering of their pieces were on-line. Rereading one of the
Globe's
accounts, he noted the name of the assistant editor of the
Ledger.
He got out the clipping Dellums had saved. It had been written by the assistant editor, a Todd McClendon. Typing McClendon's name in HotBot, he came up with several matches. Monk whittled it down to the McClendon he wanted in a piece in the
Wall Street Journal
from earlier in the year.

This article talked about McClendon's firing, and interspersed statements from the former editor. McClendon alluded to the fact that Bodar had been stirring up old sins, that his accident wasn't one, and McClendon's subsequent firing was connected. There was a response from the management of the paper which went on about the usual restructuring, that McClendon was a sound editor, the fit wasn't right for the new
Ledger
, blah, blah, blah. Reading between the lines, Monk had the distinct impression that once McClendon broke with the established line about Bodar's accident, his tenure at the paper was time certain.

He made a note on one of the printouts to hunt down Bodar. He went out front and helped Elrod and Josette, another of Monk's staff, prepare dough for frying fresh donuts early tomorrow morning. The three locked up, and he got home to find Kodama sprawled on the couch in the den. She was watching the late afternoon news, her shoes off, feet on the coffee table. Next to her toes lay a picture book of I.M. Pei's architectural projects.

“Baby doll.” He sat on the coffee table, massaging her feet. The answering machine had contained no message from his irate sister.

“What you do today, handsome?”

He told her, leaving out his tirade at Harris' job. He'd tell her eventually, he knew, but he just wanted to pick the right time. But for now, as he settled beside her, putting his arm around her, watching the lack of progress of peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, everything was just fine.

Chapter 10

Nona Monk extricated herself from her Grand Am with great effort. The sun wouldn't be up for another twenty minutes or so, but she could hear that damn woodpecker doing his mischief on her maple tree high up on the trunk. She liked her little house on Stanley, on a nice section between Packard and San Vicente. She was active in her block club, and it only got noisy on the weekends. And even then not every weekend.

When Josiah was alive, they lived on McKinley off 39th. In those days, South Central was solid working class, her neighbors toiled in the post office, at the railroad, and as skycaps, bus drivers, teachers, and nurses. Her children may not have had everything, but they didn't want for the basics of clothes, shoes, decent food, or a bike when they outgrew their previous one. Now that they were quite grown, getting gray themselves, it seemed like someone else's life to think about when Ivan and Odessa were growing up.

These days, Nona Monk was working hard to remain a size ten, when for most of her life fluctuating between size seven and eight had been the norm. Her feet ached and there was that twinge again in her right elbow. Yeah, the next check-up she'd bring it up.

She was also worried about her son. She'd noted the new lines on his forehead, and detected the occasional dread moving behind his eyes last week at dinner. The after-effects of the shoot-out in the Rancho Tajuata were as apparent to her as the tribulations of Vietnam vets she'd cared for decades ago. Ivan's state reminded her of the constant quiet anguish, intensified by the racism back home, that had eaten at her husband, a Korean War-era sergeant. That gnawing of the way things were, and how hard it was to change the unfairness, tore at him until his will and heart gave out.

At first the jerk of her left shoulder had her thinking she too, like her departed Josiah, was having a heart attack. But she was already dismissing that idea by the time the hand spun her around, and shoved her back against her car. The thing at the other end of the arm was wearing overalls, fur-lined gloves, and a Creature of the Black Lagoon mask. Behind the eye slits, some kind of mesh obscured the masked man's race.

She'd been mugged before and calculated this wasn't the same thing. Street thugs had very little imagination nor aptitude for advance planning. She threw her purse at her attacker's feet. “Take it and go. I'm getting off a double shift and too tired to spit.”

Nona Monk wanted to sound brave and defiant, despite what her son had told her to do in such a situation: to as much as possible go along with the bad guy's demands. If she didn't, he'd warned her, defiance would result in angering the crook. And that would be a challenge to his misplaced manhood, thereby compelling him to up the ante into violence.

The Creature kicked the purse back toward her and pointed at her.

Scared and confused, Nona Monk could only gape as the Creature rushed her, forcibly clamping a hand over her mouth. With the other hand, the attacker reached for her hand, the one holding her house keys. “You ain't going in my house,” Nona Monk said more to herself than in any clear, audible fashion. She started to squirm and got a bop upside her head for her efforts. She sagged against the passenger door, and slid to the grass next to the driveway, near her purse. Dizziness gripped her head, and she felt her stomach lurch.

The Creature bent down, and gurgled, “Look, Nona, let's get inside and get this over with.”

The gruesome realization of being raped and murdered, particularly in her own house, channeled the fear coursing in her veins. In a strange third-person way, she floated outside her body, watching the gun as it pressed against her temple. The Creature roughly tugged her upright. Reflexively, she swung the can of pepper spray she'd pulled from her purse. She let it go at the eye slits, and prayed as she did so.

“Motherfucking bitch,” the Creature wailed as she emptied as much of the stuff as she could at his face. The Creature put its gloved hands over its immobile face, tearing at the rubber mask. She was on her knees, and tried to stand. Weakness and terror had her disoriented.

“I'ma fix you, you old ho,” the Creature yelled, stomping around, trying to aim the gun at her.

Nona Monk went down on all fours, crawling toward the end of her car. A shot went off, and she didn't know if it hit her or not. It was so damn loud. All her energy seemed to be leaving her like water out of a pitcher. She blew the whistle on her key ring. She kept blowing it even after she heard a couple of doors open and feet scuffling across manicured lawns wet with dew.

Chapter 11

Monk, his sister, his nephew, and Kodama bunched in Nona Monk's semi-private hospital room. She was propped up in bed, an IV running into one arm, an oxygen hose clipped to her nostrils. There was gauze holding a bandage around her head. She smiled weakly, her daughter crying softly, holding her hand.

“Mama, Mama.” Odessa Monk put a hand to her own face in a useless effort to halt the flow of her tears.

Monk gripped the railing at the end of his mother's bed, looking at, but not focusing on her. Kodama rubbed his back with an open palm, comforting him.

“She's got good neighbors,” Kodama said.

“And the family's hard head,” he said dryly.

Odessa, who had made a thing of not looking at him since arriving, spoke without turning her head. “What in hell was this crazy bastard after?”

“I'd like that answer my damn self,” Sergeant Roberts said from behind them. “How is she?” he asked no one in particular.

“Some clotting under the scalp, and we're waiting for the MRI to come back,” Monk answered, straightening up.

Roberts made a motion with his head and Monk followed him out into the hallway. A tall doctor with steel-gray hair rushed between them. “You think maybe this was one of your old homies you got the goods on, lookin' for some payback?”

“It doesn't seem so, coming so soon after my cousin's poisoning.” He had toyed with the idea that the attack also came right after his set-to with Harris. There was a perverse reason to believe he was responsible, but logic made him dismiss the notion. “Although the Creature did know Mom's name, and he sounded black.”

“She seems coherent enough that I can take a statement.”

“I think so, yes. You should know he wanted to get inside the house.” Monk let it hang there, neither encouraging or refuting Roberts' possible scenarios. Nor did he feel in any way obligated to tell him about the clipping Dellums had given him.

Roberts went inside and Monk stood there momentarily, unsure of how to proceed. His sister came into the hall, the whites of her eyes red and wet, but more composed now that she knew her mother was going to be okay. Angrily, she turned on Monk and poked him in the shoulder. “What is wrong with your mind, Ivan?” she snarled in a lethal whisper. She poked him again, harder.

“I thought he was abusing you.”

She looked like she was going to hit him again, but started blinking rapidly. “Wha—What made you think that?”

“I've seen bruises on you.” It was a lie, he only had what he'd forced out of his nephew, but he'd see where it would get him.

“No you haven't.” She got close.

Kodama watched them from the doorway to their mother's room.

“You mean he usually works you over so it
doesn't show?
Wraps a coat hanger in a towel so the welts don't rise?”

Odessa bit her bottom lip as Kodama led Coleman out of Nona's room and toward the vending machines at the other end of the hallway.

“You don't know what you're talking about, Ivan. We are not in high school anymore like when you took on Joey Palmer for slugging me in the back.” She looked back into the room as Roberts hovered over their mother, making notes on his steno pad. “I'm a full grown woman, and Frank and I are very happy together.”

“Don't let me find out different.”

“Now look,” her voice notched up, “don't you use that tone with me, Ivan. You can't get shit straight in your own life, stay out of mine. Just keep being a good uncle to Coleman.”

“I am, that's why I'm concerned about his mother.”

She did a tight back and forth movement like a track star keyed up before a meet. “There's nothing wrong, Ivan.” His sister touched his upper arm tenderly. “Everything is fine, you have my word on that. Abuse is not in the picture.”

Monk wanted to pursue the business of the bruise Coleman saw but realized that would implicate the young man. Not that she probably didn't suspect he'd told since she knew they'd all gone to the ball game. But there was the more immediate concern of finding this killer stalking the family.

“Whatever, Odessa,” he relented—if only momentarily.

Kodama and his nephew were walking back. As they pulled close, the young man scuttled past the three. He stood next to a painting of fishing boats bobbing in a calm harbor. He leaned his back to the wall, examining his large feet.

All four took up their respective positions in the hallway as hospital personnel walked past, all moving at fast clips. They were busy with the business of healing or administering finality. Monk had been looking out on another wing of Cedars when Roberts came over to him.

“She was pretty good on the
description of what the attacker was wearing, and what few words he said. Unfortunately she didn't see his getaway vehicle.”

“She was a little busy on her hands and knees trying not to get popped there, Sarge.” It surprised him how dispassionate he made it sound.

If a comeback was forming, Roberts didn't let on. “Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to spare the man—or should I say, the people—power to keep a guard on your mother. You know, no ID on the crook, not too much interest from command staff. But this ain't no gangbang play, so there's little chance some eight-baller will come waving a rod and shootin' up the hospital.”

“That's what I figured, too. This punk wanted inside because whatever he thought my cousin had, and he couldn't find, he assumed my mother would have.”

“Does she?”

“You know what I know.”

Roberts scraped his note pad against his unshaven face. “Certainly. I'll be in touch, thanks.”

“What are we going to do?” His sister had walked up behind Monk as Roberts departed.

“I'll find out who it is. I haven't lost all my faculties.” He put his hands in his pockets, gauging her reflection in the window.

“I hope that's so.” She went back into their mother's room.

Over coffee and seven-grain hot cereal at Jerry's Deli, Kodama stroked Monk's hand. “You sure you're all right?”

Monk dug small trenches in his food. “I realize I can't take back what I did, but she's my sister, Jill.”

“Honey, I know that. And I know you to be an honorable and true man. But I also know you operate with logic and the dynamics of reason, tempered by your passion for balancing the scales.”