Violent Spring (29 page)

“So you did. And now it occurs to me who might have put a bug up the ass of the Consumer Affairs Bureau.”

O'Day stepped very close to Monk, smelling heavily of cologne. “Speak a bit plainer, won't you. I'd like to think that we could be frank with one another after all this time.”

“Well, frankly, old son, I think you've been having one on me. Jerking the chain to see which way I'll jump. SOMA and the Merchants Group seem very anxious to lay this killing at the feet of the Rolling Daltons.”

“What of it?”

“So maybe you thought it would speed up the process if I'm not only getting pressure from the FBI, but closer to home in the form of who pulls the strings on my license.”

Taking a step back, O'Day breathed. “That sounds like a paranoid fantasy.”

Thinking aloud, Monk said, “Well, if you did, it would mean you knew I'd been to Samuels' place that night. Now, how would you know that? And the notebook ain't no fantasy. I'm very eager to see what can be learned from it. And I'm very curious to see what he has to say about you, since there are some English words in it and your name pops up once or twice.” It was a falsehood, but it was geared to unbalance O'Day. To Monk's disappointment, it didn't.

“I'm curious, too. But I guess I will have to wait until morning to find out.” The lawyer and businessman, and the creature molded in the shape of a car jockey, left.

Monk said to Elrod, “Thanks for the backup, big man.”

“I haven't lost faith in you yet, boss.” He returned to his work.

Abe Carson came in and Monk waved hello. On the phone, he reached Kenny Yu's office, but they informed him he was still out. No, they didn't expect him back today, probably in the morning, and yes, they received the package he'd sent over. No one answered the telephone at Roy Park's office. Li, he would let simmer.

An anxiousness pounded at him, and Monk hurried away from the Continental shop and back to his office. Delilah was getting ready to leave when he breezed in.

“What's up?” she said.

“Something I don't want lying around, even in the safe.” Monk moved into the office and tumbled the safe's dial in the proper sequence, popped it open, and extracted the notebook. Hefting the pages, he considered where he might feel better hiding it. Jill's house, his house, and the donut shop were all out. Dex's place was a possibility, but it was in Riverside County and even then, anybody who had done their homework on him would know about Dex. But there was one place.

An hour later Monk knocked on the door of the house on 76th Street. The door swung inward to reveal a startled Ray Smith.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“What, no flowers?” Monk moved past him into the front room. A Rolling Dalton Monk didn't recognize was sprawled in one of the chairs, reading a rap magazine.

Smith grabbed his arm. “How is it that the FBI came crashing around Imperial Courts this afternoon?”

“I told them, Ray.” From the corner of his eye, Monk could tell that the Dalton had put down the magazine. “Otherwise, the head FBI boy Keys was going to lock me up. That's why I called the TV station hoping they'd blow it for the law.”

“You some kind of sissy?” the Dalton slurred. “Can't stand being in the joint?”

Monk swallowed a reply and kept his focus on Smith. “It's a matter of working the angles, know what I mean, Ray?”

Smith didn't say anything, but looked past Monk's right shoulder at a point somewhere beyond the room.

Monk thrust the notebook at Smith as the Dalton treaded closer. Grinning like a demented clown, Monk hamthered at the other one. “Come on, junior, and jump bad with me. I'll pop a cap in your ass faster than you can blink.” Monk showed him the butt end of the .45 he'd recently strapped back on under his sport coat.

The young man halted, measuring his youth against the older man's reflexes.

“Sit down and shut up. I haven't got time for the testosterone follies today.” Monk's hand hovered near the .45, hoping that once again in his life, he didn't have to shoot someone so young, so redeemable.

“Do it,” Smith ordered.

The gangbanger walked out of the room, slamming the door that led to the kitchen.

Monk pointed at the notebook. “I did what I thought I had to do to not get knocked out of the box on this one. And that,” he tapped the notebook in Smith's hand, “names the real players.”

“So why you giving it to us? Ain't no Dalton speak Korean. Yet.”

“I've got reason to believe that someone, or someones, will try to snatch it.”

“You got copies.”

“I just made some more. But courts like to see the real thing, in so far as authenticating evidence and so on.”

Smith regarded the notebook. “So you're trusting us.”

“Let's say it's my way of restoring your trust in me.”

The kitchen door opened and Monk's hand went toward his gun. The Dalton emerged, holding a beer. He glared at both of them and regained his chair.

Monk opened the front door, and he and Smith went out to stand on the porch. “This isn't a joke, Ray. That book is going to become more valuable than IBM stock.”

“Which ain't worth much anymore.” For the first time since they'd seen each other during the last few days, Smith's demeanor momentarily took on the characteristics of his old friend, the bright, gifted student and athlete who was going to set hearts afire and blaze his trail in a furious world. But the world savaged and discarded him as one did a spent thatch.

Monk shook the nostalgia loose and concentrated on business. “Take very good care of that thing. Look at it as protecting the interests of the Daltons.” He got off the porch and stepped across the trimmed lawn. The sun was down and Monk headed the Galaxie 500 into the west, where eventually the land ended, and a vast ocean rolled and crashed.

M
ONK DID A series of sit-ups on the rug in his living room. He worked up a sweat and then did some sets of push-ups and some toning with his chrome dumbbells. He finished and tried to wind down by watching an old movie on TV but couldn't get into it. He opened up Sleeper's book,
The Closest of Strangers
, to the bookmark he'd placed midway in it. Again, he couldn't concentrate. He was too psyched, his mind and body ready for conflict.

Unnecessarily, he took apart and reassembled his gun. Oiling it, Monk looked at it. Looked at it as when his father had shown it to him on his thirteenth birthday.

“This is not a toy, and it's not for settling arguments. And it's definitely not meant to be shown off to make you look big.” The words of Josiah Monk echoed back to him over the years. “I know you know that I have this gun. That I keep it in our house for protection should we need it. Your mother doesn't like it, but she's come to accept it. Even though of course, as a nurse, she's seen more bloodshed than I saw in the war where I got this weapon. Go on,” his father had said, “hold it”

Quietly, Monk rose from the table where he'd been working on the gun and padded into the bedroom in his bare feet. He put the automatic on the nightstand, moving the piece of furniture closer to his bed. He went back out into the kitchen and poured himself a neat shot of rum. Just enough for a brace, and not enough to dull his responses. He sat again at the table.

“Aim a little to the right of where you want the bullet to go,” his father had instructed him. They'd taken to going out to Needles, in the desert, for the lessons Josiah Monk taught his son in handling a gun. Pulling the trigger, getting used to not blinking at the flash; allowing for the recoil. Later, his father showed him how to care for the weapon, a tool to be maintained like a torque wrench or a good set of sockets.

The first time Ivan Monk had found himself standing in a room with the gun in his hand, it was just like when he and his dad used to watch
Have Gun Will Travel
on Saturday nights. Paladin, the Shakespeare-quoting gunslinger reincarnated in the urban, post-Watts '65 landscape. Only the fantasy ended the day Monk had to actually pull the trigger, not on a beer bottle but on a target the bullet sank into, ripping and rending flesh and bone, changing his and the other person's life forever.

Yet after the initial shock, he became intoxicated with its power. A gun in your hand immediately changed the equation. It took too long for Monk to learn that guns were not the answer to crime, only the end product of flawed social and economic policies.

The phone rang and he answered it. Whoever was on the other end said nothing but they made a point of making their breathing audible. They hung up. The phone rang twice more and each time Monk picked it up to the same effect It stopped after that.

Inside of his front door, allowing for its arc if it were to be opened, Monk placed some small, cheap, hard plastic toys he'd purchased at the local grocery store. They would make a resounding crunch if stepped on. At the back door in the kitchen, he unplugged the refrigerator and rolled it flush against the door.

He took both of his phones out of their jacks and went to bed. As far as he could tell, nothing happened during the night, because he was alive in the morning.

H
E MADE HIMSELF a breakfast of three eggs (he had to get that cholesterol rechecked) scrambled hard, three pieces of oat bran toast, five pieces of turkey sausage links, downed two cups of coffee and a large glass of orange juice. He shaved, showered and read the front section of the
LA. Times
. The refrigerator was rolled back into place and plugged in again.

The blue serge suit in his closet, which was last worn at a wedding he attended with Jill, was removed and put on. Monk complemented it with a dark burgundy shirt and a grey and green Hugo Boss tie. In his dresser he found a pair of charcoal grey socks with little white clocks on them, and donned them and his brown wingtips. Catching himself in the bathroom mirror, he looked like an insurance salesman with a pocketful of jokers. And his one deadly ace-in-the-hole.

Monk picked up the automatic, briefly weighing leaving it at home. He dismissed the idea as now was not the appropriate time to become a peacenik. The private detective strapped it on using his alternate holster, which allowed for drawing the gun out sideways. He went down to the street, scanning the buildings around his apartment. Would Keys and Diaz still be watching him or sitting in their task force room figuring out what other devilment they could hatch against him?

He beeped off the Ford's alarm and started the car, silently praying there wasn't a bomb attached to it, and smiling at his own bizarre notions. Well-founded, he thought, but illogical. They—whoever the “they” are—would need the original notebook. He'd have to be captured and tortured to reveal its whereabouts. That was probably what had happened to Bong Kim Suh. His compiling of information about who was behind Jiang Holdings, despite his attempt at hiding out, had no doubt brought their wrath down on him. But he must have been caught away from the garage apartment in Lincoln Heights, otherwise the notebook would have been found.

But torture in the hands of amateurs could go too far, not allowing for the pace one needed to make it work effectively. And, of course, the victim's body had to partially recover and his mind have time to amplify the horror. Or so Dexter Grant had explained to Monk once. He never asked Dex how it was he'd come to that analysis.

Of course, the method of Suh's death meant they intended to kill him all along.

Monk arrived at his office and Delilah motioned him to pick up line one. He did.

“Brother man,” a voice Monk didn't recognize began, “got any more hot tips for me?” It was the people's newsman, Kelly Drier.

“What are you talking about, Drier?”

“You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. You set up the FBI to look like a bunch of Keystone Kops.”

“They don't need my help to accomplish that. And if you've got Keys and his boyfriend Diaz on the extension, tell them this bad boy is about to bust. Tell them to back off and give me free reign or I'll make it so that their next assignment will be guarding the men's room at Bureau headquarters.” Monk softly replaced the handset and went into his office. Forty-five minutes later, Kenny Yu charged into it.