Violent Spring (30 page)

“Do you know what you've got here?” Yu exclaimed, waving the papers before him.

“I have some idea,” Monk said.

The other man sank into an Eastlake. He laid the loose sheets on the desk, breathing hard. He rubbed a hand across his clean-cut face. Yu seemed to be having trouble getting his vision in check. “Jesus Christ, Monk, where did you find this?”

Not wishing to answer that question, Monk said, “What does it say, Kenny?”

“I got to my office early this morning and this thing,” he waved a hand at the pile, “was waiting for me.”

“It's not a bomb.”

“It is and you know it. It's a goddamn box of TNT waiting to go off. I've only skimmed it, but Suh names names, places, and where the money is, or at least how he thinks it's channeled through.”

Monk felt a constricting of the muscles in his throat. “Who are the names, Kenny? Who the hell is Jiang Holdings?”

T
INA CHALMERS LEANED back in her creaky chair. The seal of the City of Los Angeles, the Valley of Smoke, was printed on an aged piece of parchment and framed on the wall above and behind her. A symbolic guillotine that had made many a head roll in the name of maintaining the palace. But the moat was rising, and everybody in local government could feel the water at their ankles, if they didn't act to right this city.

Chalmers let out a long sigh. “Most of the stuff in his notebook is unsubstantiated. It's hearsay from other shopkeepers and small businesspeople, and rumors other Korean-Americans and Korean Nationals passed along to him.” She closed the file folder of executive summary Kenny Yu had prepared from the translated pages Monk had obtained from Roy Park.

“It's done in a chronological manner. It puts names with dates, and lists various addresses and phone numbers. It raises enough questions, Tina. It got Suh killed.”

“What about Grimes?”

“I think he was killed because he got to be too much of a wild card. He was the one who kept getting busted because he was always escalating the strong-arm bit. Samuels seemed to be the cooler head, the one that thinks clearer.”

“So it was just him being hotheaded when you had your run-in with him at the Odin Club.”

“Maybe he did that on orders.”

“But he was on the shit list.”

“Yeah. They have him attack me, he gets killed by his pals, and then the obvious suspect is me.”

“Why?”

“A magician always uses misdirection. Suspicion on me muddies the waters, and nobody looks beyond me or the other set-up, Crosshairs. The task force tries to keep me on a long leash, hoping I give them Crosshairs. They know Grimes figures in this somehow, but the Rolling Daltons' leader is their main worry.”

“That would imply they knew that Ray Smith had made contact, and your name came up in our conversation,” Tina said, a daring tone in her voice.

“All wiretaps ain't legal, Tina.”

She mulled that over, men said, “If the City Council is going to discuss the matters raised in Suh's notes, I have to supply them with translated copies. What I'm saying is that for us to really discuss it we have to have a closed session. The Council needs a good reason to go behind closed doors.”

“But if you pass copies around, sure as hell there's gonna be a leak,” Monk said, thinking ahead.

“What if there is, Ivan?”

“Then some of the big fish might swim away.”

“Well, what can you do? If you want action, why haven't you taken this information to Keys?”

“I don't want this thing to become compromised.”

“Meaning you think Keys or one of the cops is in Jiang's backpocket.”

“I don't know what I mean, Tina.” Monk got up and paced around the room. “I just know my gut feeling is I need to play this out the way I started it. You, Jill, Dex, EIrod and a few others are all I can trust. Everybody else is a could-be conspirator.”

“What about your buddy, Seguin?”

Monk didn't want to formulate an answer. “I think we can force their hand, exposing them.”

“I suspect I might know where you're going with this and it's a dangerous place.”

“Dig my grave deep, baby.”

“I
DON'T CARE if he's in a meeting with Queen Victoria herself,” Monk angrily said into the phone. “Tell him it's Monk, and tell him I've read the notes.” Onto the line came one of the soft rock stations, and Monk listened to a Lionel Ritchie number while waiting. The chorus was repeating for the third time when O'Day came on.

“What do you want, Mr. Monk?” He tried his best to sound bored.

“About two hundred thousand dollars,” Monk said with equal aplomb.

“Really.”

“Really. You, Park Hankyoung, a few others from the Merchants Group and several of your good ol' boy golfing buddies are Jiang Holdings.”

“You're in way over your head.”

“Then you better throw me a life preserver. Say one that costs about a quarter of a million.”

“I'm going to hang up,” O'Day said, without much conviction.

“Go ahead,” Monk challenged. “I'm itching to send my story around to the papers. Oh, and not the
Times
, I know you and the publisher both take breakfast at the Odin Club. But the folks over at the weekly alternative in town, and the black paper
The Sentinel
, and hey, maybe somebody at
The Nation
or
Mother Jones
might think it's worth a few inches of ink.”

“Everything is spelled out in Suh's notes.” There was a crack in the veneer, a sliver of desperation in the silky voice of the lawyer and power broker.

“You know it, slick.”

“I thought you were a standard bearer, Monk. The post-modern, hip-hop private eye operating in the Land of Nod. The city-state trapped forever between the sea and the desert. The perfect metaphor for lives born in the womb of wetness only to dry up and blow away in the harsh unforgiving arid landscape.”

“Nice imagery there, M. O. Did you have something similar in mind when you sent your goons on their errand to scare Jill? Sent them on a bogus drive-by so I'd be all hot and bothered to go after Crosshairs.”

“You're swimming a little deeper.”

“Sure I am, big boy. Like you were the one who sicced the Consumer Affairs Board on me so I'd jump more, and Keys and I wind up chasing phantoms rather than the real crooks. Hiring me so you could keep an eye on what I was doing, and because you think you're the lord of the manor, and can do anything you want. Even flaunt Suh's death by burying him at Florence and Normandie. Knowing then it was going to be the sight of a SOMA groundbreaking. A not-so-subtle warning for the other shopkeepers to keep their noses out of the business of Jiang Holdings.”

In a measured manner, O'Day said, “Grimes was fucking up. We had to make some good out of a bad situation.”

“Right. Like Suh really believed you were going to let him live.”

“How much was that amount again, small change?”

“You know goddamn well what it was. And I just tacked on another 50 Gs 'cause your breath stinks.”

“And you give me back the original. Not, I might hasten to add, that there's probably anything in there to legally indict me. But it might stir up unnecessary concerns.”

“The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest.”

“You mock me with Rousseau, Monk. But you don't mock my money. Stay by the phone, my greedy friend, you shall hear from me soon.”

Monk stared at the phone. He doubted if Keys and Diaz were still listening in, but what if they were? Would they intervene, or were they in O'Day's pockets, too?

The door to his office moved inward and Dexter Grant, carrying a cup of coffee, entered. That unmistakeable gait of his took him into one of the Eastlakes.

“What the hell's wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“You look worried.”

Perturbed that his old mentor could read him so well, Monk went on the offensive. “Dex, is there something I can help you with today?”

He crossed his bandy legs and slouched in the seat. As was his custom, he put the cup on the floor next to the chair. “I was watching the news yesterday, and there was this reporter talking about how the special task force had blown an arrest.”

“I told you about Drier, so what?”

Grant gulped down some coffee. “So I got to wondering who might have tipped off Crosshairs and why.”

“Of course,” Monk said non-committally.

Grant folded his arms and waited.

“I suppose you won't be satisfied until I tell you everything that's happened since I last saw you.”

Grant took another leisurely sip of his coffee.

Reluctantly, Monk filled him in.

“Sheeoot, as granny used to say.” He was about to go on when the phone rang.

“Hello,” Monk said into the receiver.

“I'll have your money tomorrow. But how do I know you won't try something with one of the copies you've made?”

“That's your lookout, O'Day. The deal is for the original.”

“And your silence,” he added flatly.

“Three-thirty at the sports store on the second floor of the Baldwin Hills Mall. And it has to be you.”

“No.”

“Bye.” Monk hung up. He and Grant looked at one another, men the phone went off again.

“I guess I've got little choice.”

“See ya.”

There was a throng of teenagers milling about the mall. They were raucous and demi-god self-confident in their powerful, graceful bodies, larger and taller than Monk remembered being at their age. Decked out urban slick in their Air Jordans, Cross Colours, Guess Jeans, NaNa boots, Champion sweatshirts, X watchcaps, Bronze Age shirts, and cuffed and rolled 540 Levi's.

A passel of them—girls reeking of knock-off Giorgio and boys with shoulders wide as Kenworth cabs—sauntered past Monk. He leaned on the rail in front of the popular sports store owned by an ex-NBAer on the second floor. Maxfield O'Day, walking stiff-legged and looking straight ahead, appeared at the other end of the walkway a minute ahead of schedule. With a deliberate pace, he approached Monk. A soft learner attaché case hung straight down from his arm.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Monk.”

O'Day had a smirk on his face and that made him nervous. Monk looked around, being careful not to linger on the young black woman Tina Chalmers had sent to surreptitiously take the picture of his handing the notebook over to O'Day. Back some paces from where he and the SOMA president stood, there was an Asian man in an expensive suit. What made him stand out was the tilt to one side of his body and the lift of his shoulders as if he wore football pads under his jacket. Kyphoscoliosis, curvature of the spine, an M.E. acquaintance of Monk's told him once. Robinson was wrong, he was handsome with close-cropped black hair, and a noticeable five o'clock shadow dominated his lower jaw. His hands were clasped before him butler fashion.

Near the man were three teenaged girls laughing and goofing on one another. Ostensibly they were looking into the display window of a woman's clothing store, but that was just an excuse to slyly watch the boys go by. The man, aware that he had Monk's attention, tipped his hands slightly forward. The overhead track lighting gleamed off the knife he held.

Monk snarled at O'Day. “What if I gat you while you stand there laughing up your sleeve at me?”

O'Day said, “I believe you have something for me.”

Suh's notebook for a stranger's life. Did the man with the hunchback think he could get away once he did his deed? What did it matter? If one of those girls went down, the blood would stain Monk's soul. He held up a loose-leaf notebook.

O'Day calmly took it out of his hand. He put down the attaché case and paged through the notebook. Satisfied, he placed the notebook in his attaché case. The hunchback melted away. “Thank you for all your good work, Mr. Monk.” He looked around. “I wonder where my associate has gotten off to.” He turned hard eyes on Monk. “He can be so capricious at times. Stay right here while I look for him, will you, Mr. Monk? In case he conies back this way.”