by Neil Mcmahon
On-screen, Lex looked somewhat glazed, much like the real Lex right now. He had probably just shot up then too, Monks thought.
Kenneth Bouldin held up his champagne flute and said, “To ten years of hard work from a great group of people.” Then he stepped over to Lex and gripped his upper arm in a manful gesture of comradeship. “And to the genius of one.”
The group raised their glasses in a toast. Monks thought he perceived Lex hesitate slightly before joining them.
The television screen cut back to the Bank of America Building.
“Aesir Corporation stresses that the video was informal, not intended for public viewing,” the announcer voiced over. “The REGIS IPO, potentially valued at more than a billion dollars, will begin when Wall Street opens tomorrow morning, less than twenty-four hours from now.”
“Those lying fucks,” Lex said. “That tape was made two months ago.” He seemed more amused than angry. “I’ve got to hand it to Ken. Either he thinks I am dead or he’s running a hell of a bluff.”
Monks dumped the rest of his coffee in the sink and started the RV’s engine.
“Where are we going?” Lex said.
“To hook up with my partner,” Monks said. “A private detective. Then we’re going to go looking for that girl who gave you the bad dope.”
“You have a way to find her?”
Monks had remembered that before the young Korean woman fled from the emergency room, she had been in intense conversation with Mrs. Hak. It was possible that she had given Mrs. Hak some bit of information that would help to identify her.
“Maybe a place to start,” Monks said.
The going was difficult for the RV down Highway 1, with its tight, steep curves and close-hanging fog. Lex started to fidget. He opened the console and rummaged around, then took out a plastic multicassette holder.
“Well, what do we have here?” he said. He pried the cassette holder open and examined Emil Zukich’s music collection. “Hank Snow. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Kitty Wells. I never heard of any of them.”
“Look on that last one,” Monks said. “Is there a song called ‘It Wasn’t God That Made Honkytonk Angels’?”
“Yeah. You know this stuff?”
“Call it a nodding acquaintance.”
“It’s, like, country-western, right? I didn’t know you grew up in the country.”
“I didn’t,” Monks said. “In Chicago, when I was a kid, there were a lot of people up from Appalachia, to work in the factories. A couple of the radio stations would play country on Sunday nights. I didn’t even know what I was listening to.”
But he remembered it vividly, coming over a crystal radio he had made with copper wire wrapped around a toilet paper roll, and an antenna strung to a tree in the yard.
“I was into punk and heavy metal,” Lex said. “Messing with computers, down in my basement.”
“Dr. Rostanov said she grew up with you.”
“She was the good girl. Got thrown by a horse when she was nine. Most of a year there, she couldn’t walk, poor kid. I think she turned all that pain into her studies.”
“And into you?”
Lex gave him a glance that was swift and hard, but then softened.
“Maybe so,” he said.
Lex pulled a tape free and examined it. “It’s the first song on here,” he said. “That one you asked about, ‘It Wasn’t God That Made Honkytonk Angels.’” He punched it into the cassette player.
In a few seconds, the clear, plaintive lilt of Kitty Wells’s voice melded with country fiddle and guitar, singing to the generations of working people who turned to a barstool and a jukebox for a few hours of warmth in their hard-edged lives. Lex’s fingers started tapping time on the dash. His head was turned to look out the window toward the fog-shrouded Pacific.
“Martine’s the one who got me thinking about medical applications for software,” he said suddenly. “The genome’s a lot like a program: a bunch of either-or commands, a handful of three-letter combinations repeated a couple billion times. I started working on how to translate from one to the other. Got to where I was seeing huge flocks of them flying around in my mind—CAG, AGT, like those monkey-things in The Wizard of Oz.”
“I don’t have a clue how you can arrange that so you can tap a keyboard and it comes up on a screen.”
“The mechanics?” Lex waved a hand, as if it were nothing. “There’s plenty of people who can do that. Plenty working on genetics software. Maybe a few who even thought of a model like REGIS.
“But I see it. That’s my gift. I can’t explain how I do it. I just do.”
The song ended. Lex leaned forward, punched the rewind button, and started it again.
“I need some clothes,” he said. He gestured down at his soiled outfit, a sort of flipping motion of his hands as if he were throwing something to obliterate it. “I can’t go around like this.”
“We don’t want anybody to see you, Lex.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to look like shit.”
Monks admitted that he could use some cleaning up. “We can stop up ahead, on 101. There are a couple of malls.”
Lex shot him a sly glance. “Find a place that has cowboy, okay?”
The fog lightened as they drove inland, and by the time they reached Highway 101, there were patches of sunlight. Monks pulled into a shopping center south of Marin City. Western apparel was not prominently featured in this urban mall, but Sears carried a reasonable facsimile. Monks came out ten minutes later carrying half a dozen pairs of blue jeans with varying waist sizes 36ߝ40 and lengths 34ߝ38, several long-sleeved cotton shirts, packets of underwear and socks, and a pair of tooled lizard-skin Justin boots, size 12D.
He waited behind the RV’s wheel, sipping a cold Coke, while Lex tried on outfits in the back. There was a fair amount of banging around, mumbled cursing, and clothes being tossed, but eventually Lex emerged, looking like a rough draft of the Marlboro Man. His turquoise ring and bracelet added a rhinestone cowboy feel.
“I’ve got to have a hat to go with these,” he said, pointing to the boots. “A Stetson. Seven and three-quarter, black.” Monks trudged back to the store.
When he came out this time, Lex was out of the RV: crouched beside the window of a small, newish car, talking earnestly with its passenger. Monks walked faster, and stepped it up again when he realized the car’s two occupants were teenage girls.
Abruptly, the car peeled away. The girls were laughing, one covering her face with embarrassment.
“What was that all about?” Monks demanded.
Lex was grinning. “I told her I’d give her a thousand dollars to watch her take a bath.”
“Are you fucking crazy? Those girls are sixteen.” Monks grabbed Lex by the arm and jerked him toward the RV, realizing that he had almost never in his life before now used the word “fuck.”
“Hey, take it easy.” Lex tried to struggle. “I wasn’t going to touch her.”
“I’m going to keep you on a leash from now on.”
Monks shoved Lex into the RV door and drove hurriedly back toward 101, with a wary eye for flashing lights and grim-faced cops eager to take down a pair of perverts.
Lex turned the hat by the brim, scowling. It was a sort of faux snakeskin with plastic scales, definitely not a Stetson, but more or less black.
“What the hell do you call this?”
“It’s all they had.”
Lex tried it on, angling it various ways. “We have to get a real one,” he said, but it stayed on his head, tipped back. The baseball cap lay on the console. Monks eyed it, thinking about disguise, and put it on.
They passed through the rainbow-striped Waldo Tunnel and down to the Golden Gate Bridge, through streamers of mist flowing around the huge red towers. It was a tourist Mecca, with strings of sightseers, joggers, and bicyclists lining the walkways. To the east, ferries steamed back and forth from the Wharf to the stark gray walls of Alcatraz, conducting pilgrims through that shrine wher
e the infamous had lived and died. The Bay was dotted with triangular white sails, the faithful undiscouraged even by the cool weather.
“This being ‘out there’ isn’t all that bad,” Lex murmured.
Monks felt that odd touch again, as if they were two old enemies thrown together by trouble, realizing they had more in common with each other than with the rest of the world.
It would have made for a fine road trip, stocked up with their drugs of choice, to just keep on driving.
Stover Larrabee was waiting in a turnout parking lot above Point Lobos at the north end of Ocean Beach, the miles-long stretch of sand at the city’s western edge. Monks had no trouble spotting Larrabee’s van, a beaten blue Dodge that he used for surveillance. It had a rack on top with lengths of copper and PVC pipe, and a sign that read ON THE SPOT PLUMBING. The inside was equipped for sophisticated surveillance but there was also a full stock of tools. There were times when that provided a good cloak of invisibility.
Monks pulled in beside it and got out. They were overlooking a brushy cliff that sloped down to the shore. Below, the concrete outlines of the old Sutro Natatorium were still visible. Seals dove and cavorted on the offshore rocks. It was a grand view, breathtaking, yet all but deserted this time of year, the ocean a bleak gray-green beneath the lighter gray of the sky.
Larrabee was getting out of the van. Monks just had time to register that there was someone else in the passenger seat, when that door flew open. Monks tensed, but realized in the next instant that it was Stephanie, running to him. She threw her arms around him, propelling him backward a couple of steps.
“You almost got killed.”
“I’m fine,” he said, stroking her hair awkwardly. “You’re supposed to be stashed.”
“I want to help.” She pulled away from him, and started around to the RV’s passenger door with what could only be described as a flounce.
Then she stopped, staring through the windshield at Lex Rittenour. Lex grinned and raised a hand in greeting.
Stephanie turned accusingly to Larrabee. “You didn’t tell me about this.”
“I work on a need-to-know basis,” Larrabee said.
“What’s he doing here?”
“He almost got killed too,” Monks said. “Honey, the biggest help you can be is to stay someplace safe.”
“Stop treating me like I’m ten.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. He put his arm around her and led her a few steps away. “Tell you what,” he said quietly. “You keep Mr. Smith-Rittenour company. Play cards, watch TV, whatever—just don’t let him go anywhere.” Monks thought he saw a determined look come into her eyes. She nodded, accepting the mission.
Stephanie climbed into the RV and offered her hand shyly to Lex, like a teenage girl in the presence of a rock star.
“A pleasure, ma’am,” Lex said, tipping his hat.
“We actually sort of met,” she said. “You probably don’t remember.”
You had an Ambu-bag over your face most of the time, Monks started to add helpfully, but thought better of it.
“Stephanie’s going to hang here with you, while Stover and I check some things out,” Monks said. “We can keep in touch by phone.”
“You going to make friends and influence people?” Lex said.
“Maybe.”
Lex dragged his leather grip out from under a seat and opened it. Inside, stuffed together carelessly like pairs of socks, were banded packets of one-hunded-dollar bills.
Monks felt like he had been hit very hard and was coming out of it light-headed.
He said, “We’ve been carrying a bale of cash around?”
“I never go anywhere without a little mad money.”
“How much is that?”
“Not quite three hundred grand,” Lex said. He handed Monks several of the packets. “Best way I’ve ever found to make friends.”
Stephanie was transfixed by the sight. It occurred to Monks that he was witnessing a career change.
Monks descended the RV’s steps back down to the outside world. Stephanie followed.
“Is he still using drugs?” she whispered.
“Demerol,” Monks said.
“That’s creepy,” she said, but her eyes were afire. “I can’t believe I’m going to be alone with Lex Rittenour and a quarter of a million dollars!”
“Stephanie,” Monks said sternly. “Don’t accept any offers that involve bathing.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just do as I say. After all, I’m your father.” He kissed her quickly on the cheek and got into Larrabee’s van.
“What was that all about?” Larrabee said.
Monks exhaled. “Hygiene.”
18
Mrs. Hak’s apartment was on Anza Street near Sixteenth Avenue, the second floor of a small row house with a garage at ground level, virtually identical to the others that lined the block: pleasant, sheltered, the kind of place where you could live a lifetime without meeting or even seeing your neighbors. Monks rang the bell, conscious that she worked evenings and might be sleeping. But he felt a very faint response, as of the quiet footsteps of someone walking inside. The door had a tiny peephole, like a glass eye. He took off Lex Rittenour’s cap and sunglasses and stood directly in front of it, doing his best to appear affable.
The door opened just enough to reveal her. She looked very small.
“Docta Monksa-shi,” she said. She did not seem surprised, but then, she never did.
Monks said, “I need your help, Mrs. Hak.”
She opened the door the rest of the way. Monks followed her into the apartment.
The inside was antiseptically clean, with modern American decor in subdued, tasteful colors. But everywhere, there were hints of Asia: an intricately carved wooden ship; a Korean-lettered calendar featuring a woman wearing a kimono-advertising a brand of kimchee; a collection of fine porcelain dolls, lords and ladies, lean peasants and rotund monks, appearing as they must have centuries ago. There was only one photograph that suggested family—a portrait of a gaunt-faced Asian man wearing a cheap suit and tie, smiling broadly.
“Your husband?” Monks asked.
She nodded. “He die, eight year ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. You like tea?”
“No. Thanks.”
She gestured to a chair, then sat on the couch facing him. Her back was very straight, knees together and hands clasped in her lap, face attentive.
“I can’t explain this too well,” he said. “Those two Korean people who came into the emergency room, night before last—I need to talk to them.”
“Gone,” she said firmly. “No names.”
“Is there any possibility of finding them?” Monks said. “Anything you remember? Someone you know in the community?”
She shook her head.
“You said you thought he might have been a soldier.”
“Many soljas,” she said.
“Were they illegals?”
“Maybe. Some Koreans smuggled in, sure. Chinese too. Mexicans too.”
“I’m not making a judgment, Mrs. Hak. Not trying to get anybody deported.”
“Why you want them?”
“That man they brought into the ER—the overdose was deliberate,” Monks said. “It was a murder attempt. That girl gave him the drug. I need to find out who gave it to her.”
Monks imagined just a glimmer of yielding in Mrs. Hak’s facade, that maybe she held some bit of information after all. He hesitated, sensing that she was waiting for him to offer something that mattered, and that neither money nor fear would tip the scale. This woman owned herself.
He said, “Somebody tried to kill me last night.”
Her eyes widened.
“You might have been working when it happened,” he said. “It was right outside the hospital.”
“Ahhh.” Her finger rose to point at him. “You?”
“Me. They called it a carjacking, but it wasn’t. I’m hiding out right
now. My daughter too. It could ruin her life. She might have to go into witness protection.”
Monks took twenty thousand dollars from his pocket and laid it on the coffee table.
“If this would help somehow,” he said.
Mrs. Hak gazed at the packets of bills for some time. Then she rose in a swift, graceful motion, and walked to a window, hands still clasped before her.
“Smugglers Korean army. Very dangerous, treat people very bad. Somebody complain, get hurt. Maybe disappear.”
The words opened a glimpse to Monks of the risk he was asking her to take.
“I’ll do my best to keep anyone from getting hurt,” he said. “But I can’t promise.”
“You good man.” The words had a decisive tone.
Mrs. Hak picked up a telephone and punched numbers quickly; more than seven, to a long-distance exchange. Monks listened with utter incomprehension while she spoke in Korean, with the decisiveness still in her voice. The sense was that she was commanding, rather than persuading, someone to do something.
She put the receiver back in its cradle. “You know Ferry Building?”
“Yes, of course,” Monks said.
“Meet in front. Two hour.”
“How will I find you, Mrs. Hak?”
“You walk. I find you.” She waved at the money, still lying on the table. “Bring with you.”
Monks was on his way down the outside stairs when she called, “Docta Monksa-shi.”
He stopped and looked back up at her, standing in the doorway. Her neutral gaze had returned.
“No witness protection in Korea,” she said.
The words followed Monks as he walked, hunched under the baseball cap, back to where Larrabee waited in the van.
Monks had been thinking a lot about Gloria Sharpe, she with the two Dobermans and the shop in SoMa—she who had probably identified his license plate and almost gotten him killed. They were on their way to her shop when the van’s speaker phone rang.
The caller was Stephanie, sounding concerned. “Everything’s okay. But Lex insisted on going out and walking around.”
