Perdition, U.S.A.

by Gary Phillips

  His eyes got wide and Monk could hear chairs crashing to the floor as several of the seamstresses got to their feet, excited and scared. “Crazy gavacho,” the man rasped at Monk.

  “I come in here asking a couple of innocent questions and you got to go be unfriendly.” Monk took a twenty-dollar bill from the pocket of his Levi 501s and placed it on the floor between them. “Have you rethought your answers?”

  The man, Monk presumed he was either Salvadoran or Guatemalan, looked at the bill, then looked back at his interrogator. “I told you, no fuckin’ Swede works around here.”

  Monk had asked his cop friend—the only friend he had on the LAPD—Detective Lieutenant Marasco Seguin, whether he’d heard about a man called Swede who sold watches out of the garment district. Making discreet inquiries, his pal had turned up two possible sites for Monk’s quarry. This place, called Casual Life, on East 34th Street, was the second stop.

  “Well, I hate to contradict you, my friend,” Monk began. “But I’d have to conclude from this greeting of yours,” he jiggled the hammer, “that you know differently.”

  Several of the sewing machines were humming and Monk had the impression his pulse was keeping time with them. “What would you say to another twenty joining that one?”

  The other man sneered. “I say you don’t have the cojones to use the martillo like I do.” A defiant cast settled on the man’s face.

  “Yeah, you called my bluff, all right.” Calmly, Monk drew his .45 automatic from underneath the sport coat he wore. The sewing stopped, the man’s expression took on an icy pallor. Monk walked over to one of the stations as all the women rose, their heads darting here and there looking for the quickest exit.

  “Now,” Monk said, addressing the man who was now standing, “you’re some kind of supervisor around here, I gather.”

  The statement required no reply.

  “And I bet whoever the boss is expects these jobs,” he kicked one of the smaller cardboard boxes, “to be done on time. After all, we can’t have these off-the-shoulder outfits selling for, what, $200, $300, getting to the stores late, now can we? Especially when you’re paying the workers such fantastic salaries like $4.85 an hour.”

  Several of the woman who understood English nodded to one another. The other man edged nervously away from the wall. “Now wait a minute, homes.”

  “Ah, now we’re communicating,” Monk disingenuously retorted. He was standing over one of the production tables, the muzzle of the gun inches away from the heavy-duty, high-tech sewing machine. “Where can I find Swede?”

  Nothing.

  Monk shot the motor.

  The other man’s mouth tightened into a hard line of despair. “Look man, Swede is the owner, okay?”

  “Uh-huh.” Monk moved over to another table and leveled the gun, the executioner come to call. “So when is the good gentlemen around?”

  “He don’t have regular times, man. He comes, he goes, you know?”

  For an answer, Monk killed another Brother-computerized sewing wonder. Some of the women clapped.

  The man on the loading dock rushed over. “Shit, them maquinas cost thousands, man.”

  “And what happens to productivity if there’s not enough of these rascals around?” Monk strolled to another station.

  “I’ll call the police,” the man said, pointing.

  “Go ahead.” The automatic barked and its slug ripped past the thick casing into the grimy floorboards.

  The other man clutched his head as if the top were coming unhinged.

  “Hey,” Monk said, “look at it this way, if you just give me a hint of when and where I can find Swede, he don’t have to know I got it from you. But how many more sewing machines can you afford to replace before Swede comes back and blames it on you?”

  The man held a hand out in front of his body as if he were pushing off a tremendous weight. “I give you a, como se diese, a clue, yeah?”

  “Yep.” The gun rested by Monk’s side.

  “Maybe I know where he gets his car washed ’cause I take it there a time or two.”

  “He gets it done regular.”

  “Maybe.”

  The gun wavered.

  Both hands pushed in front of him. “Yes, all the time. That car he treats better than a woman.”

  “What does this car look like, and where is this car wash?”

  It was a 1955 Lincoln Capri hardtop with fender skirts, painted in a hue GM used to call Palomino Buff, accented with white for the roof. It had dual exhausts and the engine was 341 cubic centimeters with a stroke of 3.5 inches. In its time, it sold for a whopping $3,910, $28 more than a Series sixty-two hardtop Cadillac. Now, it was priceless. Until today, walking across the street to the Fying V car wash on Figueroa near Venice Boulevard, Monk had only read about this particular model.

  He got a good look at the man getting out of the beautifully restored vehicle. Swede was a white man in his late fifties, tanned, fit, and wearing a grey sharkskin suit and black cap-toed shoes. His hair was white and combed meticulously to the nape of his neck. He carried a folded edition of USA Today in his smallish, thin hands.

  He entered the glassed-in walkway that provided a view of the cars as they went through the brushes and rollers. Monk stepped from the hot smoggy day into the air-conditioned interior. Sitting on a plastic chair was an elderly black woman studying a religious tract. Her lips moved as she read. Monk and the other man were the only other two inside the waiting area.

  Swede was standing at the rail, his Lincoln emerging from a mass of soap as he read the sports page. Monk came up beside him.

  “Mind if I have a word with you, Swede.”

  The other man didn’t look up from his paper. “I don’t know you, trooper.”

  “But you know a friend of mine. You know Scatterboy Williams.”

  Swede turned to the next page in the newspaper. Though he didn’t seem to be watching the Lincoln, he shifted his body in accordance with its position in the car wash. “Scatterboy send you to see me?”

  “Let’s just say I want to move some of the items he used to. Only I want a franchise.”

  The burnished eyes flitted over Monk briefly. The delicate hands refolded the paper, and he marched outside. His Lincoln was just coming onto the detailing lot. Monk trotted after him, noticing the car of the elderly woman, a late-model, lowered Mustang, also emerging.

  “You so set you can turn down business, Swede?” Monk said, gaining the shade of the canopied waiting area where the dapper man sat, watching the workers wipe down and vacuum his car.

  He glowered at Monk. “Sit down,” he indicated the space next to him on the wood bench. Monk did so. “So you’re more ambitious than our friend Scatterboy.”

  “Damned skippy, I am. Matter of fact—”

  The butterfly knife was pressed against Monk’s side so quickly, it took several moments for his brain to process the sensation. Swede had the paper over it, but Monk could see as well as feel its sharp tip against him. The older man had turned his body so that if anyone was paying attention they were just two friends having a conversation. “Now who the fuck are you?”

  “I told you, man, Scatterboy said to look you up.”

  “Scatterboy is dead.”

  “So?”

  “So how’d you find me?”

  Monk was angry for letting Swede get the upper hand. He had underestimated the man, but he should have known you don’t get to be a fixer, middle-aged or otherwise, by being soft. “Scatterboy told me where he met you to get the watches. I been watching after you for sometime, I knew you come here on Thursdays.”

  The perfectly coiffured gentleman rose. “I don’t know what you’re up to, mister, but I know you weren’t Scatterboy’s friend.” He started for his car then stopped. Swede didn’t turn around but spoke, “Don’t let me see you around again, hear? Next time I won’t wait for an answer.”

  With that the man in the shiny suit enjoyed a leisured walk to his clean, smooth ’55 Linco
ln, Monk no more a bother to him than a bug on his windshield.

  Sitting on the bench, Monk choked down an urge to tackle Swede and beat the living shit out of him. Other than proving he could do it—and he had his doubts that he’d get that far before the other man opened him up like Sunday catfish—it probably wouldn’t do anything to advance his investigation, not to mention putting his license in jeopardy. No, Monk told himself rising, if necessary, he’d take another run at Swede. From his blind side.

  Simmering, Monk drove over to west 48th Street and the Tiger’s Den. It was a combination gym, training facility, and sauna, owned and operated by the Zen ghetto master of the four-cornered world, Tiger Flowers. A one-time Golden Gloves champ and ranking middleweight, Tiger was a compact man on the far side of sixty who could still do five miles of road work to start the day.

  Pushing himself through a workout of weights, abdomen crunches and jumping rope, Monk found he couldn’t sweat enough to chase the bitter taste Swede had left with him. He hated for anyone to get the upper hand on him. No. What really bothered him was his attitude. He was cruising through the case, figuring to be done with it soon. He was slipping, and that made him worry.

  Bap. Damn, the right arm was still tender from that hammer blow in the garment factory. Bap. Monk dipped his left shoulder and drove straight into the heavy bag.

  “Like a lot of fellas your size, Monk, you rely too much on your upper body strength.” The voice was a quiet rasp, a file dragged across shards of glass. “Get up on your feet, make your legs do some work.”

  “Thank you, Tiger.” Bap. The bag swung back. Bap.

  “It’s not often you work out on the heavy bag,” Tiger observed. “Somethin’ must be up your craw.”

  Bap. Bap.

  “Very well.” Tiger wandered off.

  Rivulets of sweat peppered Monk’s eyes and his left side began to ache. Bap. Fuck Swede and his mamma. Bap. Why the fuck was he going to all this trouble for some knucklehead girl and a kid in a coma? Hell, Clarice was much better off without some no-talent, third-rater like Scatterboy Williams.

  Bap. Kiss my black ass, Swede. Bap. Bap. Bap.

  Chapter 7

  Warren DePriest, whose street name was Li’l Bone, was busy head-whipping an ese from South Gate with a chair leg he’d broken off at the time Scatterboy was shot and killed. He was two months into his lockdown waiting to go to trial on an armed robbery charge. Because his opponent had been coming after him with the sharpened end of a spoon at the time, DePriest wasn’t put into segregation after the incident.

  He was being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda. It was south of the old main annex of the Post Office, near the edge of historic 0lvera Street and its touristy shops. It was ten stories of hard linear function designed by one of those Brie-and-bottled-water architectural firms. In this era of down-turned economies, the upscale architects had abandoned skyscrapers for the booming field of prison construction.

  California and Texas were vying for incarceration capital of the free world. Each state had more than twenty prisons on the drawing board, and enough abused, out-of-work, and under-educated bastards to fill them. Though mainland China still had more prisons, America was locking up more people.

  The MDC was a concrete wonder of trellises and balconies, every tier enclosed by bars done in large “X’s” with rows of concertina wire entwining them. No one moved on the balconies, no bird alighted on the roof.

  While tagged with a state crime, Li’l Bone and other similarly charged prisoners had been placed in this sterile, well-kept federal facility due to the massive overcrowding at the Robben Island of L.A., the County Jail a few blocks away.

  Monk had learned DePriest was awaiting trial from the friendly waitress he’d slid the twenty across to at the King Lion barbecue joint in Pacific Shores. It meant turning right around and heading back to L.A., but since he’d yet to run down any of the other names of Scatterboy’s social club, it seemed worth the gas.

  “Naw, man, I can’t tell you nothin’ about what happened to my man Scatterboy.” Li’l Bone yawned and scratched himself on his side of the bullet-proof glass. “Since I caught this case, my mind’s been kind’a wrapped up, know what I’m sayin?”

  Monk bargained, “If you help me on this, Bone, and I find the joker who killed Scatterboy, that might look good when it comes time for your sentencing.” He wasn’t really sure about that, but it sounded right.

  Bone stretched again. “I’m bein’ square with you, Monk. Clarice and me went to grade school together. I wouldn’t dis her or my dead ace boon by not telling you straight.” He leaned forward, suddenly showing some interest. “Don’t you think I asked around in here when I got the 411?”

  “And did you find out anything?”

  “Nothing. But I’d a been surprised if I did. Scatterboy wasn’t down with no set. He didn’t try no game on nobody in the life.”

  “He did sell knock-offs,” Monk reminded him.

  Li’l Bone regarded him contemptuously with a wave of his hand. “Only to the squares. And what sucker really believe that he gonna get a legit Rolex fo’ two bills? Ain’t no square done the boy.”

  “So you think it was just a random thing?”

  Bone seemed to give it serious consideration. “That’s weird to imagine, detective man. Scatterboy knew them streets and knew the ones who packed in the Shores. He had his eyes open, know what I’m sayin’?”

  “An outsider then,” Monk said, thinking aloud.

  “Could be.”

  A light went off over Monk’s head signaling time was up for the interview. A guard in a tailored blazer appeared. On the breast pocket of his jacket was the logo of the contract firm the feds hired for the security services. It seemed to Monk privatizing to the cheapest bidder was the sick mantra too many bean counters ommed to. Politicians eager to talk tough on crime and three-strike every fool whose final felony was stealing a six-pack from a store sought to balance budgets by abdicating governmental oversight.

  The guard was a bespectacled clean-cut young black man who looked more like a mathematician. He gave Li’l Bone a nod and the prisoner rose. “Or it could be that crazy-ass Herbie did all three of ’em.”

  “Who.”

  “Herbie,” Li’l Bone said as he walked away. “I heard he shot another player I know.”

  DePriest walked through a peach-colored door which swung shut behind him. Monk wrote down a notation and left the Center. He made his over to Continental Donuts on Vernon near 11th Avenue in the Crenshaw District. He parked on the lot the place shared with Alton Brothers Automotive Repair and Service. Curtis Armstrong, co-owner of the garage, was bent over the engine of a pitiful-looking twenty-year-old Datsun 510.

  “Curtis,” Monk blurted as he walked past, “how’s the carriage trade?”

  Armstrong, an overweight man with a tiny voice, unlimbered himself from his task. “Well, my ebony Nick Carter, I’m just fulfilling my mission in life to try and keep on the road these sorry-assed vehicles our people are forced to drive ’cause that’s all they can afford workin’ at some sorry-ass slave job.”

  Not missing a beat, Monk said, “You the man for this job, my brother.”

  Curtis Armstrong grunted something and returned to his labors. There was a sign announcing Alton Brothers over the maw of the garage’s grease bay. The brothers had long since died, but Curtis, far-sighted as well as frugal, saw no need to spend unnecessary money in getting a new sign. Monk shook his head in admiration and went into the donut shop.

  “What it bees, chief,” Elrod, the six-foot-eight, mobile mountain, ex-con manager, greeted. His voice was a bass fiddle at the bottom of a deep well.

  “Like this and like that.”

  They shook hands. Sitting at the counter in the restored ’40s decor of the donut shop was a man named Andrade, part-time accountant, full-time alcoholic. With the precise calm of a sniper, he sipped his large coffee and stared at something way beyond the shop’s walls. Two glazed
donuts, like pop art sculpture, lay untouched on a napkin before him.

  In one of the booths two other regulars played a game of chess. Monk moved toward the back again. “I’ve got something I want to check on, and then we’ll do that inventory.”

  “Right on,” the big man rumbled as he changed the filter in the coffee maker.

  Monk had bought the donut shop several years ago with money he’d saved from his tenure in the merchant marines. The exact wisdom of the purchase still eluded him. He certainly didn’t clear much money from the enterprise. And it didn’t give him entree into the higher echelons of the business world. But it was nice having some place all his own. A totem of mediocre coffee and fried dough against a hostile world.

  The building was in the shape of an ell and Monk took the passageway down the short shank. Opening a steel-sheered door, he thumbed the overhead fluorescents to life, and entered a room done up with cheap wood paneling, containing a free-standing safe tucked in one corner, a cot, two industrial-green file cabinets, and a folding chair in front of a small table where an IBM clone rested. Two other folding chairs leaned against the safe. There was a phone jack but no phone.

  Monk uncoiled a phone cord from the PC and inserted it into the jack. He sat down and powered up the computer. He tapped out commands and the modem in his computer dialed and then connected with one of the online services he subscribed to. A few more strokes on the keyboard and Monk got into the database he was seeking—the morgue of the L.A. Times.

  He punched in “’Pacific Shores” and got an item recounting the shooting death of known crack dealer Ronny Aaron and the subsequent arrest of one Herbert Gay lord Jones. This article was written after the Henderson incident, and speculated about a tie-in among the three shootings.

  Monk compared the facts, dates, locations. Aaron was shot a week and a half after Scatterboy, on a street named Kenmore, while his client’s boyfriend was killed on Creedmore. Monk typed in Williams’ name in but nothing came up. He printed the article, exited the service and turned the machine off.