by Hy Conrad
“Huh. I bet that takes like a thousand years,” said a more normally regulated voice.
“STOP YOUR MUMBLING.”
“Adrian?” I walked in to find Monk vigorously polishing the wood surface of his desk. Luther stood beside him in his black chauffeur-style suit. “What’s the matter?” I asked.
My partner looked at me. “I’M SHOUTING SO I CAN HEAR MYSELF.”
“ADRIAN, DON’T TALK. WRITE THINGS DOWN.” I went to my desk and got a pencil and a pad.
“ALL NIGHT AND DAY! WHEN IS IT GOING TO STOP?”
“Whatever medication they gave him to calm down, he didn’t take,” explained Luther. “He’s getting worse.”
“NO PILLS!” Monk informed the surrounding two-block radius.
“OKAY, NO PILLS.” I knew from experience that anxiety can build in situations like this and really affect you. “YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN.” I handed him the pencil and pad. “WE’LL START WITH THE SHOUTING.”
“Excuse me!” It was Peter Gerber, standing in our doorway, backed up by Wendy Gerber. They were both in baggy, tie-dyed T-shirts, and it was hard tell where one ended and the other began, like a herd of hippie zebras on the Serengeti.
“Mr. Monk, I know you complain about our noise, but this is just mean.” Gone was Wendy’s sweet, forgiving, live-and-let-live demeanor. “Peter plays very softly. You don’t have to retaliate by screaming like Godzilla.” Then she caught sight of Luther. “Oh, you. Clyde or Luther or whatever.”
“Hey there,” said Luther, with the wave of a hand and the hint of a grin. “The poster worked out great. Did exactly what we wanted.”
“We know,” said Wendy.
“Hey, hardly anyone saw it.”
“We saw it,” said Wendy. “It affected Peter’s aura for days. It was nearly black.”
Peter bit his lip and shook his head. “Is this shouting another one of your pranks? Does it make you feel good, huh? Bullying a couple of pacifists.”
“I ought to punch you in the nose,” said Wendy, looking like she meant it.
“WHAT DID THEY SAY?”
“ADRIAN, WRITE THINGS DOWN.” I pointed to the pad. “PLEASE.”
“What’s wrong with him?” asked Peter.
“It’s not on purpose,” I assured them. “Adrian’s been through a concussion.”
“Oh.” Wendy blinked, a little embarrassed. “So this isn’t some kind of getting even?”
“I don’t believe them,” said Peter.
“It’s true,” said Luther. “He was right near that car bomb. You must have heard about it.”
“We did hear.” Peter seemed unconvinced, especially since the information was coming from the man who commissioned the hip replacement poster.
“He needs to take his medication,” I added.
“WHAT? MEDITATION?” Monk shouted.
“Meditation?” said Wendy, her face brightening a bit. “We can help with his meditation. We meditate all the time.”
“No,” I said. “No meditation.” I couldn’t imagine anything making Monk more nervous than engaging in gratuitous meditation with his hippie neighbors.
“It will relax him,” promised Wendy. “Calming him will go a long way. Look at the poor man’s aura. It’s reddish purple.”
“They’re just going to make fun of us,” said Peter, motioning toward the door. “We should get back to work.”
Wendy smiled sweetly. “There’s always time to do a session with someone in need. Natalie, what do you think his weakest chakra is?”
“My guess is they’re all equally weak.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll get the mats. Do you guys have incense, or should I bring some back?” She was almost bubbly again.
Wendy was just heading out the door when she happened to glance over to my desk, more exactly the wall above my desk. It was one of those chance things, a glance out of the corner of her eye. But it was enough to stop her in her tracks. “Who is that?” She was pointing to the bleary security photo of Sue Puskedra O’Brien that I’d re-taped behind my monitor.
“I don’t know who it is,” I said. “Do you?”
“You don’t know? You put up her picture.” It sounded almost like an accusation. Peter joined her, both of them tiptoeing up to the image, as if it were about to bite them—or disappear.
“This just beats all,” said Peter. “You guys have no shame.”
“Do you know her?” I asked. “She told me her name was Sue or Suzanne.”
“Go ask your prankster friends,” said Peter, pointing an accusing finger at Monk and Luther. “They’ll tell you all about Sue—or Marjorie—or whatever else she calls herself.”
“Adrian?” The Gerbers looked so offended, it was hard to doubt them. “Is this true? Do you know her?”
“WHAT?” Monk replied.
“Know who?” Luther asked. He joined the tie-dyed couple at my desk. “Crappy picture. But I’ve never seen her.”
“She wasn’t part of your prank?” asked Wendy.
“What prank? Mr. Monk and I only did one, which was pretty funny and awesome if you ask me.”
“Did you ever meet this woman?” I asked. “Wendy, this is important.”
Wendy rolled her eyes but gave me the benefit of the doubt. “Okay. She came in last Thursday. Marjorie Mapplethorpe. I should have known by the fake name. Made us drop everything with some sad story about her little consignment shop and how desperate she was for business. We wasted an hour with her on a four-color newspaper ad. She never paid and she never picked up the file.”
“A sweet prank,” said Peter. “Just like your others. We tried tracking down Marjorie Mapplethorpe, but her e-mail was fake. Her phone number was fake.”
“No such person exists,” I guessed.
“Oh, she exists,” said Peter. “You have her picture on your wall.”
“No, honestly,” I pleaded. “I got that from Al’s security camera at the pawnshop. This woman did the same with me—walked in with a phony job and didn’t pay.”
Peter huffed, unconvinced. “Why would she do that?”
“We don’t know. I grant you, she did exactly what Luther and Adrian did. But they have no connection to this woman, I promise.”
“You’ll forgive us if we don’t believe you,” said Peter, and he led his wife out the door.
I waited until they were safely in their own space, out of earshot. “Luther, please tell me you don’t know her.”
“I said I didn’t. Man, this is some world when you don’t trust your friends.” Before I could apologize—not that I was going to, but before I could—Luther was checking his watch and walking out the door. “I got real customers and a real business to run. You guys have fun.” Monk and I watched him drive off.
“YOU KNOW I DIDN’T HEAR ANYTHING, RIGHT?”
“ADRIAN, SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN.”
“Yeah, shut up,” came Peter’s voice through the thin wall. He pounded it twice for emphasis.
Without another word, I managed to get Monk into his chair and wheeled it over to my desk. I adjusted the monitor so we both could see, created a Word document, and set the font size to fourteen, nice and large. Just for emphasis, I pressed a finger to my lips—shh—sat down, and started typing.
I could feel Monk wincing at every little typo, but that didn’t stop me, or make me go back and self-correct. I just went with the flow and wrote down everything that had happened in the past five minutes, along with my own little opinions.
“WHERE WERE YOU ON THURSDAY?” he shouted right in my ear.
I yelped, jumped about a foot, then settled back and typed. “I was sitting at a bar waiting for Sue. DON’T SHOUT. I know. She lured me away so she could come here and pull her prank on the hippies. DON’T SHOUT. What a jerk. You were right about her. DON’T SHOUT.”
Monk didn’t shout any more. He just sat there behind my shoulder, his brows furrowed, thinking. It was what he did best, the thing he felt most comfortable doing in the world. I could almost f
eel his nervous energy draining away.
I was just sitting there, deep in my own thoughts, when the office phone rang. I picked it up, just on reflex. “You said you’d call this morning, although I don’t know why I expected you to.”
“Daniela, hello. Adrian and I were just talking about your case.” I put the phone on speaker, in case I needed to type something for Monk.
“Well, that’s an unfortunate waste of time because you’re fired.”
“Fired?” I don’t know why people repeat words that they’ve obviously heard. It may have something to do with shock or to give us time to process. “Did you say fired?”
“That’s right, dear. We have that little retainer agreement we’re going to let expire. It was a bad fit.”
“No, it wasn’t. Daniela, please.” I won’t say I’ve never been fired before (one bartending job, a waitress job, and a gig as the California Lottery Girl). But this was something I cared about.
“Your firm is young and small,” Daniela went on. “Your first loyalty is to the police, I get that. Old ties. Life and death—blah, blah, blah. But it makes it hard for you to give me the dedication I need. I’m wondering how we ever got involved in the first place.” Her laugh was light and cheery, as if she’d just told a joke.
I’ll tell you how we got involved, I wanted to say. Because Adrian caught you trying to kill someone and I talked him into giving you a pass.
It was a painful conversation. Grace, Winters, and Weingart had been our first corporate client, our only one. We’d done good work for them and I was hoping they’d turn out to be a gateway to more clients and a higher profile. Instead it would be the opposite. Getting fired doesn’t make for a good reference.
I did my best to argue my case, but of course it was too late. “How are you going to handle the leak in your office?”
“I made several calls this morning, the top notch, all with vast experience in corporate espionage, which is not your strong suit, I’m afraid. All except one said they could take us on immediately. Devote their top people today and guarantee results. I went with Elliot Brown. I’m having lunch with Elliot himself at the Fairmont at noon.”
“Who turned you down?”
“Mr. Monk, is that you?”
It was indeed Mr. Monk. He was speaking at a normal volume and seemed to be able to hear just fine. “It’s me,” he confirmed into the speaker. “Adrian Monk.”
“I’m sorry about the news, dearest one. But I had no choice. You should talk to Natalie about handling clients and returning calls.”
“Don’t blame Natalie. She’s the very best”—he cleared his throat and I felt great for a second—“I can do, given the circumstances. You said all the firms except one were able to take your case. Which one wasn’t?”
“I’m not sure what concern that is. But I’ll check my notes.” She paused, then came back on. “It’s West Bay Investigators. They’re supposed to be the best. Unfortunately, they were busy.”
“Yes, they have a good reputation. So does Elliot Brown. You’ll be in good hands. Sorry it didn’t work out. I apologize for Natalie.” Without another word, he started pressing buttons on the phone until he managed to disconnect the call.
“You apologize for Natalie?” I asked. “What was that about?”
“Those were just words. I wanted to hang up without her being mad.” Monk opened his mouth wide and wiggled his jaw. “I’m feeling better, thanks for asking. There’s still the ringing, but if I think about other things …”
I didn’t care. I was so angry and hurt. “I can’t believe Daniela fired us. Do you know how hard that makes it? No one’s going to hire us but the police. And A.J. is cutting back our fees. He’s also a Neanderthal jerk you can’t work with. What are we going to do?”
“I can fix this.”
“You? And how can you fix it?” I might have been close to tears. “How?”
“Natalie …” Monk looked me in the eyes, about to say something serious and heartfelt. Then he popped his jaw again and wiggled it. “I can’t believe how much better I feel.”
“You were going to say something. What?”
He closed his jaw. “I was going to say I haven’t been the best partner. I know that. I make you responsible for everything and maybe I complain more than I should.”
I was taken aback by what, for him, amounted to a full-throated apology. “Well, it’s nice to hear you admit it.”
“I’ll make it up to you. I can fix this thing with Daniela.”
“You? What are you going to do?”
“I’ll take care of it. I know how. All I need you to do is be ready to have lunch today at noon. Can you do that? We’ll be eating at the Fairmont Hotel.”
“Where at the Fairmont? You mean the restaurant where Daniela’s having lunch? Please don’t say we’re going there to blackmail her about her murder attempt. That would be cruel.”
“I didn’t even think of that. But no. Just leave it to me.”
I wasn’t so sure. “Does this involve Luther again? No more pranks with Luther. Promise?”
Monk promised.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Mr. Monk Takes Control
I left everything in Monk’s hands.
Those might be the scariest six words I’ve ever written.
But scary doesn’t always mean bad. Sure, there was the possibility of disaster, or of being led into a moment of embarrassment that would haunt my dreams. His OCD and/or his limited knowledge of human behavior might ruin our business in a dozen different ways. On the other hand, Adrian is the world’s best at what he does, pulling sense out of a world of chaos. I could only hope this was one of those times. And, let’s be honest, I had nowhere else to turn. That’s what I meant by scary.
I did my part, going home, puttering around, changing into something presentable—a navy shirtdress, belted, with a turned-up collar—then picking up Monk and getting to the Fairmont. At a few minutes past noon, we walked through the lobby to the Laurel Court Restaurant, an immense circular room that’s actually made up of several intersecting circles, with faux-marble pillars and domes and chandeliers and landscape murals on the curved walls.
Monk avoided the hostess station. “Do we have a reservation?” I whispered.
“Nope,” he said, and began to look around, all the while humming the opening bars to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
“Why are you humming that?” I asked.
“Because you’re humming it,” he said.
“Oh.” I had to pay attention and stop myself. “Sorry. Still some problem with the ringing ears.”
“Mine’s much better. You need to focus on something, Natalie. It’s mind over matter.”
The restaurant’s multiple circles gave the illusion of openness while preserving a surprising amount of privacy. I followed Monk as he wandered from space to space and finally headed in one direction. I’d known Daniela was going to be there, but I didn’t expect to see her alone at a table for two, nursing an iced tea and looking impatient.
“Natalie. Mr. Monk.” She wasn’t pleased. “I’m not about to change my mind. Elliot Brown is going to be here any moment and—”
“Elliot won’t be here until twelve thirty,” said Monk. “I had my assistant call and postpone your lunch.”
“What assistant?” I blurted out. “It wasn’t me. Daniela, I’m so sorry. I have no idea what he’s doing.”
“And yet you’re here, enabling whatever nonsense he’s up to.”
“True. I suppose I trust him,” I said. That was my excuse. “He’s trusted me dozens of times—well, more than once. And I probably should trust him more often.”
Monk smiled. “Have a seat, Natalie. We don’t want Daniela uncomfortable.” I lowered myself into the wingback chair opposite the steely-eyed lawyer. Monk remained standing between us, his eyes flitting out to the circles of the Laurel Court. “How is Booker Sessums, your paralegal?”
“Booker is fine. He’s a hard worker and ver
y loyal.”
“He’s quitting as soon as I solve this case. Going to another firm.”
“Adrian,” I hissed. “We promised to keep it secret.”
“You know I can’t keep a secret. Anyway, I’m solving the case right now, so he can leave.”
“Booker?” Daniela looked stunned. “Are you saying the leak was Booker?”
“No,” said Monk, eyes still flitting over my shoulder. Had he seen something? “It wasn’t Booker or the guy in your finance department or the fourth-year associate who wants to be partner. I’ll give you a hint. It’s someone in this room. And I don’t mean Natalie.”
“What?” A ridge of lines popped up between Daniela’s brows. Time for more Botox. “Are you accusing me, Mr. Monk? Are you saying I purposely sabotaged an IPO worth over a million to our firm? Unbelievable.”
“Adrian? That’s kind of far-fetched. Not that I don’t trust you.”
“Did I say Daniela? No, I think I said someone in this room.” The fact that Monk was so bold and sure of himself was a good sign. He gets this way only when he’s vacuuming or solving a case. “Under normal circumstances I’d just tell you. But my partner has a business to run.”
I shrugged, trying to look helpless. “It’s true, Daniela. We do have a business to run.”
Daniela didn’t know Monk the way I did. But she’d been part of two cases. She knew something was up. Instinctively, she stood and glanced behind her, just in case the perpetrator might be obvious—like a Wall Street investor wearing a little burglar mask. Instead it looked just like the Laurel Court with a Monday lunch crowd.
“All right,” she said, settling back down. “Our conversation this morning didn’t happen. And Elliot Brown. He’s not hired. And we’ll renew your retainer, if this all pans out.”
“And how about an apology to Natalie? For doubting her. She always makes me apologize.”
“Let’s not press our luck,” I said, and held out my hand to Daniela. “Deal?”
“Deal,” said Daniela, shaking the offered hand. “And if it makes him get to the point any faster, I do apologize.”
“Deal,” echoed Monk. “Let’s go.”
