MONK GOT BACK to his office and there was a message waiting for him from Maxfield O’Day. The head of Save Our Material Assets stated his apologies that he had to go back out of town again and the two of them would get together by Wednesday of next week. Monk sat down at his desk and leaned back in his swivel. His inside line rang just as he was dozing off. He reached over and picked up the handset.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Monk, glad I caught you. I’m on my way to the airport, but thought I’d chance a call from the car here.”
It was O’Day. Monk said, “The mayor give you a new assignment?”
“Money and who has it is a very fluid thing in today’s world, young man. We have to catch it where we can. Anyway, I know it’s imperative that we get together. I’m anxious to review your progress on the case. Why don’t you fax your report to my office and they’ll get it to me this weekend and I’ll be up to speed.”
“Sure. I’d like to get your thoughts on a few things.”
“By the way, one of the researchers in my firm informed me they found out a little something about this Jiang Holdings.”
“Good. Like what?”
“Let me see,” he said, his voice momentarily fading away from the mouthpiece. He then came back on the line. “Jiang is a wholly owned offshore company. It is registered in Hong Kong, yet as far as we can tell, it only does business in the States.”
“Who are the partners?”
“That’s been the stickler. Hong Kong, as you know, will be reverting back to the Mainland in less time than it took for Mao’s Thousand-Mile March. Needless to say, a lot of the old running dogs are enacting various constructs, shall we say, to protect their precious shekels.”
“And identities,” Monk added.
“Exactly.” The transmission started to break up. “I’ll have my man keep on it, though. But we did get.…”
The lawyer started to fade out again. Monk strained to listen.
“… some kind of other office.…”
“Say it again, will you?” Monk wrote down on his yellow pad the address that O’Day recited. Like a voice at the bottom of a canyon, Monk could hear Maxfield O’Day say goodby, followed by the white noise of electronic nothingness. He hung the phone up, looking at the address. He dialed Jill’s chamber. Jory, the bailiff, answered.
“No, Monk, she left already. One of the attorneys got sick after lunch, so she recessed till Monday.”
“Thanks.” Monk picked up the slip of paper with the address, got on his coat, and left the office again.
Jill Kodama parked her pearl black Saab in the parking space the Camaro had just left. She got out, beeped the alarm on, and strolled into the Beverly Connection. There was a new attaché case she’d had her eye on in the tony accessory shop on the second floor. She looked at it again, but decided against it. Though she made good money, she still felt self-conscious if she spent too much on herself. The product of a lower-middle-class upbringing, she didn’t want to signal to her friends at Legal Aid and the ACLU that she had sold out.
Kodama bought herself a cup of cappuccino in the food court and berated herself for berating herself. Just because one became a judge, that didn’t mean you’d stopped fighting for social justice. It had been as much a push from Asian Pacific groups who wanted her in the high profile position as it had been her own ambition. Who better to mete out justice than one who represented a group who had been on the receiving end of injustice so many times. But wasn’t that the rationalization of every hungry politician?
She bared her even teeth and took another sip of her coffee. So you’ve revealed your true motivation, Kodama. In your heart of hearts you want to run for office. DA? Hell, no. County Supervisor, huh? The judgeship a there stepping stone to further your insatiability for righting wrongs and punishing evildoers. And the fact that Supervisors oversaw huge kingdoms of the sprawling County of the angels. Jill Kodama, County fucking Supervisor. Bullshit. She threw away the empty paper cup and left the mammoth complex.
Kodama drove over to Betsey Johnson, the woman’s clothing store on Melrose. She walked along the side street where she’d parked her car and was near the corner when someone screamed. It was a pair of young girls in ripped jeans and layered lace tops. The red-and-blue-haired one was yelling and pointing. A sick fear in the middle of her chest blossomed, and the judge couldn’t help it. She half-turned, yet stumbled and ran all the same, knowing what was coming.
“Rolling Daltons, bitch.”
The shotgun blast could be heard above the young girl’s screams.
• • •
The place didn’t look like money, it looked like hell. It was a squat affair off an alley/street near Riverside Drive on the border of Glendale. There was no sign on the building, only a tiny address over the roll-up door which thatched the address Monk had received from O’Day. He tried the door, but it was locked. He walked around the building, but all the windows were up high near the parapet. In addition, they were barred and their panes composed of frosted glass.
A trash container was next to an inset door. That too was locked tight. And there was nothing—no paper, no cups, no plastic bag, zip—in the unlocked trash container. Monk got a roll of transparent tape out of his glove compartment and tore off a small piece. This he taped on the bottom edge of the door and across the door jamb. He repeated this with the roll-up door and the concrete slab beneath it. He quit the building and drove back into Los Angeles proper.
Monk got to his office as dusk began to settle. An unmarked police car he knew well was parked at the curb in front. Marasco sat at the wheel, smoking. The private eye walked up on the driver’s side.
“The only time you smoke is when you got something on your mind, homeboy.”
Seguin threw the cigarette to the ground. Quietly he said, without looking at Monk, “Better get in the car, Ivan.”
“Why?”
“It’s Jill, she’s been—”
“What,” Monk yelled, cutting his friend off. He grabbed his shoulder, squeezing hard.
The tapokata-tapokata machine was surging in his head. He stared at the picture before him, people’s voices buzzing all around him, but it was only the steady pump of the all-purpose, all-weather machine that he could hear. Slowly, as if his ears were unplugging as he descended a great height, Monk began to filter in the voices.
“She was lucky,” one voice said.
“Luck, nothing,” the other voice intoned. “It was a warning intended for Monk.”
“They don’t think that complicated,” the first voice rasped.
Monk turned to the voices. “Marasco’s right, Keys. How the hell do you miss with a double-barreled shotgun from less than twenty feet unless you really want to?”
“So why not just kill her?” Keys retorted, adjusting his glasses.
To stop himself from planting his fist in the upwardly mobile fed’s mouth, Monk turned back to look at Jill.
“If they kill her, Monk’s got nothing left, and goes after them,” Seguin said. “This way, a close shave on purpose, he’s got more to think about, more to consider.”
The doctor who was bandaging Kodama’s arm finished and wrote out a prescription for her. “In case there’s any pain,” she said, handing the slip of paper to her. The doctor left the room. Kodama sat on the examining table, incongruously dressed in her slacks and a paisley print paper gown.
“He’s not the only one who’s got something to consider, boys,” Kodama said, getting off the table.
“Was it Crosshairs who did this, Judge Kodama?” Keys asked.
“I really don’t know, Agent Keys. As I’ve told Marasco, they wore ski masks. They were both big, that I could tell.”
Keys glared at Monk. “What do you have to say to that, Monk?”
“Look, man, if I knew where to find Sawyer, I wouldn’t be standing here right now having you give me the blues.”
Keys shook his finger at Monk. “You think you’re slick. Monk. But the Bureau gets what it needs to see that crimes are solved.”
Monk almost laughed. “Jesus, Keys, did you get that from the one hundred and one quotations of J. Edgar Hoover?”
“It’s people like you, who subvert the law for their own ends, who are the danger.”
“I’m not the one fast-tracking black and brown youth for a bullshit few ounces of crack, Keys.”
“Drug dealers shouldn’t be punished, huh?”
“There shouldn’t be two tiers of justice, Keys. Possession of powder cocaine, favored by middle-class whites, is not prosecuted under harsher federal sentencing like crack is. And anyway, you damn sure ain’t throwing no real drug dealers in jail. What with the DEA, the Justice Department, and members of the Peruvian and Colombian armies on the pad to the drug lords.”
“Let me tell you about the brave men and women who’ve died to—”
“And let me tell you about the brothers dying in the streets every day,” Monk began, cutting the FBI man off.
They moved closer to one another, jaws tight, muscles tensed. Seguin got between them. “All right, that’s enough.” His attention went to Keys. “The judge said she couldn’t identify her assailants, Keys. She didn’t get a license number on the car, nothing. That’s it.”
“No it isn’t,” he said, boring his eyes into Monk.
A silence attached itself to the room. A shroud under which nothing happened for several long moments. Eventually, Keys said, “I want to see the report on my desk this evening, Lieutenant.” He departed.
“Well, if you boys are through waving your dicks around, give a girl a lift, will you?” She put an arm around Monk’s waist, and they hugged each other.
“What the hell is going on with this case, Monk?” Seguin said, thrusting his hands in his pockets.
“I know you mean well, Marasco. But you’ve got to believe me, I don’t have all the answers yet.”
“But you won’t tell me what pieces you do have?”
“You’d have to tell Keys.”
The left side of Seguin’s face twitched. “I’m still my own man, Ivan. You know I don’t give a shit about Keys.”
“Everybody wants something different out of this.” Monk bit down on his bottom lip. “You’ve got all the machinery, Marasco. All I’ve got is my next check and the client’s signature on it.”
“I’m sorry this had to come between us.”
“It’s the nature of our work.”
Seguin’s angular face arranged itself into hard lines. “I know.” He walked out.
Monk kissed Jill on the forehead. He whispered, “I’m sorry, baby. I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.”
“It’s all right. Just some glass from the car’s windshield and a few buckshot pellets.”
“Right. You could have been cut in half by the blast or your body lit up with 9-mm slugs from an Uzi.”
“It could happen walking down the street, honey. Or more likely it’ll happen because the crime partners of some guy I sentence to hard time will be just smart enough to find me and pop a cap on me.” She looked up into his face. “I’m not saying I’m not scared. I am saying I can’t let it paralyze me. I won’t just curl up in a ball and wait for the end.”
“Damn, you’re tough.”
“Shut up.”
Kodama got dressed and they checked out of the Kaiser. They drove to El Coyote, a Mexican restaurant over on Beverly, and had a meal out on the patio. Afterwards, Kodama retrieved her car and they went back to Monk’s apartment. They took a shower together and went back out to catch jazz bassist Charlie Hayden and his quintet at a club in Hollywood. It was past one-thirty in the morning when the two got back to Monk’s place in Mar Vista.
The red light blinked on his answering machine. Monk rewound the device. “Ivan, Ray Smith again. I’ll try you in the morning.”
Monk and Kodama headed for the bedroom, taking off their clothes as they went. “What did he want? You haven’t seen him in a long time,” Kodama said.
Monk pulled her close and said in a low voice, “I think he’s going to get me to Crosshairs, and hopefully, his cousin Conrad James.”
“It could be a set-up.”
“I realize that. But like you said, I’ve got to go forward on this thing.”
“You make sure you be careful.”
They went to bed and made love by the light from the light on his nightstand, casting ever-changing dark shapes across their taut muscles. Damning the watchers if, indeed, they were also under visual surveillance as well as sound by the FBI. The light of morning arrived too quickly, and Monk got out of bed and made them a breakfast of wheat toast, poached eggs and spicy beef sausage. They were just sitting down to it when the phone rang.
“Hello,” Monk said, answering it on the third ring.
“Ivan, this is Ray, man.”
“Long time no see, brother.”
“Yeah, well, we ain’t got time for traveling down memory lane.”
Before he could proceed, Monk said. “We have to meet but I—”
Smith cut him off. “You be around on Sunday, about this time.” The line disconnected.
Diaz sat ramrod straight in the plastic chair in front of the window with the slats. A pair of binoculars on a fixed tripod was to his left. To his right sat Agent-in-Charge Keys at a steel table. On the table was a telephone, a monitoring device which had a wire leading to a cassette recorder, and a pair of headphones. Keys leaned away from the desk and fiddled with one of his silver cufflinks.
“Ray Smith has made contact,” Keys said.
“Time to drop the hammer,” Diaz commented sardonically.
Keys picked up the phone’s handset and punched out a number. After a moment, he spoke. “Bazeco, this is Keys. I need for you and Roberts, and Haller in another car, to be stationed around Monk’s apartment by,” he looked at his watch, “six o’clock tomorrow morning.” He listened, then said, “That’s right, Lieutenant Seguin is known to Monk and might be spotted. Agent Diaz and I will be in another car. We’ll all use channel three for all communications. See you then.”
Diaz raised his hand in the air, made a closed fist and brought it down like he was pulling a weight. They both grinned.
The phone’s bell jangled the dark of two A.M. Monk, positioning himself onto his back, picked it up on the fourth ring. “Monk.” Kodama put a hand on his stomach and continued to sleep.
“It’s time to get going.”
Monk came fully awake. “What do you want me to do?”
“Be down in front in three minutes.”
Monk rushed out of the bed, not bothering to hang up the phone. Kodama stirred in the bed but didn’t rise. He got into a pair of loose fitting Dockers and a flannel shirt. He reached for his harness in the closet, thought better of it, and opened one of the drawers of his dresser. Down below a tangle of boxer shorts and socks, he found his ankle rig and the small .38—a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard revolver with a hidden hammer—and strapped that on. He got into his worn and comfortable Blacktop tennis shoes and a windbreaker.
Furiously, he scratched out two lines in his notepad to Kodama which read: “I’m off to the races. Love you always.” He tore out the sheet and placed it on the nightstand. He slipped the notepad into his back pocket and went downstairs. At the curb, its motor running, was a four-door Chevy Caprice with fender skirts. At the wheel was an individual who had the hood of his sweat jacket pulled over his head. Rising out of the car on the passenger side was somebody Monk knew. Once.
“Yo, blood, get in,” Ray Smith said to Monk as the latter hurtled into the car.
Monk got in behind the driver as the car pulled away from the curb. He looked back and saw a car round a corner. It was trying to look casual, but considering the lack of traffic this time of the morning, it couldn’t help but stand out. Monk jerked his thumb alongside of his face. “I think that’s a FBI car back there.”
“I know,” the hooded driver replied.
The way he said it, so calm and self-assured, Monk felt a knot of apprehension twisting his stomach. He couldn’t sit by and let them start shooting at the Feds. No matter how much he despised Keys.
The driver took the car another mile east and then pulled to the curb. The car that had been following discreedy behind them also pulled to the curb. Monk looked toward the two men in the front seats, but they didn’t turn around. He could imagine either Keys or Diaz—it had to be those two back there—on their car phone calling around to wake up the other members of the task force and try to get them in position. “Don’t you two think we ought to get moving?”
“In a minute,” the driver spat out, turning slightly in profile. His purple hood the mark of an inner city Druid.
A phone rang and it took Monk a moment to realize it was in the car he was sitting in.
The driver picked it up, listened, then said, “Okay, count ten, then go.” He handed it to Smith and in ten seconds, left the curb at great velocity. Monk looked back and could see the other car following suit. The hooded driver took a hard right down a narrow street and as they passed a darkened alleyway, another car emerged behind them. Monk could see that it too was similar in shape to the Caprice. In the dark of the night, a duplicate of the one he was riding in. They took another turn and then zoomed along behind a row of industrial buildings.
Presently, the faux Caprice, which must have been traveling parallel to their course, shot out of a side street and rejoined them. The two cars did a sort of exaggerated figure-eight down the street, each car weaving in and out of the space the other occupied. By now they were in Culver City and the Caprice Monk was in took another sharp turn and plowed to a stop in a darkened parking lot near the Denny’s close to the Fox Hills Mall.
“Move,” the driver commanded and the three exited on a run. Somebody emerged from the building’s shadows, and they got in the Caprice and whipped off. Monk was herded between the building and a concrete wall. They all crouched down into the ebony recess afforded by the wall.
Minutes elapsed as Monk could hear the screech of tires and the pounding of V-8 engines swallowed up by the city. He felt a hand pulling on his upper arm, and he stood with the driver and Ray Smith by his side.
“Pretty smart, huh?” Ray Smith enthused.
Monk looked at Smith but couldn’t see anything but indistinct features, a reflection of the distance between the two who had been through junior and senior high school together. “What’s the game plan now?” Monk said.
The driver extended his arm and pointed. “Over there.” He led the way through the gloom and the trio came to a late model Ford Bronco parked behind a series of industrial trash containers. They entered the vehicle and wound over to Slauson Avenue and headed east, Monk again riding in the rear.
Getting close to Western Avenue, Smith said to the driver. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. Let’s get some grub over at the Golden Ox.”
“Okay,” the driver responded.
He turned right on Western and traveled several blocks until he got to Gage and pulled into the drive-through of the all-night burger stand. The Bronco came to rest alongside a yellow plastic silhouette of an ox. The menu of the establishment, which included such nouvelle junk cuisine as chili cheese fries with blue cheese, and a pastrami burger with spinach and dill, was delineated on the cut-out in neat, precise script. The microphone was in the head of the ox.
“What do you want, Ivan?” Smith turned in his seat to look at him.
“Coffee, three creams and one sugar.”
The driver gave their orders, and they pulled in behind a cab that was also waiting for its order at the front of the drive-through. Monk stared at the hack of Smith’s head. He’d been taken aback a moment ago. It was the first time he’d gotten a good look at him.
Smith’s once-handsome face was now drawn and of a greyish pallor. The folds under his eyes were puffy, and the eyes themselves were cloudy, seemingly unfocused. He looked ten years older than Monk yet he was actually younger by almost a year. The cab moved off, and they slid to the window in the Bronco.
The driver turned slightly to look at Monk. It was the Rolling Dalton who had the skirmish with the two Scalp Hunters at the Oki Dog stand. Under the lighted carport, Monk could see the tattoos of the two tears in the corner of his right eye. Did it mean he was always sad, or that his sorrow was only a surface job?
“Heard you handled yourself with a couple of bums.”
Bums was the belittling term the Daltons used when describing Scalp Hunters. “How’d you hear about that?” Monk said to the driver.
He smiled, his teeth yellow and wolfish in profile. “The young brother who plays the video games in the Hi-Life.”
“One of your lookouts.” Monk was aware of the sharp tone in his voice.
The driver turned back in his seat to look out the windshield. “Something like that.”
Their food arrived, and the Bronco pulled over to the parking lot. The driver killed the engine. They ate and Monk sipped his coffee in silence. He didn’t know how to play it. There was no way for him to think too far ahead, plot out his moves. It was reassuring that they had demonstrated such good planning in outwitting Keys. It meant clarity and organization. It meant people who could be reasoned with. But there was always a wild card.
“Look here, Monk,” Ray Smith began while washing down the remains of his double cheeseburger with a root beer. “What can happen in the way of some ducats on this thing?”
“You mean how much money can you wrangle out of it, Ray?”
The driver’s hood remained looking straight ahead, but Monk imagined his eyes taking in Smith in a sidelong glance.
Smith said, “You need to talk to Crosshairs. I’m the one that can get you there.”
“What exactly are you to the Daltons, Ray? You’re too old to be running with them.”
Smith spun his head around. “I’m one of the ones who helped get the truce going, blood.”
“You set the meeting ’tween us and the Swans, Ray. That ain’t the same thing as makin’ the truce,” the driver corrected.
Smith dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. “Whatever. Fact is Monk needs to talk to Crosshairs and I know where to find him.”
“I bet a lot of people know where to find him,” Monk said. “And you got it wrong, Ray. I want to talk to his cousin, Conrad James. If Crosshairs can get me to him, fine. Otherwise, if one of you knows where to find Conrad, that’s cool, too.”
The driver’s hood moved slightly to the right. “Look man, Ray’s got his thing, we got ours.”
“Ours?” Monk said.
“The truce that me and some of the OGs from the Daltons help put together with the Swans and the Del Nines. Brothers and sisters done had it with bangin’, home. Your boy from SOMA and Perry and all them ain’t got us in mind when they set they shit up.”
Monk leaned forward. “So what do you want to do?”
The young man turned around to look full into Monk’s face. “What I want to do is reach those brothers that still be bangin’ and get them to stop. Black man on black man and we all goin’ down the sewer. I don’t give a fuck ’bout Ray and you and all your old times together.” He paused, swallowing some fries. “I do a favor for you, you do something for us. It’s like that.”
“What’s the favor?”
“Get us a grant from SOMA. Or at least get us a meeting with somebody there who will listen to us. Somebody who won’t chump us off. Get us something to get a leg up so we can start some small businesses and do some more reachin’ out to others still in the life.”
Monk essayed, “Don’t you have enough drug money to do that?”
“Don’t believe everything your cop buddies tell you. Every gangbanger ain’t rollin’ in dough. And some of them don’t live long enough to be eligible to vote.”
“I promise I’ll do what I can. I’ll get you a meeting.” He hoped that was a promise he could keep.
“See that you do more than talk,” Smith said.
“Excuse me, Ray?” Monk snarled. “For damn near ten years now you been nothing but one long disappointment to all your friends. You got nerve telling me to be responsible.”
“Is it my fault I’ve had rough times?”
“Times you made.”
“Say fellas, I’d love to sit here all night and hear this shit, but we gotta be steppin’,” the driver said. He started the Bronco and they again headed east along Slauson. At Budlong, the vehicle made a right and continued along the street until it reached 76th. They made a left and came to rest in front of a house with a peaked roof.
“Who are we meeting?”
“Nobody yet, Mr. Detective. I gotta set things up.”
“Yeah, smart boy,” Smith said. “Mad-T’s gotta go back and meet with the others now that you said you gonna play square and all.”
“Yeah, so?” Monk said, getting edgy.
Mad-T, the urban prophet in knitted gredelin, pointed at Smith. “He’s your babysitter until I get back.”
“He couldn’t watch a dog pee,” Monk said between gritted teeth. “What the hell you mean I’ve got to be watched?”
Mad-T shot back, “This ain’t no play, private eye. Ray knows you, he spoke for you, he’s gotta be responsible for you. I take back what we agreed on and we’ll see.”
Smith and the hooded Dalton got out of the car. Briefly, Monk considered telling them to fuck themselves and walk away from it. Waiting around in some gang crash pad with Ray Smith was not a must-do activity high on his list. But what choice did he really have? Conrad James may have part of the answer. But since he wasn’t likely to get him on the phone, Monk got out of the car and followed the two up to the house.
Mad-T unlocked the door to the house. It looked like many other working-class homes that comprised the housing stock of South Central Los Angeles. The trio entered. Smith brought the lights on and Monk surveyed the room he stood in. Various pieces of furniture, encompassing the styles of the ’40s through the ’70s, made up the design of the living room. A widescreen TV dominated the room along with a scarred coffee table strewn with empty malt liquor cans and the refuse of fast food meals.
“Gee, guys, this the club house?”
“There’s food in the ’fridge, and the roof don’t leak.” Mad-T moved back to the door. “Sit tight. You’ll hear from me tomorrow.” He left, closing the door behind him quietly.
Monk checked the time. It was three-thirty. He looked at Smith. “You don’t mind if I take the couch, do you?”
“Always on guard, huh?”
“That’s something you wouldn’t know about.”
“How come you got such a tight jaw for me, Ivan? We used to be down for each other.”
“That was about three or four thousand dollars ago, Ray. Before you fucked up your life with cocaine and washed out all the bridges your friends tried to build for you.”
Smith sat on the arm of the couch, “Hey, man, I admit I made some mistakes. Sure, I borrowed money I didn’t mean to pay back. But that was then. I’ve been clean for more than a year now.”
“But you’re still hustling, Ray. Still working any angle you can to make a dollar.”
Smith leaped up from the arm of the couch, shouting. “Like you so noble working for them Koreans.”
“It’s an honest buck,” Monk said defensively.
Smith snorted loudly. “Shit, who you foolin’.” He started to head toward another room, then turned around. “You asked me why I was hangin’ with the Daltons. Well, I wasn’t always fucked up on dope or running from the consequences of my last scam. I actually did some gang intervention work for the city for a while. Some of these kids got to really trust me.” He stepped closer to Monk. “Until I fell back into the pipe and almost caused the death of a young brother by letting the wrong word slip. It was a Scalp Hunter so none of the other gangs cared. But I did. Deep down, I knew I couldn’t go on in life looking for the next high.”
“So this is your way of making up for lost time.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, but you called Tina looking for money.”
Smith bowed and spread his hands. “It was a hustle, but for a good cause. You might say I was fundraising in the only way I knew how for the truce.” He went into another room and closed the door.
Monk mapped out the remaining parts of the house. Past the living room was what had been the dining room. In it was a futon with quilts on it and a mattress with only a dirty sheet. Two end tables were in the room and on one of them sat a lamp minus its shade. On the other was an old-fashioned dial telephone.
The kitchen was spotless and the refrigerator was well-stocked, if lacking robustness in its fare. There were cold cuts, processed cheese slices, commercial half-pint tubs of potato and macaroni salads, candy bars, sodas and cans of beer and malt liquor. The cupboards held dishes and glasses and an assortment of canned goods. The windows were barred and the back door was of solid wood and triple locked.
Off of the kitchen was a back bedroom which had a mattress on the floor, a portable radio and various posters of rap artists taped to its wall. Connected to that room was a bathroom tiled in old-fashioned ceramic like the ones in his mother’s house. The door leading out of there led to another room which seemed to be the study, for lack of a better term.
There were various chairs in various stages of disintegration about the room. It also had a large drafting table populated with writing pads and loose pieces of paper. There was a bookshelf which contained a stack of comic books, some shotgun shells, an ashtray with reefer butts, a couple of watch caps, a green-tinged braided gold chain, a fake skull with a candle stuck in it, a book about gangster rap and The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon. Revolution a la hip-hop.
Monk looked at the papers on the drafting table. It was an outline showing the prominent gang members in favor of the truce, those that were against it, and a lengthy discourse on the next phases of the truce.
The door from this room led into the room that Smith was in. The detective retraced his steps and went back into the front room, carrying the outline.
He removed the quilts from the futon and took off his windbreaker, shirt and shoes. Monk lay on the sagging couch, covering himself with the quilt. Fatigue overtook him while he read the outline. It included a series of ideas for micro enterprises and there were passages urging those members who’d made their money illegally to take what they had left and put it into legitimate concerns. There was even some thought given to what kind of structure they envisioned to run these businesses. Top down management versus more worker-owned or something in between. Monk’s eyes closed.
In the still of the early morning, his mind reeled off images of the people and incidents involved in the case. Names and locations floated in Monk’s brain. Some of them were stacked in a small file on his colonial desk. The others were kept in a mile-high chamber. It didn’t worry him that the structure was brimming with files. What worried him was losing the one key he had to opening the massive containment tank. And the key was in the basement of the SOMA offices.
“Monk,” a voice said to him.
His eyes came open. For a moment, he was disoriented. Where was Jill and where did this quilt come from? Then he remembered. “What’s up, Ray?” Pretending to scratch his leg, Monk checked to make sure his gun was still there. It was.
Smith’s head jerked toward the phone. “Mad-T just called, said he’ll be here in about an hour.”
“He say he’s bringing anybody with him?” Monk swung his legs onto the floor.
“He said be ready to roll.”
“Shit. What is this, a fuckin’ Chinese puzzle box?” Monk picked up the truce document from the floor and placed it on the coffee table.
“It’s the way it is, Ivan. The cops and the FBI are running around out there looking for Crosshairs and Conrad, and you, too, now. And quiet as it’s kept, some of us have the opinion that there are some on the police department who don’t want to see the truce succeed. ’Cause they know the next step for these young brothers and sisters is to become politicized. From there it might be the next Black Panther Party.”
Monk got up and stretched. “As long as they learn from the past, Ray, as long as they learn from the past.” He went into the bathroom to wash up. Afterwards, he and Ray each had a cup of instant coffee and Monk ate a couple of pieces of the beef salami cold cuts in the icebox. Presently, Mad-T arrived, and he and Monk departed the house. Ray Smith was left behind.
They traveled east in a military green 1973 Bonneville. Mad-T took them on a route that eventually headed south along Alameda until they reached Imperial Boulevard. The car made a right and Monk knew where they were going. Over to the Imperial Courts housing project in Watts.
It was a vast subsidized complex built in 1944, one of four public housing projects built in Watts during the war years. Watts, once called Mudtown, had been incorporated as a city in 1907. But the cigar boys downtown maneuvered to disenfranchise its growing black population, and the city was annexed back to Los Angeles in 1926.
Mad-T entered the front gate into Imperial Courts and wound the car through the tracts of cinder-block abodes and trimmed lawns. A car marked security passed them and the driver nodded his head at Mad-T.
“He just know you, or is he something else?” Monk asked.
The young man stuck a toothpick in his mouth and said, “We got to be like the motherfuckin’ CIA and have our ears everywhere if we want to know what’s goin’ down.”
He parked the car in a stall of a block of units along the southeast end of the place. They got out and Monk followed the Dalton along an alleyway, then between two buildings. They arrived at another set of units and Mad-T knocked on an unmarked door. The door swung inward on quiet hinges.
“After you,” Mad-T said.
Monk walked into the apartment, a two-level townhouse, followed by the young man. It was dark due to the fact that the drape was drawn against the large picture window. Two men sat on chairs at opposite ends of the front room. One was decked out in an oversized prison-style jean jacket, Dee-Cee khaki pants, Nike tennis shoes and a purple baseball cap with the words South Central stenciled on the crown. The other one Monk recognized.
He wore coal black jeans, a smokey grey shirt with gold colored buttons and a rounded collar buttoned all the way up, black wingtips, and his apparently omnipresent grey homburg with the feather stuck in the band. As in their previous meeting, his eyes took in everything but betrayed nothing. Neither man moved or acknowledged the presence of Monk or Mad-T, save the one in the homburg who looked down at his hands then looked back up again.
“What it be?” the one in the purple cap said.
“It be like that,” Mad-T responded.
Monk thought he was trapped in a hip-hop episode of Get Smart.
Homburg rose and stepped close to Monk. “You gonna do what you said.”
The lack of inflection seemed to make it more of a command than a question. Monk said, “I’ll get you a meeting with SOMA. I don’t promise that you’ll get any money out of it”
“You search him?” Homburg said.
“What for? So what if he’s carrying a piece. Every motherfucka’ in this room’s got a piece and then some. What he gonna do?” Mad-T smirked.
“A wire, genius.” Homburg stepped back, moving his head slightly to glare past Monk at Mad-T. The light through the open door illuminated the left side of his face. The ear was missing its lobe. Something that Monk hadn’t noticed the other night in the half-light of Elrod’s garage.
Mad-T said to Monk. “Take your jacket off, G.”
Monk did so and submitted to a pat-down from the younger man.
“I’ve got a gun strapped to my right ankle,” Monk volunteered.
Mad-T retrieved the rig and the piece, and continued with his task. He finished his thorough search and straightened up. “No wire,” he announced.
Homburg said nothing nor moved.
Monk said, “What’s it going to be, Crosshairs?”
Mad-T whined, “I didn’t tell him.”
Crosshairs walked past the men in the room and went up the stairs. Mad-T and Monk remained standing while the one in the cap sat impassively. He heard the muffled creak of the floorboards above his head, and Crosshairs and another man came down.
He was taller than his cousin and his face elastic with expression. Conrad James was dressed in faded blue jeans and a sweatshirt lettered with a Morehouse College logo. He had the shoulders of a wrestler and the hips of a running back. He was a poster stud for a randy sorority house.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Monk.”
He took the other’s hand and said, “Ivan.”
“Antoine and I have talked this over, Ivan,” James began, indicating Crosshairs who stood behind him statue-like. “He thinks you ain’t shit, but don’t take it personal.”
“Oh, I don’t. I can name a dozen people who think I’m nothing but shit, so what do you think about that?”
Crosshairs sniffed. James grinned and said, “Anyway, I’m the one that insisted that we talk to you. See what you could do for the Daltons and vice versa. Plus I can’t keep this up forever. This ain’t my life.”
“Can we talk in private, or does the Greek Chorus need to be around?”
James said, “We can talk upstairs.”
He started up and as Monk walked past the immobile Crosshairs, he felt a light touch on his arm. “Don’t try nothin’ slick, slick.” Crosshairs hissed.
Monk went on up to the second floor. There was a built-in linen closet next to a small bathroom off the small hallway. On either side of the closet and the lavatory were bedrooms. One of them had three mattresses spread about and several empty bottles of soda and beer. In the other was a couple of folding chairs, a writing desk with a PC and a printer on it, and a set of steel weights. James walked into this room. Monk sat on one of the folding chairs and the younger man sat at the table. A morning breeze blew in from an open window.
“Was that your outline I read at the house near Budlong?”
“Based on some input from Antoine and some others,” James said.
“Just so I can get it out of the way, did you kill Bong Kim Suh?”
“No, I did not. Nor did my cousin or any other gang member as far as I can tell.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I saw Bong twice after he shut down the store.”
“About what.”
“The first time he got in touch with me was to have me talk to Ruben Ursua.”
“About what?”
“Well, Bong knew that Ursua was into hot cars, and he wanted Ursua to get him a short.”
“Suh wanted a hot car?” Monk asked, raising an eyebrow.
“He wanted a car that had a good motor, one that he could pay cash for but that had its serial numbers altered and registered under a false name.”
“So he wanted wheels other than his own. And if somebody took down the plate number, the name of Bong Kim Suh wouldn’t come up.”
“I guess.”
“Where did Ursua deliver this car?”
“I don’t know. Once I set it up, Bong told me to have Ursua be at the Scorpion at a certain day and time and he’d contact him. The Scorpion is a bar Ursua hangs out in over on Figueroa.”
“What was Suh’s reason for closing the Hi-Life?”
“He said he needed to be moving around, needed to be mobile for the next few months. He couldn’t be in one place where they could get him, he said.”
“Did he say who ‘they’ was?”
“No.”
“So you and he talked on the phone several times.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened the second time you saw him?”
“That was in September. Bong came over to my pad all keyed up. He said he would have something he wanted me to take care of for him.”
Monk got excited. “What was it?”
“That’s just it. He said he was going to get this thing to me, but that was the last time I saw him.”
“You have any idea what he was talking about?” Through the open window, two women could be heard arguing about the fate of one of the characters on the All My Children soap opera.
“I’m not exactly sure. Bong never would tell me outright. But he hinted it had something to do with some of the kinds of people he knew back home.”
“You mean like intelligence agents.”
James wagged a finger at Monk. “What I remember him specifically saying was that he had something on those bastards, the same kind of bastards who had ruined his life in Korea.”
Monk considered the information, then asked, “What made you go on the run?”
“When I talked with Bong last, he said that if I hadn’t heard from him by the end of the year, or hadn’t received anything from him, then that would be a bad sign. That I should lay low until things broke.”
“He said that, ‘Until things broke’?”
“His exact words. Hey, I knew Bong wasn’t a nut, and something else happened that made me think whatever it was he’d been doing was the real deal.”
“What happened?”
“My crib got broken into and searched earlier this year. But my TV, stereo, none of that stuff got lifted. My ride, and even the locker I had at Trade Tech got busted into also. And then Antoine asked me to start helping move the truce into a second phase and all, so it seemed the right time to go underground.”
“Did Bong ever mention Jiang Holdings?”
“He could have, but I don’t remember.”
“Any ideas on where he might have hidden his notes?”
James cocked his head and spread his hands in the air.
Monk stood. “How come he trusted you so much? How come you two were so tight?”
“He was an all right guy, man. Just ’cause he was Korean and I’m black doesn’t mean that we’re automatic enemies. Momma taught me to take each one at their word until they do you dirt. And as for why he trusted me, well, I’d like to think it’s because we talked for real to each other. Got to know something about the other one. He told me his wife was beaten to death by the cops in some kind of strike at this place called the Dongil Company. I told him about an uncle I had who got sent to the hospital by the cops because he was a garbage man striking for better wages way back during the Civil Rights days in Montgomery.”
“Out of curiosity, why did you break it off with Karen Jacobs?”
“I really like her, man. I didn’t want her to get hurt in all this mess.”
Monk held out his hand and the other took it. “Thanks for your time and the information, Conrad.”
“Do you think you’ll find Bong’s killers?”
“I’m going to run them to ground, as an old friend of mine says.”
At the bottom of the stairs Crosshairs stood, his face in its usual blank pose, but Monk noticed activity in the eyes. As he drew close, the OG spoke.
“You find out something useful?”
“I think so.”
Monk started to move past him, but said, “I had a run-in with a couple of Scalp Hunters who said that the Daltons used to deal drugs out of the Hi-Life Liquors.” He turned to gauge the other’s reaction. “Anything to that?”
“The bums ain’t party to me truce. Some of those brothers ain’t nothing but stone capitalists, anything for a dollar. I’m not saying the Rolling Daltons are a bunch’a saints, I am saying ain’t no Dalton killed Suh over crack profits or any other reason. I’ve checked, Mr. Detective. If this peace thing is gonna hold, I got to know the for real on everybody who could fuck it up.”
“Do you mean that, or are you just giving me a snow job? Make me think you’re the gangster with a heart of gold.”
“Believe what you want, home. Believe we started this truce ’cause we got a devious plan in mind like the cops say. Believe we did it ’cause some of us is tired, beat down from bangin’ and seeing our homies and relatives die. Or believe that some black men and women can come together and not try to kill one another.” Crosshairs went up the stairs, not caring to wait for Monk’s reply.
Mad-T dropped Monk off at the Tiger’s Den on 48th Street. He assumed that Keys and company were keeping watch on his office and his apartment. And he wanted to be able to move about unfettered at least for the next few hours.
“You look like chewed over gristle,” Tiger said, greeting him.
“Thank you, honey.” Monk winked at him and walked over to the pay phone. Figuring the tap was still activated on his office phone, Monk dialed the inside line of Hendricks, one of the developer partners he shared space with. She answered, and Monk asked her to get Delilah and put her on the line.
“Where the hell have you been?” she scolded.
“Detecting.”
“You better get back over here and detect this.”
“What?”
“Ms. Scarn called again. She says maybe you better have your attorney get in contact with her. She says not only is there a question about your failure to file a weapons discharge report, but there is a new allegation of failure to cooperate with the authorities in a murder investigation.”
“Goddamn Keys.”
“Yeah, well, Special Agent Keys also called and asked in a very pleasant tone that when you had a chance, he’d like to hear from you.”
“He’s trying to put the screws to me through Consumer Affairs. Did Ms. Scarn say anything else?”
“She said you have to come to her office and talk this matter over.”
“She give a deadline?”
“No. But it was pretty clear she wanted to hear from you soon. Like today.”
A pause dragged, then he said, “Did you deposit that check I asked you to from SOMA?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, don’t be so testy.”
“You think you’re so fucking smooth.”
“Everybody keeps telling me that. Call Ms. Scarn and tell her I can meet with her anytime she likes.”
“Okay. Oh, Roy Park called you back, too. That is, he called back for the name you gave him on your phony card.”
“Did he say when and where I could reach him?”
“He said he’d be out of his office until this afternoon, but that if you missed him he’d be down at his property on Vermont around two tomorrow.”
“Good work. Call his office back and tell them I’ll meet him there.”
“Anything else you need me to do?”
“When I hang up, I want you to priority-messenger a note to Jill’s bailiff. His name is Jory, and he knows me. Ask Jill in the note if she will pick me up over at Tiger’s place around,” Monk checked the time, “nine o’clock tonight”
“Why all the subterfuge lately, boss? You getting beeps over the phone, rushing in and out of your office, the FBI dropping by, and your fourth call was from Jill. She sounded worried about you.”
“There are more things on heaven and earth, my fine beauty, than our petty concerns.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain soon enough. Put Hendricks back on will you?”
She did and Monk, taking out his notepad and flipping it to a certain page, asked another favor of the architect. She said she’d find out what he wanted to know and Monk hung up. He wanted to call Jill but wasn’t sure that her line into her chambers wasn’t bugged, so he held off. He went to his locker and changed into his sweats. Mad-T had given him back his .38 and the ankle rig and he placed these on top of his clothes and shut the locker.
For the next hour and a half Monk went through his routine of weights, sit-ups, cals, and some stationary bicycling. He rewarded himself with a stint in the sauna and then, towel wrapped around his waist, lay back on the bench in front of his locker.
“Say man, this ain’t no flop house.” Tiger Flowers was shaking him awake, laughing.
“How long was I out?”
“A little over an hour. You looked as though you needed it.”
Monk straightened up on the bench. “I better get going.”
“All this have to do with this case you been on?”
“It’s been a bear-hugger, Tiger. Listen, I may be back later tonight, if that’s okay.”
What passed for a smile creased the folds around the Asiatic eyes of the old champ. He went to his office and returned with a key which he handed to Monk. “You need me to stay?”
Monk clasped him on the shoulder. “Ain’t gonna be no rough stuff tonight, chief.”
Flowers brushed the hand aside. “Good. Just make sure you turn out the lights when you’re through. This damn sure ain’t no charity outfit.” He rumbled off to find some kid who thought he was going to be the next Sugar Ray Leonard or Riddick Bowe to yell at.
Monk finished dressing, mentally mapping out his moves for the next few hours. As a formality he checked the .38 to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with and strapped the ankle rig back on. Emerging into the structured cacophony of the gym, Monk absorbed the sounds and smells of all the agile young men. They were the inheritors of poor and working-class myths, shadow boxing against the Tiger Den’s yellowing plaster, jumping rope across her drab floor, or endlessly sparring in the four-cornered ring that would lead nowhere for most of them. Hoping to cash in on their fears and dreams in the great scam as old as the reign of Caesar, the boxing game. And in me process, somehow believing that their magnificent bodies could elevate them beyond the claim that time and death would place on their lives.
The harsh sunshine bracketed Monk’s body as he walked out of, then away from, the factory of pugilists. He walked east along 48th until he got to Figueroa, then trudged north along the main thoroughfare. The El Scorpion was a ticky-tacky joint inserted between a shoe repair parlor and a barber shop in a building which had apartments with fire escapes on its second and third floors. The entranceway was painted in uneven vertical strips of azure and green and a black scorpion—one of its claws pinching the mini-skirted butt of a woman with breasts drawn completely out of proportion to the rest of her body—arched over the open door.
Monk considered walking in and sitting at the bar, but thought better of it. Watering holes, like communities in Los Angeles, tended to be segregated. And judging from the clientele he watched trickle in, the El Scorpion was definitely a gathering place for a Latino crowd. Besides, Ursua’s big Caddy was nowhere in sight. He may have already traded it in for something else, but Monk doubted it. That car was meant to be seen in. He waited.
Not having the luxury of a car to hunker down in, Monk passed the time by ordering coffees at the donut stand on the corner and playing a couple of pathetic games of chess with a white-haired man who bore a resemblance to Milton Berle. The location afforded Monk a view of the bar’s front door and at a little past four in the afternoon, the metalflake-blue El D cruised by and went down a side street.
Monk left the stand in time to see a medium-built, thick-waisted man wearing aviator-style sunglasses in a black polo shirt and white jeans, enter the El Scorpion. As casual as he could make it, Monk entered me establishment after him. The place was dark and there was sawdust on the floor. On its tinny speakers, the juke belted out some woman singer doing heavy melodramatics to a tune in Spanish.
Two men in mechanic’s blues huddled conspiratorially over a pitcher of beer and a table. Another man in a UPS uniform sat at the oak bar drinking a martini. Two young Chicanas and a young man in knee-length slack shorts and penny loafers sat at another table, laughing and drinking. It must be some kind of trend, Monk reasoned. College kids, like the ones down in San Pedro the other night, who got a kick out of hanging out in neighborhood dives. Or a grand scheme of organizing the great unwashed into a vanguard of cutting edge culture.
Since the idea of blending in with his environment was not possible, Monk walked up to me man in the white jeans, who also sat at the bar, with one of his boots up on the rail.
“Ruben Ursua,” Monk said to the man, standing a little to the side and in back of him.
The other man bestowed a baleful stare on Monk in the reflection of the mirror behind the row of bottles. “Fuck off. I’m not on parole anymore.”
Monk laid a business card on the bar for him to see.
Ursua glanced at it and went back to his drinking.
“Usually people whistle and clap when I show them this.”
Zero.
“How about if I want the same deal you gave Bong Kim Suh?”
That got a rise. “I know your name, now. You’re the one them Koreans hired to find out about his killing. I don’t know shit, man.”
In his voice Monk could hear the cadence one learned in the prison yard. The code of silence crooks and cops, doctors and lawyers, and politicians and priests used. “Dig this.” Monk put two twenties on the bar in front of Ursua, who tried to pretend he didn’t notice them. “Just tell me where you delivered the car he wanted, and I’ll forget who told me.”
“Otherwise the cops might find out, and I get dragged into this thing.”
That was the farthest idea from Monk’s head, but he said, “And they said you weren’t a team player.”
Ursua put his squat glass of scotch on the bar and picked up the twin twenties with the same hand. He folded them deftly with his one hand and placed the bills in his pants. “It surprised me when Conrad called me up, it was him that told you about this. I mean, I ain’t mad or anything. I just want to make sure there ain’t no leaks on my side.”
Monk sat beside him at the bar. “You thinking of supplying cars for the Pentagon or something?”
Ursua sipped his drink and waited.
“Look, the way this works is I gather information from A and that leads me to B, who gives me more information and so on. Now, I don’t tell B who A is, and I don’t tell C who B is. Know what I’m saying?”
“I’m supposed to be satisfied with that?”
“It’ll have to do, Ruben. But just to ease your anxiety a little.” Monk produced another twenty and slid it across.
“I guess I’m going to have to believe you’re as closed-mouthed as you pretend.”
“Like a priest.”
The lone twenty joined the others. “I’m going to have to show you. I don’t remember the address but I do remember the part of town the place was in. You’ll have to follow me in your car.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Ursua’s head tilted slightly and he got off his barstool. They removed themselves from the El Scorpion and got into the bad-assed El-D. He fired the big mill up. The V8 idled with a self-assured purring as the heavy car pulled into the flow of evening traffic.
“Carter 750 Competition carb,” Monk said, appreciatively.
“You got good ears. Hey, you must have been the one who came by the house in the Galaxie.”
With that, they settled into a lively conversation on cars and the art of rebuilding them. By the time they reached the area where Ursua had delivered the car to Bong Kim Suh, they both agreed they missed the bygone era of Dodge muscle bangers. It was in the Lincoln Heights section of town, where the houses were neat and tidy California Craftsmen built before the big war, and every backyard seemed to have a dog.
The Caddy slowed to a crawl. “He was standing on the corner, over there.” Ursua pointed at an intersection where a dry cleaners stood. “I came with the car, and he gave me the money, in cash.”
“How’d you get back home?”
“It was the middle of the day, so I took the bus.” Ursua pulled to the curb and put the car in neutral and let the engine idle. “Suh drove off in that direction.” He pointed again. “I saw him get to the corner there and make a left on Darwin. After that, he was gone and so was I.”
“What kind of car was it? And I guess you wouldn’t happen to remember the license plate.”
“It was a brown 1988 Volkswagen Jetta. And a man in my profession makes it his business not to know plates. But I do think they started with 2G something.”
“You know, it’s none of my concern, but you’re a pretty bright guy, Ruben. You could make a decent living fixing up cars legitimately.”
Ursua looked straight ahead through the windshield, leaning forward, his arms folded along me top of the Eldorado’s steering wheel. “That’s why I took the job in the liquor store my P.O. set up for me when I got out. Thought I was gonna settle down and do the straight and narrow.”
Monk couldn’t tell if he meant himself or if he was referring to his parole officer.
Ursua went on. “Really though, it was something I couldn’t escape. It’s in my blood, my friend. I don’t bash in anybody’s head, I don’t rape your wife or steal money out of a bank. Hell, a lot of the cars I deal with are right from the owners who want to work a scam on their insurance companies. I like the thrill and, like any junkie, I can’t stop until they make me. You know what I mean.”
Ursua put the Cadillac back in gear and Monk asked him to drop him off at the Tiger’s Den. Tiger Flowers was just locking up as Ursua let him off. “That architect friend of yours sent something over here for you. It’s on my desk.
“Thanks, Tiger. I’ll shut her up when I leave.”
“See that you do.” He ambled off and got into his car, an AMC Concord, and drove off to whatever it was that Tiger Flowers did in his off-hours. Monk went in, relocking the door once he was inside. He entered the office and turned on the lights.
It was a spare, functional affair reflecting its owner’s personality. There were no pictures from Tiger’s past on the cracked walls, only those of young—and some not so young now judging from how their photos had yellowed—fighters. There were two Army surplus file cabinets, a desk of the sort one used to find a third grade teacher behind when Monk went to school, three chairs, a weatherbeaten couch, an ancient clock plugged in over the door and a standing lamp.
On the desk was a packet from a messenger service. Monk sat at the desk and opened the envelope. He read the single sheet of paper twice, then folded it up and put it in his back pocket. Monk got up from the desk and paced around the gym thinking, until fifteen before nine when he went out front. Jill’s Saab came into view seven minutes later, and he escorted her inside. She carried two plastic shopping sacks.
“Where the hell have you been?” she demanded, after kissing him on the lips.
“Is that basil and garlic I smell, or a new perfume?”
“Asshole.”
They went back into the office, and Monk cleared a space on the desk. Jill sat the sacks down and lifted out two containers and a bottle of wine. “Do you have any glasses around here?”
Monk found a glass with a Texaco emblem on it and one with the logo of the San Francisco 49ers. “There you go, gas station specials.” He sat them down and pulled the cork out of the bottle which had already been worked free. Over a meal of linguine and squid in red sauce, Monk told Kodama what had transpired since he last saw her.
“Do you believe Conrad James and Crosshairs? I don’t know about James, but Mr. Crosshairs Sawyer is hardly a candidate for the post of monsignor. I had his jacket pulled and since thirteen he’s been busted for assault, attempted assault, aggravated assault, robbery with assault, and did some hard time for second-degree manslaughter.”
“I know, honey, I read his sheet, too. But who better to teach man someone who’s been there? It’s certainly something that Malcolm was an example of.”
Kodama’s lips puckered. “Don’t you go pulling your nationalist cloak on me, homeboy. You got the FBI and the Daltons breathing down your neck because they both want you to produce something for them. You can’t please both of them, and they both know how to get even. Good and even.”
“On the up side, I’ve got money from the Merchants Group and SOMA burning holes in my pocket.” He smiled and took another bite of his meal.
“What makes you think that Ursua and James haven’t cooked up this story about the other car just to send you on a phantom hunt?”
“To what purpose?” Monk countered. “If they wanted me dead, they could have easily accomplished that anytime when I was with them. Don’t forget, Stacy Grimes’ death figures in this somehow. He and Samuels both worked strongarm for Jiang Holdings. Their job was to convince the owners of properties damaged after the uprising in ’92 to sell.”
“Then you believe Jiang is a front for the Korean Merchants Group.”
“Let’s not get that far down the track just yet, Red Rider. I asked O’Day’s office to find out who was really Jiang; here’s what they got for me.” Monk pulled the paper he had folded up out of his back pocket.
Kodama read the piece of paper and looked from it to Monk, her mouth slightly ajar. “Who gave you this?”
“I had Hendricks look it up for me. She’s got friends down in the city planning department who actually produced that information.”
Kodama said, “Curious.”
“Isn’t it. There also seems to be a gentleman with a hunchback who was seen in the storeroom of Hi-Life Liquors a week after the riots. A so-far unidentified gentleman who has some kind of connection to our Mr. Samuels.” Monk didn’t add the part about his being at Samuels’ apartment and getting a glimpse of the other man before he was knocked out. If he did, he’d have to tell Kodama that he entered and searched Samuel’s place illegally. It was times like this that reminded Monk how odd his profession was, to one minute be riding around with an accomplished car thief, and the next eating dinner with his girlfriend the judge.
Kodama was talking. “The first thing you have to do tomorrow is call Keys and tell him everything you know.”
“I’m sorry, dear. It sounded like you wanted me to drop a dime on some guys who’re trusting me.”
“Keys will ask you point blank if you’ve made contact with Crosshairs. It is a federal offense to knowingly lie to a federal official investigating a crime. If Crosshairs is as sharp as you and I think he is, I believe he’s already moved on to another safe house.”
Monk rose and stared at the photographs on the wall, his hands in his back pockets. “But how’s that going to look to the Daltons?”
“That you’re a handkerchief head motherfucker who would sell out his own momma to save his ass.” She paused, watching Monk as he turned to face her. “Or they’ll see you had no choice. That if they want you to get them their meeting, you had to give your opposition something.”
“I can still lie to Keys, and he’ll never know the difference. Left to their own devices, him and Diaz couldn’t find Madonna on a bed of coal.”
Kodama crossed her legs. “Then you’re making me a party to your complicity. Plus Keys can get you locked up on supposition alone. It won’t be hard to convince some judge appointed in the Bush era that you surely must have been going to meet with Crosshairs at two in the morning. Or else why the bait and switch with the cars. And even if you stick to your story, he’ll probably get this Ms. Scarn to pull your license, the cops will take away your concealed weapons permit, and your bond will be revoked. And then where would you be?”
“Fucked.”
“Let’s keep our sex life out of this.”
“Ha, ha, cute.”
Kodama remained silent.
Monk sat heavily into Tiger Flowers’ chair. He closed his eyes but the problem wouldn’t go away. The words he had said to Ursua in the bar came back to him and a ball of something nasty rolled around in his stomach. “How come small guys like me are the ones that always have to bend?”
Kodama came over and kissed him. “Because guys like you are always there to take somebody else’s heat.”
“Fine,” Monk said crossly.
Monk locked up the Tiger’s Den, and he and Kodama got a room at the Bel Age Hotel in West Hollywood. Later in bed, Monk asked Kodama while they were curled up together, “You know things have been jumping since you were shot at and we haven’t really talked about it fully. I know you can handle yourself and all, but I’d feel better if you rearranged your court calendar and went down to Dex’s place in Lake Elsinore until this thing gets sorted out.”
“I’ve already rearranged my appointments.” She wriggled some causing Monk to groan with pleasure. “You’re my protection, baby.” She dropped off to sleep.
Monk breathed in her aroma, listening to her breathing, his hand cupped under one of her breasts. He could feel the steady drum of her heart and hear the late night growl of traffic not too far away along Santa Monica Boulevard. There they were, safe and warm in their cocoon of plaster and glass, the goddamn FBI and the other wolves circling their lair temporarily abated. But the dam was breaking, and Monk wondered how long he would last in the flood.