Bad Night Is Falling (27 page)

“What it be like on the trail of the Pink Panther?” She kissed him on the cheek and sat next to him, rubbing his back.

“I do feel like Clouseau,” he groused.

“I was just playing, honey.” She kissed him again.

He shoved the table and its load of material away from him. “I think I've pissed away three days I ain't got to be fooling with. DeKovan may be living in a reconverted nuclear testing bunker in the Nevada desert growing orchids, or holed up in a suite at some hotel he owns in Amsterdam,” Monk said, exasperated. “Well-endowed nurses in uniforms riding up their heavy thighs giving him enemas and bee pollen shots on the regular.”

“I know that's how you want to wind up.” Idly, she sifted through his papers. She came upon a shot of DeKovan touring the
Herald Examiner
newsroom with a bleary and bloated Elvis. “Quite the player,” she mused.

“He was. But he might as well be the man who invented the water engine as far as trying to find this strange bastard.” He backhanded some of the papers, revealing several more beneath.

Kodama looked through more of the stuff, stopping at a listing of the names of various enterprises. “These are the companies he owns?”

“Or at least has significant interest in.” Monk yawned.

“Business parks, stadiums, casinos—and what are these?” She pointed at names like Eridanus Enterprises, Trentex, and White Hall.

Monk jabbed his thumb at the companies she was looking at. “That first one builds water recycling units, the second one some kind of software concern, and the third is a line of premium cigars.”

“Well,” she drawled, “have you ever had one of his?”

“Every once in a while. But generally, White Halls are too rich for my blood.” Suddenly, he hit the table with his fist. “It was a recycling concern that bought the Randolph Center.”

“What was the name?” Kodama studied the list.

“I'll have to ask Henry Cady again.” Monk also glanced at the list. “Look”—he pointed to a name further down—“he even has something to do with the Dancing Dinosaur chain.”

Kodama scrunched her features. “What? The children's playland with those loud kill-the-slobbering-alien video games, singing dinosaur waiters and waitresses, comic book panels for wallpaper, and jumping pits full of sticky, gummy rubber balls?” The mention of the facility, with the attendant carousing children, seemed to bring her up short.

“You forgot the wholesome menu of chili-cheese potato skins, popcorn-fried chicken, triple-cheese pizza, and pirate flagons of strawberry soda and root beer.” Monk rubbed his stomach.

“The name Trentex was in the news recently,” Kodama said, jabbing the paper.

“You remember why?” Monk asked excitedly.

Kodama got up. “We might still have it.” She went to search through the previous week's newspapers in the yellow recycling tub in the back end of the kitchen. Presently she returned with the folded Business section from the
L.A. Times
.

“There you go, champ.”

Monk read through a story about Trentex, a boutique software designer located in Burbank. The high-tech firm had produced three of the most popular CD-ROMs currently on the market. One of them was called L.A.'s Hidden History. “I bet DeKovan included a section on Wilkenson just for laughs.”

“The arrogance of the rich and untouchable,” Kodama lamented, stretching. “Let's go to bed. You need some rest. We'll get through this.”

Monk wanted to continue his forays into the paper wilderness in an attempt to find DeKovan. But he also knew he would only get to know the man from secondhand accounts: photos, rumors, conjectures. DeKovan was like the fairy tales his grandmother used to tell him when he was young. He didn't remember details about them, only the impression that her bedtime stories were of a different timbre than Mother Goose. The people and situations she talked about were more in line with the nihilism of the Brothers Grimm.

Not much later, he lay awake, spooned with Kodama's body, his arm around her bare middle. “When I was a kid, Grandma Riles, my mother's mother, used to tell me about Anansi,” he whispered softly in her ear.

A drowsy “That's nice” issued from her.

“He was the Spider-god of the Ashanti, I learned much later. Although I don't think Grandma knew that, or actually, she probably didn't remember it. This was a story her folks had passed down to her.”

“Huh.”

He kissed and bit her back. “DeKovan's like this character, tricky, a manipulator, but he's got magical powers, see? He makes things happen, conforming the world to his will, he bends human lives. While he hides in the corner, spinning his web.”

“Japanese got spider gods too, baby.” She patted his leg. “Now go to sleep.”

Reluctantly he ceased talking and gently withdrew his arm as slumber overcame her. He rolled the other way and turned the radio on low volume. Bobby “Blue” Bland was singing “Sad Street,” and Monk stayed awake past two in the morning listening to the blues, his mind overworked, his body tired. Outside their bedroom windows, he felt certain, the city contained figments of scattered memories, disconnected and disconsolate, swirling in and out of this dimension. Somewhere inside those memories were the answers he sought, frustratingly just beyond his reach.

Twenty-one

“F
uck,” Monk swore into the receiver.

“Sorry, Ivan,” Parren Teague said from his car phone. “The D.A. wants to show that the boyfriend of a judge doesn't get any special attention.”

“That's 'cause the motherfuckah was embarrassed when he got busted by the press for giving undue consideration to the relatives of some of his contributors.”

Teague's voice was lost momentarily in electronic fuzz. “… upcoming election, and Jamboni has announced he intends to run for the job. The D.A.'s going to go out of his way to show he's not soft.”

Monk clamped down on one side of his mouth. “You and me ain't got no argument, Parren. What's the date for the hearing again?” Monk had his appointment book open.

“Three days.”

“If they indict me, I can still be out on bail, right?” he asked anxiously.

“There's more than that.”

“What?”

“Your buddy Zaneski is making noise; they may try to compound the charge with obstruction and breaking and entering.”

“Hey, just make it three strikes and save all the time and effort,” he said, defeated.

Car noise filtered across. “We'll prevail.”

“If you say so. Did your eager intern find anything on that plate number of the Isuzu Trooper?” Monk could have routinely looked the number up via a service he'd used in the past, but he might as well have his lawyer work hard for his as-yet unrealized money.

Teague hesitated. “You're making this my morning of sorries. It turned out to be a stolen plate. I believe she faxed a copy of the police report over to you. She's going to be another Gloria Aired someday.”

“You mean that as a compliment?”

“Don't make fun of your lawyer. Talk to you.”

“Later.”

Monk pawed through a short stack of letters and papers on the left side of his desk. Two of them turned out to be the fax from Teague's office. The intern related that a receptionist at a company located on West Olive Avenue had reported to the Glendale DMV office that someone had stolen her license plates a week before Monk spotted them on the Isuzu.

Another dead lead. Disgusted, he balled up the fax and tossed it away. He fetched a dark-bodied Santa Rosa cigar from his desk and contemplated spending the rest of the useless day smoking and scratching his crotch. At least he'd have accomplished something.

He'd like to believe he was going to plow ahead with his investigation into the Cruzado murders, but what was the point? The fucking LAPD was on his jock, he was disappointed with Dexter, Seguin was pissed at him, and Keith 2X Burroughs was either hiding out, or dead by other hands.

It mattered to Monk he'd assured Connie Smalls he'd see to it nothing would happen to Burroughs, though he hadn't given the words much thought as he had said them to her. His turn of a phrase was an art he'd worked at over the years talking to people involved in his pursuits. The words were easy to use in order to gain information from a woman who wanted to know some good might come from all her travails. And he had been too willing to play the protector. But what had he set into motion? And could he really do anything to ensure Burroughs's safety?

Conversely, Jill was batting a thousand. But now that she was finally into fighting for her career, her time and attention were obviously concentrated on winning. He lit the cigar and smoked with reserve. He could only have so much credit with Teague, and the bill on the other end was just one more worry.

What did Teague say, a morning of sorries? Sorry, little Marisa, sorry for your pops and grandma too, honey. But Ivan Monk's got his own shit to swim through, and the bastards have got concrete blocks chained to my ankles. I guess you don't get no relief either, no answers for your cruel deaths.

Delilah came in while he stood at the window smoking. “I'm going to lunch, want to come along?”

“You go ahead, D.”

“Ivan,” she started, stepping into the room, trying to ignore the choking aroma. “You know if there's anything …”

“I appreciate that, Delilah. I really do.”

She kissed him on the cheek and went away, closing the door quietly.

Monk sat on the couch, chewing the stump of the Santa Rosa to keep busy. After some time, he got up and by rote went through the material he'd accumulated on DeKovan again. A destitute prospector digging one more time for the mother lode he knows just has to be there. It had to be, because it was all he had left to keep him going.

He shunted aside papers with barely a notice until he came to the list of his companies. The address for Trentex clicked. He read it again and then went to retrieve the fax he'd thrown away. The addresses were the same.

“That's the kind of sugar Daddy likes,” he said, quoting an elated Bogart upon finding his vein of gold in
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
. “Careful,” he warned himself, continuing to talk aloud, “you'll wind up like him at the end of the movie.”

He put his finger under each address and reread the two. Yes, they were the same. Then his happiness faded like newsprint in a summer rain. This and the comp tickets to both Isaiah Booker and Big Loco certainly seemed to confirm DeKovan's involvement in this mess, but neither piece of information got him closer to the elusive millionaire. He was still a fictive being, known only to Monk as black type on paper, and halftones with terse captions.

“Shit.” He tossed the butt onto the pile. He put his head down, interlacing his fingers behind his head. He reared back, staying like that for several moments. He knew he had to do it. He consoled himself that he'd have found DeKovan with enough time, but he was on too short a leash.

He got in the Ford, and drove to Lake Elsinore.

“So I'm supposed to be the great big wonderful white-haired old codger who couldn't wait for his old saddle pal to return? California Carlson who would forgive Hoppy for his damning him?” Grant plodded through his living room like he'd only recently moved in: bumping into furniture, colliding against lamps. “But now you come whining and sniveling back 'cause you need me. The Gunga Din, lowlife motherfucker you thought was no better than dog shit tracked in from the yard.”

“Dex—”

“No, don't talk, I'm not through.” His cheeks were blowing in and out and he was clutching a standing lamp. His gnarled hand was shaking. “You may be short on humility, Mr. Monk, but you damn sure have got some giant brass balls.”

“I'm in trouble, Dexter.” Saying it like this, to him, even now, the significance of the words washed over him like brackish oil—thick and heavy with a presence he could feel but not identify.

“You fucking right you are, Sonny Jim.”

“Jill told you.”

Grant rubbed a hand over his lower jaw, grinning. “How the hell would you tie your shoes in the morning if you didn't have her?” He glanced out the front window. “She's very … concerned.” He leaned against a wall, drawing in on himself. “I wish I—So you've been talking to Wilkenson?”

Monk, who'd been sitting on the arm of an overstuffed chair, shifted his weight. “He has a lot of history.”

Grant huffed, straightening off the wall. “How come your boy wonder can't put you on to DeKovan?”

“He's not the focus of his book, Dex.” He knew what he wanted to hear. “Let's face it, he's not going to have your connects.” Monk hoped he was satisfied with that much ass kissing.

“But you still take his side on what happened when I was on the force?”

“Dex, do you think what you did was right?”