Mr. Monk in Outer Space

by Goldberg, Lee

  “What you can’t see could kill you,” he said.

  “A coffee stain can’t.”

  “No,” he said, groaning. “It will merely destroy your will to live.”

  “So just slide the coffee table over a millimeter to cover it,” I said. “I hide all kinds of stains under rugs and furniture.”

  “I’ll still know the stain is there. I’ll feel it. I’ll hear it pulsating.”

  “It’s a stain,” I said. “It’s not alive. It doesn’t have a pulse.”

  “The only thing I can do is replace the entire carpet,” Monk said. “Again.”

  “You’ve done this before?” I asked.

  A hand grenade exploded in my house a couple years ago and I still didn’t replace the carpet. I just bought a bigger rug and placed it over the scorch marks.

  “Once,” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Maybe twice.”

  “Twice?” I said.

  “Three times,” he said. “You need to give the carpet company a call. Their number is on the speed dial. They know the color and style. They keep a roll of the carpet on hand for me in case of major emergencies.”

  “So that’s why you’re so sad,” I said. “Because this is the third time you’ve spent thousands of dollars to recarpet your living room over a stain that’s invisible to the naked eye.”

  “The fourth time,” he said.

  “Four times?” I said.

  “Definitely no more than five.”

  I stared at him. “How is it that you can never afford to give me a raise but you can find the money to recarpet your house five times?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted him, pointing my finger at his face.

  "If you say’six, no more than seven,’ there are going to be bloodstains on the carpet and they won’t be mine.”

  He closed his mouth.

  I can tolerate most of his quirks, except the ones that cost me money. I make little enough as it is without him squandering my future raises on pointless expenditures. But I knew this carpet thing was a fight that I couldn’t win.

  “Call the carpet company yourself, Mr. Monk,” I said. “I can’t bear to do it.”

  He got up, went into the kitchen, and made the call. While he did, I took his seat on the floor. I felt as depressed as he was, but for entirely different reasons. I was looking at a future of poverty and despair because he couldn’t live with a stain that a normal human being couldn’t see even with an electron microscope.

  Monk came back into the living room. “They can start tomorrow.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “The bad news is that I have to move out for two days while they do it.”

  “Where are you going to stay?” I asked.

  Monk looked at me.

  I looked back at him.

  He tried to gaze at me imploringly, which made him appear as if he was suppressing a burp or trying to swallow a golf ball.

  “Can’t you go somewhere else?” I said.

  I’d had Monk as a houseguest once before and it was not an experience I was eager to repeat, certainly not during one of the rare weeks when I had the house to myself. Monk would put a kibosh on any romance I might have. Even simple pleasures like eating ice cream out of the carton would be impossible with him around.

  “It’s just two nights,” he said. “Maybe three.”

  “Three?”

  “Four at most,” Monk said.

  I was about to give him all the reasons why this was a terrible idea, and why it wasn’t going to happen, when my cell phone rang. It was Lieutenant Randy Disher.

  “This is Lieutenant Randy Disher, SFPD,” he said.

  He always said that, even though he knew I would instantly recognize his voice even if my caller ID didn’t inform me who was calling. He just liked hearing himself say it. I think he even identified himself that way when he called his mother. He probably flashed his badge when they met face-to-face.

  There was only one reason Randy Disher ever called me.

  “Where’s the corpse?” I asked with a weary sigh.

  He told me.

  2

  Mr. Monk and the Glimpse of Hell

  Unless you live in a cave, or are Adrian Monk, you’ve not only seen a Burgerville restaurant, you’ve probably eaten in them a couple hundred times. It’s as inevitable as life, death, and high cholesterol.

  As unhealthy and unimaginative as Burgerville food is, you can’t deny that the fanciful, hamburger-shaped restaurants have become an inextricable part of American popular culture.

  I’d always imagined that their national headquarters would be the world’s biggest hamburger, perhaps surrounded by a complex of buildings shaped like fries, a shake, and a soft drink. So I was deeply disappointed to discover that Burgerville’s corporate offices were housed in an unremarkable five-story building hidden in the shadows of the more distinctive skyscrapers that surrounded it in the financial district.

  I came through the revolving door and found Captain Leland Stottlemeyer in the wood-paneled lobby, leaning against the donut-shaped reception desk and talking to the fat uniformed guard sitting in the center. The two of them were smiling and appeared relaxed as they talked, so I brilliantly deduced that this wasn’t the first time they’d met.

  It was nice to see Stottlemeyer smile for a change. A pained expression seemed to be a required part of his professional demeanor, though in the months leading up to and following his divorce, he’d carried the same look around off duty as well. Only in the last couple of weeks had he begun to loosen up a little as the stress in his personal life eased and he settled into being single.

  Stottlemeyer was in his late forties and had a bushy mustache that got bushier as his hairline receded. If his hairline continued its retreat, in a few years his mustache would be so thick that he’d have to breathe exclusively through his mouth.

  The captain turned to me and jerked a thumb towards the guard, who looked to be about his age and easily twice his weight. I figured the guard was probably making the most of his employee discount at Burgerville restaurants.

  “Natalie, I’d like you to meet Archie Applebaum,” Stottlemeyer said. “He’s a security guard here, but back in the day he used to walk a beat in the Tenderloin.”

  “Leland and I went through the academy together,” Archie said, offering me his pudgy hand. I shook it. “He rose up the ranks and me, well, I got sidelined by a bad back.”

  “Once a cop, always a cop,” Stottlemeyer said. “You’ve demonstrated that by the way you secured the crime scene before we got here.”

  “I just used common sense,” Archie said.

  “Your average rent-a-cop would have hopelessly messed things up,” Stottlemeyer said. “But you’re the real deal.”

  “Except nowadays I wear a plastic badge, like something you’d buy for your kid. I’m surprised they don’t give me a cap gun, too.”

  “Your badge may not be silver, but I bet your pay and your pension plan are a lot better than mine.”

  “I’d trade it all to be back on the beat,” Archie said.

  “I hear you.” Stottlemeyer turned to me. “Where’s Monk?”

  “I had to parallel park,” I said by way of explanation.

  He groaned knowingly. The captain was the only person, with the exception of Monk’s previous assistant, Sharona Fleming, who truly understood my daily misery.

  Archie shifted his gaze between Stottlemeyer and me, trying to read the situation.

  “What am I missing?” the guard asked us.

  “You remember a cop named Adrian Monk?” Stottlemeyer asked.

  “Wasn’t he the guy who ticketed a hundred people outside a movie theater for not lining up according to their height?”

  “That’s him,” Stottlemeyer said. “He’s the best detective I’ve ever known. But right now, he’s outside measuring the space between Natalie’s car and the ones around hers.”

  “What for?” Archie asked.

&nbs
p; “He wants to make sure my car is perfectly centered, ” I said. “Then he’s going to check the other cars on both sides of the street.”

  “If they aren’t all equally spaced, he’s going to demand that we find the drivers and have them align their cars properly,” Stottlemeyer said. “Or if we can’t find the drivers, he’ll want me to have the cars towed.”

  “You’re kidding,” Archie said.

  “God, I wish I was,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “So what are you going to do?” Archie asked.

  “Shoot him or shoot myself,” Stottlemeyer said. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Stottlemeyer went outside and I followed him.

  We found Monk crouched between my Jeep Cherokee and the Volkswagen parked in front of it. He rose up when he saw us and examined his tape measure.

  “You’re going to have to move your car forward half an inch, Natalie,” he said. “But you did a much better job than the scofflaws parked on this street. There isn’t a single car that isn’t a good four inches out of alignment.”

  “There isn’t a law anywhere in the penal code requiring people to center their cars when they parallel park,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “It’s a natural law,” Monk said. “Like gravity.”

  “I’m afraid that’s outside my jurisdiction,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “You are a law enforcement officer, are you not?” Monk asked.

  “Yes,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “Then you have a sworn duty to uphold the law,” Monk said. “You can’t just pick and choose the ones you want to enforce. That’s the first step towards anarchy.”

  “I thought mixed nuts were the first step,” I said.

  “There are many first steps,” Monk said.

  Stottlemeyer sighed, defeated.

  “You’re right. I’ll have an officer get right on it.” Stottlemeyer waved a uniformed cop over to us. “In the meantime, you’re needed on the fifth floor.”

  “I’d prefer the fourth floor.” Monk rolled his shoulders. “Or the sixth.”

  “The body is on the fifth floor,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “You could move the body,” Monk said.

  “No, I couldn’t,” Stottlemeyer said as the officer approached. “That would disturb the crime scene.”

  “But the crime scene will disturb me,” Monk said.

  “You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t.” Stottlemeyer turned to the officer and gestured towards the cars on the street. “Officer, these vehicles are violating the natural laws of the universe. Act accordingly.”

  The officer looked puzzled.

  Stottlemeyer turned his back to the poor man and led Monk and me to the building.

  The captain and I went through the revolving door, but when we got into the lobby, we both stopped. We realized at the same moment that Monk hadn’t followed us. We turned and saw him standing outside, staring at the revolving door, looking perplexed.

  “It’s a revolving door, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said. “You just push it and it spins.”

  “I can’t,” Monk said.

  There was a standard glass door beside the revolving one. I pointed at it.

  “You can go through the other door, Mr. Monk.”

  “It’s locked,” Archie said from his seat at the reception desk. “You need to swipe a key card through the reader beside the handle to open it.”

  “So do it,” I said.

  “He can’t,” Stottlemeyer said. “That’s how the killer got in. We need to take both of the key card readers in to the lab for forensic examination. We can’t risk losing evidence by swiping another card through them.”

  “Is there any other way in?” I asked.

  “There’s a loading bay in the back,” Archie said. “If you don’t mind the trash in the alley.”

  I wouldn’t, but Monk would. I looked at Monk.

  “Just run through, Mr. Monk,” I said. “It will be over before you know it.”

  “I’ll know it,” Monk said.

  I studied the door. Stottlemeyer joined me.

  “What’s his problem with this?” he asked me.

  I shrugged. “You got me, Captain. I see a circle divided into quarters. Everything is even. He should be okay with it. It must be the coffee stain.”

  “I don’t see a coffee stain,” he said.

  “It’s at his apartment,” I said. “But you can’t see the stain there, either.”

  A vein was beginning to throb on Stottlemeyer’s forehead. I call it the Monk vein, because it shows up on people’s foreheads when they are enduring his unique form of escalating mental duress.

  Stottlemeyer shouted at Monk: “What’s your damn problem with the revolving door?”

  “If I step in there,” Monk said, “it will be three-quarters empty.”

  “I’ll go in with you,” I said.

  “That won’t do any good,” Monk said. “Two quarters will be unoccupied. That’s just so wrong.”

  “Captain Stottlemeyer and the police officer can step in as the door turns and then all four quarters will be filled.”

  Monk shook his head. “But when I come out, you three will be in a revolving door with one unoccupied quarter. I couldn’t leave you like that.”

  “That won’t bother us,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “It will bother me,” Monk said.

  “You could live with it,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t,” Monk said. “It would haunt me until my dying day.”

  “This will be that day if you don’t come through that damn door,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “You’re not helping, Captain,” I told him and then turned back to Monk. “What if the security guard steps in at the same moment you are stepping out?”

  Monk mulled that over for a moment. “That could work. But the timing is going to be crucial.”

  Stottlemeyer glanced at Archie. “Do you mind?”

  The guard got up from his station and waddled over. “Is it always this hard to get him into a building?”

  Stottlemeyer sighed. “Every day is a new challenge, Archie.”

  Monk took out a stopwatch, waved the officer over, and then explained how the timing would work. I won’t bore you with the mathematics involved, mainly because I’ve forgotten them. But it involved synchronizing our watches and moving at a uniform rate of speed.

  On Monk’s signal, I entered the revolving door at the same instant that he did. We turned the revolving door and, at the appropriate moment, Stottlemeyer entered one quarter and the officer entered another. Monk exited his quarter as Archie stepped into it, and for an instant it looked like they might both get stuck in there together. But Monk managed to squeeze out at the last possible second, leaving all four quarters occupied.