Mr. Monk in Outer Space

by Goldberg, Lee

  4

  Mr. Monk Goes Home

  The carpet wouldn’t be installed for two more days, but Monk couldn’t live in the same apartment as that coffee stain. And yet he had no problem moving into my place, where he knew that countless stains were hidden under furniture and rugs.

  It’s a contradiction, but don’t expect me to explain it. I have a working knowledge of many of the Rules of the Monk Universe, but not all of them. If I tried to learn them all, I’m afraid I would go insane.

  The last time Monk stayed at my house in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, he called a moving company and had them bring all his furniture, clothes, and even the food in his refrigerator. So I considered myself lucky when I got him out of his apartment with only eight suitcases, a case of Sierra Springs water, and all of his dishware.

  On the way to my place, I laid down the law. I told him he couldn’t rearrange my furniture, my artwork, or anything else. I told him he couldn’t go through my cupboards, my drawers, or my closets. I told him he couldn’t try to change my personal habits, no matter how repulsive, objectionable, or dangerous he might think they were. My home was my space to do as I pleased, regardless of how it made him feel.

  But I did cut him a little slack. I gave him permission to do all the housecleaning, dishwashing, and laundry that he wanted.

  That made him happy and, to be honest, he’d be doing me a favor. I hadn’t done much housecleaning. The fact is, after a day spent with Monk, I’d usually had as much cleaning and disinfecting as I could take, even if I wasn’t the one who was doing it. I actually took pleasure in my slovenliness after being with him. It became a form of relaxation and maybe even a little rebellion.

  I’m afraid Julie followed my poor example. Her room looked like a hurricane had swept through it. I was afraid of what I might find in there, but I probably wasn’t as frightened as Monk was going to be when he saw it.

  At least the guest room was the way Monk had left it the last time he stayed with us. I guess I’d known on some level that he would be back someday.

  We walked into the living room, each of us carrying two of his matching suitcases. We were halfway down the hall to the guest room when he froze, cocking his head to one side.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “What’s what?”

  “That noise,” he said.

  I listened. I heard a little rumble.

  “Oh, that’s just the wheel,” I said.

  “What wheel?” he asked.

  “Hammy’s wheel,” I said. “She’s on that all day.”

  “Who’s Hammy?”

  “Julie’s hamster,” I said, ignoring the handmade DO NOT ENTER, NO TRESSPASSING, and HAZARDOUS WASTE signs and opening Julie’s bedroom door. “I’m taking care of Hammy while Julie’s away at camp.”

  The three-level cage was on a piece of newspaper near Julie’s bed. The hamster was running on her wheel, moving so fast she was almost a blur.

  So was Monk.

  When I turned around, his suitcases were there but he was gone.

  Monk’s older brother, Ambrose, still lived in the Victorian-style two-story home where they’d grown up, in the quaint little town of Tewksbury, just over the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County. In fact, Ambrose never left. He suffered from agoraphobia.

  Ambrose was socially awkward, which is to be expected from a guy who had little or no interaction with people. But he was extremely well-read on hundreds of obscure topics and he’d taught himself to speak six languages, including Mandarin, skills he put to use writing technical manuals, encyclopedias, and textbooks.

  As far as I know, Ambrose had left the house only twice in thirty years, once when the place was on fire and again when he needed emergency medical care because he thought he’d been fatally poisoned.

  Monk had something to do with both of those incidents, which, as it happened, were tied to murder investigations. Those are long stories, so I won’t bore you with them now, but in light of those experiences, it was only natural that Ambrose showed some trepidation when he opened his front door and saw the two of us standing there.

  He grabbed the doorframe as if he was afraid we might drag him out into the front yard.

  Ambrose wore an argyle sweater vest, a long-sleeved flannel shirt buttoned at the cuffs, corduroy slacks, and a pair of Hush Puppies so shiny they made Dorothy’s ruby slippers seem dull by comparison. Like Monk’s, his shirt was buttoned at the collar.

  “Hello, Adrian,” Ambrose said hesitantly. He did just about everything hesitantly. “Hello, Natalie.”

  “It’s good to see you, Ambrose,” I said.

  “It’s an unexpected pleasure to see you, Natalie.” Ambrose looked at Monk. “Who died?”

  “Nobody,” Monk said. “I’m visiting.”

  “You never visit. You only come if I call, and I didn’t call. So if someone didn’t die, why are you here?”

  “Does a man need a reason to visit his ancestral home?” Monk asked.

  Ambrose looked past Monk and smiled at me. “Not when he’s accompanied by such a beautiful woman.”

  I blushed. Ambrose had a little crush on me. I don’t think it was due to either my sparkling personality or my ravishing beauty. The truth is, he’d had a thing for Sharona, too. We were the only two women who’d come to see him in years.

  But I was flattered anyway. His feelings were genuine, and feelings, especially genuine ones, are hard to find in a man these days. At least for me.

  In the year or so since I’d met Ambrose, I’d spent a few evenings with him, playing checkers and eating popcorn. He was a sweet guy. But I was careful not to see him too often because I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about us.

  He motioned us inside. We came in and he immediately closed the door behind us and latched the dead bolt.

  I was surprised to see that the living room was still stuffed with file cabinets full of mail and thirty-five years’ worth of newspapers stacked nearly to the ceiling.

  Ambrose had been saving it all for their father, who went out for Chinese food in 1972 and didn’t return until a few months ago, when he unexpectedly called Monk for a favor. Their father, who had become a trucker, was in jail on an outstanding warrant for unpaid parking tickets or something minor like that. He needed Monk to get him out of jail or he’d lose his job for not making his delivery on time.

  Monk didn’t talk to me much about the reunion, but I knew they’d come to some kind of understanding and that their father had stopped to see Ambrose on his way out of town.

  “Why do you still have all of this junk?” Monk said, straightening one of the piles of newspapers.

  “I’m saving it for Dad,” Ambrose said.

  “But Dad came back,” Monk said. “You can stop saving it now.”

  “He told me to hang on to it until he has a chance to pick it up.”

  “He’s never going to pick it up,” Monk said.

  “You were the one who said he’d never come back,” Ambrose said. “And you were wrong. He came back.”

  “Only because he needed something from me,” Monk said.

  “He needs this from me,” Ambrose said. “He’ll be back for it all.”

  “He was blowing you off,” Monk said.

  “Are you saying he doesn’t need me?” Ambrose yelled, startling me. “Do you think you’re the only one he needs?”

  “He doesn’t need either one of us,” Monk said. “Not until he does.”

  “You’re not making any sense, Adrian.”

  “Dad isn’t someone you can count on, especially when it comes to considering the feelings of others. Look at how he’s inconvenienced you.”

  “It’s no problem for me. I have been doing it for years.”

  “That’s my point,” Monk said.

  Ambrose ignored him and smiled at me. “Would you like a glass of water?”

  “No thank you,” I said.

  “How about an Eskimo Pie?” Ambrose asked. “They ar
e quite delicious.”

  “I wish I could,” I said, “but I am watching my weight.”

  “That must be how you stay so slim and shapely.”

  I think there may have been a contradiction in there, but I smiled anyway.

  He picked up a stack of books from the coffee table. They were tied with a red ribbon. He presented them to me.

  “I’ve been saving these for you,” he said.

  “You save everything,” Monk muttered.

  “These are copies of my latest books,” Ambrose said.

  I glanced at the spines. There was an owner’s manual for the Linknet WMA24Z7 Wireless Router, the installation guide for a low-voltage outdoor lighting system, and instructions in Swedish and English for putting together an elaborate bookcase. I’m sure he wrote both versions.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I look forward to reading them.”

  “They’re inscribed,” he said proudly.

  I opened the cover of the Linknet manual. He’d written: To Natalie, May all of your connections, wireless and otherwise, enjoy uninterrupted throughput.

  “You’re very sweet, Ambrose,” I said and kissed him on the cheek. “Nobody has ever inscribed an owner’s manual for me before.”

  “I have it in Spanish, if you’re interested,” he said. “I wrote that one, too.”

  Monk cleared his throat. Ambrose looked at him as if he’d forgotten that he was there.

  “Why are you here?” Ambrose said.

  “I need to stay for a couple of days,” Monk said. “It’s an emergency.”

  “What kind of emergency?”

  “A coffee stain emergency,” Monk said.

  Ambrose nodded gravely. “Why didn’t you say so to start with?”

  “I didn’t want to shock you,” Monk said.

  Ambrose put his arm around Monk, who immediately went rigid. “If you can’t come to me for support when you’re in trouble, what kind of brother would I be?”

  “I made the stain,” Monk said.

  Ambrose patted him reassuringly on the back. “It’s okay, Adrian.”

  “You don’t understand,” Monk said. “It’s not the first time.”

  “I know,” Ambrose said.

  “I’m so ashamed.” Monk leaned his forehead against his brother’s shoulder.

  I slipped away discreetly and went outside to get the luggage.

  5

  Mr. Monk and the Free Day

  I left Monk at Ambrose’s house and headed out into the big wide world to enjoy my first totally free day in ages.

  I drove back into the city and made a detour to Fisherman’s Wharf, an area I usually avoid because of the crush of tourists. But there’s a Boudin Bakery on the waterfront and they make the best sourdough bread on earth. The lure of a hot loaf of bread to bring home for dinner was too strong for me to ignore.

  I spent twenty minutes looking for a parking spot and then stood in line for bread, watching the tourists take pictures of themselves in front of the Fisherman’s Wharf sign to prove to everybody back home that they’d actually been there. I wasn’t sure why they bothered. I didn’t think there was anything worth visiting, much less remembering, on the wharf besides the bakery.

  The wharf hadn’t been a real shipping or industrial spot in decades. It had degenerated into a brazen touristtrap, a storefront shopping center with a seaside motif and a carnival midway feel. It was all schlocky souvenir shops, dreary fast-food franchises, and tacky seafood restaurants that put more effort into covering their walls with fishing nets and seafaring knick-knacks than making decent food. The wharf had very little left that was authentic or charming, and even less as time went on. That sad state of affairs seemed to be true of just about everything these days, including a lot of people that I knew.

  It was a nice, clear day with a crisp, salty breeze blowing off the water, so rather than go back to the car, I wandered up to Victoria Park, which is right below Ghirardelli Square and has a great view of the bay.

  The park is also the turn-around point for the cable cars. The tourists line up there in droves waiting for a ride, so there are plenty of street performers, caricature artists, and sidewalk vendors hoping their captive audience would rather spend money on crap than do nothing.

  I sat on a bench and looked out at the nineteenth-century schooners permanently docked at the Hyde Street Pier, the sailboats skipping over the whitecaps, and the ferry on its way to Alcatraz. It was nice, and I zoned out for a while.

  Before I knew it, I’d absently finished off the entire loaf of bread. So much for watching my weight.

  I got up and browsed the jewelry that the vendors were selling on card tables and apple crates. I bought a necklace and some earrings for Julie so she’d know I’d been thinking about her while she was away. I wondered if she missed me. She was probably glad to be on her own for a change, just like I was. I never got the chance to sit in the park, eat bread, and mock tourists. I was having a grand time.

  I walked over to Ghirardelli Square, a shopping center in what once was a famous San Francisco chocolate factory. The chocolate is made in San Leandro now, but Ghirardelli doesn’t make a big deal about that. Nobody ever left their heart in San Leandro.

  There’s a bookstore in the square devoted to art and architecture books. I browsed through a big book on tiki and Hawaiian style and remembered my trip to Kauai with Monk. I recalled it with far more amusement and affection than I’d felt at the time, but the past is like that sometimes. You remember what you want to remember.

  I wondered how Monk was getting along with Ambrose. Were they having fun? Were they fighting? Or were they off in separate corners of the big house, barely acknowledging one another’s presence?

  I was tempted to drive over and see for myself. I shook off the thought and called Firefighter Joe, my friend-with-benefits, to inquire if he was free for dinner. Unfortunately for me, Joe was at the firehouse, two days into a four-day shift.

  So I tried Dr. Polanski, a dashing dermatologist and recovered leper whom I met on one of Monk’s cases. I struck out with him, too. He was at a leper convention in Miami. Lucky him.

  I started to call Scooter, but I came to my senses halfway through keying in his phone number.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  I glanced at my watch. Two hours of my first afternoon of freedom had passed and I already didn’t know what to do with myself.

  And that’s when I realized that I’d sat down to make my calls on a chair in front of one of those caricature artists. The guy was older, maybe in his fifties, and looked like he’d eaten something so sour it had permanently puckered his sun-beaten face. His would be an easy face to caricature, even for me, and I can’t draw.

  The artist was already busy immortalizing me in charcoal by the time I realized I was sitting there, so it was too late to apologize and walk away. I was stuck, in more ways than one.

  What had happened to making a change in my life? To taking some chances? To making new friends? San Francisco was full of nightclubs, galleries, and cultural events.