by Lee Goldberg
I thought about how he mistook the baby for an old drunk and me for a hooker. If that was any reflection on his clientele, Carol’s unwillingness to invite them into her home made a lot of sense.
“It must be hard on you, taking care of him and your kids,” I said. The baby grabbed my nose and gave it a squeeze. I made a face and she giggled with glee.
“The mornings aren’t so bad. My son is in preschool until after lunch. When I bring him home, that’s when it becomes a menagerie around here,” she said. “Dinnertime is especially hard. It’s hell to cook dinner with my dad installed in the kitchen, running his bar, and having conversations from twenty years ago with people who aren’t there. It entertains the kids, though.”
“How does your husband handle it?” I asked, my nose once again in the baby’s surprisingly strong grip.
“He’s great. Phil sits at the counter and lets Dad make him drinks all night,” she said. “But we know soon he will become too much for us to handle and he’ll need assisted living. Thank God those huge dividends from Dad’s InTouchSpace stocks keep coming in.”
“How did he ever get InTouchSpace stock?” I said.
“A tip from one of his customers,” she said. “He got in before it became the biggest social network on the Internet.”
That was like getting in on Microsoft, Starbucks, and Google before they hit it big. No wonder Peschel and his late wife were able to retire to Florida.
Monk joined us, a huge smile on his face, and held his arms out to Carol. “Could I give you a hug?”
I almost dropped the baby in shock. Monk doesn’t hug anybody.
“Why?” Carol asked.
“Because you have changed my life,” he said.
She glanced at me and I gave her a nod, letting her know it was all right.
“Okay,” she said hesitantly. “I guess so.”
Monk placed his hands lightly on her shoulders and tipped his upper body ever so slightly towards her. There was a good foot of space between them and no physical contact besides his hands. It was the strangest hug I’d ever seen. Apparently, it was even stranger for Carol, who looked bewildered.
“I am so glad to have met you,” Monk said. “I will remember this day forever.”
“Me, too,” she said.
That was when Stottlemeyer joined us. “I’d better be getting back to the station.”
“Thanks for coming by,” Carol said. “I know it meant a lot to my father.”
“I enjoy it as much as he does,” he said. “It’s just like the old days, only in a much more pleasant environment.”
“I know it costs you more than just your time, gasoline, and patience to visit with him.” She reached into her pocket and held out some wrinkled bills to Stottlemeyer. “This is what you gave him when you were here before.”
“It was good information,” Stottlemeyer said a bit sheepishly.
“Fifteen or twenty years ago,” she said, and forced the cash into his hands. “I’ll pay you back whatever cash you slipped him today but I’ll make sure to check his pockets this time before I put his pants through the wash.”
“Why?” Monk asked.
“So the captain’s money doesn’t go through the washing machine,” she said.
“What would be wrong with that?”
“Because it will get all clumped and mushy.”
“That’s why you have to iron the bills afterwards,” Monk said. “That’s what I do when I clean my money.”
“You wash and iron your money?” she asked incredulously.
“Don’t you?” he said.
“No,” she said.
“My God, woman. You have children,” he said. “Cash is filthier than your baby’s diapers. Think of all the hands that have touched it and all the places it might have been.”
Carol turned to me. “He’s eccentric, all right.”
I gave the baby a kiss and reluctantly gave her back to her mother.
“It was nice to meet you,” I said to them both.
She led us to the door. We said our good-byes and Stottlemeyer walked Monk and me to my car.
“I know why you brought me here,” I said to the captain.
“Do you?” he asked innocently.
“So do I,” Monk said. “Could I give you a hug?”
“No,” Stottlemeyer said, and abruptly turned and went to his car.
Monk looked at me. “You knew about the Diaper Genie before?”
“Yes,” I said. “I raised a daughter, you know. She wasn’t born a teenager.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about them?”
“Because you aren’t interested in babies or their diapers,” I said. “They scare you.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that the Diaper Genie is a revolutionary device with many more uses for humanity than only diaper disposal?”
“Millions of people own Diaper Genies, Mr. Monk. It’s not like I’ve been keeping them a secret from the world.”
“And nobody has appreciated its full potential?” Monk said. “It’s mind-boggling to me. It’s like only using electricity for illumination. If the captain hadn’t discovered it here, I might never have known about it.”
“You think that’s why the captain had us come here, so you could see the Diaper Genie?”
“Of course,” Monk said. “What other reason could there be?”
“You’re right,” I said. “It never occurred to me. That must be why you’re the detective and I’m the assistant.”
I wasn’t ready to talk to Monk about my minor identity crisis.
“Do you know where they sell Diaper Genies?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“That’s our next stop,” he said. “I need to buy some.”
“Some?”
“One for each room of my apartment,” he said. “And a spare for each room of my apartment.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mr. Monk Gets Some Bad News
It was not a good day for any San Francisco parents who happened to be in the market for a new Diaper Genie or who were simply looking for refills.
Monk had me take him to every Babies R Us, Target, and Wal-Mart in the city so he could stock up on all the Diaper Genies and supplies he thought he’d need for the next year. After he was through, the shelves were bare and the nearest available Diaper Genies were either across the bay or down in Daly City.
It took several trips from the car to unload everything into his apartment. I was going back for the last two Genies when Monk stopped me at his door.
“I want you to keep those two,” he said. “They’re gifts for you and Julie.”
“That’s very considerate of you, Mr. Monk. But we really don’t need Diaper Genies.”
“Everybody needs them,” Monk said. “I’m going to spread the word.”
“I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the gift, I really do, but I don’t have a baby and neither one of us wears diapers.”
“You’re going to replace your trash cans with these,” he said. “You can put one in the kitchen and one in Julie’s room to get you started.”
“Julie won’t put a Diaper Genie in her room.”
“Why not?”
“Because she hangs out with her friends in her room all the time,” I said. “What would they think if they saw a Diaper Genie?”
“That she’s a clean, upstanding citizen,” Monk said. “And a patriot.”
“They’d think she was either pregnant or incontinent and word would get around school. She’d be mortified.”
“All Julie has to do is explain to her friends that she’s using it to individually seal each item that she throws out.”
“Then they’d think she was a geek,” I said.
“She will thank me later,” Monk said.
“Why would she thank you for being considered a geek?”
“Don’t you know anything about teenage life?” Monk said. “It’s a badge of respect.”
“It is?”
&
nbsp; “I was one,” he said.
“You don’t say.”
“A very special one. I was crowned King of the Geeks, not once, but every single year of high school,” Monk said. “It’s a record that remains unbroken in my school to this day.”
“Were there a lot of students who wanted to be King of the Geeks?”
“It’s like being homecoming king, only better. You don’t have to go to any dances,” Monk said. “You aren’t even invited.”
“Julie likes dances.”
“You should put a stop to that before things go too far,” Monk said.
I didn’t want to know what “too far” meant in Monkland, so I just dropped the subject. “I’ll do that.”
I thanked him for the gift and we proceeded to place Diaper Genies in every room in his house and in the corridors and closets, too.
But we were just getting started.
He had me deliver Diaper Genies, with his compliments, to the other tenants in his building, even the guy with a prosthetic leg who lived upstairs (Monk especially wanted him to have one).
He wasn’t doing it out of generosity.
Monk wanted to be sure that all the trash from his building was as “clean” as his was.
I didn’t bother telling him that, despite his gift, none of his neighbors would ever seal every single thing in their trash cans into bags and sort them according to his specifications (which he’d printed up and passed out to them on numerous occasions over the years). He’d find out on his own soon enough.
When I got home, I put my Diaper Genie in a corner in the kitchen, because I knew it would be the first thing he’d look for every time he visited me. I didn’t have to worry about him ever checking Julie’s room for hers, though. Because she had put a DANGER-HAZARDOUS WASTE sign on her door and he took her at her word.
Julie didn’t notice the Diaper Genie until we were cleaning up after dinner. She glanced at it and gave me a look.
“Is there something I should know?” she asked.
“I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re getting at, and I’m controlling my bladder just fine. Mr. Monk gave that to us to use as a garbage can.”
“Why?”
“So we can wrap up all of our trash,” I said. “I have one for your room if you’d like it.”
“No way. It was bad enough when he gave us Tupperware containers for our toothbrushes, our underwear, and our socks. This is too much.”
“It’s just his way of showing that he cares about us,” I said. “And I show him how much we care about him by letting him think that we follow some of his rules.”
She shook her head, grabbed a cookie, and headed for her room. “He doesn’t pay you nearly enough, Mom.”
“No,” I said, “he doesn’t.”
The next morning I arrived at Monk’s apartment promptly at nine, as I always do. He was waiting for me at the door with two Diaper Genies with ribbons tied around them.
“You already gave us Diaper Genies,” I said. “Two more would be an embarrassment of riches.”
“They aren’t for you,” he said. “They’re for Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher. Let’s go deliver them.”
He handed me one, he took the other, and we trooped back to my car for the ride downtown.
We got some strange looks as we carried the Diaper Genies through the Homicide squad room and stopped at Disher’s desk. Stottlemeyer hadn’t noticed us yet; his door was closed and he seemed to be buried in paperwork.
Monk set the Diaper Genie down on Disher’s desk. “This is for you.”
Disher studied it. “What is it?”
“A Diaper Genie,” Monk said.
The detectives nearby started to snicker. Disher reddened with embarrassment and glared at us.
“If this is your idea of a joke, I don’t think it’s funny. I’m not the baby cop around here anymore and I’m tired of being treated like I am.”
“Randy, you get carded every time you try to buy a beer,” I said. “Or go to see an R-rated move. You asked me to go to The Dark Knight with you so you wouldn’t have to show your ID.”
“I’ve got news for you both-beneath this deceptively boyish exterior is the soul of a battle-scarred, coldhearted cop.” He pointed to the detective at the next desk. “I’ve got three years on Lansdale. Give the diaper can to him.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. This is for your trash,” Monk said. “It will change your life.”
“How will a trash can do that?”
“It will individually wrap everything you throw away in its own bag so you don’t have to.”
“I’ve never done that,” Disher said.
“I know, God help me, I know,” Monk said, then addressed the other detectives in the room. “You should all use it.” They just stared at him. “You’ll thank me later.”
He knocked on Stottlemeyer’s door and walked in without waiting to be invited. I dutifully followed after him, holding the Diaper Genie.
Stottlemeyer didn’t lift his eyes from the mess of papers in front of him and tapped numbers into a calculator that was so old, the numbers had worn off the keys.
“Come right in, make yourselves at home,” he said. “Don’t let the closed door or the guy working at his desk stop you.”
“I have a present for you,” Monk said and gestured to me to step forward. I did and set the Diaper Genie down on Stottlemeyer’s desk as if it were made of gold and covered with diamonds.
He lifted his head and looked at the Diaper Genie. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“What do you mean?” Monk said.
“As far as I know, I haven’t fathered any children lately,” Stottlemeyer said. “Or even gotten close.”
“Don’t play dumb,” Monk said, and pointed to the Diaper Genie. “This is why you brought us with you to see that senile bartender.”
“The diaper can?”
“You wanted to introduce me to this wonderful device because you knew that I would recognize its full potential.”
“That’s a bizarre leap, even for you,” Stottlemeyer said. “ Does Dr. Bell have you on some new meds?”
Monk wagged a finger at him. “I see right through you.”
“Do you?” Stottlemeyer got up and closed the door. “Then you know what I’m going to say.”
I didn’t like the tone of his voice when he closed the door or the look on his face when he turned around.
“You’re going thank me now instead of later,” Monk said. “But you don’t have to. Just the joy of having this Diaper Genie in my life is thanks enough.”
“I was going to talk with you about this later, but since you’re here, I suppose that now is as bad a time as any.”
“I believe the correct phrase is ‘as good a time as any,’” Monk said.
“Not for what I have to tell you,” Stottlemeyer said. “The department has cut my budget to the bone. For weeks, I’ve been looking for ways to save money without having to pass on too much of the pain to my detectives. But I’m out of creative compromises and I’ve got to make some hard choices.”
“I’m sure the men will understand that,” Monk said.
“It’s you that I’m concerned about. I’m afraid that I have to cancel our consulting agreement.”
There was no hint anytime before that Monk’s contract was in jeopardy. And yet now, barely more than a day after Braddock used Monk’s success to humiliate Stottlemeyer, suddenly the agreement was canceled. I didn’t think it was a coincidence.
I felt a flush of anger rising in my checks.
Monk blinked hard. “Aren’t I doing a good job?”
“You are,” Stottlemeyer said. “An exceptional one, in fact.”
“Then how can you let him go?” I said.
“Because I have to think of my detectives first,” Stottlemeyer said. “How would it look if I kept him on while they lose their overtime and vacation pay?”
“It would look like you were doing wha
t’s best for the people of San Francisco,” I said. “Or have you forgotten that Mr. Monk is a better homicide detective than all of your detectives combined?”
It was a low blow, but he deserved it. Besides, it was the truth and he knew it, which was the real reason Monk was getting sacked.
And me, too. If Monk didn’t get paid, then neither would I.
Stottlemeyer got in my face. It’s what cops do to intimidate perps. But I held my ground and my gaze. I was determined that it wouldn’t work with me.
“That may be true. But here’s the reality: They are cops and he isn’t,” he said. “And I’ll tell you something else. While they were all out there walking a picket line a couple of years ago, Monk was sitting behind my desk, scabbing. Maybe you’ve forgotten that, but they sure as hell haven’t.”
“Apparently, neither have you,” I said. “This is payback.”
We were so close our noses were almost touching.
“What I’m saying is that I can’t take money out of their pocket and put it in his. I just can’t.”
“Oh spare me, Captain. This isn’t about the strike or budget cuts; it’s about what happened at the conference,” I said. “It’s about your pride.”
“I’m disappointed in you,” he said. “I thought you knew me better than that.”
“So did I.”
We glowered at each other for a long moment, neither of us blinking. I could make out the edges of his contacts.
Monk cleared his throat to get our attention and to remind us that he was still in the room. “The captain is right.”
“No, he’s not,” I said, maintaining my glower. My eyes were beginning to sting from not blinking.
“Hiring me was always an act of charity and pity,” Monk said, “and that’s not a luxury the police can afford anymore.”
“It was never like that, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said, breaking his gaze with me to look at him. I stole a few quick blinks in case we had another stare-down. “I brought you in because you’re the best detective I’ve ever known. But unfortunately, the best is out of our price range right now.”
“I understand,” Monk said. “That’s why I’ll do it for free until the department can afford me again.”
“I can’t let you do that,” Stottlemeyer said.