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
“Fuck,” 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 th
e 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?”
“What am I, a child? You gonna use that kind of tone with me?”
Astonishment iced Monk’s words. “Dex, we can go ’round and ’round on this all you want, it doesn’t change the past, nor what you did—for whatever reasons. It also doesn’t change what I think of you, deep down. Yes,” he conceded, getting up, “I’ll admit it sticks with me, but you can’t honestly believe I’d be any other way about this.”
“If it was the other way around, what would you think of me?”
“Maybe you would’ve been man enough not to go along with the program.” The fury dissipated from Grant, and he leaned against the back of the couch.
Monk walked toward him. “I don’t know mat and neither do you. I haven’t had a family to worry about.”
“That’s what I tell myself, Ivan. Sometimes I even half believe it.”
Monk fixed him with a look. “I know you’re the one who told DeKovan about Wilkenson’s idea for the job training center.”
Grant snorted. “That wasn’t exactly heroic. But it did let me sleep a little better.” His light greys were wet.
“DeKovan,” Monk said.
Grant punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Okay, boss. But I haven’t heard much about the son of a bitch for some ten years now myself.”
A hole opened up in his chest. “Nothing?”
“I said not much, not nothing,” Grant replied. “Since we’re being on the up-and-up, Perry Jakes was doing work for DeKovan when he left the force.”
Jakes had died over a year ago. “What kind of work?”
Grant made a gesture as though he were describing a globe to a blind man. “Security. In the old days it meant setting up the banging parlors for the starlets and debutantes he was bedding.” For the first time since Monk had arrived, Grant finally loosened up.
“That was then,” Monk prodded.
Grant shook his head up and down. “Right. I saw Jakes every once in a while after we retired. He never told me directly what his odd jobs were for DeKovan. He always liked to be more obtuse than necessary. Make himself into a big man, you know? But the work was mostly bullshit, I gathered.”
He made for the kitchen and Monk followed him. There he opened the battered Frigidaire with its pull spring handle. He produced two Millers and handed one to Monk.
“How do you mean?”
“DeKovan had nutted up, or at least seemed to. He’d gotten into going to these conspiracy meetings, UFO clubs out in the Nevada desert, even had a flirtation with those Heaven’s Gate yahoos for a few months.”
“Lovely,” Monk said sarcastically.
“And he got wrapped up in divining secret Masonic ceremonies, studying Illuminati writings, all kinds of weird shit.”
“What brought it on? Drugs, booze? Some bimbette squeeze his head too tight between her thighs one night?”
Grant grinned, holding the bottle of beer to his mouth. “I haven’t the foggiest. Perry did say one time he was in a poker game with DeKovan, Yorty—this is after Bradley beats him, see?—and a couple of the businessmen from the old days. Now mind you, mis cat was still making money, and for the rest of them their day on the mountaintop had passed.”
“Anyway, here sits DeKovan, his hair is damned near to his shoulders, the nails on both little fingers grown out and pointed.”
“Did he act strange?”
“No, Perry said. His hair was combed, he didn’t stink. He was dressed casual-like. But they’re talking and so forth—Jakes said Yorty even made fun of DeKovan’s appearance and he seemed to take it just fine. So they’re playing and carrying on, and they get to talking about why didn’t DeKovan ever marry.”
“And …?”
“Perry, for one of the few times while I knew him, gets serious when he’s telling me this. He says DeKovan stopped laughing and suddenly got all choked and maudlin. He started lamenting the death of a woman named Irene. But as he’s telling them this, Jakes realizes he’s describing the movie Laura. He’s changed this “Irene” woman’s death from a murder to a car accident, but it’s the plot of the goddamn movie.”
“The one with Dana Andrews?”
“Yeah. Now, Jakes never lets on and the others, as far as he can tell, believe this story to be true. So what do you make of that, Bulldog Drummond?”
“What? A confirmation that DeKovan’s a fuckin’ loon?”
“Or doing the biggest performance of his life.” Grant said. “Later, out of earshot of the others, DeKovan nudges Jakes and asks him how did he do? Jakes told me this, right. Well, there was a little something I told him. Something only I knew ’cause one night I had to fetch one of DeKovan’s B-picture maidens from a laudanum and brandy party up in the hills.” Grant’s eyes shone brightly.
“She’s whacked out and rambling on and mentions when DeKovan was in college, he’d studied at the Pasadena Playhouse. Pretty good student too. A natural, she said.”
Monk unscrewed his top. “He is crazy, and he’s pretending like he ain’t.”
Grant held up a finger. “He was making all kinds of smart money deals, Ivan. This is the period in which his holdings grew.”
Monk took a swig. “I don’t care if this chump believes the alignment of Pluto and the starship Enterprise over the Washington Monument will bring back vaudeville. The supposed stolen license turns up on the vehicle of the two looking to send me to Jesus. Big Loco had a comp ticket to the Airport Casino, a place where an OG of the Scalp Hunters was also getting the house treatment.” Monk produced the pass he’d retrieved from the gang leader’s wallet and waved the card.
“Fascinating,” Grant said with a smirk.
“Fascinating my ass,” Monk retorted. “Fletcher has a Xerox of a shot from the Herald Examiner showing Maladrone and DeKovan together at the opening of the job training center.”
“That goddamn job training center.” Grant slowly rubbed the bottle of beer between his hands. “What do you want me to do, Ivan?”
“How tough will it be to get me a meet?”
Conflicting thoughts contorted Grant’s seasoned face. “It means I’ll have to see Jakes’s widow.”
Thinking he was understanding his tone, Monk asked, “You two didn’t get along?”
“She’s the third wife. Ex-stripper and silicone for brains.” He shook his head in private amazement. “No, that’s not fair. Actually, Khristi is alright. Bad breaks and shitty husbands. She really made an effort at, ah, self-enlightenment I’d guess you’d call it.”
“She’s read The Celestine Prophecy twice?”
“Some of us aren’t gifted with yo
ur raw insight.”
“Oh,” Monk drawled, Grant’s previous expression finally making sense. “She hot for teacher?” he jibed him.
“Don’t start,” he snarled.
“Her name again?”
“Khristi,” he said, and spelled it for him.
“If he only married this Khristi for her body, would Jakes have told her anything worthwhile about DeKovan?”
“You’d be surprised what a man will tell a woman after he’s rubbed the ol’ fire pole between breasts the size of casabas.”
Monk considered Grant’s sagacity. “Master Po may have something there.”
Beer in hand, he made a call on the wall phone in the kitchen. “Khristi? This is Dexter…. Uh-huh, yeah, I know, I meant to call sooner. Well …” Grant listened and drank. “Listen, I was wondering if me and a friend might come on over. No, no, don’t get a date for him, this is kind of a business and social call.” He had more Miller while she talked on the other end. “Khristi, Khristi, I don’t mean it like that. It’s just that my friend—His name? It’s Ivan. No, he’s not Russian. Anyway, he’s on a case and I need to talk with you about Perry’s work with DeKovan.” He was quiet again.
“Yeah”—he laughed, ingratiating himself—“he was a fucking maniac. Calling Perry at all hours and everything…. Oh yeah? He sent him to get that once? Oh, more than once.” He winked at Monk.
The conversation went on another ten minutes and then the two drove out to Khristi’s in their respective cars. She lived in San Dimas, in the San Gabriel Valley. The journey took serious navigation of the several freeways laced about the grid of the Southland: the 15 north into San Bernardino County, to the 10 west into Los Angeles County, then a quick swing north again along the 210.
Heading there they got hung up by a jackknifed tanker, which fortunately had left one lane open so their delay was only an extra forty minutes. To fight agitation, Monk tried to calculate how many millions of tons of concrete it had taken to lay out a freeway system that had begun with the building of the curvy Pasadena, first called the Arroyo Seco Parkway, in the late ’30s. Southern California now had more than fifteen hundred miles of freeways, and others were either being considered or under construction. Maybe, Monk fantasized, he ought to see about erecting an elevated Continental Donuts at a busy freeway exchange to service gridlocked commuters.
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