Authors: Gary Phillips
“When I talked with Bong last, he said that if I hadn't heard from him by the end of the year, or hadn't received anything from him, then that would be a bad sign. That I should lay low until things broke.”
“He said that, âUntil things broke'?”
“His exact words. Hey, I knew Bong wasn't a nut, and something else happened that made me think whatever it was he'd been doing was the real deal.”
“What happened?”
“My crib got broken into and searched earlier this year. But my TV, stereo, none of that stuff got lifted. My ride, and even the locker I had at Trade Tech got busted into also. And then Antoine asked me to start helping move the truce into a second phase and all, so it seemed the right time to go underground.”
“Did Bong ever mention Jiang Holdings?”
“He could have, but I don't remember.”
“Any ideas on where he might have hidden his notes?”
James cocked his head and spread his hands in the air.
Monk stood. “How come he trusted you so much? How come you two were so tight?”
“He was an all right guy, man. Just 'cause he was Korean and I'm black doesn't mean that we're automatic enemies. Momma taught me to take each one at their word until they do you dirt. And as for why he trusted me, well, I'd like to think it's because we talked for real to each other. Got to know something about the other one. He told me his wife was beaten to death by the cops in some kind of strike at this place called the Dongil Company. I told him about an uncle I had who got sent to the hospital by the cops because he was a garbage man striking for better wages way back during the Civil Rights days in Montgomery.”
“Out of curiosity, why did you break it off with Karen Jacobs?”
“I really like her, man. I didn't want her to get hurt in all this mess.”
Monk held out his hand and the other took it. “Thanks for your time and the information, Conrad.”
“Do you think you'll find Bong's killers?”
“I'm going to run them to ground, as an old friend of mine says.”
At the bottom of the stairs Crosshairs stood, his face in its usual blank pose, but Monk noticed activity in the eyes. As he drew close, the OG spoke.
“You find out something useful?”
“I think so.”
Monk started to move past him, but said, “I had a run-in with a couple of Scalp Hunters who said that the Daltons used to deal drugs out of the Hi-Life Liquors.” He turned to gauge the other's reaction. “Anything to that?”
“The bums ain't party to me truce. Some of those brothers ain't nothing but stone capitalists, anything for a dollar. I'm not saying the Rolling Daltons are a bunch'a saints, I am saying ain't no Dalton killed Suh over crack profits or any other reason. I've checked, Mr. Detective. If this peace thing is gonna hold, I got to know the for real on everybody who could fuck it up.”
“Do you mean that, or are you just giving me a snow job? Make me think you're the gangster with a heart of gold.”
“Believe what you want, home. Believe we started this truce 'cause we got a devious plan in mind like the cops say. Believe we did it 'cause some of us is tired, beat down from bangin' and seeing our homies and relatives die. Or believe that some black men and women can come together and not try to kill one another.” Crosshairs went up the stairs, not caring to wait for Monk's reply.
Mad-T dropped Monk off at the Tiger's Den on 48th Street. He assumed that Keys and company were keeping watch on his office and his apartment. And he wanted to be able to move about unfettered at least for the next few hours.
“You look like chewed over gristle,” Tiger said, greeting him.
“Thank you, honey.” Monk winked at him and walked over to the pay phone. Figuring the tap was still activated on his office phone, Monk dialed the inside line of Hendricks, one of the developer partners he shared space with. She answered, and Monk asked her to get Delilah and put her on the line.
“Where the hell have you been?” she scolded.
“Detecting.”
“You better get back over here and detect this.”
“What?”
“Ms. Scarn called again. She says maybe you better have your attorney get in contact with her. She says not only is there a question about your failure to file a weapons discharge report, but there is a new allegation of failure to cooperate with the authorities in a murder investigation.”
“Goddamn Keys.”
“Yeah, well, Special Agent Keys also called and asked in a very pleasant tone that when you had a chance, he'd like to hear from you.”
“He's trying to put the screws to me through Consumer Affairs. Did Ms. Scarn say anything else?”
“She said you have to come to her office and talk this matter over.”
“She give a deadline?”
“No. But it was pretty clear she wanted to hear from you soon. Like today.”
A pause dragged, then he said, “Did you deposit that check I asked you to from SOMA?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, don't be so testy.”
“You think you're so fucking smooth.”
“Everybody keeps telling me that. Call Ms. Scarn and tell her I can meet with her anytime she likes.”
“Okay. Oh, Roy Park called you back, too. That is, he called back for the name you gave him on your phony card.”
“Did he say when and where I could reach him?”
“He said he'd be out of his office until this afternoon, but that if you missed him he'd be down at his property on Vermont around two tomorrow.”
“Good work. Call his office back and tell them I'll meet him there.”
“Anything else you need me to do?”
“When I hang up, I want you to priority-messenger a note to Jill's bailiff. His name is Jory, and he knows me. Ask Jill in the note if she will pick me up over at Tiger's place around,” Monk checked the time, “nine o'clock tonight”
“Why all the subterfuge lately, boss? You getting beeps over the phone, rushing in and out of your office, the FBI dropping by, and your fourth call was from Jill. She sounded worried about you.”
“There are more things on heaven and earth, my fine beauty, than our petty concerns.”
“What?”
“I'll explain soon enough. Put Hendricks back on will you?”
She did and Monk, taking out his notepad and flipping it to a certain page, asked another favor of the architect. She said she'd find out what he wanted to know and Monk hung up. He wanted to call Jill but wasn't sure that her line into her chambers wasn't bugged, so he held off. He went to his locker and changed into his sweats. Mad-T had given him back his .38 and the ankle rig and he placed these on top of his clothes and shut the locker.
For the next hour and a half Monk went through his routine of weights, sit-ups, cals, and some stationary bicycling. He rewarded himself with a stint in the sauna and then, towel wrapped around his waist, lay back on the bench in front of his locker.
“Say man, this ain't no flop house.” Tiger Flowers was shaking him awake, laughing.
“How long was I out?”
“A little over an hour. You looked as though you needed it.”
Monk straightened up on the bench. “I better get going.”
“All this have to do with this case you been on?”
“It's been a bear-hugger, Tiger. Listen, I may be back later tonight, if that's okay.”
What passed for a smile creased the folds around the Asiatic eyes of the old champ. He went to his office and returned with a key which he handed to Monk. “You need me to stay?”
Monk clasped him on the shoulder. “Ain't gonna be no rough stuff tonight, chief.”
Flowers brushed the hand aside. “Good. Just make sure you turn out the lights when you're through. This damn sure ain't no charity outfit.” He rumbled off to find some kid who thought he was going to be the next Sugar Ray Leonard or Riddick Bowe to yell at.
Monk finished dressing, mentally mapping out his moves for the next few hours. As a formality he checked the .38 to make sure it hadn't been tampered with and strapped the ankle rig back on. Emerging into the structured cacophony of the gym, Monk absorbed the sounds and smells of all the agile young men. They were the inheritors of poor and working-class myths, shadow boxing against the Tiger Den's yellowing plaster, jumping rope across her drab floor, or endlessly sparring in the four-cornered ring that would lead nowhere for most of them. Hoping to cash in on their fears and dreams in the great scam as old as the reign of Caesar, the boxing game. And in me process, somehow believing that their magnificent bodies could elevate them beyond the claim that time and death would place on their lives.
The harsh sunshine bracketed Monk's body as he walked out of, then away from, the factory of pugilists. He walked east along 48th until he got to Figueroa, then trudged north along the main thoroughfare. The El Scorpion was a ticky-tacky joint inserted between a shoe repair parlor and a barber shop in a building which had apartments with fire escapes on its second and third floors. The entranceway was painted in uneven vertical strips of azure and green and a black scorpionâone of its claws pinching the mini-skirted butt of a woman with breasts drawn completely out of proportion to the rest of her bodyâarched over the open door.
Monk considered walking in and sitting at the bar, but thought better of it. Watering holes, like communities in Los Angeles, tended to be segregated. And judging from the clientele he watched trickle in, the El Scorpion was definitely a gathering place for a Latino crowd. Besides, Ursua's big Caddy was nowhere in sight. He may have already traded it in for something else, but Monk doubted it. That car was meant to be seen in. He waited.
Not having the luxury of a car to hunker down in, Monk passed the time by ordering coffees at the donut stand on the corner and playing a couple of pathetic games of chess with a white-haired man who bore a resemblance to Milton Berle. The location afforded Monk a view of the bar's front door and at a little past four in the afternoon, the metalflake-blue El D cruised by and went down a side street.
Monk left the stand in time to see a medium-built, thick-waisted man wearing aviator-style sunglasses in a black polo shirt and white jeans, enter the El Scorpion. As casual as he could make it, Monk entered me establishment after him. The place was dark and there was sawdust on the floor. On its tinny speakers, the juke belted out some woman singer doing heavy melodramatics to a tune in Spanish.
Two men in mechanic's blues huddled conspiratorially over a pitcher of beer and a table. Another man in a UPS uniform sat at the oak bar drinking a martini. Two young Chicanas and a young man in knee-length slack shorts and penny loafers sat at another table, laughing and drinking. It must be some kind of trend, Monk reasoned. College kids, like the ones down in San Pedro the other night, who got a kick out of hanging out in neighborhood dives. Or a grand scheme of organizing the great unwashed into a vanguard of cutting edge culture.
Since the idea of blending in with his environment was not possible, Monk walked up to me man in the white jeans, who also sat at the bar, with one of his boots up on the rail.
“Ruben Ursua,” Monk said to the man, standing a little to the side and in back of him.
The other man bestowed a baleful stare on Monk in the reflection of the mirror behind the row of bottles. “Fuck off. I'm not on parole anymore.”
Monk laid a business card on the bar for him to see.
Ursua glanced at it and went back to his drinking.
“Usually people whistle and clap when I show them this.”
Zero.
“How about if I want the same deal you gave Bong Kim Suh?”
That got a rise. “I know your name, now. You're the one them Koreans hired to find out about his killing. I don't know shit, man.”
In his voice Monk could hear the cadence one learned in the prison yard. The code of silence crooks and cops, doctors and lawyers, and politicians and priests used. “Dig this.” Monk put two twenties on the bar in front of Ursua, who tried to pretend he didn't notice them. “Just tell me where you delivered the car he wanted, and I'll forget who told me.”
“Otherwise the cops might find out, and I get dragged into this thing.”
That was the farthest idea from Monk's head, but he said, “And they said you weren't a team player.”
Ursua put his squat glass of scotch on the bar and picked up the twin twenties with the same hand. He folded them deftly with his one hand and placed the bills in his pants. “It surprised me when Conrad called me up, it was him that told you about this. I mean, I ain't mad or anything. I just want to make sure there ain't no leaks on my side.”
Monk sat beside him at the bar. “You thinking of supplying cars for the Pentagon or something?”
Ursua sipped his drink and waited.
“Look, the way this works is I gather information from A and that leads me to B, who gives me more information and so on. Now, I don't tell B who A is, and I don't tell C who B is. Know what I'm saying?”
“I'm supposed to be satisfied with that?”
“It'll have to do, Ruben. But just to ease your anxiety a little.” Monk produced another twenty and slid it across.
“I guess I'm going to have to believe you're as closed-mouthed as you pretend.”
“Like a priest.”
The lone twenty joined the others. “I'm going to have to show you. I don't remember the address but I do remember the part of town the place was in. You'll have to follow me in your car.”
“I'll go with you.”
Ursua's head tilted slightly and he got off his barstool. They removed themselves from the El Scorpion and got into the bad-assed El-D. He fired the big mill up. The V8 idled with a self-assured purring as the heavy car pulled into the flow of evening traffic.
“Carter 750 Competition carb,” Monk said, appreciatively.
“You got good ears. Hey, you must have been the one who came by the house in the Galaxie.”