Violent Spring (4 page)

T
IGER FLOWERS HAD been, at various points in his life, a middleweight Golden Gloves champ, a Pullman porter (during that tenure he carved a horrendous gash across a Klansman's chest), a numbers man, a dock worker, a boxing trainer and an Army corporal fighting near Pusan in Korea with Monk's father. But it was in his capacity as a trainer that he'd acquired the Tiger's Den, a boxing gym, sauna and weight room located on West 48th Street in South Central.

Monk completed the third set of forty sit-ups on the inclined bench. Sweat flowed from his forehead like a broken spigot. He swabbed at it with a terrycloth towel and got off the bench. Flowers, still a powerfully built man edging past sixty, glided near him.

“Case, huh?” Tiger was not given to excess.

“I work out steady, Tiger.” Playfully, Monk slapped the towel at Tiger's solid midriff. “What makes you think I'm on a case?”

In his rasp of a voice, the old fighter said, “You only do sit-ups when you're training to go the distance.”

The two walked past a young Latino furiously pummeling a heavy bag on the way to the sauna room. “You missed your calling, Tiger. Ever think of making some money on the side as a therapist?”

The older man merely leveled saddle-brown eyes on Monk, waiting.

“I'm not even sure it's my case yet. But my girlfriend called me early today to tell me that the Korean Merchants want to hire me. They're coming to see me at my office this morning.”

“About this fella they dug up.”

“Yeah. Jill and I realize the only reason they want to hire me is to make themselves look good.”

“Then why do you want to do it?”

They reached the sauna and the two stopped. Monk leaned on the door, its warm waves penetrating the muscles of his back. “If I find the killer, it could be good for business.”

“Get yourself an office at the top of Sunset.”

“Have a couple of fine secretaries and do business lunches at the chic Morpheus Cafe,” Monk enthused.

“Maybe so.”

“Hire some assistants to do the leg work.”

“Uh-huh,” Tiger responded skeptically.

“Who knows.”

“Could be you like to see what makes people tick.”

Tiger clapped him on the back and walked back to the young man beating the hell out of the bag. Tiger held up his hand for him to stop, then demonstrated a smooth approach to working the bag through consistent blows that built up their effectiveness rather than going for that one knock-out punch.

“Like I said, you missed your calling, Tiger,” Monk said under his breath. He opened the door to the sauna and welcomed the satin cloud that swallowed his body.

Pak Ju Li sat rigid in the angular Eastlake staring at nothing. Kenny Yu sat next to him, taking in Monk's office. Jill had tastefully appointed it with a couch of supple indigo Italian leather, the low-slung Eastlakes, wood grain file cabinets—which were empty, Monk kept the files elsewhere—and a massive colonial-style desk for her lover. On one wall hung several masks Monk had collected in his travels in the Merchant Marines. The folk art of Senegal, New Hebrides, Guadeloupe, Thailand, Greece and Madagascar.

On another wall were several black and white photos in simple frames. One of them depicted Monk's deceased father in his Army sergeant's uniform. He was a big man in the top like his son, and he stood before a bar made of corrugated metal and leftover wood from packing crates. Over the entrance was a hand-lettered sign in Hangul and English, a mischievous grin splitting his face. Another photo showed Monk's last ship, the cargo transporter Achilles.

Kenny Yu turned his attention to the private eye sitting across from him at the large desk. “What do you say to our proposition, Mr. Monk? Will you search for the murderer of Bong Kim Suh?”

Monk, who had been reading the file folder they'd brought him, looked at the two men. “This information on Suh seems sketchy.”

“What does that mean, ‘sketchy'?” Li demanded.

“I mean that what you have here,” Monk said, pointing at the file, “tells me little about the man. Most of the information here deals with facts and figures about his business on Pico, the Hi-Life Liquor and Minimart. The date when he purchased it, its revenues and so forth.”

“Yes,” Li said, neither a question nor a declaration.

Monk fixed Li with a blank look. “It would be helpful if you had information on his likes, his hobbies, hell, you don't even have a home address for him. Was he into tall blonde women, short Latinas, what? Or was he gay?”

Li visibly blanched.

“Or for that matter, what he did before he came to America in '82.”

“I can't see why that would be relevant,” Li said. “He was murdered here, the killer is from here. Probably someone from the neighborhood.”

He stopped talking, but Monk said nothing. Li said, “Ours is a professional association, not a social club. Suh's life outside of his store was not known to us.”

“But his murder was odd,” Yu added.

“Three shots to the rear of his head. Thirty-two-caliber screw-turn brass bullets.” Monk paused, reading more of the firearms identification from the criminalist's report the Merchants Group had obtained. That alone impressed him; it wasn't everyone who could get the cops to release that report to civilians. “There was also the presence of grease on the entrance wounds found on the skull.”

“What does that signify?” Kenny Yu asked.

“It means the killer used one of those hi-tech suppressors on his gun. Silencers they call them in the movies. They use an all-weather grease in one of the baffles of the thing that along with O-rings help to dampen the noise a gun makes when fired. That is definitely not the weapon of choice of a street thug.”

Irritation set Li's face. “Are you saying that the Daltons or the Swans couldn't get ahold of one of these silencer devices?”

“Oh, I'm sure it'd be very easy for them to.”

“Then what's your point?”

“Why don't you have more information about someone who was a member of your association? You're sending me down the mine shaft with a penlight.”

Kenny Yu gave Li a sideways look. The president of the Merchants Group said nothing, then rose from his chair. He gathered the file from Monk's desk and began to walk away.

Yu remained seated. Li paused at the door. “If all you have are silly questions and no solutions, you are not the man we need.” Li opened the door, but Yu did not rise. Li looked at the back of the younger man's head, anger twisting his mouth. “Are you coming?”

Quietly, Yu said, “I think you should answer Mr. Monk's question, Mr. Li. The board did vote to hire him after we checked into his background.”

Li, his head turned to the side, clamped his mouth shut, closed the door and returned to his seat. He placed the file onto the desk as a peace offering. “Suh was never a member.”

“Well, that explains why his disappearance wasn't reported. Why wasn't he a member?”

“I don't know. Every Korean business person is not a member of our group. But like any good union, we have to look out for all the ones who we have common interests with. Especially now when we must demonstrate we are not to be pushed around.”

Monk looked at Yu, who shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, Mr. Monk, but I didn't know Suh at all.”

“Gentlemen, the way the murder was done, and the hiding of Suh's body infers a premeditated crime, a planned act that had a hitch.”

Li raised an eyebrow at this new unfamiliar colloquialism.

“Why wasn't Suh's body dumped in the ocean, or cut up and burned? Why was he buried, albeit in a deep grave?” Kenny Yu contributed.

“Exactly,” Monk said.

Li thrust a palm into the air. “That is for you to discern, I suppose.”

“All right. But just because you and I sign a contract, that doesn't mean anything goes.”

“What do you mean?” Li said, irritated again.

He seemed to Monk a man constantly upset with others or their situations. “If I uncover information that would threaten my license or my life, I'll turn that over to the cops. Short of that, whatever I find, I come to you first with it.”

Li said, “Very well.”

“And if there's anything of a more personal nature you can find out about Bong Kim Suh, I'd appreciate knowing it.”

“We agree to your price, $350 a day plus expenses. But, if at the end of two weeks your reports show no progress, we will terminate the agreement. As to Suh's life, I have no more to give.” Li got out of the chair and straightened the knot of his tie.

“I'll see what I can find out for you, Mr. Monk,” Kenny Yu said, rising from the Eastlake.

Li glared at Yu but remained silent.

Monk got up, his hand outstretched. “I'll have the paperwork drawn up and sent over to you later today.” Both men shook it and exited his office. Monk paced the carpet, absently tapping the file with his fingers. The door opened again and Delilah Shay entered.

She was the secretary/administrative assistant/woman Friday Monk shared with the housing development firm of Ross and Hendricks on the third floor of the refurbished office building in Culver City, two women who specialized in designing low to middle-income housing and rehab work. Delilah was a tall, well-proportioned, handsome black woman whose straight hair was testament to the Chumash bloodline in her family. At any given time, she had two or three men in thrall, all dangling on a string.

Monk stopped pacing and stared out the window overlooking the street. Delilah came up beside him.

“You in business?”

“It would seem so. I have an assignment for you, doc.”

“Should I change into my costume with the red ‘S'?”

“No need for leaping tall buildings in a single bound just yet. This work will require slyness, my dear.” Monk grinned and raised his eyebrows at her in an exaggerated manner. He explained what he wanted and she left.

Monk sat down, picked up the phone's handset and dialed.

The sounds of Ennio Morricone's score to
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
greeted his ears after the line connected. Then he heard the voice of Dexter Grant say, “State the facts please at the tone.”

Monk said, “Call me when you get in, got something I'd like for you to check on.” He severed the call. From the middle drawer of his desk he extracted a Cuban Monte Cristo cigar. Monk rolled the cigar between his thumb and the first two fingers of his left hand. He bit off the end, fished a match out of the desk and lit it.

Shafts of late morning light illuminated the chalky vapor rising from the burning cigar. Monk leaned back in his padded stainless steel swivel chair, smoking and thinking. Two hours later, Delilah returned. The dead stump of the cigar jammed into the corner of his mouth.

“Here you go.” She handed Monk a computer printout.

“Thank you.” He read the paper. “Was it much trouble?”

“Not really. The folks down at the Alcoholic Beverage Control department are quite sensitive in these post rebellion days to residents' complaints concerning liquor stores. After a little smoke and mirrors on my part, they showed me the liquor license for the Hi-Life Liquor and Mini mart. That print-out gives its history.”

“Including the address for Bong Kim Suh, who originally took it over from a man named John Collier. And look here.” He showed her the sheet. “The current license is under the name of something called Jiang Holdings in Stanton out in Orange County.”

“What do you make of that?”

“I be finding out.” Monk threw the used cigar away. He asked Delilah to send the contract over to the Merchants Group. He grabbed his brown checked sport coat from the old fashioned coat rack in the corner, left his .45 locked in his desk and quit the office.

The '64 Ford Galaxie 500 had been restored to better than assembly line condition. It was a 289 cubic inch V8, 4 door hardtop, 3 speed automatic, Dearborn-issued muscle, built when the big, gas-guzzling car was supposed to be every American's birthright. It wasn't a practical car, as far as fuel economy or tailing someone was concerned, but rebuilding a classic had been a dream shared by Monk and his dad.

They had discussed and planned which old car they were going to re-do, spending weekends awed at custom car shows and searching junk yards for just the right shell. Something of a long, low silhouette that bespoke of the legacy of the glory days of car styling. '50s fins didn't do much for either Monk, and they'd agreed that early '60s cars, generally a little shorter in their wheel base than their Cold War compatriots and more understated in profile, yet containing road-gobbling mills, was the era for them.

But then in the summer of '69, Josiah Monk suddenly died. And the dream of father and son became a fleeting image for the younger Monk. It would be years later before Monk made the wish reality. In between he'd bombed out as a football player on scholarship, and found himself working under the PI license of ex-LAPD detective, Dexter Grant.