Violent Spring (9 page)

“Sure, I don't want to wear out my welcome.” He rose. “If you don't know where Conrad is now, could you tell me where he used to live?” She couldn't duck that one.

Jacobs hesitated, then went to a cabinet built into the wall and took out her address book. Monk drifted near her. She sat at a table and wrote down the former address and telephone number for the missing Conrad James. She tore off the corner of the yellow pad, almost an exact duplicate in size to the note she'd left at the Hi-Life, and handed it to Monk.

“Thanks.” He put one of his cards on the table. “Let me know if you think of anything else.” It occurred to Monk he was giving out more cards than an ambulance chasing lawyer.

“I will,” she said unconvincingly.

He drove away from the duplex, west up Washington toward his office. The black woman with the ostentatious hair was still there next to the motel. She was talking to the men in the grey Blazer with the Weld-style rims. The vehicle was turned into a driveway, sideways to the boulevard so Monk couldn't get a look at the plates. He checked his mirror, but the Blazer wasn't following him.

At the address Jacobs gave him for James, Monk found an apartment whose current occupant never heard of the young man, didn't want one of his cards, and wouldn't tell him who the manager was. The private eye quit the place and grabbed a beer in a bar.

F
ATHER DIVINE, THE Depression-era conman/ preacher of Harlem, was giving him a lecture on the best method of preparing catfish stew and mustard greens. This he didn't mind. But they were having an argument on how many cardamom seeds to put in the Turkish coffee. Matter of fact, as the both of them sat in Tiger Flowers' sauna drinking Cuba Libres, the others in the room asked them to take their senseless discussion elsewhere.

Monk was about to say something to Paul Robeson, he being the most vociferous about his and Father Divine's departure, when the goddamn bell went off again.

“Shit, answer that motherfucker,” Monk mumbled, climbing out of sleep. He groped, found the handset, and pulled it to the pillow somewhere in the vicinity of his head.

“Sorry to wake you, my friend.”

What?

“Mr. Monk, are you there?”

“Yes.”

“As I'd said, I apologize for the earliness of the hour. But having raised five children of varying ages, my body clock is eternally attuned to getting up at five-thirty each A.M.”

Jovial son-of-a-bitch. And then the voice made its way past the skull into the brain. “Mr. O'Day.”

“Ah, yes indeed, sir. You are a detective.”

“What can I do for you at,” he glanced at his clock radio, “five-forty in the morning?”

“I was wondering if you'd be my guest for breakfast.”

Why not? “Where?”

“The Odin Club.”

“I didn't know they let black people in there.”

“Mr. Monk, Mr. Monk, what a splendid man you are. Let's say a decent hour, shall we. Eight-thirty.”

“Sure. I'll wear my tie rakishly askew.”

“Of that I'm sure.”

The call ended and Monk rolled onto his back, staring at the names in the case revolving around the inside of his head. He added O'Day's, unsure at the moment of how much prominence to give it. But time would tell. He got out of bed and trudged into the bathroom. Monk took an invigorating bath, all the while examining the facets of the case. Toweling off, Monk put on his charcoal grey sharkskin suit and a round collar carmine colored shirt which he buttoned all the way up.

He got a shot of Nicaraguan coffee from the espresso joint on the corner. With time to spare, he tooled his car west on Sunset, past UCLA, the Bel Air Estates (where the Great Communicator and Mommy lived), Brentwood, and on into the sphere of affluence which was Pacific Palisades. Drawing closer to the Coast Highway, Monk put the Ford onto a road winding into the Santa Monica Mountains. On a street called Apollo, he arrived at the gated driveway that led to the Odin Club.

On either side of the wide roadway was a guard booth, for the entrance and exit. Each was done in the shape of a five-headed plaster-and-lathe dog with a mane of writhing snakes sitting on its haunches. Cerberus at the port of Hades. In the belly of one of the dogs was the two sectioned door that allowed the guards to look out. Each was blonde, with pecs the size of Nebraska straining the black shirts of their uniforms. One was crew cut, the other splendidly Californian in a ponytail.

A column separated the dogs. At the top of it was a statue of someone Monk presumed to be Atlas. The muscular figure squatted and strained while holding up not a globe, but an oil well. They really mixed their metaphors and mythology around here, Monk concluded.

Ponytail, on Monk's side, leaned his large head toward him as he stopped at the closed gate. “Can I help you, my man?” He said it like he was used to turning away the unwanted and unwhite several times a day.

“Ivan Monk to see Maxfield O'Day.”

Ponytail looked at Crewcut, a smirk stretching his thin lips. “Sure,” he said. He arched back into the booth on the stool he sat on and punched something up on a monitor. He looked at it for a few beats, then turned back. “Go on in, Mr. Monk.” He turned a knob on a console and the gate swung upward. Monk drove on up.

The asphalt drive, lined on either side by a low strip of flagstone, had large palm trees running parallel to it beyond the wall. At the end of the winding path, seemingly in another time zone—or was that another time?—was the Odin Club.

It was a multi-tiered structure, with several of its levels jutting into a mountain side. All white, sun-washed walls, pillars, tile roofs, maplewood shutters, chrome railing and cut glass panes in a mix-mash of Greco-Roman, Beaux Arts and Streamline zip. The total of it overwhelming and harkening back to the Roaring '20s when it was built with robber baron money. An ostentatious den for high society parties and some dirty, low-down sex with well endowed chorus girls.

Monk went up the slab of steps to the entrance of dual oak doors embedded with wrought iron rings. He yanked on one of the doors, and was surprised to find it opened effortlessly. It was guided by pneumatic cylinders on the top and bottom. He stepped into the foyer with its stone composition floor. Instantly, a smooth-haired maitre d' appeared beside him.

“This way, Mr. Monk.”

Monk followed the spry gent into a dining room of forest green carpeting, oak-paneled walls, and indirect lighting. Old and middle-aged white men, some in suits and some in designer workout togs, inhabited the eating ground of the powerbrokers. These were not the men seen eating in the Polo Lounge or Spago, talking on their cellulars while sending the water back because it didn't have enough sparkle.

No, these men ate bacon and eggs or cereal and half a grapefruit for a light breakfast. They drank their coffee black and strong and wouldn't know cafe au lait if you spilled it on them. Their names rarely surfaced in the pages of
People
or
Los Angeles
magazine, and their faces never graced the cover of
Time
. For they were the scions of Mulholland and Otis, Griffith and O'Melvany. Heirs not to gaudy, transient fortunes of celluloid or software, but the eternal stuff men and women fought and died for the world over. Land and water.

Monk made it to a table by a window where Maxfield O'Day stood to greet him. No one in the room had stopped talking to gape at him or drop food from their mouths. Monk imagined O'Day must have warned them that one of the inner city denizens would be in their midst this morning.

“Glad you could come, Mr. Monk.”

“My pleasure,” Monk replied.

The two shook hands. As he'd expected, O'Day's grip was firm and he looked you in the eye when he spoke. The attorney was natty in a tan gabardine suit, light blue single-stitched shirt with buttoned-down collar offset by a patterned aquamarine tie. They sat down. The Pacific, silent and purple in the morning light, rolled beyond the large thick-paned window bordered in etched filigree.

A waiter, another older, white-haired, white guy saddled up beside the table. “Coffee?” He stared down the middle of the table, neither at Monk or O'Day.

“Absolutely, Graham. And the breakfast menus, please,” O'Day said.

The waiter drifted off. O'Day placed his elbows on the table. “I won't waste your or my time with a lot of useless small talk, Mr. Monk.”

“Fine.”

O'Day reached into his pocket and withdrew a sealed number-ten envelope. In the corner was the four-color logo of SOMA. He pushed the envelope toward Monk. “There's a check and some information in there.”

Monk made no move for the envelope. “What's the job?”

“Finding the killer of Bong Kim Suh.”

The coffee arrived and the waiter left the menus.

Monk mixed in half and half and sugar. He sipped. “I'm sure you know that I already have a client in that matter.”

“Nothing precludes you from having another client whose interests converge on a matter. Or, from working more than one case at a time.” O'Day examined the menu. “The blueberry pancakes are quite good.”

“Just eggs and toast, for me,” Monk said to the waiter who'd reappeared.

“The pancakes and a side of bacon,” O'Day said.

The waiter went away again, leaving a faint trail of mothballs.

“Why is SOMA interested in Suh's murder?”

“Business, Mr. Monk. It's important that Save Our Material Assets demonstrates it is a responsible member of the community. And frankly,” the wattage came on in his smile, “we can't get that site going where his body was found.”

“The police are holding it up?”

“The FBI. The bastards have managed to slap a federal injunction around the site and my law firm's been going around in circles trying to get it lifted.”

“So they and you won't be satisfied until the Suh matter is resolved.”

“Yes.” O'Day drank his coffee. On his ring finger was a class ring inscribed with something in Latin Monk couldn't make out. He saw Monk staring at it and said, pointing at it, “
Lux Et Veritas
.”

“Light and Truth. Harvard.”

“Class of '64. You were probably still on training wheels.”

“I still am.”

Their food arrived and they ate in silence. Midway through, Monk paused and opened the envelope. Inside was a check for five thousand pretty little green ones and some folded sheets. He unfolded the sheets. A 3X5 photo dropped out. Monk turned it over. On the back, typed on a label, was the name of Conrad James. He turned it over.

Its contrast was terrible and looked to have been shot from a another photograph. The photo revealed a vital young black man in his mid-twenties. James was standing in a park, a beer in one hand, the other around the waist of an unidentified girl. Dressed in jeans and a sweat stained T-shirt, Conrad James, and his wiry frame and open face, was a modern-day Neal Cassidy come to South Central. Monk could see why Karen Jacobs had asked around about him.

On the first page of the typed information the name of Conrad James was listed along with a physical description of the man. There was also his last known address, his social security and driver's license number, and known associates. Among them was an Antoine “Crosshairs” Sawyer, a cousin and reputed leader in the Hauser Avenue Rolling Daltons.

On the second sheet was a description, address and remarks about Sawyer. The last sheet contained information on two others who had worked in Suh's store, James Robinson and Ruben Ursua. Names Monk had received from Karen Jacobs.

“What do you think?” O'Day asked.

Monk re-folded the sheets and placed them and the check back into the envelope. “Why isn't there anything in here about Suh?”

“Why should there be? James is the one missing and one of the others who worked in the store, Ursua, has a criminal record. He too seems to be scarce these days as well.” Light came through the window and cast half of O'Day's face in an angelic glow.

“Meaning you think both he and James had something to do with Sub's murder?”

“I'm not suggesting any such thing. I'm merely relating the facts as I understand them.”

Monk said, “And what do you think is the motive for Suh's murder?”

O'Day wiped a finger across his uncreased brow. “I don't know. He left no will nor seemingly had any assets.” O'Day looked away to the ocean then looked back. “Somehow it always seems that money, real or the hint of it, is at the bottom of these things.”

“I find it interesting you're willing to pay me for work I'm already doing.”

O'Day lifted his cup of coffee. “Let's look at it as a good faith investment on the part of SOMA. It's my opinion as its president that there may be further,” he made circles in the air with his free hand, “bumps in the road to rebuilding. It wouldn't hurt to have someone like you around who may be available as our trouble shooter in these coming months.” He lit up his sign of a smile.