Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Mr. Monk in Therapy

D
r. Neven Bell’s office in North Beach was all dark wood and leather furniture and was more masculine than a jock strap. I felt like I was sitting in the parlor of a private, and very snooty, men’s club.

But the decor was a sharp contrast to the man who actually occupied the office. Dr. Bell was gray-haired and balding, wore lots of sweaters and tweeds, and exuded so much confidence and warmth that you couldn’t help feeling safe and comfortable around him. Whatever your problem might be, he looked like the man who had the answer.

I’d only been sitting in the waiting area for a few minutes, barely enough time to read half of the cartoons in the
New Yorker
, when Dr. Bell slipped out of his office, closed the door behind him, and came to me.

“Adrian and I are going to need the rest of the afternoon,” he said.

“What about your other patients?”

“Fortunately, my day is clear.”

That was a surprise—not that Monk needed more attention, but that Dr. Bell had the time to give it to him on such short notice. Usually the shrink was so booked up that he wouldn’t indulge Monk for even an extra minute once a session was over. Apparently, even shrinks were feeling the pinch of the bad economy.

“That’s good, because he’s lost his grip,” I said. “His reaction to this water thing is way, way over the top, even for him.”

“It’s not about the water, Natalie.” Dr. Bell sat down on the edge of the coffee table. “It’s about what it represents.”

“Of course you’d say that,” I said. “You’re a shrink.”

“It’s a bottle of water to you and me, but for Adrian it’s a profound loss that requires a fundamental adjustment for him emotionally and psychologically.”

“All he has to do is switch brands,” I said. “I’m sure there are other waters that are just as old and pure.”

“You don’t understand. This is an attack on his carefully ordered and maintained life. He’s losing one of his last remaining ties to his mother, to his past, to a way of life.”

“A dysfunctional way of life,” I said. “A lot of his problems are his creepy mother’s fault.”

“Now who is sounding like a shrink?” Dr. Bell said with a smile.

“There’s a reason Monk is obsessive-compulsive and his brother, Ambrose, won’t leave the house.”

“Even so, losing the water he loves means facing, at least to some degree, his inability to control his world,” Dr. Bell said. “He needs to accept the loss and then confront the uncertainty and necessity of change.”

“He still has to drink something.”

“Don’t worry. Adrian won’t die of thirst. He’ll get through this and come out of it a stronger person.”

“Will two hours be enough time for you today?” I said.

“I think so,” Dr. Bell said, getting up again. “Convincing Adrian, however, might be more difficult.”

I was in the mood for a latte at Starbucks but my sense of fiscal responsibility prevailed and I went to McDonald’s for coffee instead, using the money I’d saved to buy a small order of fries and a copy of the
San Francisco Chronicle
.

I took my coffee, fries, and newspaper and walked up to Washington Park so I could enjoy the fresh air and the cloudless blue sky.

I was lucky and found VIP seating—a bench that was perfectly positioned to give me fabulous, postcard-perfect views wherever I turned my head.

In front of me, Coit Tower rose above the trees and the rooftops on Stockton Street. To my right, south on Columbus Avenue, I could see the top of the Transamerica Pyramid. And to my left, I could see St. Peter and Paul Church, white as a wedding cake, on Filbert Street.

But instead of appreciating those views, I couldn’t take my eyes off my newspaper. It was like looking at a train wreck, a plane crash, and a naked celebrity all at once.

Almost all the stories were connected to the economy in some way, which would ordinarily be a big bore. But not in these dark days.

There was a big piece on Jack Moggridge, the ongoing criminal trial, and the tens of millions of dollars he’d taken from Big Country. That wasn’t news. The big development was the discovery of what he’d done with all of his profits.

Moggridge invested almost every penny he had with Bob Sebes and his Reinier Investment Fund, which six months ago undoubtedly seemed like a very smart move. Sebes was regarded as a financial genius in the banking industry and his $2 billion fund delivered consistent returns for his investors regardless of the ups and downs of the world economy.

But this time, the economy had gotten so bad that many of Sebes’ investors, in deep financial troubles, were cashing out of the fund because they needed money. The problem was, Sebes didn’t have the cash to cover the withdrawals and a few weeks ago he was forced to make a terrible confession.

His fund was a fraud, a massive Ponzi scheme, and the $2 billion was all gone. Where it had gone, he wasn’t saying.

So that meant Moggridge was broke.

And while that was sweet, poetic justice for his criminal actions, it was hard to savor knowing that his victims would never be compensated for what they’d lost because of him.

Meanwhile Sebes, responsible for one of the biggest financial frauds in history, had been placed under house arrest in his Pacific Heights mansion pending his trial. The news today was that a judge, despite the public outcry, had upheld the house arrest, arguing that Sebes had surrendered his passport, was wearing a GPS tracking device on his ankle, and, as one of the most reviled men on Earth right now, there was nowhere for him to run.

I could understand the judge’s ruling, but it still pissed me off.

If I mugged a guy in Washington Park for the hundred dollars in his wallet, I’d go to jail. But Bob Sebes had defrauded banks, pension plans, charities, and thousands of individuals out of billions of dollars and he got to stay at home, eating caviar and drinking champagne all day in his satin pajamas.

Why did he get locked up at home instead of in a jail cell? Was it because he was rich? Because he was once a highly respected figure on Wall Street? Because he hobnobbed with movie stars, famous athletes, and world leaders?

Of course that was why.

What made it harder for me to accept was the fact that even if he was eventually sentenced to prison, it wouldn’t be the same one that I’d have to go to for mugging somebody. I’d be sent to some godforsaken hellhole and have to share a tiny windowless cell with some drooling child molester. But Sebes would get sent to a Ritz- Carlton prison with individual suites instead of cells, four-hundred-ply bedsheets, satellite TV, and espresso machines.

There was a file photo accompanying the article of Sebes and his wife, Anna, a former concert violinist, relaxing on their yacht in Marin. She was his college sweetheart and, like many long- married couples, they’d grown to look like fraternal twins. Or maybe they just shared the same plastic surgeon.

They both looked tanned, healthy, and comfortable, and far younger than their fifty-plus years. They also looked pretty pleased with themselves, which is probably why the editor chose the picture for the story. But to be fair to the Sebeses, I’d probably look vibrantly youthful and smugly self-satisfied if I had a few billion dollars in the bank, vacation homes in France and Hawaii, a yacht, his-and-hers personal trainers, and a full-time chef.

The rest of the stories on the front page were just as cheery and upbeat. I read about the state’s $30 billion budget shortfall, the demise of a historic restaurant that had survived such calamities as the 1903 earthquake, and the possible closure of the
Chronicle
itself, which would leave the city without a single newspaper.

I crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the trash. I was so angry and depressed that I was tempted to ask Dr. Bell if he had a couple of hours for me, too.

No wonder Monk didn’t bother keeping up on the news. I considered following his example and living in blissful ignorance, only in his case it was blissless.

On my way back to Dr. Bell’s, I stopped at a grocery store and picked up an assortment of bottled waters for Monk to choose from to replace Summit Creek. I didn’t expect him to pick one right away, but at least it would be a start.

Monk was waiting for me outside of Dr. Bell’s office when I drove up. He didn’t look as content as he’d been when he found the crumpled parking ticket, but he wasn’t as overwrought as he’d been when we’d arrived at the crime scene. He got inside the car, buckled up, and let out a long, mournful sigh.

“Was Dr. Bell helpful?” I asked as we drove off.

Monk shrugged. “When you know that a blazing meteor is heading straight toward Earth and will completely eradicate the human race, how helpful can a visit to your psychiatrist really be?”

“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating just a tiny bit?”

Monk nodded. “A tiny bit.”

“It’s a bottle of water, Mr. Monk.”

“It’s a meteor. The thing is, it’s already hit Earth. We just haven’t died yet.”

At his apartment, Monk set every bottle of Summit Creek water that he had left on the dining room table for inspection and counted them several times. He wrote the number down on a piece of paper. And then he counted them again.

“The number hasn’t changed, Mr. Monk. It won’t change until you drink a bottle.”

“This is serious business, Natalie. I need to be exact and vigilant. My survival depends on it.”

I set out the bottles of water that I’d bought on the other side of the table.

“You should start sampling some of the other bottled water that’s available,” I said, motioning to the samples I’d laid out.

“You can’t replace Summit Creek,” he said.

“You don’t have a choice,” I said. “Unless you’d prefer to die a slow, miserable death.”

“I’ve been doing that since birth.”

I picked up a bottle of Arrowhead water. “What about Arrowhead? It comes from a spring in the San Bernardino Mountains.”

“Those are dirty mountains,” he said.

“Dirty mountains?”

“I’ve seen them and they are caked with dirt.”

“All mountains are covered with dirt,” I said.

“Those mountains are dirtier,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, picking up another bottle. “How about Hawaiian Springs water? It’s fresh rainwater from the lush peaks of Mauna Loa that’s percolated through thirteen thousand feet of porous lava.”

“Only thirty days pass between when that water drops from the sky, falling through thick layers of airborne pollutants, and when it’s bottled,” he said. “I don’t want to drink smog, airplane exhaust, and bird gas.”

“Bird gas?”

“Birds have disgusting dietary habits,” he said. “They’ll eat anything.”

I set the bottle aside and picked up another one.

“How about Crystal Geyser? The water comes from springs at Mount Shasta in California, the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee, and the Blue Ridge Mountains in South Carolina. You get the best water from across the entire nation in one bottle.”

“You want me to drink mixed water? What are you thinking? That’s like drinking mixed nuts.”

He was right. I should have known better than to suggest that one to him, not that his reasoning made any sense.

I picked up the last bottle.

“You can’t go wrong with Evian. It is gourmet water derived from rain and melting snow on the highest, most pristine peaks of the majestic French Alps.” I was laying it on thick but I wanted to make the sale. I was the Billy Mays of bottled water. “It takes fifteen years for the water to filter through deep aquifers of glacial sand before it’s bottled.”

“Fifteen years? Don’t make me laugh.” Monk picked up a bottle of Summit Creek. “This is pristine water from the Ice Age, before the dawn of man. There’s simply no comparison.”

He’d shot down all four brands. But I wasn’t discouraged. That was just round one and the game was rigged in my favor. There were a lot of bottled waters out there and I knew that Monk would have to pick one of them eventually.

He licked his lips and let out a dry, wheezy cough. All of this talking about water had obviously made him thirsty. He took his bottle to the kitchen, found a teaspoon, and carefully poured some water into it.

Monk slowly sipped the teaspoon of water, his eyes closed, savoring the taste of prehistoric Earth.

“What’s our next move on the case?” I asked.

“What case?” he said, opening his eyes and licking the spoon.

“The murder of Mike Clasker.”

“Who?”

“The man who was strangled with piano wire in a locked car in a busy intersection on Van Ness Boulevard in broad daylight right in front of Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher.”

“Did they see who did it?”

“No, they didn’t,” I said, practically screaming at him by this point. “Didn’t you listen to anything you were told at the crime scene?”

“Bits and pieces,” he said. “I can’t concentrate when I’m dehydrated.”

“You had a drink of water ninety minutes before we went to the crime scene.”

“It was a long, brutal walk in the blazing sun from the grocery store to that intersection.”

“It was a few blocks,” I said. “It was hardly the Bataan Death March.”

“I dry out quickly.”

“Captain Stottlemeyer is counting on you, Mr. Monk. You need to focus on this case.”

“I’ll get right on it,” he said. “After we burn my clothes.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Mr. Monk and the Perfect Balance

M
y daughter, Julie, was curled up on the living room couch, texting on her iPhone, when I came into the house lugging a large plastic trash bag.

Julie was taller than me, more of a woman than a little girl now, and that troubled me. Only when she smiled did I see the child in her again. But the smiles weren’t as frequent as they used to be.

She was at that sullen, moody, hormonal stage of teenage life when everything I did was irrational, unfair, capricious, outrageous, dictatorial, immoral, unethical, and inconvenient. She had so many adjectives to describe how wrong I was about everything that I wondered if she consulted a thesaurus before our arguments. Then again, that would have required her to crack open a book, which I rarely saw her do anymore. Most of the time, she was at her computer, communicating with her friends or surfing the Web.

Julie barely looked up when I came in. “What have you got there?”

“Four bottles of water and the clothes Mr. Monk was wearing today.”

“Why do you have his clothes?”

“He wanted me to burn them but he doesn’t have an incinerator.”

“Neither do we,” she said. It came out sounding more like a warning than a statement of fact.

“No, but we can build a bonfire in the backyard or burn them in our fireplace.”

“You aren’t going to, are you?”

“Why not?” I said, just to needle her.

“Because it’s crazy and someone might see you,” she said. “I have to live in this neighborhood.”

“Of course I’m not going to burn his clothes.” I dropped the bag near the front door and took out the bottles of water, lugging them over to the couch. “What made you think that I would?”

“Because you do a lot of crazy things for him and it’s embarrassing.”

“For me, maybe, but not for you.”

I put the bottles on the coffee table, sat down next to her, and opened up the Hawaiian Springs water for myself.

“What about the first-aid kit he gave me that I had to take to school every day?” she asked. “Or the lunches with everything cut into squares?”

I took a big sip of the water. I couldn’t taste Hawaii in it, or any pollutants or bird gas, but the water did feel crisper and lighter on my tongue than what came out of my kitchen sink.

“It’s not unusual for sandwiches to be square,” I said.

“It is for cookies and potato chips,” she said. “People thought I was the nut who sat with a pair of scissors cutting my potato chips into squares.”

“The fact that Mr. Monk took so much time and effort on your behalf shows how much he cares for you.”

“That’s not what it shows,” she said. “So what are you going to do with his clothes?”

“I’ll drop them off at Goodwill on my way to work in the morning.”

“I need you to take my bike in to be repaired, too. Something is wrong with the gears.”

We were having a conversation but she hadn’t looked up at me and was texting the entire time. I didn’t know how she could have two conversations at once, even if one was verbal and the other one was not.

“Why don’t you take it to the bike shop yourself?”

“Because it’s, like, miles away.”

“You’re on summer vacation,” I said. “What else do you have to do?”

“Why should I walk it all the way there when it’s much quicker and easier for you to just drop it off?”

“Because I am not your slave. What if I get a stain on my pants? I’ll have to come back home and change my clothes or Mr. Monk will insist on setting fire to them when he sees me.”

“You wouldn’t have to run errands for me if I had a car,” Julie said.

Our arguments often came back to her constant nagging for a car. She hated being seen in mine, a Buick sedan, and felt that being “dropped off by her mother” everywhere was humiliating.

“So buy one,” I said.

“I don’t have the money.”

“Get a job,” I said.

That got her attention. She looked at me as if I’d just told her to run naked down the street singing show tunes.

“It’s summer,” she said. “I’ve just come off of a long, hard year of school. I need to recharge. Like bears need hibernation in the winter.”

“So where do you think this car is going to come from?”

“You could buy me one.”

“With what?”

“Don’t you have some money set aside?”

“We can’t afford an aside.”

“What about for emergencies?”

“We can’t afford emergencies, either.”

Julie sighed with the full weight of her teenage angst and frustration. It was quite a sigh, truly Monkian in its exaggerated theatricality. I was tempted to applaud.

“You could ask for a raise,” she said.

I laughed. “From Adrian Monk?”

“Why not?”

“You have met the man, haven’t you? He’s not just a tightwad—his wallet is hermetically sealed. And I mean that literally.”

“You could ask your parents for the money.”

“They are not an ATM and you have to stop treating them that way.”

“You could get a loan against the equity in our house.”

“You’re just full of ideas of things that I can do to generate cash,” I said. “What about things that
you
can do?”

“You’re the parent. I’m the child. It’s your job to support me and give me the resources I need to thrive in the world.”

“Suddenly when money is involved, you’re a child. But when it comes to staying out on Friday night, you want to be treated as an adult. Do you see the contradiction there? The hypocrisy?”

“Not really,” she said.

“Now you’re just playing dumb,” I said, getting up. “I’ll get your bike fixed. That way we don’t have to have this car conversation again.”

“I’m going to need a car someday,” she called after me as I walked away.

“I’m sure you will. And when that day comes, I hope you have some money set aside to buy one.”

I didn’t tell her that my parents bought me a car when I was her age and I wasn’t going to volunteer the information anytime soon, either. There was no benefit right now in her knowing that hypocrisy was a family trait.

In the morning, I folded the backseat down and we wrestled the bike into my car through the trunk. One of the tires brushed against my pants in the struggle, leaving a tiny smudge that I couldn’t wipe off. If I wasn’t seeing Monk, I would have ignored the mark and gone about my business. But it was a workday, and Monk expected me at his door promptly at ten a.m.

I was tempted to yank the bike out of the car and make Julie take it to the shop herself, but I’m not that vindictive. At least not when I’m in a hurry.

So I ran back into the house and changed my pants, which only left me enough time to drop off Monk’s dirty clothes at Goodwill before going to his house. The bike repair would have to wait until the end of the day.

Monk was lying on his couch, licking his lips and gasping for each breath, when I came in.

“Captain Stottlemeyer called,” Monk wheezed. “He wants us to come down to the station.”

“Has there been a break in the case?”

“I don’t know. But I can’t go.”

“Why not?”

“Can’t you see?” Monk said. “I’m a desiccated corpse.”

“You’re not a corpse yet.”

“I feel dead. Are you sure I’m not dead?”

“Corpses don’t whine.”

“But I’m desiccated,” he said. “I’ll be nothing but bleached bones soon.”

“How are your bones going to get bleached in a dark apartment?”

“I’m going to leave a can of bleach here beside the couch and detailed instructions for you when you find my bones.”

“I’m not bleaching your bones, Mr. Monk.”

“Some assistant you are,” he said. “What do I pay you for?”

“Come to think of it, you haven’t paid me this month,” I said. “Thanks for reminding me.”

He groaned. And wheezed. And gasped.

I ignored his death throes and went to his desk, took out his checkbook, and brought it over to him.

“Can’t you see I’m withering away? How can you take money from me while I’m withering?”

I handed him a pen. “Because I’ve earned it.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said. “If I feel more moist.”

“If you don’t write that check, get off that couch, and go down to see the captain, I am going to take a sip from one of your last bottles of Summit Creek.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he said.

“I happen to have a bottle right here,” I said, reaching into my purse for it.

“Okay, okay, relax. Don’t do anything that I’ll regret.” Monk sat right up and filled out the check. “You realize that putting a gun to a person’s head and forcing him to sign a document against his will nullifies it.”

“I’m not putting a gun to your head,” I said. “It’s a bottle of water.”

“It’s the same thing.” He tore off the check and handed it to me.

“Have a teaspoon of water and let’s go,” I said. “You have a murderer to catch.”

I managed to get him on his feet, hydrated, and out to the car within a few minutes. I had bills to pay that night so we made a quick stop at the bank to deposit my check, and then we headed downtown. Monk glanced over his shoulder at the bike in the backseat and frowned.

“What’s that doing in here?”

“There’s something wrong with the gears. I’m going to take it to the bike shop on my way home tonight.”

“Did you wash the bicycle before putting it in the car?”

“No.”

“Do you know where those tires have been?”

“On the road. On bike trails. Maybe a few sidewalks.”

Monk nodded, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and covered his nose and mouth. “Those wheels are caked in decay, disease, and death.”

“All the big Ds,” I said.

“You’ll have to get the car fumigated.”

“I’m not fumigating the car because of a bike.”

“It’s not the bicycle itself that’s the problem. I love bicycles. It’s the wheels. They are unsanitary.”

“No one is asking you to eat off them,” I said. “I didn’t know you loved bikes.”

“Riding a bicycle is one of the few times in life when it’s possible to experience perfect balance.”

“Then how come I’ve never seen you ride one?”

He sighed and slumped sadly in his seat. “It wasn’t meant to be. I had a traumatic experience on a bicycle before I finished learning how to ride.”

“Everything for you is a traumatic experience,” I said. “What made this one any worse?”

“The kids ridiculed me for using training wheels.”

“Everyone uses training wheels at first,” I said. “That’s not unusual at all.”

“That’s what I thought, but kids can be so heartless and cruel,” Monk said. “Every time I tried to ride my bike, they’d point at both sets and hurl nasty insults at me.”

“Both sets?”

“Of training wheels,” he said. “Front and back.”

“You had training wheels on the front of your bike?”

“Of course I did. It wouldn’t be symmetrical or safe otherwise. Anything else would be suicidal.”

“Didn’t you notice that the other kids only had training wheels on the back?”

“They’re lucky they survived,” Monk said. “They’re probably all dead now, unless they gave up the risky lifestyles they had as children.”

I could see why the kids made fun of him. If I was a kid on his street, I probably would have ridiculed him, too.

“It’s never too late to learn to ride a bike, Mr. Monk.”

“It is for me,” he said. “I’m too late for everything worthwhile in life.”

There was no point in arguing about it with him, though that was true of all of our disagreements. Monk had his set view of things and nothing was going to change it, particularly if doing so would detract from his wallowing in sweet misery. Charlie Brown was a happy-go-lucky guy compared to Adrian Monk.