Mr. Monk on the Road (15 page)

“And shoes,” Monk said. “Then everyone would be level at all times on every surface.”

“You’re suggesting we wear hydraulic leveling shoes,” I said. “Don’t you think it would be cheaper, and far less cumbersome, to just rely on your own sense of equilibrium?”

“Mine, yes,” he said. “Yours, no. Sadly, most people are seriously unbalanced.”

“That’s another reason why it’s better to just stay at home,” Ambrose said.

Once the motor home achieved its balance, I hopped out in a hurry, eager to hook us up to the electricity, freshwater, and sewer while I could still see what I was doing in more than just the dim glow of the lights from the neighboring Winnebago’s windows.

Our RV had three holding tanks—one for freshwater, the other two, the gray and the black, for wastewater. The gray tank held whatever went down the sink and shower drains, and the black held whatever was flushed down the toilet. Neither of the wastewater tanks was even close to full yet, but I still didn’t want to mix up their lines or accidentally open one of them all over our campsite.

The hookup, or shore power as the RV rental guy called it, was a metal box containing the electrical outlet and an adjacent faucet. We didn’t really need the shore power or water—we had plenty of water in our holding tank and our batteries were charged—but there was no reason not to tap into those resources while we had the opportunity.

Monk had insisted on filling our holding tank with Fiji bottled water to start, which was a laborious task he did entirely on his own. But I made it clear that we wouldn’t be able to repeat it on the road. So we compromised by installing a filter onto the hose that attached the RV to campsite faucets, but I’m sure that did little to make Monk feel secure. He considered tap water only slightly cleaner than urine.

I looked around for the sewer outlet and soon found a metal cap obscured by a clump of weeds at the edge of the campsite. The weeds were actually the sign that revealed the sewer’s location. The RV rental guy told me to look for the weeds, which thrived on the fertilizing, sewer-line spillage.

Now that I knew where everything was, I could begin plugging our motor home into it all.

I opened up a compartment on the side of the RV and pulled out a long electrical cord, which I plugged into the shore power outlet. Next I took out the freshwater hose line and attached it first to the RV’s water valve and then to the campsite faucet, which I opened up. Power and water were now flowing freely into our motor home.

So far, so good.

Now I had to deal with the waste system.

I opened the compartment containing the wastewater tanks and put on the pair of rubber gloves that I’d stowed there earlier. I screwed the wastewater hose to the Y fitting that served both tanks, which emptied through a common hose that I fed into the sewer outlet. I dragged the hose over to the sewer outlet and slid it open with my shoe, releasing a horrific odor. I held my breath and snaked the pipe inside. I hoped that Monk hadn’t seen how I’d opened the outlet or he might demand that my shoes be incinerated.

I went back to the RV and opened the gray tank valve so the water from the sinks and shower could feed freely into the sewer. I wouldn’t empty the black water tank for a couple days so that there would be enough liquid inside to flush out the solids. That’s probably more detail than you want to know, so I’ll stop right there. But I will say that it wasn’t a task I was looking forward to, especially since I knew that I could expect no help whatsoever from Monk when the time came to do it.

I was standing there, looking over everything, and going through a mental checklist to make sure there was nothing that I’d overlooked, when I heard a man’s voice behind me.

“Newbie?” His voice was ragged and had a slight Southern twang.

I turned and saw the man’s gaunt face in the half-open window of the Winnebago. His weather-beaten skin was like a thin layer of fading paint, his hair a few strands of wind-blown straw. He looked like a scarecrow, brought to life by the translucent tube that was looped over his ears and stuck into his nostrils, feeding him with oxygen.

Whatever the disease was that had ravaged him had made it hard to peg his age. He could have been anywhere between sixty and ninety years old. But his bright blue eyes flashed with vitality and a touch of mischief, so whatever his age, he was clearly young at heart.

“How did you guess?” I replied.

“I’m a keen observer of human nature. Plus you look terrified that you’ve made a mistake.”

“Have I?”

He smiled. His teeth were yellowed and seemed to have too much space between them. I wondered whether that was a symptom of his disease or its treatment.

“You might want to turn on your propane. It will save you a trip outside if you want to cook a meal, heat your motor home, or have a hot shower. It can get very chilly here late at night and early in the morning.”

I did as he suggested, and when I came back, I saw that Monk had come out with his level, which he pressed up against the RV at various points.

“By God, it is level,” Monk said.

I smiled and noticed that our neighbor was smiling, too. I decided to make introductions.

“I’m Natalie Teeger, that fellow with the level is Adrian Monk, and the man in the window staring at you is his brother, Ambrose.”

“Glad to meet you, fellow wanderers. I’m Dub Clemens. How long have you been on the road?”

“Less than a day,” I said, standing beneath his window. I could hear the hum of his oxygen device now. “We left San Francisco this morning.”

“The successful end of the first day of a maiden voyage deserves proper recognition. Come aboard and we’ll celebrate. I make the best martinis west of the Mississippi and east of it, too.”

“Technically, that would be the entire nation,” Ambrose said from his perch at the dinette window. “Minus Alaska and Hawaii, of course.”

“By God, you’re right,” Dub said from his window, directly across from Ambrose. “I’ve got to get myself to Alaska and Hawaii so I can conquer their martini-meisters, too. So come aboard, sample the fruits of my decades of studious mixology, and tell me if I’ve got a chance at prevailing in those colder and tropical climes.”

“We don’t drink,” Monk said.

“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I’d love a martini, Dub. Let me just pop out my slide-outs and I’ll be right over.”

“I’ll get the party started,” he said, and disappeared inside.

I passed by Monk and went back into our motor home. He rushed in after me.

“That was obscene,” Monk said, “and you aren’t even drunk yet.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, going to the control console mounted on the wall beside the door and squinting at the array of buttons.

“Your salacious remark about popping out,” he said.

“I was referring to this,” I said, and hit a button that expanded the two slide-outs, the port-side dinette area and the starboard side of the aft master bedroom.

The slide-outs extended from the RV by a few feet on both sides, greatly enlarging the interior space. As soon as the dinette area began to move, Ambrose scrambled out of his seat and threw himself across the motor home to the safety of the galley.

“Does this vehicle ever stop moving?”

“Sorry about that, Ambrose. I’m enlarging the motor home to its full size,” I said. “Now we have even more room to move around in.”

“Are there any other surprises I should know about?” he asked.

“She’s a lush,” Monk said.

“Having one drink after a long day does not make me a lush,” I said. “I am just being sociable.”

“With a complete stranger,” Ambrose added.

“That’s how you make friends,” I said. “Everyone is a stranger at first, even the people you eventually fall in love with.”

“It’s good that I’ll be staying behind,” Ambrose said. “I can keep a close eye on you and call for help if Mr. Clemens drugs your alcoholic beverages, pulls out an ax, and hacks you both to pieces.”

“I doubt he’s an ax murderer,” I said, though for a moment I wondered whether his easy amiability hid any demonic intentions. I decided I was just being silly. None of the Satanists in
Race with the Devil
were as immediately friendly as Dub, nor were they as seriously ill as he obviously was, so I headed for the door. “Are you coming, Mr. Monk?”

“I’m not drinking anything,” Monk said, following me. “I’ll be your designated walker.”

“It’s not a long trip from his motor home to ours,” I said. “I think I can handle it.”

“We’re on the edge of a cliff,” Monk said.

“Good point,” I said.

“I’ll be keeping my eye on you both,” Ambrose said.

We walked over to Dub’s RV and knocked on the open door before entering.

“Come on in,” Dub said, and we stepped inside.

Our RV was essentially a hotel suite on wheels, but his was an apartment. The linoleum was scuffed, the carpets were ragged and stained from use, the faux-leather couches were creased, and there were newspapers, magazines, and paperback books on almost every surface. But it wasn’t unattractive or messy. The wear and tear and the clutter gave the motor home a lived-in quality that made it feel cozy and warm, a place where time had been spent and memories made.

But Monk grimaced, clearly put off that the place wasn’t antiseptically clean. Although Monk had lived in his apartment for almost twenty years, it looked like a model home that had never actually been occupied. I found Monk’s place cold and uncomfortable. Every time I tried to warm it up by hanging a photo taken of him, or by displaying a souvenir from one of our adventures, or by leaving something of my own around, like an afghan to curl up with on the couch on a foggy afternoon, he quickly got rid of whatever it was and put it in a cupboard.

The floor plan of Dub’s RV was about the same as ours, except that the cockpit was fully integrated into the motor home. The creased, well-worn captain’s chairs for the driver and passenger swiveled around to face the living area.

Dub was at the galley, emptying the contents of his silver mixing jug into the last of the four martini glasses he’d lined up on the counter in front of a frosty bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin that he’d obvious kept stowed in his freezer. I wondered where the vermouth was.

He was not a well man. His skin was pale, and his sweat-shirt and jeans were baggy, as if he’d shrunk a few sizes since buying them, and he wore shoes with Velcro straps so he didn’t have to bother tying laces. The oxygen tube under his nose was attached to a long, clear line that pooled around his feet and snaked back into the rear bedroom, so he could roam around the entire RV without dragging the tank along with him.

I could see file boxes stacked between the bed and the wall and a laptop computer amid his rumpled sheets.

“Help yourself to some mixed nuts,” Dub said, motioning to a bowl of nuts on the dinette table.

“We don’t eat mixed nuts,” Monk said.

“I do,” I said, reaching for a handful.

“It’s dangerous,” Monk said.

“They’re cashews and peanuts,” I said. “Not nitro and glycerin.”

“There are things that shouldn’t be mixed,” Monk said. “And by that I mean all things.”

“You’re an interesting fellow, Adrian,” Dub said. “Where’s your brother?”

“He can’t make it,” I said.

Dub looked out the open galley window and saw Ambrose looking right back at him from the window of our RV.

“Do you have a prior engagement?” Dub asked.

“Nope,” Ambrose said.

“Feeling ill?”

“Nope.”

“So why don’t you join us?”

“I don’t go out.”

Dub nodded, as if he understood. “You’re about to begin a love affair, my friend.”

“I don’t see how,” Ambrose said, “or with whom.”

“With that motor home you’re in. You can be footloose and fancy free and yet you can sleep every night in your own bed and you never have to use a strange restroom. Wherever you go, you’re always home.”

“Is that why you travel in a motor home?” Monk asked.

“I’m a wanderer by nature, Adrian,” Dub said, dropping a lemon peel in each of the martini glasses. “I’ve got lung cancer, and I barely have the energy to walk much farther than the length of this RV. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it imprison me in a room until I die. That’d rot my insides faster than the cancer. So I hit the road. Besides, I still have one more story to write.”

“I don’t leave the house,” Ambrose said. “Does that mean my insides are rotting?”

“Only you can answer that, my friend,” Dub said. “But while you’re at it, think about this: Depriving a man of his freedom by confining him to one place for a long period of time is the worst punishment that we, as a society, inflict on someone, short of taking their lives. Why do you think that is? And why do you think we have that in common with most civilized societies on earth?”

Dub picked up a tiny atomizer off the counter, sprayed something into the martini glass, and handed it to me.

“I saw that,” Monk said.

“Saw what?”

“Don’t play innocent with me. You spiked her drink,” Monk said. “What did you put in there? LSD? Ecstasy? Rohypnol?”

“Vermouth,” Dub said. “The ideal martini has three measures of gin to about one tablespoon of dry vermouth. But it’s hard to get the balance quite right. It’s more instinct than measurement, anyway. I used to put the vermouth in the glass first, then pour it out before adding the gin. But it was a tricky, imprecise procedure and a waste of good vermouth. The vermouth mist is a big improvement.”

He handed me a martini.

“You are serious about your martinis,” I said.

“H. L. Mencken, a titan in my field and a connoisseur of language, once said that the martini is almost as perfect as a sonnet. Since I can’t write a decent sonnet, I applied myself to mastering the martini instead.”