Only the Wicked (13 page)

The young man halted, his head down, his shoulders slumped. He put his hands on his hips like a ball player waiting to get in the game. “Look, it ain't healthy for me to be talkin' about my mom's sex life, don't you think?”

Monk came closer. “I've seen this kind of act before, that's what I finally figured out.” He got in front of him, not blinking. “You know that I used to do some bounty hunting, in my twenties?” His nephew indicated he did. “I did a good deal of bail-jumping work. Bullshit stuff like a bust for traffic warrants, a dime bag-that was marijuana in those days-house burglary, stuff like that.”

Coleman waited patiently for his uncle to get to his question. He could take all afternoon and it would be okay with him. Somebody must have got on base because a cheer went up from the crowd.

“Which meant working with and hunting people on
the
margins, walking the razor blades. So it happens you get to hanging around the kind of folks you won't find featured in an issue of eligible bachelors in
Jet.
You see what I'm saying?”

“I do.”

“So here it is: I've seen working girls who were knocked around by their pimps, beat with wire hangers, threatened with hot crimping irons—”

His nephew flinched at his uncle's words.

“—and they over-compensated in affection, attention to these bastards.” Monk was having a hard time talking. “Classic abuse symptoms. The more crap they had to take, the more they put out in love for their ‘daddy.'” He almost choked on the word. “As if that would soften the bastard's heart.”

Coleman, who'd been hunched against the wall, straightened to his height. He loomed before his uncle like an apparition bound by ancient spells whose job was to hold back anarchy. “You're puttin' me in a bad spot, Unk.”

“This is you and me talking.”

He rubbed both his hands over his long, slim face. The crowd booed. “I only know this one time, all right?” He paused, walking in circles. “I came in the pad unexpected-like about four months ago. I was supposed to be on a date with Vanessa, the history chick, but we had one of our set-tos. So I stroll in all mad like and straight up there's Mom lying back on the couch with the lights off.”

Involuntarily, Monk made fists. “Go on,” he said quietly. “She had a washcloth over part of her arm. At first, she tried to play it off like she always sits around without the lights on, a bruise on her and all.”

“You saw it?”

“I'd put on the light. I kept buggin' her, but kinda kiddin', you know? I really didn't think what it was. It was Just so weird her sittin' around like that. She finally took the washcloth down.” He made the motions with his own hand. “And there it was.” He rubbed the underside of his upper arm.

“Like a hand print?” A harsh anticipation shaded Monk's question.

“No, it was a bruise, looked purple, like spilled ink.” He looked off for several moments. “She said she and Frank had been fooling around, wrestling she said. Said she took a fall and hit her arm on one of the small tables in the front room.”

“And Frank wasn't around.” Monk sounded too calm.

“No. But Mom seemed embarrassed about what she told me. She made me promise not to mention it to you though.”

“Any other times you see anything like this?” Monk kept replaying how his sister had acted around Harris during dinner at his mother's house.

“No other times, Unk. That's why I'm not too sure what she said wasn't true, you know what I'm sayin'? I've never seen him raise a hand to her, even yell, really.”

Monk patted him on the shoulder. “It's cool, Coleman, it's cool. Everything is going to be all right. Let's get back.”

He knew his attempt at sounding relaxed rang false to his nephew as much as it did to him. They walked without speaking, peanut shells crunching beneath their leaden feet.

“Hey, you two build a new wing on the joint?” Grant cracked.

“Socializing,” Monk slapped Grant's knee and sat down.

Coleman Gardner glanced at him, a worried expression creasing his youthful brow. His uncle either didn't see it, or wasn't bothered by the young man's concerns.

White stole second in the bottom of the eighth and got batted in by Cora. The Dodgers won 2 to 1. Monk made plans with Seguin for a fishing trip as the cop took the quintet down Scott Avenue, descending from Dodger Stadium. After saying goodbye at the stadium to the lieutenant and his daughter, Monk, his nephew and Grant went to get something to eat. It was a day for junk food.

They took Grant's pristine '67 Deuce-and-a-Quarter over to the Tommy's, a burger stand on Beverly and Rampart. The big machine's V8 430-cubic-inch powerhouse bellowed sweetly as dusk settled over Echo Park. During weekend nights, the tiny stand and its lot would be packed with cars and patrons, its heart-stopping chill a lure for everyone from housewives from Eagle Rock to executives from the studios.

“You okay?” Grant munched on his chill dog with pleasure.

“Uh-huh,” the stretched-out teenager replied. He scooped some chili on the end of a clump of French fries.

Monk ate his chill cheeseburger voraciously. “Go on and eat, Coleman. Keep your energy up.” He chomped down on a hot pepper, shaking its juice onto his patty.

The younger man laughed and bit off part of the fries he'd been using as a shovel.

Grant pretended like he didn't notice the tenseness in the teenager's frame. He sipped his soda, watching Monk eat with the vigor of a starved tiger.

Later, Dex took them back to Monk's car at the stadium and then Monk took his nephew home. On the way the teenager said, “You're not going to do anything crazy?”

A pained smile creased his uncle's face. “I just want my sister to be happy.”

“That's not exactly answering my question.”

“Now you sound like a lawyer. I get enough of that from Kodama.”

“I'm serious, man. I don't want you goin' off on Frank over a humbug. Look, she's always calling him. They go places together. I'm sure what she said happened is what happened.”

“No doubt.”

Coleman slumped into the seat. “Oh, I really feel better the way you said that.”

“Sarcasm becomes you.” He parked in the driveway of his sister's house in Inglewood. The house looked serene, inviting. “I'll walk with you to the door.”

“Frank ain't here, I know his car.”

“I can walk my favorite six-foot-four and seven-eights-of-an-inch nephew to his house, can't I?” Monk bounded out of the Ford.

Some time after that, he lay awake next to a quietly sleeping Kodama. Monk enjoyed the sight of the rhythmic rising and falling of the light blanket covering her. But for him, sleep was not forthcoming. He couldn't separate his creeping anxiety, the legacy of the Rancho shootout, from what Coleman had told him. He wasn't sure he wanted to.

Chapter 9

The Rodcore Container factory was a series of structures laid out in what reminded Monk of Soviet factory architecture like he'd seen in film strips in junior high. The company was a series of rectangular buildings with saw-tooth roofs situated on nearly five acres of fenced-in asphalt in Santa Fe Springs. Monk had taken the 5 Freeway east through a brown and gray layer hugging downtown L.A. His car was buffeted by a morning traffic of trailer trucks barreling along to destinations in other states. He parked on the open lot and walked through an old-fashioned wooden door set with a thick window into a brightly lit shop floor of activity.

“Excuse me, could you tell me where I might find Frank Harris?” Monk asked a large man pushing a long cart of deformed aluminum cans.

The bearish individual had shoulder-length brown hair parted in the middle and a drooping mustache hiding part of his mouth. He pointed toward a section of the building. “He's probably in his office back there.” The man rattled off with his bounty.

“Thanks.” Monk moved uncontested among the men and women as a large apparatus, like something from a Terry Gilliam movie, hummed in the center of the room. The machinery turned out bright shiny aluminum soda cans that passed near him on a conveyor system. The workers serviced the massive contrivance in a choreography of efficiency. He found the office.

“Is Frank Harris available?”

The young Latina in the satiny shirt behind the beat-to-hell metal desk was reading the sports page of the
Press-Telegram.
She looked confused, blinking at the new arrival. “Do you have an appointment, sir?”

“Would you tell him it's Ivan?” he asked in his best casket-salesman voice.

She sighed with effort, folding the paper as if it were made of the alloy used in the cans. She smoothed the
Press Telegram
out on the desk. “All right.” She walked to an inner door, and opened it to stick her head inside.

“Frank, there's—”

Monk stepped from around her, striding into the office.

Harris had been making notations on the top sheet of a substantial packet of forms. He held the pen still in his hand upon seeing Monk. “Come on in, Ivan.”

Monk moved a chair in a corner near Harris' ash pine desk. He sat down without a word. Along one wall was a long window, its blinds up. The view was of the shop floor.

The young woman glared at him and then at Harris, who smiled awkwardly. She shut the door with another sigh of exasperation.

“What brings you out here, Ivan?” Harris intertwined his fingers together on the desk top. “There's nothing wrong with Odessa, is there?”

“That's for you to convince me, Frank.” Monk crossed his legs.

Harris' calm demeanor didn't waver. “I'm not sure what's got you so uptight, man. This seemed to start with dinner the other night.”

“Maybe it's when I got hip.”

“To what?”

“You've been knocking my sister around.” He uncrossed his legs.

Harris undid his hands, and began to fool with the form he'd been working on, keeping his head down. “You better put the brake on that, brah.”

“Why?” Monk burned, standing up.

Harris swiveled his head up. “It's not like that, Ivan.” He also stood up.

“Then what is it like?” He moved around the desk, coming closer.

Harris laughed nervously, trying to hide it behind a hand like an adolescent. “You just don't get it, man.”

Monk shoved him. Harris teetered back on his heels and righted himself easily. “Feel better now?” He squared his muscular shoulders.

“Not yet.” Monk came forward and Harris shoved him back with two hands on his chest. Monk had been braced and suddenly lumbered forward, ramming Harris in the abdomen with his elbow.

“Ease off, man,” the supervisor clamored. He tried to pry Monk loose.

“Don't you fuckin' put a hand on my sister again,” he hollered. Monk propelled the two of them against the wall, beneath a calendar with a photo of a gleaming gear.

“Goddamnit, Ivan, I don't want this to happen.”

“Don't think your age gives you shit,” Monk said, releasing Harris and backing up, fists ready.

The door to the office popped opened and two men rushed in. One was the cart-pusher, the other a gangly Asian kid with pimples. The first man yanked Monk's arms back, attempting to throw him across the desk. Monk resisted, and wound up in a slightly bent-over position, head up, teeth bared like a cornered animal.

“Who the fuck's this chump, Frank?” Bear-man asked.

The kid took hold of Monk's left arm, squeezing it anemically.

“If he'll behave, let him go.” Harris looked ashamed for Monk.

“I'ma call the cops on this
bendejo
,” the young woman advised from the doorway.

No,” Harris said. “He's my girlfriend's brother.”

That information didn't make the man who had the restraining grip on Monk ease up. “So fuckin' what?”

“Ivan?” Harris asked.

Monk's anger told him to say nothing and let them call the law. Yet somewhere behind the irrationality, he knew his actions would not look good to his nemesis in Sacramento, Mrs. Scarn. He'd never met her but had communicated for years with the bureaucrat via phone and taxed memos. She worked in the Bureau of Consumer Affairs, the state bureaucracy that oversaw his PI license. “Okay,” he said hoarsely.

Nothing happened for several moments. Monk breathed hard in and out. Outside the office window, the workers had gathered to see what was the deal. They all wanted to see the asshole going off in Harris' office.

“What should we do with him, Frank?” Bear-man asked. He pulled back on his grip.

“Let him go.” Harris' demeanor was that of a psychologist used to the antics of his most troublesome patient.

The mental image made Monk mad all over again, but he forced himself to maintain. “Yeah, I'm sorry.” Reluctantly he was released, the men and woman in the room murmuring and watching him closely for his next outburst. Monk put his hands on his hips, eliciting a nervous jerk from the bearish cart-pusher.

“We should talk about this some other time, Ivan.” Harris folded his arms, staring unblinkingly at his girlfriend's ill-tempered brother.

Monk couldn't talk and didn't want to meet anyone's gaze. He exited, a mortified feeling consuming him like a flu. His neck was hot and he wished he could simply become invisible. Standing next to the driver's door of his Ford, he knew he would be the subject of lunchtime talk, and after hours ridicule at the local watering hole. He felt cheap.

Back in LA., he pulled off the freeway and walked into a dumpy topless bar somewhere on East Fourth near downtown. The establishment was called the Tamal Haus, and was located in an industrial section a throwing distance from the Fourth Street Bridge. The façades of the brick-and-stone buildings in the neighborhood had been unnaturally grayed from the countless plumes of smoke from the countless trucks that had traversed this section since before Monk's folks came west. It wasn't yet eleven in the morning.