Violent Spring Read online

  He finished one of the sandwiches, absently considering if he’d developed a flat spot on his butt by sitting on it for so long. The late afternoon came on and the working stiffs began to arrive. A middle-aged woman with a beehive hairdo drove her Ford Escort twice around the spot Monk was parked in. It was obvious that she parked there every day at this hour. The woman glared daggers at Monk, and he smiled at her like an imbecile. She snarled and found another place.

  Monk watched several people enter the apartment complex, none of them Bart Samuels. He stretched and checked his watch. Six forty-five. Waiting until seven, as the light of day started to fail, Monk got out of his car and walked back to the apartment.

  He knocked on the apartment door.

  “Yes.” The man who opened it was slight of build and had a receding hairline.

  “Are you Bart Samuels?” Monk said.

  “I am. What can I do for you?”

  Monk gave him a lame story about investigating an auto accident and looking for the witnesses. He parted with another business card and left. Angry with himself that he’d wasted a day, he drove to the Norm’s on Lincoln. Sitting at the counter and waiting for his order, it flashed on Monk how he was going to get something on Stacy Grimes, as well as the correct residence for Bart Samuels.

  And it was as easy as going to a baseball game.

  The Dodgers beat the Astros four to two. There were ejections for fighting, and some guy spilled his beer over a woman in a Teamster Local 417 jacket.

  Monk wasn’t overly fond of baseball—football and roundball were his favorites—but his nephew, his sister Odessa’s son Coleman, loved it to death. There was a shelf in his room lined up with the plastic encased baseball cards of Maury Wills, Hank Aaron, Nolan Ryan, and other stars.

  Trophies attesting to Coleman’s own prowess in the sport were stacked along another shelf. Atop that shelf was another one that was testament to the teenager’s other passion.

  Computers. On it were technical manuals, magazines about new and powerful software, books about cyberspace and virtual reality, and other publications intended for the practicing hacker. Which his nephew was, to a degree.

  “Did you see that hit Robinson got, Uncle Monk?” Coleman said, his fourteen-year-old voice edging into the baritone it would soon become.

  “Yeah.” Monk finished his Dodger Dog. “He hasn’t lost much since his back surgery.”

  “Yeah,” his nephew agreed.

  The crowd started to leave and Monk and his nephew exited the stands to his car. Since it was a weekday, traffic wasn’t too bad leaving Dodger Stadium, and Monk took Scott Avenue down to Glendale Boulevard. There he went south and wound his way to 3rd Street and headed west, into the haze of the setting sun.

  “What’s happening in school?” Monk asked nonchalantly.

  Coleman pulled his X cap low on his forehead. “Same ol’, same ol’.”

  “How about a little more elaboration?”

  Coleman smiled. “I ain’t one of your suspects, you know.”

  “Every teenager is a suspect.”

  “That’s what the coach says.”

  “Speaking of which, how does the season look for you guys?”

  His nephew proceeded to tell him how his team was coming together if only the starting pitcher, Martinez, could get his fastball under better control. They traveled south along Western toward Continental Donuts.

  They arrived as evening darkened the contours of the city. The plaster donut on the roof of the building looked like the lost wheel of Paul Bunyan’s buckboard. Monk cut the motor, and he let them in through the back door.

  “What kind of information do you want the to bring up?” Coleman said, sitting down in front of the computer as it warmed up in Monk’s room at the donut shop.

  “I want whatever I can get on Stacy Grimes and Bart Samuels. Addresses, credit reports, et cetera.” He elected not to tell his nephew that Grimes had been murdered. Not that the kid was fragile, he did go to public school in Los Angeles. And certainly he had classmates who had friends that had died by violence, by drugs, or by their own hands.

  If anything, Monk was sure Coleman, like his peers, had an almost nihilistic attitude to their coming of age in this town on the edge of the abyss. How else could you psychologically balance dealing with zits on your face and what route to walk to school to avoid a crossfire?

  But it was a mixture of family love and a certainty in his being that whatever he could provide in the way of a father figure to the young man—albeit a flawed one, but one that at least was consistent—provided one more rung for one more young black man in the ladder out of self-destruction.

  Coleman’s fingers depressed several keys then hit the return bar. “The online service I had you subscribe to has a sub-service called PhoneBank.”

  “It provides phone numbers?”

  “And addresses and something about them sometimes.” Coleman got his prompt and typed in Grimes’ name, backslash, then the name of Hermosa Beach.

  “How does PhoneBank gather its information?” Monk asked, pulling up a chair next to his nephew, worried that his sister would kick his ass if he got the boy in trouble. The screen went black momentarily.

  “Don’t sweat it, Unk. They get it from phone directories, birth certificates, real estate and stuff like that. Everything we’re gonna get tonight is legal.”

  “If not exactly ethical,” Monk remarked. “Good thing it’s for a good cause, huh? Maybe I should feel guilty that I’m corrupting you?”

  “Naw. This is what they call situational ethics, right?”

  “It is the way the world works.”

  “Mr. Rationalization.”

  Monk rapped a playful shot on his shoulder. “Where you learning them big words?” Yes, quite a father figure. Maybe his sister could remarry a priest.

  Grimes’ name reappeared along with his birthdate, place of birth, address and a phone number. Below that was a record of an ’89 Ford Bronco he’d bought on credit from a used car lot in the Valley.

  “What about criminal records? He was supposed to have been busted for assault.”

  “I have to exit PhoneBank and try Recon.”

  Monk queried, “They’re the ones that offer one of the databankers who do pre-employment criminal checks of public courthouse records?”

  “Yeah.”

  Monk’s nephew punched the code and soon had a service called Recon on the screen. An 800 number flashed below the logo.

  “You need to call them and give them your detective’s license number.”

  Monk dialed the number and got a service rep. He gave the required information, along with his bond number, and charged the information retrieval to his credit card. Numbers into data, data into information, information available to those who know how to work the circuits.

  Was Keys sitting at his computer calling up Monk’s record, reviewing it, changing it? Maybe that natty, cuff-linked son-of-a-bitch was looking at Jill’s data. Maybe he and his boyfriend, Diaz, were drooling over the fiber optic lensed video of Jill and him making love in their bed. Jesus. Monk felt like Winston Smith falling down the rabbit hole. He replaced the phone’s handset and sat down again.

  On the screen was a listing of three arrests and one conviction for Stacy Grimes. All the charges revolved around assaults of one kind or another. In 1987, Grimes had been arrested for allegedly putting a man’s head into the side of a car. Coleman did a cross reference, which showed that Grimes had been a bouncer in a bar in that incident, released on his own recognizance.

  In 1989, Grimes was convicted of armed assault in an incident involving a former girlfriend. In 1992, he was again arrested for assault. This time against a man named Roy Park. Cross-indexing brought up an address in South Central where the incident took place. Grimes was bailed out and had been currently awaiting trial on the charges.

  “It should be on record who posted bail,” Monk said.

  Coleman drew down a selection from the on screen menu. �
��Nothing.”

  “Interesting, must mean they paid cash. Let’s see what we can find on brother Samuels.”

  His nephew repeated the inquiry for the other man who guarded the Odin Club. No arrests came up. “How about an address,” Monk said.

  After several moments three Bart Samuels and their respective addresses tumbled onto the ether of the computer’s field. The one in Santa Monica, and the other two in Redondo Beach and Diamond Bar. Monk stared at the Redondo Beach address. He wrote it down, and opened a drawer in the desk, taking out a Thomas Brothers Map Guide.

  “Now go back for Grimes and see if you can punch out the address for that night club he worked at.”

  “Okay.” Some blips and taps later, Coleman brought up a club called Frothy and an address in Redondo Beach.

  “Now how about Samuels’ employment record?”

  “Can’t do it. At least not with this service. That’s one you’ve got to fill out a form for and they come out and interview you.” Coleman took a sip of hot chocolate and a healthy bite of the raisin square his uncle had brought him.

  “Let’s do this,” Monk began, “let’s look up Mr. Park. Try the PhoneBank again.” On the map page for the section of Redondo Beach he was looking for, Monk found the approximate area where Frothy is, or still was. Not far from it was the street where one of the Samuels lived.

  Monk looked up. Several Parks phosphorized onto the screen along with their numerous addresses.

  “Damn,” Monk said. “Hey.” Monk looked at the notes he’d been taking. “Try this address where the assault happened with Grimes and Park.”

  “Try it how? I need to know what field you want to be in.”

  “Roy Park’s name, then the address in South Central.”

  “Okey-dokey.” Coleman’s fingers worked the keyboard as he watched the screen, its yellow glow casting his face in pale saffron. In seconds, more information appeared along with the name of Roy Park and the address on Vermont Avenue.

  “Well, well,” Monk said. He recognized the address as some small stores on Vermont near Jefferson.

  Puzzled, Coleman said, “What is this?”

  “It’s land Mr. Park owns, Cole. Rental property that he holds the deed to.” And the words of Linton Perry from the other night flooded Monk’s memory. Absentmindedly, he tapped the plasticine cover of the map book.

  “You did good work, youngster. But I better get you home ’fore your mother skins me.”

  The young man rose, and Monk was startled to see he came to his shoulders. “When the hell did you start growing?”

  “Always,” he said, gobbling down the remains of his raisin square. “Anyway, it’s a proven fact, as you get older, you get shorter.”

  “Come on, slob head.”

  Monk took his nephew home, and walked with him inside the modest house on 4th Avenue. His sister was sitting at the dining room table, getting her lessons plans together for tomorrow. Odessa taught sixth grade in the massive, and massively underfunded, Los Angeles public school system.

  “Hi, Mom.” Coleman leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.

  “Hi, sweetie.” She patted him on the cheek.

  Coleman waved at his uncle. “I got some homework to finish. Thanks for the ballgame, Unk.”

  “Sure, man. See you soon.”

  The nephew entered a door with a poster of Michael Jordan taped on it. Over that it read in blue letters on a white field “Females Only Need Enter.” Monk sat at the table where his sister worked and massaged the back of his neck.

  Odessa looked at him over the rim of her half-glasses. “This case getting to you?”

  “A bit.”

  She put down her pencil. “How are things with you and Jill?”

  “What makes you ask that?”

  Odessa did a thing with her lips. “Just wondering.”

  “I don’t know,” Monk answered honestly. He got up, uneasy with the prospect of exploring where his relationship with Kodama was going, unsure of the territory he was in. More willing to see what would happen rather than intervene and try to alter the course of fate.

  “I asked,” his sister said, “because someone I know saw you and Tina being all cozy at the Satellite last Saturday night.” She leaned back in her chair, waiting.

  Monk said, “That was just about this case. Tina had heard from Ray who said, for a fee naturally, that he’d tell the City Council where to find Crosshairs.” Inwardly, a stab of guilt assailed his psyche. He had been mesmerized by the image of Tina throwing back her head and her dreads haloing around her strong features. There was a strong pull in him to those times in the past when each of their bodies was attuned to the sexual rhythm of the other.

  “Ray, Ray Smith?” Odessa asked incredulously.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Do you believe him? Did Tina know where he was?”

  “No and no. I told her he was full of shit like all the times before.”

  “He wasn’t always,” Odessa said, who knew, as Monk and Tina knew, a once-kind and charming Ray Smith. The one that still existed for them in their collective past.

  “I’ll let you get back to work.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek and started for the door.

  “You talk things out with Jill, Ivan.”

  He halted.

  “I used to be against you and her going around, as you know. Being a black woman, I thought you should only be with another black woman.”

  Monk turned from the door.

  “I’m not saying that all of a sudden everything’s the rainbow and all that shit,” his sister went on. “If anything, things have gotten worse as far as race relations go. God knows I see it enough even in elementary school. But the world is too small and our time too limited to live by rules the heart can’t keep.”

  He smiled at her and left.

  The next day Monk had the unshakable perception he was being watched again. He searched the Ford but couldn’t find anything. Still, driven by the palpable feeling knotting his stomach, he switched cars with his sister at her school. Just as well, since later he planned to keep an eye on Samuels’ place in Redondo Beach. And he knew the Galaxie by sight.

  Monk got a call from Luis Santillion’s office shortly before noon. Delilah put it through.

  “Mr. Monk?” the woman on the other end of the line said.

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Santillion would like to know if you can meet him at the Taquito Factory in the Grand Central Market at one tomorrow?”

  “Sure. Exactly what does Mr. Santillion have in mind?”

  “Tomorrow at one,” she said.

  “All right,” and he rung off.

  His inside line rang, and he picked it up.

  “Yes.”

  A series of beeps, long and short greeted his ears. Monk listened as it repeated again, men the line went dead.

  He replaced the receiver, thinking. Somewhere in a pocket of neural synapses, Monk got a tickle, like a savory taste long absent from the palate. He concentrated not on the sound, but on the things that he and Dexter Grant had done. Their history together of places they’d been and people they knew.

  But only the hint, amorphous as morning fog, ebbed around his thoughts. The fog wouldn’t part, wouldn’t allow the answer to emerge. Monk swore and got up from his desk. He went down to the Cafe 77 for a lunch of teriyaki chicken and rice and a bottle of Bud. He then drove over to Ruben Ursua’s house on East 55th. The Monte Carlo was no longer anywhere in sight. Monk knocked but got no response. He went around back.

  The rear yard was overgrown crab grass bordered on two sides by a wooden fence missing several slats. There was a clapboard garage that the fence connected to, and two trash cans leaned against the garage. Monk took the lids off the cans. In one were two empty pints of Jim Beam, and several white plastic garbage bags. In the other were more sealed trash bags. Monk went back to his car and drove to a hardware store over on Main. He returned twenty minutes later with a pair of leather work gloves and proc
eeded to open the plastic bags. Carefully, so as to seal them back when he was done,

  After many minutes of combing through the personal debris of the inhabitants of the house, Monk found something of interest. A crumpled-up napkin with a woman’s name and phone number written on the back. On the front was the imprint of a bar called El Scorpion. It depicted the black arachnid, gleaming as if its body were sheathed in ebony chrome. The deadly stinger of the insect was curled in the air and poised to strike a shot glass filled with booze beneath it.

  Monk pocketed the napkin and kept searching. He unearthed, among other items, a fragment of a Lotto ticket, an empty Colonel Sanders cardboard bucket, beer bottles, wrappers from McDonald’s, and so on. Then Monk heard a car pull into the driveway in front. Quickly, he set the lid back on the can and went around to the rear of the garage. He wedged himself between it and the rickety fence. Feeling like one of those sleazy reporters for a supermarket tabloid, Monk strained to listen. He remained still for ten minutes.

  Then he eased around the corner of the garage and made for the front, glad he was driving his sister’s straight car rather than the Galaxie which Ursua’s girlfriend knew by sight. Maybe he ought to start driving a more nondescript car on cases other man his bad-ass ’64. That shit that TV private eyes did, like Magnum PI tailing guys in a bright red Ferrari, was dangerous if you really believed you could get away with it.

  Sitting in the driveway was a big-barreled 1974 metal-flake blue Cadillac Eldorado with gangster-white sidewalls and polished crushed red leather seats. Ursua had taste, if somewhat on the ostentatious side. Stealing away from the house, Monk could hear raised voices originating from inside. He paused, then went on as the loud talk continued. Maybe, he somberly opined to himself, men and women were meant to always be at war with one another, forever bound in a social/sexual/psychic dynamic old as the universe and just as mysterious. Monk got in the car and drove away.

  He made a stop at a coffee shop and called Delilah for his messages.

  “Nothing important except Tina Chalmers called and said for you to call her when you had a chance,” she said.

  “Okay, thanks.” He hung up and dialed his machine at home.