Perdition, U.S.A. Read online

  “Ms. Scarn called from the Bureau of Consumer Affairs.”

  Monk grimaced. “What did the bureaucrat from hell want? Somebody make another complaint about my license?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Delilah began in a measured tone, aware that the delightful Ms. Scarn always got under Monk’s skin. “She wanted to know if you’d be on a panel Consumer Affairs is putting on.

  Monk stared at the receiver, working his jaw muscles. “She say what kind of panel?”

  “Something about a presentation at the Kiwanis Club of Agoura Hills on the benefits and privileges of being a licensed representative of the State of California.”

  “Tell her I’ll think about it.”

  “She’d like an answer by Friday.”

  “Anything of a little more relevance,” Monk said flatly.

  “A Mrs. Urbanski called and would like to hire your services.”

  “She say what the job was?”

  “No, but she said she’d call back,” Delilah said.

  “Okay. Anybody else.”

  “Yeah, Dexter. He said he’d be in town tomorrow and might drop by. Only,” she stopped talking, seemingly deliberating on whether to continue.

  “What?”

  “He sounded kind of distracted, Ivan. Not the usual Dex, you know?”

  “If he’s got something on his mind, he’ll speak it. See you when I see you.” Monk rang off and headed for the door. Abe Carson was now engaged in a game of chess in one of the booths. His partner was a woman named Mindy. She was half Chinese, half Puerto Rican, a former drug addict and hooker who kicked both habits and now worked as a counselor for runaways.

  “I’ll keep you abreast of my forays,” Carson said, moving his bishop into position to take her pawn.

  “Right on, Red Rider.”

  Monk took the freeway back toward Pacific Shores, stopping off in Gardena to get a late lunch in an out-of-the-way cafe called the Onyx. He liked the Egyptian motif of the place. On either side of the main door were plaster reliefs shaped to look like standing sarcophaguses. Male and female. The arms of the two were crossed in front of them in the familiar burial fashion, but in their hands were knives and forks rather than the customary mystic implements or harvest tools.

  Monk relished his Nile burger with mint and a side of the spicy Tutankhamen salad. Afterward, he got to the Shores. Cruising by the record shop Clarice had listed as a hangout for Maurice “Two Dog” Rexford, he spotted a trio of men lounging in front of the Beneficent Paternal Order of Elks Lodge a few doors down.

  When last in town, he’d stopped at the record shop and asked about Two Dog, but the young clerks weren’t inclined to give him an answer. The detective parked and walked back to the group.

  The black men were in their late fifties to early sixties. One of them had on a worn Kangol cap and another sat on the long end of a plastic milk crate, leaning forward on an expensive cane.

  “Any of you gentlemen know a young man who goes by the name of Two Dog?” Monk said as an introduction.

  The man with the cap adjusted it on his head and leered at the one sitting on the crate. The other man, a large individual with arthritically curled hands and thick glasses propped himself against the wall of the Masonic Lodge. “You the heat?” he demanded.

  Monk gave the man one of his business cards and the other two crowded around to peer at it. The one in the cap adjusted it again and he looked suspiciously at Monk. “He in trouble of some kind?”

  Warily, Monk responded. “I just need to talk to him.”

  As one, the trio gave Monk the cold treatment.

  “It’s nothing that concerns him directly,” Monk said, wondering if that was true, “it’s about his friend who was murdered, Scatterboy Williams.”

  That got a pulse as the man on the milk crate lifted his cane and pointed it at Monk. “You sayin’ this boy might have information ’bout who killed Scatterboy?”

  “I don’t think so. But he might be able to tell me when he saw Scatterboy last, maybe what Scatterboy was working on.”

  “Hustle you mean,” the heavyset man amended. Cynical laughs went up from all three. “Who you workin’ for, man? Scatterboy didn’t have no folks, leastways none he ever made mention of.”

  “His old lady.”

  The man on the crate pinched his nose with his thumb and index finger, massaging the bridge. “That’s a goddamn shame that child got to raise that girl without the father ’round.” The pronouncement got a bobbing of heads from the other two. “Yeah, mister, we know Two Dog. That boy grew up around here same as my boy did.” He paused, an unfocused memory fogging his vision.

  Presently, the man with the cane spoke again. “Two Dog works part-time at the record shop there. He’ll be around day after tomorrow ’bout one or so.”

  Monk reached into his coat and plucked out his wallet. “I appreciate this.”

  The tip of the cane touched Monk’s hand. “Keep your bread, man. If he done wrong, then you do your job. But if he didn’t, don’t you be one of those helping him along the crooked road.”

  The heavyset man put his hand on the shoulder of the man on the crate and Monk said nothing. He turned, waved off, and left the trio. Wise men whose counsel was no longer heeded in a world traveling by too fast, and burning out too quick.

  By the shank end of the afternoon, Monk again drove past Junior’s Liquors on Ludlow. He was working on the assumption that Two Dog, Angel Z, or any of Scatterboy’s other running partners, were more likely to be around in the evening hours.

  Clarice had given him an anemic description of Angel Z: he was half-black and half-Filipino and was inclined to wearing tank tops to show off his prison-formed pecs. What she told him about Two Dog was a biography by comparison. He was short, black as shoe leather, and inclined to felt-covered Borsolinos. There was another one called Hugo, but Clarice wasn’t sure what he looked like.

  There were only two people in front of Junior’s. A woman in cutoff jeans, knee-length boots and a head topped by an obvious weave. She was arguing with a man in a plaid vest and flooding double knits. Monk slowed and put the car in neutral at the curb. The woman approached his car on the passenger side and he rolled down the window. The man in the vest walked away.

  “Wanna date?” she smacked, leaning down to talk.

  “Where can I find Angel Z or Two Dog?”

  “You a cop, baby?”

  “No, but I got business with them.”

  “This sure is a nice hoopty,” she beamed, admiring the restored Ford. “You gonna buy me one if I be good to you?”

  “How about I let you start your own Christmas Club account?” He produced a twenty and held it up for her.

  “Shit, you must be a cop to be that cheap.” She straightened up and strolled back toward Junior’s. A man came out of the liquor store holding a bottle in a brown paper bag. The working girl clamped a hand around his arm, showed some teeth, and they walked off together.

  Monk spent the next hour cruising the Shores. His occasional stops consisted of asking pot-bellied prostitutes and gentlemen with practiced hard stares about the objects of his quest. The exercise produced nothing except four “fuck offs,” two “fuck off, motherfuckahs,” and one “say, niggah, step on away from here ’fore you get hurt.”

  Eventually, the 500 was brought to rest at a burger stand on Creedmore. He sat on the outdoor bench and joylessly ate a double cheeseburger and large fries, with an extra large root beer to help ease the mediocre food down his throat. Across the street, an interesting group of young men gathered.

  The small crowd stopped and stood talking in front of a 7-Eleven. The inside store lights back-lit their bodies to give the tableau a painterly, impressionistic quality. A couple of them looked like typical street rovers replete with bandannas wrapped around their heads and over-sized shirts buttoned up to the collar.

  But what caught Monk’s eye was the one who dressed like a frat brother lost on his way to a kegger party, a young man decke
d out in pressed chinos and a sport coat with patches on the elbows. Looking closely, he was pretty sure it was the cousin he’d met the other night at Jimmy Henderson’s bedside.

  Another one of the crew was dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and a bright colored vest. Still another, with longish straight black hair and brown olive skin, was a good candidate to be Angel Z.

  The members of the band talked for several minutes, then split up into two divisions. Monk got up and ambled to the order window of the stand.

  “Let me have a coffee, will you?” he said to the man with the receding hairline behind the screen.

  “Sure.” The proprietor poured it, handed it through the gap, and then shoved a crusty sugar server and a styrofoam cup of milk through.

  Monk put change on the metal counter top and mixed the ingredients into his coffee while standing at the window. Seeking to sound disinterested, he said, “Those youngsters who were across the street, they supposed to be some kind of prep school gang?”

  The man with the high forehead was pouring himself a cup of coffee also. “I’ve seen that group out now for the last two, three evenings. I heard over to the Elks Lodge the other night they’re supposed to be looking for the Shoreline Killer.”

  Monk took a sip of his coffee. It was as bad as it was weak. “What’s that all about?”

  A shoulder lifted. “There’s a rumor going around that a serial killer has been stalking young bloods in the Shores. Now the way I hear it, one of his victims lived long enough to tell his mother that he heard the killer say he wasn’t going to rest until every brother under twenty-five was dead and buried.

  “But you know how shit like that gets started. Some drugged-out crack head probably’s been hallucinating and told one of his crazy buddies, and before you know it, motherfuckahs see conspiracy behind every doorway. I tell you what it is,” he leaned close for emphasis, “some hard working guy like you or me got tired of them drug slangers makin’ the streets unsafe for our wives and girlfriends.” He drank some of his brew, seemingly enjoying the taste.

  “See, the law can’t do it, can’t clean up our community, and this dude has said enough is enough, I gotta do for self. Ain’t that what Farrakhan was talking about in the Million Man March? And I say more power to him if we can take back the streets.” The man left the window and began to clean his grill by scrapping a spatula back and forth across its surface.

  Monk sat down at the bench again and slowly finished his coffee, staring at the 7-Eleven across the street. He stayed that way even after the proprietor extinguished the overhead lights.

  Doggedly, the tired detective spent the next several hours driving and walking around the streets of the Shores. At one point, a sheriffs car put its spotlight on him. The two deputies inside the vehicle, murky shapes in their military brown shirts, conversed with one another, the probe steady on Monk in his car.

  The deputy in the passenger seat swung the incandescent beam away from Monk’s immobile face. The car, its dark outline prominent for several expectant moments against the descending evening, idled like a sleeping rhino. A beast operating on whim and caprice, which at any moment could be an agent of destruction on Neptune Avenue. Monk tensed, and breathed through his mouth to remain calm.

  Slowly the patrol car drove off, and Monk could feel the muscles relax in the back of his neck. After another hour he found himself on a side street off Neptune, the main drag. He spied the group of young men, now rejoined as one, as they crossed in mid-block, heading in his direction. He pulled to the curb and shut the motor off. They walked past where he was parked and Monk got a better look at them.

  The college kid, Jimmy Henderson’s cousin, was present and so was the one with the long black hair Monk typed as Angel Z. As they passed by, Monk made mental notes of what they looked like. The cousin, in elbow patches, was about Monk’s complexion and height, though thinner in the arms and torso. His horn-rimmed glasses gave him a bookish appearance. Also in their gathering were two Monk characterized as the rough and ready sort; a slight swagger to their gait, a certain practiced detachment that hung over them like overdue child support payments.

  Another one was iron-buffed in the upper body and had on a ridiculously over-sized surfer-style T-shirt. Several other mismatched types rounded out the odd troop. They moved on and turned south at the end of the block. He let the posse get along, determined to talk with the cousin, alone, later.

  Monk waited several beats then got out of his car. An earlier contact had given him what purported to be a lead. Another prospect from Clarice’s list was somebody named Midnight who, his teenaged client had informed him, wasn’t a do-rag wearin’ Uncle Tom, but an albino black man. Supposedly Midnight’s forte was being able to boost a car stereo no matter what the alarm system.

  According to Monk’s source, there had been a healthy dose of stereo and radio thefts on the opposite side of town last week. The source, a heavily moused transsexual named Roxanne, told Monk she knew it was Midnight and further surmised that the master thief would now strike on this side of town, now that the focus of the heat was across town.

  In fact, the busty Roxanne had added, placing a hand on Monk’s thigh, she was pretty sure this was where Midnight would be tonight. He had a date with a woman who Roxanne also had a relationship with, only the stereo thief didn’t know that. She also asked Monk if he was going to be busy, say around three-thirty in the morning. Monk had graciously begged off until some other time.

  It wasn’t much of a lead but Monk couldn’t be picky. At least it gave him a direction, like a swimmer making for a buoy in the morning fog. For the moment, it was important to get to know the streets of Pacific Shores, learn its byways like Scatterboy had known them. Walking along, Monk pondered the mind of the Shoreline Killer. Was he a racist murderer waiting in the shadow of the moon for some twisted inner trigger to go off so he could kill another black man? Though he hadn’t dismissed the gang option, he now leaned more toward some kind of sicker mind at work.

  Why, he wasn’t exactly sure. But maybe, he allowed, he hoped to make a splash for himself by tracking down and bringing to justice a headline murderer. By the media compass, an isolated gang killing is just business as usual in the ghetto. But serial slayings, according to some weird inner motive, like the Hillside Strangler, got a lot of play. And money deals, too.

  Maybe that was it. In all his time as a P.I., he’d never worried about money. Like any working stiff, he had to scuffle now and then to keep the landlord happy. But now, edging close to forty, living by his wits was starting to fray at the edges. He tried to convince himself that these ruminations only sprang from his confusion over Jill and his new-found need to move up the economic ladder.

  But, as he meandered along Osage, there was a unexamined part of him that hid a dusty mirror. Tentatively, he picked it up and brushed away the dirt. He could see his face, much like his father’s. Like any black man, his dad had had his share of disappointments. But when things looked up, when the old man angled and borrowed fifteen grand from a gambler friend, he’d been able to open his own car repair place on Hooper. But pops was a better mechanic than he was a businessman, and seemed to always be only two steps ahead of his lenders.

  Monk had left the residential streets and was now moving along a series of one-story shop fronts. Roxanne had mentioned, actually whispered in his ear, that this might be Midnight’s territory tonight. With some active night life, it attracted people and cars from out of town—easy prey for Midnight’s skills.

  In the reflection of the window of an auto parts store, Monk saw a fleeting blob merge with the cars parked across the street. He walked on to an all-night adult book shop two doors down and entered. Monk paid the dollar browsing charge—good toward your purchase—and positioned himself so he could look out the front window.

  A late model Ford Bronco stood out among the older makes parked across the street. Leafing through an issue of Big Tops and Tails, he watched. Presently a figure, a flash of white stark ag
ainst the upturned collar of a ebon leather jacket, walked past the rear fender of the Bronco. Monk tossed the magazine back on the shelf and exited the establishment.

  The thief glided briskly along Osage, passing momentarily in front of the neon sign of a tavern. The milky white skin of the man with the fade cut was an artist’s contrast to the dark ensemble he was clad in. Monk trailed Midnight with the notion of confronting him. If he knew something about Scatterboy’s death, he might be happy to talk if Monk made a deal not to bust him.

  Situational ethics justified making this kind of approach, Monk had concluded some time ago. If a petty thief could lead him to a murderer, fine. But there was the greater likelihood Midnight didn’t know jack and would tell Monk any old lie just to get away. Or maybe he was the one who iced Scatterboy. There was only one way to find out.

  They were now moving along Creedmore. There were a few people out, some leaving a second-run movie house, so Monk didn’t feel too exposed. Midnight was on the other side of the street and he suddenly cut through an alley. Monk cursed himself for being spotted, and ran diagonally across the street toward the alley. He stopped at its gloomy mouth, but could hear nothing.

  Cautiously, he went down the murky passageway. On one side of the narrow alley were dumpsters overflowing with garbage. A heady stench wafted through the air. A noise made Monk halt. His throat constricted and his hand went toward the .45 in the belt holster beneath his sweatshirt. There it was again and Monk strived desperately to place it. He inched forward, his heart beating a syncopated rhythm in his head. His foot collided with something and the automatic filled his hand before he could think.

  A groan emerged from the ground. Monk bent forward and strained his eyes. A homeless man lay on a pallet of old blankets and flattened-out cardboard. He rolled toward the wall and continued to sleep. Monk went on.

  Midway, Monk stopped again to listen and look. The alley cut through to another street. A lamppost on the far street spilled light into the causeway. From where he stood, Monk could make out a recess in the wall up ahead. Gun forward, he approached the area. He found a wood door with a grimy pane set in it. Using a discarded newspaper, Monk wiped at the pane with little result.