letting me tell you what the favor is?”
“It doesn’t involve chewing gum or spitting tobacco, does it?”
“The Conference of Metropolitan Homicide Detectives is being held in San Francisco this year and they want to interview you and me onstage tomorrow morning about our working relationship.”
“Why?” Monk asked.
“Because we end up solving a lot of murders together,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Would I have to be in front of an audience?”
Stottlemeyer nodded. “Just a couple hundred cops from around the country. But you won’t be alone. I’ll be up there with you.”
Monk squirmed. “I’m not comfortable with public speaking.”
“And I’m not comfortable rubbing other cops’ noses in our high case-closure rate,” Stottlemeyer said. “But this request comes directly from the chief. I think he wants to gloat.”
I spoke up. “Look at the bright side, Mr. Monk.”
“There’s never a bright side,” he said.
“This means the police chief knows about your achievements and respects your abilities. He’s proud of the work you are doing and wants to show you off,” I said. “Speaking at this conference could be a big step towards getting reinstated to the force.”
Monk looked at me and then at Stottlemeyer. “Do you think so?”
Stottlemeyer shrugged. “It never hurts to kiss up to the boss.”
“Okay, I’ll do it,” Monk said. “As long as there isn’t any actual kissing involved.”
“There won’t be,” Stottlemeyer said. “And if any women go into labor, I’ll deliver the baby.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Dorchester Hotel was built in the 1920s by a particularly greedy and egotistical land baron named William K. Dorchester, who lived atop the twenty-story building in a ridiculously Gothic penthouse apartment and was known to use Powell Street below as his personal spittoon.
As a nod to Dorchester ’s British heritage, he insisted that the bellmen dress in the bright red beefeater uniforms with ruffled white collars and gloves worn by the guards of the crown jewels. The doormen still wear those uniforms today. They’d look classier dressed as SpongeBob SquarePants.
Once you get past them, there’s a certain amusing and historically appropriate gaudiness to the place that is an accurate reflection of when it was built and the man who funded it.
The lobby has a vaulted gold-leafed ceiling and crystal chandeliers. The walls are covered with enormous mu rals that chronicle the arrival of the Spanish explorers, the Gold Rush, and maritime trade in San Francisco Bay, with Dorchester himself looking down upon it all from the heavens like some benevolent god.
There’s French and Italian marble on the floors, the columns, and the grand staircase. Supposedly, even the urinals in the men’s room are carved from marble, though I have never seen them for myself. However, I can tell you that the women’s room doesn’t have marble toilets.
The Conference of Metropolitan Homicide Detectives was being held on the second floor, so Monk, Stottlemeyer, and I climbed the grand staircase and discovered that the gaudy grandeur ended at the top step.
The second floor looked like it had been renovated in the early seventies in garishly bright colors and hadn’t been updated since. The Brady Bunch would have felt right at home there.
Monk, Stottlemeyer, and I made our way to the ballroom. It looked like we’d walked into a reunion of JCPenney men’s department customers. The room was filled with potbellied men wearing off-the-rack suits, wide ties, and yellow crime-scene-tape-style name-tag lanyards around their necks.
We were greeted at the door by a man who looked like a cinder block that had magically come to life. He seemed square everywhere, from the flat-top buzz cut atop his head to the square-toed shoes on his feet. Even his hands looked square.
He introduced himself to us, even though his name was written on his lanyard and Stottlemeyer appeared, judging by the scowl on his face, to already know him and not like him much.
“I’m Detective Paul Braddock, Banning PD. I’ll be your moderator,” he said as he shook our hands in turn. “It will just be a simple Q and A. I’ll start things off with a question or two and then open it up to the floor.”
Monk motioned to me for a wipe. I took out a bottle of instant hand sanitizer from my purse instead. I figured he’d be shaking a lot of hands and I didn’t want to lug around a huge box of wipes or end up with a purseful of Baggies containing used ones.
“I’m Natalie Teeger, Mr. Monk’s assistant,” I said.
I squeezed a shot of disinfectant gel into Monk’s right palm and he rubbed his hands together so briskly he could have lit kindling.
Braddock watched him, amused. “My God, you really do that. I thought it was just an urban legend. I guess I can scratch that question off my list.”
“I’d like to see the others,” Stottlemeyer said.
Braddock grinned. “That would be cheating, Leland.”
“Since when do you have a problem with that, Paul?” Stottlemeyer asked pointedly.
“I wouldn’t want to undercut the spontaneity of the discussion,” Braddock said, his grin unfaltering. “See you up on the dais.”
The detective walked away. Stottlemeyer glared after him.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“He used to work for SFPD,” Stottlemeyer said. “Now he doesn’t.”
“Are you the reason why?”
Stottlemeyer shook his head. “He’s only got himself to blame for that.”
We headed up to the dais, which was a raised platform with a table set against a backdrop of four potted plants.
The table was covered with a white cloth. There were three chairs behind the table and three glasses, one pitcher of water, and two microphones on top of it.
I saw disaster looming. I excused myself and sought out Braddock in the crowd.
“Excuse me,” I said. “You’re going to need to invite another guest up to the table, and add another chair, glass, and two more microphones. Or you’re going to have to remove a chair and a glass, add a microphone, and moderate standing up.”
Braddock looked at me like I had a bug crawling out of my nose. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because Mr. Monk won’t sit at a table for three guests. He likes even numbers. So you can have two guests or four, it’s up to you, but they each need to have their own microphone.”
“You’re joking,” he said.
“I’m afraid not,” I said.
“Is he nuts?”
“Mr. Monk likes things to be a certain way,” I said. “You want him to be comfortable up there, don’t you? Because if he’s not, he won’t answer any questions; he’ll just obsess about everything that’s wrong and try to fix it.”
Braddock sighed. “I’ll have the extra glass and chair taken away. I’ll stand with a microphone.”
“Thank you,” I said, and went back to the table, where I discovered that Monk had already removed the extra chair and set the extra glass on top of it for the workers to take away.
Monk was now arranging the two chairs, the glasses, and the microphones so everything was evenly spaced, centered, and symmetrical.
Stottlemeyer was busy chatting with some other cops and trying hard to disassociate himself from what Monk was doing.
