So we headed downstairs to the bar, where Stottlemeyer had left Kingston Mills, the new executive producer, and Judson Beck, the actor playing Captain Stryker.
I think part of the reason Monk was so motivated to stick around and work on the case was to avoid going home and dealing with the fact that Ambrose might be an Earthie. Or an Earther. Or whatever the Beyond Earth fans were calling themselves these days (I missed the panel discussion on that topic at the convention so I didn’t know which term was politically correct in the “Beyond Earth-verse”).
I was eager to get to the bar, too, but for an entirely different reason. I was starving.
We were in the stairwell, two flights from the lobby, when Monk stopped on the landing, something occurring to him.
“I forgot to trade cases with the captain,” Monk said.
“Yes, you did.”
“I should have made the deal with him before I solved the Bozadjian case. If I’d done that, we’d be on our way home by now and solving the Stipe case would no longer be my job.”
“You got caught up in the moment,” I said. “You were on a roll.”
“I wish my whole life rolled.”
“Don’t we all,” I said and passed him, continuing down the stairs. I was too hungry to stand around in a stairwell. “Besides, even if you did trade, you wouldn’t have been able to walk away from the Stipe investigation.”
“Yes, I would.”
“Not as long as the case remained unsolved. You wouldn’t have been able to stop thinking about it.”
“I would have gladly endured the mental anguish,” Monk said. “It would be easier than having to be around those crazy people.”
“People like Ambrose?” I said, opening the door to the lobby and, metaphorically speaking, a whole lot more.
Monk ignored the question, as I knew he would, and walked past me to the bar, which was off to one side of the lobby.
It was a very masculine space, all dark woods and leather and bookcases filled with leather-bound literary classics, which were glued into place in case, God forbid, someone was gripped by the mad desire to actually read one of them.
I had no idea what Kingston Mills or Judson Beck looked like. But I knew that Beck was an actor, and probably something of a celebrity, so I looked for two men sitting alone and other people stealing furtive glances at them.
Using that strategy, I spotted the men in about ten seconds. They were sitting at a table in the back, where they could be seen by everyone in the room and, at the same time, could see everyone who came in. There were several empty glasses on the table and two bowls of mixed nuts.
Mills wore an untucked aloha shirt in a futile attempt to hide his big belly, which spilled over his khaki slacks. His shirt was so colorful that it seemed illuminated in the dim light of the bar.
Beck was in form-fitting Abercrombie & Fitch clothes that were stylishly pre-faded, pre-torn, and pre-stained and showed off all of his muscular build. He seemed acutely aware of everyone who was looking at him, which included himself, since he kept admiring his reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
I marched up to the two men with as much authority as I could muster, Monk trailing me.
“Mr. Mills, Mr. Beck, I’m Natalie Teeger and this is Adrian Monk, a special consultant to the police. Captain Stottlemeyer sent us down to talk to you.”
“You’re the famous Adrian Monk?” Kingston Mills stood up and offered his hand to Monk, who shook it. “Somebody pitched me a series about you.”
“A series?” Monk motioned to me for a wipe. I gave him one.
“A weekly detective show for TV.” Mills grinned and gestured at Monk cleaning his hands. “You really do that?”
“What?” Monk gave me the used wipe, which I put into a Baggie and shoved in my purse.
“Clean yourself with a disinfectant wipe every time you shake hands with somebody.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Mills chuckled and glanced at Judson Beck. “I thought it was just a gimmick the writer came up with for his pitch. The writer even rearranged the papers on my desk and put the magazines on my coffee table into chronological order.”
“I hope you thanked him,” Monk said.
“It was a good pitch,” Mills said, “but I said the series would never work.”
“Why not?” I asked as we sat down with them at the table.
“Who wants to watch a clean freak every week? It would be too damn irritating. So we worked on it over lunch and came up with something a lot better—a detective who is a sex addict. Can you see it?”
Monk’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh God, I can.”
“And his assistant is a stripper. We’re going to Showtime with it next week,” Mills said. “It fits right in with their shows about the dope-dealing mother, the Vancouver lesbians, the bigamist, and the cop who is a serial killer.”
“What are you calling it?” Beck asked.
“Murdergasm.”
“Cool,” Beck said. “If Beyond Earth tanks, think of me for that part.”
“I think of you for every part, Jud. You’re that versatile and unique.”
Monk looked at me with a pained expression. “I can still see it.”
“Think of something else,” I said, then turned to Mills. “We’re more interested in Beyond Earth and who might have had a motive to kill Conrad Stipe.”
“Who?” Beck asked.
“The creator of the show you’re starring in,” I said.
“Oh, you mean the old guy,” Beck said.
“Jud didn’t have much interaction with him,” Mills explained to me. “Stipe was really on the creative periphery of the show.”
“But he created it,” I said.
“Yes, but I reimagined it,” Mills said.
Monk grabbed my
