Ambrose looked at me. “Are you pregnant?” “No,” I said. “Absolutely not. What would make you think that?”
“I’ve read that women get irrational and emotional when they’re pregnant,” Ambrose said.
“Well, I’m not. But Mr. Monk is right. Some relaxation is exactly what I need,” I said. “I’ll see you both tomorrow. Shall I come a little later than usual?”
“Sure. Let’s sleep in and rest up,” Monk said. “I’ll see you at nine-oh-five.”
That was his idea of sleeping in?
“That extra five minutes is going to make all the difference, Mr. Monk. Thank you.”
“There’s no need to thank me,” Monk said. “You’ve earned it.”
Monk and Ambrose walked me to the door.
“I didn’t bring anything with me to read,” Monk said to Ambrose. “Which one of your books would you recommend?”
“You’d like to read one of my books?” Ambrose asked.
“What better way is there to spend an evening at home than to read a good book?” Monk replied.
As I walked out the door, I looked back to see Ambrose handing Monk a book.
“This is my manual for the Akita Multi-Standard VCR and DVD Burner Combination Player-Recorder. It won the Pritiker Award for Technical Writing for Electronic Audiovisual Components,” Ambrose said. “I’ve been told it’s a very compelling read, particularly the German version.”
“It sounds great,” Monk said, as he put the book under his arm and gave his brother a sincere smile. “Why would anyone want to toast a DVD? Are they edible?”
I was on my way home when I got a call from Firefighter Joe, my “friend-with-benefits.” He had finished his shift at the firehouse and wanted to know whether I might be free for dinner.
I tried not to sound too enthusiastic when I said yes, but I think I gave myself away when I said I would meet him at his house in five minutes.
He made reservations at his favorite Italian restaurant in North Beach, but we never got there. I walked through his front door and into his arms, and that’s where I stayed.
I won’t go into detail about what happened the rest of the night, but let’s just say that it was sweet and tenderand that by morning I was beginning to seriously rethink my strict policy against ever getting seriously involved with another man in a dangerous profession.
This friends-with-benefits thing had its pluses, that’s for sure, but I think we both felt unsatisfied on a fundamental emotional level. I knew that he did and I pretended like I didn’t. He never brought it up, but I could feel it. I also knew that I could lose him if a woman came along who was as cute and lovable as me but was more willing to let him into her life.
It wasn’t just my life, or I would probably have taken the risk. I had to think about Julie’s heart, too, and what she would feel every time Joe Cochran went back to work at the firehouse. She’d lost her father and I didn’t want her to go through anything like that again.
I didn’t want to either.
Yes, I know you can’t protect yourself or those you care about from heartbreak, not if you want to enjoy all the wonderful things that come from close relationships with other people.
But I felt I could lower the chances of Julie’s experiencing that kind of pain again by consciously avoiding close relationships with anyone who regularly and intentionally put his life in jeopardy.
So that’s what originally led me into that friends-with-benefits thing with Joe, which, by the way, I kept secret from Julie.
But that night, after my experience with Scooter, and seeing the solitary lives that Monk and Ambrose led, and observing the lengths to which the Beyond Earth fans went to belong to something, I was reevaluating my thinking. I certainly appreciated what I had with Joe Cochran that night a whole lot more than I had before.
I thought about what I’d said to Ambrose.
It was worth it . . . love always is.
Maybe that’s what I was needy for.
Even so, I wasn’t brave enough to change my arrangement with Joe just yet. I was, however, about to show him just how much I appreciated him when I got a call very early in the morning.
I rolled over in bed and knocked my cell phone off his nightstand when I tried to reach for it. I practically tumbled out of bed scrounging around for the phone on the floor.
“Hello?” I said.
It was Captain Stottlemeyer. “Sorry for the wake-up call, but I need to see Monk. And you’d better prepare yourself for a very bad day.”
“It’s not the first day that’s started off for him with a corpse,” I said. “Or for me either.”
“I thought I was pretty lively,” Joe whispered. I poked him in the chest and almost broke my elbow. He’s that buff.
“This homicide is different,” Stottlemeyer said. “It proves that everything Monk said yesterday about the murders of Brandon Lorber, Conrad Stipe, and the cabbie was wrong.”
“Monk is never wrong about murder,” I said.
“He is now,” Stottlemeyer said.
25
Mr. Monk and the Strange Thing
A visit to the San Francisco Airporter Motor Inn is a bleak and depressing way to start your day even if there isn’t a dead body involved.
I can’t imagine what it must be like to stay there, even for a one-night stand. I’ve never had one, but from what I’ve heard from my friends it’s miserable enough waking up next to someone you’d rather forget without it also happening in a place where you wish you’d never been.
Then again, it’s not a whole lot better when you’re there to see a bullet-riddled corpse.
Monk and I were once again at the rear
