Monk handed the dog to the delighted child. “Be sure to take him out for walks.”
The kid ran back to his seat. Monk smiled. “Wasn’t he adorable?”
“You wiped his runny nose and put the dirty tissue in your pocket.”
“What was I supposed to do with it?”
“Put it in the seat pocket in front of you,” I said. “Or drop it on the floor.”
“That would be littering,” he said. “I’m not a litterbug.”
“But you put it in your pocket,” I said.
“It’s snot,” he said, “not nuclear waste.”
“Where did you get those balloons?”
“The stewardesses had them,” Monk said. “But they aren’t very good at making them into things. So I stepped into the breach. Pretty soon all the kids wanted one.”
“All?”
I stood up and looked back and noticed, for the first time, that just about every kid in the plane was holding a balloon shaped into some kind of animal or wearing one as a crown.
So were a few of the adults. And one of the stewardesses.
I sat back down and stared at Monk. “Where did you learn to do that?”
Monk shrugged. “It just came naturally. Would you like me to make you one?”
“No thanks,” I said.
I made a mental note to tell Dr. Kroger about this. I was pretty sure that the sudden ability to make balloon art was one side effect of Dioxynl that nobody knew about.
Maybe Dr. Kroger could write a paper on it. Maybe that opportunity would make up for Monk’s unexpected intrusion into his vacation.
Maybe Dr. Kroger would eventually see what was about to come as a blessing in disguise.
Yeah, right. Even I didn’t believe that.
CHAPTER NINE
Mr. Monk Arrives in Germany
Ispent the rest of the flight reading up on Lohr in the Germany guidebooks while Monk roamed around the plane, mingling with the passengers like it was a cocktail party. He didn’t return to his seat until we were descending to Frankfurt.
We arrived at the airport at eleven a.m., right on time. The airline was cheap but punctual.
I stood up and pushed Monk into the aisle the instant our plane came to a stop at the gate.
“Relax,” Monk said. “There’s no hurry. Germany isn’t going anywhere.”
My friends and family mistake my mad rush to get off airplanes for joy at being home or eagerness to begin my trip.
It’s not. It’s what I call “situational claustrophobia.”
I don’t have any problems with claustrophobia except when I wake up in a sleeping bag or am in a plane at the end of a flight. In both situations, I feel smothered and cramped and have to escape as quickly as possible.
Weird, huh?
I even have nightmares sometimes about being zipped up tight in a sleeping bag on a plane when it arrives at an airport.
Everybody is probably a little bit crazy. Well, that’s my bit.
I pushed, elbowed, and squeezed my way through the narrow aisle and out of the plane. I didn’t see Monk again until I got into the airport, where I had to endure nasty looks from all the passengers I’d bruised and trampled and shoved aside in my rush to escape.
Monk was accompanied off the plane by a young woman who could have been a professional fashion model. She had an impossibly perfect body and eyes so radiantly blue that she could probably instantly hypnotize anyone she glanced at.
“If you’re ever in Berlin, give me a call,” she said as she slipped a piece of paper into Monk’s shirt pocket. “I’ll show you around.”
“I’d like that, Elke,” Monk said.
“I have to warn you, Adrian—we might not ever make it out of my apartment.”
Elke gave him a kiss on the lips that would have made most men spontaneously combust, but Monk took it calmly.
She looked at me as she did it, as if daring me to stop her, and then she hurried off.
Monk watched her go. “She must have a very nice apartment.”
“I don’t think that’s what she meant,” I said.
“What did she mean?”
“Never mind,” I said. “What’s the story with her?”
“She’s a photographer. We had a great conversation while you were asleep. She even invited me to join her club.”
“What is it?”
“It’s called the Mile High Club,” Monk said. “I asked her to send me an application and said I would think about it.”
I didn’t bother explaining to him what the membership requirements were. I was much more interested in what he’d said that would make a beautiful young woman want to throw herself at him. Maybe she just couldn’t resist a man in lederhosen.
We headed to customs. Monk went ahead of me and handed his passport to the agent in the glass booth. The agent wore an ugly green uniform that seemed to change the color of his skin. He looked like he was suffering from jaundice.
“What is the purpose of your trip?” the customs agent asked by rote in a heavy German accent.
“I have an appointment with my psychiatrist,” Monk said.
The agent looked up at Monk. “He’s in Germany?”
“On vacation,” Monk said. “He’s attending a conference in Lohr.”
“Is he expecting you?”
Monk shook his head. “It’s a surprise.”
“How long are you staying in Germany?”
“Until he comes back to Frisco or I am sane,” Monk said. “Whichever comes first.”
“Are you telling me that you’re crazy?”
“Hell no,” Monk said. “Just deeply disturbed. But it’s okay. I’m jacked up
