I have no professional qualifications whatsoever. My last job before this one was bartending, but I’ve also worked as a waitress, yoga instructor, house sitter, and blackjack dealer, among other things. But I know from talking to Stottlemeyer that Monk wasn’t always so bad. Monk’s condition became a lot worse after his wife was murdered a few years ago.
I can truly sympathize with that. My husband, Mitch, a fighter pilot, was killed in Kosovo, and I went kind of nuts for a long time myself. Not Monk nuts, of course—normal nuts.
Maybe that’s why Monk and I get along better than anybody (particularly me) ever thought we would. Sure, he irritates me, but I know a lot of his peculiarities come from a deep and unrelenting heartbreak that nobody, and I mean nobody, should ever have to go through.
So I cut him a lot of slack, but even I have my limits.
Which brings me back to finding a hotel room for Monk. To begin with, we could look only at four-star hotels, because four is an even number, and a place with only two stars couldn’t possibly meet Monk’s standard of cleanliness. He wouldn’t put his dog in a two-star hotel—if he had a dog, which he doesn’t, and never would, because dogs are animals who lick themselves and drink out of toilets.
The first place we went to on that rainy Friday was the Belmont in Union Square, one of the finest hotels in San Francisco.
Monk insisted on visiting every vacant room the grand old Belmont had before deciding which one to occupy. He looked only at even-numbered rooms on even-numbered floors, of course. Although the rooms were identically furnished and laid out the same way on every floor, he found something wrong with each one. For instance, one room didn’t feel symmetrical enough. Another room was too symmetrical. One had no symmetry at all.
All the bathrooms were decorated with some expensive floral wallpaper from Italy. But if the strips of wallpaper didn’t line up just right, if the flowers and their stems didn’t match up exactly on either side of the cut, Monk declared the room uninhabitable.
By the tenth room, the hotel manager was guzzling little bottles of vodka from the minibar, and I was tempted to join him. Monk was on his knees, examining the wallpaper under the bathroom counter, wallpaper that nobody would ever see unless they were on their knees under the bathroom counter, and pointing out “a critical mismatch,” and that’s when I cracked. I couldn’t take it anymore, and I did something I never would have done if I hadn’t been under extreme emotional and mental duress.
I told Monk he could stay with us.
I said it just to end my immediate suffering, not realizing in that instant of profound weakness the full, horrific ramifications of my actions. But before I could take it back, Monk immediately accepted my invitation, and the hotel manager nearly kissed me in gratitude.
“But I don’t want to hear any complaints about how my house is arranged or how dirty you think it is or how many ‘critical mismatches’ there are,” I said to Monk as we started down the stairs to the lobby.
“I’m sure it’s perfect,” Monk said.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Mr. Monk. You’re starting already.”
He looked at me blankly. “All I said was that I’m sure it’s perfect. Most people would take that as the sincere compliment it was meant to be.”
“But most people don’t mean ‘perfect’ when they say ‘perfect.’ ”
“Of course they do,” Monk said.
“No, they mean pleasant, or nice, or comfortable. They don’t actually mean perfect in the sense that everything will be, well, perfect. You do.”
“Give me some credit.” Monk shook his head.
I gaped at him in disbelief.
“You wouldn’t stay in that hotel room we just saw because the floral pattern of the wallpaper didn’t match under the sink.”
“That’s different,” he said. “That was a safety issue.”
“How could that possibly be a safety issue?” I said.
“It reveals shoddy craftsmanship. If they were that haphazard with wallpaper, imagine what the rest of the construction work was like,” Monk said. “I bet a mild earthquake is all it would take to bring this entire building down.”
“The building is going to fall because the wallpaper doesn’t match up?”
“This place should be condemned.”
We reached the lobby and Monk stopped in his tracks.
“What?” I said.
“We should warn the others,” Monk said.
“What others?” I asked.
“The hotel guests,” Monk said. “They should be informed of the situation.”
“That the wallpaper doesn’t match,” I said.
“It’s a safety issue,” he said. “I’ll call them later.” I didn’t bother arguing with him. Frankly I was just relieved to get out of the hotel without stumbling over a dead body. I know that sounds ridiculous, but when you’re with Adrian Monk, corpses have a way of turning up all over the place. But, as I would soon find out, it was only a temporary reprieve.
Monk lived in a Deco-style apartment building on Pine, a twilight zone of affordability that straddled the northernmost edge of the Western District, with its upper-middle-class families, and the southwest corner of Pacific Heights, with its old money, elaborately ornate Victorians, and lush gardens high above the city.
On this sunny Saturday morning, Monk was waiting for me on the rain-slicked sidewalk, watching the uniformed nannies from Pacific Heights and Juicy Coutured housewives from the Western District pushing babies in Peg Perego strollers up and down the hill to Alta Plaza Park and its views of the marina, the bay, and the Golden Gate.
Monk stood with two large, identical suitcases, one on either side of him, a forlorn expression on his face. He wore his brown, four-button overcoat, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets, which made him seem smaller somehow.
There was something touching about the way he looked, like a sad, lonely kid going off to camp for the first time. I wanted to hug him, but fortunately for both of us, the feeling passed quickly.
Parking is impossible on a weekend in that neighborhood, so I double-parked in front of his building, which was so streamlined that it looked more aerodynamic than my car.
I got out and gestured toward his two suitcases. “You’re only staying for a few days, Mr. Monk.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I packed light.”
I opened the back of my Cherokee and then reached for one of his suitcases. I nearly dislocated my shoulder. “What do you have in here, gold bricks?”
“Eight pairs of shoes,” he said.
“You brought enough shoes to wear one pair a day for over a week.”
“I’m roughing it,” Monk said.
“That can’t be all you have in here.” I wrestled his suitcase into the back of my car. “It’s too heavy.”
“I’ve also packed fourteen pairs of socks, fourteen shirts, fourteen pairs of pants, fourteen—”
“Fourteen?” I asked. “Why fourteen?”
“I know it’s playing close to the edge, but that’s who I am. A man who lives on the edge. It’s exciting,” Monk said. “Do you think I packed enough clothes?”
“You have plenty,” I said.
“Maybe I should get more.”
“You’re fine,” I said.
“Maybe just two more pairs.”
“Of what?”
“Everything,” he said.
“I thought you were a man who lives on the edge,” I said.
“What if the edge moves?”
“It won’t,” I said.
“If you say so,” Monk said. “But if it does, we’ll rue this day.”
I was ruing it already. And I wasn’t even sure what “ruing” meant.
Monk stood there, his other suitcase beside him. I motioned to it.