Read Online The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais - Free Book Online

the heaving stopped and then I wrapped some ice in a dish towel and wet it and told her to put it on her face.
    After a while we went back out to the dining room and I showed her how to fill in the check and how to maintain the balance on the stub. She was fine with the figures once she knew where to put them.
    When the check was written she tried to smile but all the life had gone out of her. “I guess I’ll need to do this to pay the bills.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œExcuse me.”
    She went down the hall toward her bedroom. I sat at the table for a while, then brought the dishes into the kitchen. I washed both glasses and the plate and the saucer, and dried them with paper towels, then I went back out, gathered together the bank records, and went into the living room by the overturned couch. She’d done a fair job of stapling the bottom cloth back on, but she would have a helluva time righting it. I listened, but couldn’t hear her moving around. I turned the couch over and put it where I thought it should go and left.

8

    Forty minutes later I was back at my office. It was nicer there. I liked the view. I liked the Pinocchio clock. I liked my director’s chairs. I arranged the rolodex cards I’d taken from Morton Lang’s desk neatly on top of his bank statements. I took out my bankbook and the two thousand dollar check Ellen Lang had written. Her first check. I filled out a deposit slip, endorsed the check, stamped
FOR DEPOSIT ONLY
over my signature, put it all in the bankbook, put everything back in my desk, closed the drawer, and put my brain in neutral, a relatively easy task.
    The outer door opened and Clarence Wu stuck his grape-fruit head and thin shoulders into the little waiting room. “Is now a bad time?”
    Pinocchio’s eyes went side to side, side to side.
    Clarence came in with his briefcase. Clarence owned Wu’s Quality Engraving on the second floor, above the bank. I had stopped in a week ago to see about the business cards and stationery, telling him I wanted a more businesslike image. “I made up the samples,” he said. “You had some wonderful ideas.”
    I didn’t remember having any wonderful ideas, but there you go. He put the briefcase on the desk, took some cards out of his shirt pocket, and laid them out on the case like a blackjack dealer. I looked at Pinocchio. Clarence frowned. “You seem preoccupied,” he said.
    â€œA small loss of faith in the human condition. It’ll pass. Continue.”
    He turned the case around. “
Voilà
.”
    There were four cards, two white, one sort of light blue, and one cream. One of the white ones had a human eye rendered in charcoal in the center with
The Elvis Cole Detective Agency
arced above it and the legend
on your case
beneath. “Businesslike,” I said. He beamed. The other white card had my name spelled out in bullet holes with a smoking machine gununderneath. Had I thought of that? The sort-of-blue card had a magnifying glass laid over a deerstalker hat in the upper left corner and the agency’s name in script. “Victorian,” I said.
    â€œA certain elegance,” he nodded.
    The cream card had my name centered in modern block letters with the word
detective
beneath it and a .45 Colt Automatic in the upper right quad. I looked at that one the longest. I said, “Get rid of the gun and you’ve got something.”
    He looked confused. “No art?”
    â€œNo art.”
    He looked confused some more and then he beamed. “Inspired.”
    â€œYeah. Gimme five hundred with my name and the
detective
and another five hundred that say The Elvis Cole Detective Agency. Put the phone number in the lower right corner and the address in the lower left.”
    â€œYou want cards for Mr. Pike?”
    â€œMr. Pike won’t use cards.”
    â€œOf course.” Of course. He nodded and beamed again, and said, “Next Thursday,”