Read Online Violent Spring by Gary Phillips - Free Book Online Page B

“This is Special Agent Keys, Mr. Monk, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As field commander of the task force looking into the murder of Mr. Suh, I’d consider it a professional favor if you’d meet with us.”
    Jesus, this guy believed in the carrot and the stick in the same swipe. “It’s gonna have to be day after tomorrow, agent Keys. Or Monday.”
    â€œToday would be better.” Keys’ tone was flat, unshaded. The threat hiding in back of it.
    â€œAs one pro to another, I’m sure you understand I’m in the middle of things just now.”
    There was a silence on the line. Finally, Seguin spoke. “It’d be good if you got over here tomorrow, Friday. Around noon.”
    Just to irk Keys, Monk said, “Two o’clock then.” He hung up before either could voice an objection. Monk pushed away from the desk, rubbing his temples. He made three more calls and left the office again.
    He drove over to the Culver City DMV and waited in the registration line. Reaching the counter, he was greeted with the apparition of a reed-thin man in a cheap suit way past the need for pressing. The bureaucrat’s face was sunken and partially hidden by the thick lenses of his glasses. He stood motionless, waiting for the last customer in the last line on a career to nowhere.
    â€œI’ve been the victim of a hit and run,” Monk said.
    The skeleton said nothing. His face a zero of acknowledgment.
    â€œI want to find out who hit me. I have the license number.” Monk enunciated each word as a tourist might to a person who spoke another language.
    The arm of the man with the build of a stork’s leg disappeared under the counter and reappeared with a form printed in blue ink. “Fill this out, including your own license number. Bring it back to this window. You do not have to get back in line again.”
    Monk filled out the form, putting down the license number he’d gotten from Betty, Bong Kim Suh’s exlandlady. He returned it to the counter.
    The DMV clerk looked at it, said nothing and went away. Presently he returned and said, “That’ll be four dollars.” He pointed to another counter. “Pay the cashier and bring the receipt back. You don’t have to wait in line,” he said in his blank slate of a voice. Monk did so and returned to the charmer. The man’s bony hand passed a print-out to the private eye. As Monk walked away, a woman behind him came up and began shouting at the deathly thin man.
    â€œWhy the fuck has my car had one of them boots put on it, huh?”
    Without a change of expression, he produced another form.
    Monk read the information on the print-out. A certificate of non-operation had been filed on the 1988 Honda Civic DX Suh had driven. It was dated from November of last year. The address on the certificate was in Orange County. He took out his notepad, and sure enough, the Orange County address was the one given for Jiang Holdings in Stanton, the company that now owned the liquor license on Hi-Life Liquors and Minimart.
    But a jaunt behind the Orange Curtain was going to have to wait. Monk had other fish to fry for the moment. He got in his Ford and drove east on Washington, away from Culver City, back into Los Angeles.
    Reaching Hauser, Monk swung the car left and arrived at the Hi-Life liquor store at the corner of Pico and Hauser. There was a parking stall behind the establishment accessible off of Hauser just north of the intersection. Monk parked in it and walked in the front.
    Behind the counter was the woman he’d seen sweeping down the sidewalk the day before. She was dressed in an orange and tan jumpsuit, her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. In the corner, two kids Monk made to be around twelve or thirteen played on one of the video games. There was a lot of those sounds you hear in dubbed kung fu flicks when the hero is beating the hell out of a dozen bad guys. At each violently