Mr. Monk Is Open for Business Read Online Free PDF Page B

the fact that he won’t tell us anything? He really did kill Rivera over drugs but can’t tell us why because that would endanger his whole drug operation.”
    “Do they really make TV shows about teachers turning into meth cooks?”
    “Yes, Adrian. It was very popular.”
    “Hmm.” He cocked his head and shrugged. “Well, as long as they didn’t show the bad guys cooking meth. Because then people would learn how to make it and that would be wrong.”
    “Of course,” I lied. “TV executives are decent, moral people. They would never show things like that.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    Mr. Monk Goes to the Barber
    M y partner has gone through nine barbers since I’ve known him. Three of them he fired, complete with pink slips and exit interviews that carefully detailed the reasons for their termination. Of the six he liked and went back to twice a week for trims, one retired at the age of thirty-two; two moved out of state; one had a nervous breakdown; one took out a restraining order; and one vanished so thoroughly even Monk couldn’t find him. I personally think the man enrolled in some witness protection program set up for service people who’ve worked for Monk.
    He has since taken to being his own barber, snipping exactly one hundred hairs a day as part of his morning routine. If you want to know how he remembers which hairs he’s cut and which ones he hasn’t, he divides them into sections and numbers them. I’ve seen the diagram.
    All of this is to say that we rarely step into a barbershop. The one exception is Albert’s in North Beach, nestled on a side street between Telegraph Hill and the Financial District. It’s a homey Italian establishment run by Albert himself, a half-blind haircutter with shaky hands and a twitch. But you have to walk through Albert’s in order to get to the socialclub in the back. That’s where you can almost always find Salvatore Lucarelli, godfather of the crime family bearing his name.
    Salvatore was there that afternoon when Monk borrowed a broom by the front door and swept his way through a layer of fallen hair to get to the back room. Usually this place is off-limits to law enforcement. But the mob makes an exception for Monk.
    The back door was closed, and I made sure to knock and wait. It’s never good to go around opening doors in a Mafia establishment, just in case there’s something you don’t want to see. One of the don’s nephews came and ushered us in.
    “My friends,” Salvatore said in a raspy voice, looking up from his desk. He swung off his reading glasses and moved aside a ledger. It wasn’t necessary. I didn’t want to get anywhere near that ledger. “Always a pleasure to see Adrian Monk and his pretty little assistant.”
    You know how it is when something hits you the wrong way—even a simple phrase. “I am not his pretty little assistant,” said I. “Not anymore.”
    “Nonsense,” said Sal. “I think you’re very pretty. Aging well. You should learn how to take a compliment, Natalie.”
    “Pretty is not a compliment,” I argued. “It’s a way of belittling me and I don’t appreciate it.”
    “Hey, I don’t belittle women, lady. I put ’em on a pedestal.”
    “Mr. Lucarelli,” Monk said, holding up his hands. “She didn’t mean anything. Honest.” The alleged mobster was one of the few people Monk called mister.
    Today seemed to be a relatively slow day. A few associates hovered around the air hockey table, which had replaced thepool table when the boss had decided his guys needed a little more cardio. Fat Tony switched off the table and strolled over to join his uncle at the rolltop desk. By the time we got there, he had rolled it all the way closed.
    “I assume this is not a social call,” said Fat Tony. As usual, he was munching a carrot, just about the only piece of food I’ve seen him eat since he’d gone vegan about ten years ago. At one point they say he weighed more than three hundred pounds. Now he was well under two