Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants by Goldberg, Lee (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

“Even after everything Monk just told you?” I said.

“It’s all speculation,” Dozier said. “I see the evidence one way and he sees it another. Nothing he’s said makes me think we arrested the wrong guy.”

“You did and we’re going to prove it,” Sharona said, standing up. “Aren’t we, Adrian?”

“Yes,” Monk said mournfully, “we are.”

Whodunit Books was located in a storefront underneath a large parking structure in the middle of Westwood Village, right on the edge of the UCLA campus.

There was a casket outside filled with bargain paper-backs. The front windows were cluttered with poster-sized blowups of book covers advertising the upcoming signings of various mystery authors, all of whom seemed to have shopped at Leather Jackets R Us before having their author photos taken.

The first thing we saw when we came in the store was a large table filled with stacks of Ian Ludlow’s previous books in hardcover and paperback and a pile of his newest one, Death Is the Last Word.

“What’s with him?” asked the woman behind the counter. Her name tag read LORINDA.

I guess she didn’t get many customers wearing gas masks.

“Asthma,” Sharona said.

Lorinda was a thin brunette in a low-cut tank top who had a safety pin in one nostril.

Yeah, just one nostril.

I could see the trouble ahead.

Monk immediately started to organize Ludlow’s books on the table into even stacks. He opened each book to check the copyright date so he could arrange them in chronological order. I only know this because he did the same thing to my bookcase.

I looked over his shoulder and saw that the books were signed and dated by Ludlow on the title page. This seemed to stump Monk for a moment, but then he came to a decision and continued his arranging.

There were about twenty people there to meet Ian Ludlow, who sat at a desk in the back corner of the store, signing books with surprising speed.

The Tolstoy of the Mean Streets was in his early thirties, with buzz-cut hair and a day’s worth of stubble on his cheeks. He was dressed in a black leather jacket, a black T-shirt, faded jeans and a Dodger baseball cap that I suspected was hiding a prematurely receding hairline. I don’t know who men think they’re fooling with those caps.

At the front of the line was a man with a rolling suitcase full of books for Ludlow to sign. He had dandruff and his breast pocket was bulging with pens, papers and business cards.

“I’ve got every book you’ve ever written,” the man said, presenting a stack to Ludlow. “Even those Jack Bludd paperbacks you wrote under a pseudonym.”

“It’s nice to know my mother isn’t the only one with a complete collection,” Ludlow said as he signed the books. “You ought to hold on to them. They might be worth their cover prices again someday.”

“I don’t know how you keep churning them out,” the man said, shaking his head.

“I’m a natural storyteller,” Ludlow said. “It’s what I was born to do. It’s all I know how to do.”

“But you write four books a year,” a large woman said, clutching Ludlow’s latest mystery protectively to her bountiful bosom as if someone might try to snatch it away from her. “Aren’t you ever afraid that you’re going to run out of stories?”

“Perhaps I would be if all I had to rely on was my imagination, ” Ludlow said. “But the world around me gives me endless material. There are millions of people out there, each with a story to inspire me. And my deadlines are a great motivator. If I don’t deliver, I have to give back my advance.”

Sharona gave Ludlow the once-over from a distance and frowned. “He looks a lot taller and a lot tougher in his author photo.”

“They always do,” said Lorinda. “They take those moody photos and try to look mysterious and rugged so readers will think they prowl the dark streets looking for stories,” Lorinda said. “The only place Ludlow prowls is bookstores to sign his stock and hit on women.”

“You don’t sound like a fan,” I said.

“We’ve supported him from the start, before he was anybody, but after he leaves here today, he’s going to head down the street to sign stock at Borders,” she said. “They sell his books at thirty percent off, which we can’t afford to do, so he’s undercutting us when he does that. But he can’t help himself. He can’t pass a bookstore without signing his books. It’s like a compulsion.”

“Someone should tell him to get a grip,” Monk said, busily rearranging the books on the table. “He doesn’t have to sign every book that has his name on it. How hard could it be to just ignore the unsigned books?”

Sharona and I turned and looked at him.

“It’s as easy as walking past a crooked painting without straightening it,” Sharona said.

“That’s different,” Monk said. “That’s a public safety issue.”

There was no way Sharona or I was going to convince Monk that a crooked painting didn’t pose a danger to humanity, so I turned back to Lorinda.

“If Ludlow is working against you by signing down the street,” I asked, “why do you keep inviting him back?”

She shrugged. “He’s a big name in mystery. Our customersexpect us to have his books, though it’s getting to the point that an unsigned Marshak is harder to find and more valuable than a signed one.”

The whole store rumbled. My first thought was an earthquake, but I quickly realized it was just a car driving into the parking structure overhead. I hoped the rent was cheap.

“Voilà,” Monk said, stepping back from the table. It looked pretty much as it had before, except every stack was even. “Done.”

“What did you do?” Lorinda asked.

“Someone