Disher nodded. “They have some kind of Coyote Ugly thing going at Flaxx. There are a hundred guys who saw her dancing in a wet T-shirt on the bar, pouring drinks and juggling bottles until midnight.”
That, by the way, was the other reason I didn’t get the job at Flaxx. I don’t jiggle or juggle.
“Assuming you’re right, Mr. Monk,” I began, then paused when I saw the chastising look he was giving me. “Excuse me, knowing you’re right, Breen couldn’t have taken his car, not without the valet and the press seeing him go. And he wouldn’t have hailed a taxi and taken the risk that a cabbie might remember him. So how did Breen get to Esther’s house and back again?”
Stottlemeyer nodded at me. “You’re getting the hang of this, Natalie.”
“He must have walked,” Monk said.
“Is that possible?” I wondered. “I mean, could he do all that in an hour on foot?”
Monk shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.”
As we left the police station, Monk apologized to every officer we passed for his “earlier nakedness,” which he blamed on disorientation caused by his sinus medication, not that anyone asked or cared.
“Allergies,” he said to them. “It’s the monkey on my back.”
We drove to the Excelsior, which was on Montgomery Street, a few blocks northeast of Union Square. Although it was a relatively new building, constructed in the last decade, it was crafted in the Beaux Arts style favored by San Francisco’s elite in the early 1900s. The big-ticket touches that advertised wealth were all there: the grand arched doorways, the monumental stone columns, the sculpted balustrades, and the arched windows adorned with carved-leaf crowns and ornamented keystones.
I reluctantly left my Cherokee in the Excelsior’s underground garage, where it costs more to park a car per day than it does to rent one. As Disher predicted, even a casual inspection revealed dozens of ways out of the building, including doors on each floor of the parking structure and a service exit that opened into a dark alley.
The service exit into the alley was also conveniently blocked from view from the street by several large Dumpsters. If Breen used this door to slip out of the building, he could have taken the alley a full block before having to emerge onto the street, putting him at a safe distance from the hotel and any press gathered out front. Monk assumed that was the likeliest route for Breen to have taken, so we followed it, too. But from that point, there were any number of routes he might have taken. Monk chose the most direct one, going straight up Montgomery, to start with.
It was nearly dark as we began our walk, and it began to drizzle. Our trek took us past the towers of the Financial District, where business-people and clerical workers were already streaming out, eager to get a head start on the rush-hour traffic. And the night shift of homeless people was beginning to move in, seeking shelter in the alcoves and doorways, scrounging in the trash bins, and hitting up passersby for money.
Monk wouldn’t give them money, but he handed out individual packages of Wet Ones from my purse to every indigent we passed. They didn’t seem to appreciate the gesture, particularly one guy, who slept on a piece of cardboard and wore an ill-fitting, tattered overcoat over several layers of filthy shirts.
When Monk tossed him a Wet One packet, the homeless man rose up from his mat.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” he said indignantly, holding the Wet One in disgust. His hair and beard were matted, his skin deeply tanned and caked with dirt. He smelled of body odor and rot, like he’d been sleeping in a Dumpster. The stench was an invisible force field that kept Monk a good three feet away from him.
“You’re right,” Monk said to the man. “It wasn’t very thoughtful of me.”
Monk reached into my bag, took out two handfuls of wipes, and dumped them at the man’s feet.
“One isn’t nearly enough,” Monk said, and hurried away, sneezing, the homeless man shouting profanities in our wake.
I handed Monk a Kleenex. Monk blew his nose, then put the used tissue into a Ziploc bag, which he sealed and stowed in his pocket.
“That man sleeps with cats,” Monk said.
“I think that’s the least of his problems.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw the homeless man gathering up the wipes and putting them into the pocket of his overcoat. He saw me looking at him and flipped me off. Have a nice day to you, too, I thought.
We walked north, following Montgomery as it crossed Columbus Avenue and rose up toward Telegraph Hill. The office buildings and restaurants soon gave way to upscale galleries and residences. We zigzagged along side streets into the residential triangle of Victorian homes and garden apartments roughly bordered by Columbus Avenue, Montgomery Street, and Filbert Street. It was a steep climb—not nearly as steep as the one I took to Delores Park each Sunday, but we were still breathing pretty hard when we reached the crest of the hill and found ourselves, much to my surprise, facing Firefighter Joe’s station house.
“Do you mind if we stop in and say hello to Joe?” I asked. Breen would have needed a rest about now, I thought, even if he had been in a hurry. We were eight or ten serious blocks from the Excelsior, and we’d been walking for about twenty minutes.
“That’s a good idea,” Monk said. He looked like he could use the rest, too.
It was also a chance to dry off a bit. Drizzle isn’t so bad until it accumulates and you suddenly realize you’re soaked, which we both were.
Besides, we’d more or less proven that Breen could have walked from the Excelsior to Esther’s place, which was only a few blocks from the fire station, in a half hour.
Everything in the station was gleaming, of course. Even the turnouts, the firefighting rigs hanging in the open racks, were all clean, the latches and zippers shining.
The firemen were all in the kitchen eating pizza. I couldn’t help noticing that Sparky’s bed basket and rubber hot-dog squeak toy were still there. Monk also noticed it. I guess Joe wasn’t willing to accept that Sparky was gone quite yet. I knew the feeling. I kept Mitch’s clothes hanging in the closet for almost a year after he died. And I know Monk still has the pillow his wife slept on. It’s in a plastic bag in his closet.
Joe broke into a big smile the minute he saw me, jumped out of his seat, and rushed over to greet us. But once he got to me, he wasn’t quite sure what he should do. Kiss me? Hug me? Shake my hand? We settled on a friendly hug.
“Natalie, Mr. Monk, what a nice surprise. You’re just in time to join us for some pizza.” Joe glanced back to Captain Mantooth, who held out a slice to Monk on a napkin.
“No, thank you,” Monk said. “We just stopped by to ask you some questions.”
Once again I was out of the loop. I thought it was a happy coincidence that we ended up in front of the firehouse.
“Captain Mantooth, did you notice any towels missing before Friday night?”
“Sure, they’re always disappearing,” Mantooth said. “They’re like socks. You know how that is, Mr. Monk.”
“No, I don’t.” Monk looked genuinely perplexed.
“Everybody loses socks,” Mantooth said. All the men around him nodded in agreement. So did I. “You’ve never lost a sock?”
“How could I? They’re either on my feet or they’re being carried in the basket back and forth between the hamper, the laundry room, and the sock drawer,” Monk said. “I don’t see how it’s humanly possible to lose a sock.”
“It’s one of the great mysteries of life,” Joe said. “Where do all those socks go?”
“The same place as our towels.” Mantooth laughed.