Violent Spring by Gary Phillips

the liquor store in April?”
    Warily, she said, “A couple of times, yeah.”
    â€œUntil when? What month?”
    â€œSometime around September.”
    â€œAnd he’d seen Suh since he’d left the store?” He said it nonchalantly, slipping it into the conversation as if it were an afterthought.
    A tick twitched the left side of Karen Jacobs’ face. “Not that I know of.”
    â€œWhy’d you and James stop seeing each other?”
    â€œThat’s personal.”
    â€œDid the two of you talk about why you thought Suh quit the store?”
    She was on guard and wouldn’t play the game anymore. “Look, Mr. Monk, I’ve got plenty of studying to do. Okay?”
    â€œSure, I don’t want to wear out my welcome.” He rose. “If you don’t know where Conrad is now, could you tell me where he used to live?” She couldn’t duck that one.
    Jacobs hesitated, then went to a cabinet built into the wall and took out her address book. Monk drifted near her. She sat at a table and wrote down the former address and telephone number for the missing Conrad James. She tore off the corner of the yellow pad, almost an exact duplicate in size to the note she’d left at the Hi-Life, and handed it to Monk.
    â€œThanks.” He put one of his cards on the table. “Let me know if you think of anything else.” It occurred to Monk he was giving out more cards than an ambulance chasing lawyer.
    â€œI will,” she said unconvincingly.
    He drove away from the duplex, west up Washington toward his office. The black woman with the ostentatious hair was still there next to the motel. She was talking to the men in the grey Blazer with the Weld-style rims. The vehicle was turned into a driveway, sideways to the boulevard so Monk couldn’t get a look at the plates. He checked his mirror, but the Blazer wasn’t following him.
    At the address Jacobs gave him for James, Monk found an apartment whose current occupant never heard of the young man, didn’t want one of his cards, and wouldn’t tell him who the manager was. The private eye quit the place and grabbed a beer in a bar.

F ATHER DIVINE, THE Depression-era conman/ preacher of Harlem, was giving him a lecture on the best method of preparing catfish stew and mustard greens. This he didn’t mind. But they were having an argument on how many cardamom seeds to put in the Turkish coffee. Matter of fact, as the both of them sat in Tiger Flowers’ sauna drinking Cuba Libres, the others in the room asked them to take their senseless discussion elsewhere.
    Monk was about to say something to Paul Robeson, he being the most vociferous about his and Father Divine’s departure, when the goddamn bell went off again.
    â€œShit, answer that motherfucker,” Monk mumbled, climbing out of sleep. He groped, found the handset, and pulled it to the pillow somewhere in the vicinity of his head.
    â€œSorry to wake you, my friend.”
    What?
    â€œMr. Monk, are you there?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAs I’d said, I apologize for the earliness of the hour. But having raised five children of varying ages, my body clock is eternally attuned to getting up at five-thirty each A.M.”
    Jovial son-of-a-bitch. And then the voice made its way past the skull into the brain. “Mr. O’Day.”
    â€œAh, yes indeed, sir. You are a detective.”
    â€œWhat can I do for you at,” he glanced at his clock radio, “five-forty in the morning?”
    â€œI was wondering if you’d be my guest for breakfast.”
    Why not? “Where?”
    â€œThe Odin Club.”
    â€œI didn’t know they let black people in there.”
    â€œMr. Monk, Mr. Monk, what a splendid man you are. Let’s say a decent hour, shall we. Eight-thirty.”
    â€œSure. I’ll wear my tie rakishly askew.”
    â€œOf that I’m sure.”
    The call ended and Monk rolled onto his