Violent Spring by Gary Phillips Page B

if you spilled it on them. Their names rarely surfaced in the pages of People or Los Angeles magazine, and their faces never graced the cover of Time . For they were the scions of Mulholland and Otis, Griffith and O’Melvany. Heirs not to gaudy, transient fortunes of celluloid or software, but the eternal stuff men and women fought and died for the world over. Land and water.
    Monk made it to a table by a window where Maxfield O’Day stood to greet him. No one in the room had stopped talking to gape at him or drop food from their mouths. Monk imagined O’Day must have warned them that one of the inner city denizens would be in their midst this morning.
    â€œGlad you could come, Mr. Monk.”
    â€œMy pleasure,” Monk replied.
    The two shook hands. As he’d expected, O’Day’s grip was firm and he looked you in the eye when he spoke. The attorney was natty in a tan gabardine suit, light blue single-stitched shirt with buttoned-down collar offset by a patterned aquamarine tie. They sat down. The Pacific, silent and purple in the morning light, rolled beyond the large thick-paned window bordered in etched filigree.
    A waiter, another older, white-haired, white guy saddled up beside the table. “Coffee?” He stared down the middle of the table, neither at Monk or O’Day.
    â€œAbsolutely, Graham. And the breakfast menus, please,” O’Day said.
    The waiter drifted off. O’Day placed his elbows on the table. “I won’t waste your or my time with a lot of useless small talk, Mr. Monk.”
    â€œFine.”
    O’Day reached into his pocket and withdrew a sealed number-ten envelope. In the corner was the four-color logo of SOMA. He pushed the envelope toward Monk. “There’s a check and some information in there.”
    Monk made no move for the envelope. “What’s the job?”
    â€œFinding the killer of Bong Kim Suh.”
    The coffee arrived and the waiter left the menus.
    Monk mixed in half and half and sugar. He sipped. “I’m sure you know that I already have a client in that matter.”
    â€œNothing precludes you from having another client whose interests converge on a matter. Or, from working more than one case at a time.” O’Day examined the menu. “The blueberry pancakes are quite good.”
    â€œJust eggs and toast, for me,” Monk said to the waiter who’d reappeared.
    â€œThe pancakes and a side of bacon,” O’Day said.
    The waiter went away again, leaving a faint trail of mothballs.
    â€œWhy is SOMA interested in Suh’s murder?”
    â€œBusiness, Mr. Monk. It’s important that Save Our Material Assets demonstrates it is a responsible member of the community. And frankly,” the wattage came on in his smile, “we can’t get that site going where his body was found.”
    â€œThe police are holding it up?”
    â€œThe FBI. The bastards have managed to slap a federal injunction around the site and my law firm’s been going around in circles trying to get it lifted.”
    â€œSo they and you won’t be satisfied until the Suh matter is resolved.”
    â€œYes.” O’Day drank his coffee. On his ring finger was a class ring inscribed with something in Latin Monk couldn’t make out. He saw Monk staring at it and said, pointing at it, “ Lux Et Veritas .”
    â€œLight and Truth. Harvard.”
    â€œClass of ’64. You were probably still on training wheels.”
    â€œI still am.”
    Their food arrived and they ate in silence. Midway through, Monk paused and opened the envelope. Inside was a check for five thousand pretty little green ones and some folded sheets. He unfolded the sheets. A 3X5 photo dropped out. Monk turned it over. On the back, typed on a label, was the name of Conrad James. He turned it over.
    Its contrast was terrible and looked to have been shot from a another photograph. The photo revealed a vital