Mr. Monk Gets Even by Lee Goldberg Read Free Book Online Page B

building.”
    “Someone could help him out,” Monk said.
    “He’d have to get past us first,” Stottlemeyer said. “And that’s not going to happen.”
    The motorcade rolled into the parking lot. It was a moving truck escorted by two cop cars and four motorcycle cops. The moving truck backed up to the loading dock.
    Two prison guards, one of them cradling a shotgun, emerged from the cab of the truck and came around to the back. One of the guards stepped forward, unlocked the rear latch, and rolled up the back door to reveal Dale the Whale in all his corpulence, spread out and handcuffed to a queen-size bed that was bolted to a pallet. He wore a bright orange prison jumpsuit that made him look like a deflated hot-air balloon.
    Julie let out a gasp and immediately covered her mouth in embarrassment.
    “Ah, how I will miss that gasp of awe at my fleshy magnificence,” Dale said with theatrical pomposity, even as he struggled for breath.
    “It was a gasp of horror,” Julie said, “you fat—”
    Now it was Monk’s turn to gasp.
    I won’t repeat the profanity that she used, but rather than offending Dale, it delighted him.
    “I like you, Julie,” he said.
    “You know me?” she said.
    “I know everything,” Dale said. “I’m omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Just ask Adrian.”
    Monk took a step up to where the back of the truck met the loading dock. “Whatever scheme you have in mind, it’s not going to happen. I’ll foil it, as I always have.”
    “But as smart as you think you are, you weren’t able to stop your wife from being blown to bits in her car. You didn’t see that coming, did you?” Dale asked, smiling as Monk went rigid. “Oops, was that a sore point?”
    Stottlemeyer marched into the truck, stopped beside the bed, and leaned close to Dale’s ear, which was nearly lost in the fleshly folds of his cheek and neck.
    “If you don’t die on the operating table, I hope you try to escape,” Stottlemeyer said. “It would be my pleasure to shoot you during the attempt.”
    “I’d tremble,” Dale said. “But I’m too fat. You’ll have to try to scare me again when I’m thin.”
    Stottlemeyer straightened up and gestured to the cop on the forklift.
    “Get this blob out of here,” he said.
    The forklift scooted forward, turned, and moved into the truck, its long tines sliding under the pallet that held the bed. Then it backed up, turned again, and carried the bed into the hospital and down a long corridor to the first-floor suite of operating rooms.
    Monk, Julie, and Stottlemeyer, as well as the two armed guards, followed behind the forklift.
    The doors to the operating room had been temporarily removed to accommodate the forklift. Julie could see two maintenance workers standing against the wall, holding up the detached doors and staring wide-eyed at the arrival of the special patient.
    A surgeon in his forties wearing blue scrubs was waiting at the entry to the OR. He held up his hand to signal the forklift operator to stop, then stepped up to meet his patient.
    “Mr. Biederback, I’m Dr. Damian Wiss. I’ll be your surgeon,” he said, without offering his hand. He had an almost militaristic bearing, like a Navy SEAL about to parachute into Osama bin Laden’s compound.
    “Are you any good at this?” Dale asked.
    “I’ve done hundreds of these operations,” Dr. Wiss said. “You’re my third patient today.”
    Monk smiled at Julie. “That’s promising.”
    “I appreciate your confidence,” Dr. Wiss said to him.
    “That’s not what Adrian meant, Doctor,” Dale said. “He thinks that because three is an odd number that my chances of serious complications or death are vastly increased.”
    Dr. Wiss gave Monk a cold look, then shifted his gaze back to Dale. “There are significant risks involved in this operation, but the numerology surrounding it is not one of them. You do need to be fully aware of what you are facing.”
    “I’ve already been told about the