Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out by Lee Goldberg Read Free Book Online Page B

went wide. “Oh my God. Have they stopped making Wet Ones? Or Windex? Or Lysol? Maybe I should just kill myself now and get it all over with.”
    “Relax, Mr. Monk. Whatever the news is, it’s not that bad,” I said.
    “I’m not so sure about that, Natalie.” The captain took a deep breath. “This isn’t easy for me to say and I hate that I have to do it, but these are hard times. You’re fired, Monk, effective immediately.”
    “What did I do?” Monk asked.
    “You didn’t do anything. You’re great. It’s got nothing to do with you and everything to do with the economy. The department can’t afford consultants. They can’t even afford me.”
    I was suffering a bad case of déjà vu. We’d played this same scene before, only a few months ago. Monk was fired by Stottlemeyer, ostensibly by the department to save money and score political points with the surly rank and file. But I thought it had more to do with the captain’s feelings of inadequacy following a public flaying at a police convention over his heavy reliance on Monk to help solve crimes. I didn’t know what the firing was really about this time but I wasn’t going to accept it.
    “Captain, have you already forgotten what happened the last time you fired Monk? It was a disaster. You know you’ll regret this.”
    “I already do, but this came down from upstairs, not me. The city has no money, so the department has to make brutal cuts. I’ll give you an example. We’re reducing the number of patrol cars on the streets by twenty percent because we don’t have the money for the gasoline, the automotive maintenance, or the officers.”
    “But the streets are going to be a lot less safe and more crooks are going to get away with their crimes,” Monk said.
    “I know that, but there’s no way around it, Monk. We just don’t have the money to do the job we’re supposed to do.”
    This was a bad rerun of an episode I didn’t like the first time I saw it.
    “You said that before, Captain, and then you came crawling back to him.”
    “This time it’s different, Natalie. You know it is. All you have to do is look out the window. Have you seen all the stores going out of business? All the people losing their homes? The tax dollars have dried up. Every city, county, and state agency is being gutted. Education, social services, you name it. We’re all going to feel the pain in one way or another.”
    I knew he was right but it didn’t make it any easier to accept. If Monk was out of a job, so was I. I couldn’t just give up without a fight.
    “Mr. Monk can solve more crimes single-handedly than all the detectives in that squad room combined,” I said. “You know that, Captain.”
    “So what do you want me to do? Fire them to save Monk? I’ll tell you what, Natalie, you can go out there and pick the guys who should lose their jobs so an outside consultant can keep his. How about Randy? Or me?”
    “All I’m saying is that Mr. Monk is cost- effective. Isn’t that what this is all about, saving money? Or are you saying it’s something else?”
    “The captain is right,” Monk said. “No police officer should lose his job because of me.”
    “You are the best detective in this city, Mr. Monk. If they have to make cuts, shouldn’t they keep the best?”
    “They’re cops,” Monk said. “I’m not.”
    “This isn’t fair,” I said.
    “Welcome to my life,” Monk said and then turned to the captain. “You know you can call on me for help with a case anytime, whether I get paid or not. I’ll be there.”
    “I know,” he said.
    “Can I be there even if you don’t call?”
    “No,” Stottlemeyer said. “Are you going to be all right?”
    “I’m never all right,” Monk said and went to the door, pausing for a moment before he opened it. “Q-tips.”
    “Excuse me?” Stottlemeyer said.
    “Get Randy a box of Q-tips,” Monk said. “It’s always the perfect gift.”
    Disher grinned at us from his desk as we came out of