The Gentlemen's Hour Page 0,87

and rarely came out. The records were his personal treasure that he hoarded and protected like Gollum. Some people thought that Monkey was part vampire because he never came out in the light of day.

“You think he’d see me?”

Shirley shrugs. “He’s in one of his moods.”

“Just ask?”

She gets on the phone. “Marvin? Boone Daniels would like to see you. . . . I don’t know what for, he just wants to see you. . . . Act like an actual human being for a change, would you, Marvin?” She holds the receiver into her bosom and says, “He wants to know if you brought anything.”

“Cupcakes.”

“Cupcakes, Marvin.” She listens for a second, then says to Boone, “He wants to know if they’re the good kind or some cheap supermarket shit.”

“The good stuff,” Boone says. “I went to Griswald’s.”

He holds up the bag to show her.

“He went to Griswald’s, Marvin. . . . Okay. Okay.” She smiles at Boone. “You can go down.”

“You want a cupcake?”

“You brought extra?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, Boone.”

He takes a cupcake—chocolate frosting—out of the bag and sets it on her desk. “Tell Elise I said hi.”

“Why don’t you date her?”

“No.”

He gets in the elevator and goes down to the records room.

As usual, it’s colder than a loan shark’s blood—Monkey keeps the AC cranked up because it’s better for the computers. And noisy—the air conditioners are blasting, the bank of computers humming. Monkey crouches on one of those weird, posture-improving chairs that you half-kneel on, rolls toward Boone, and reaches for the Griswald’s bag.

“Vanilla. Did you get me vanilla?”

“Is the pope German?”

One look at Monkey, you know why he’s called Monkey. His arms are unnaturally long, especially next to his short-waisted, small body, and he’s quite possibly the most hirsute human being in the world: tendrils of curly hair popping up over his shirt collar and around the back, thick hair on his arms, and hairy knuckles. The scraggly hair on his head is starting to thin and show a few unkempt strands of silver, but his eyebrows are thick, and his beard, which comes up high on his cheekbones, almost to his deep-set simian eye sockets shaded by bottle-thick glasses, is black.

He grabs at the bag like a monkey reaching through the bars and snatching popcorn from a kid at the zoo, and his hands dig greedily into it. Within seconds his mouth is full of cupcake, his lips crusted with white frosting and crumbs.

Another reason he’s called Monkey is that he’s a true computer monkey. What Monkey’s hairy little fingers can’t do on a keyboard can’t be done. They can make his bank of computers cough up data about any part of any building ever constructed (legally, anyway) in San Diego County.

But the real reason he’s called Monkey stems from an unfortunate incident when the director of Ruffin Road urgently needed a copy of an old building permit, couldn’t remember Marvin’s name, and asked Shirley to summon “That guy in the basement, you know, the records monkey.” Monkey has tried many times to get his nickname shortened to “Monk,” which he thinks is more distinguished and more apt, given his role as a scribe of sorts, but it ain’t gonna happen.

“What do you want, Boone?” Monkey asks. Gratitude or expressions of simple courtesy aren’t in Monkey’s nature—he sees the world pretty much as a constant quid pro quo, so why say “Thank you” for the quo when the request for the quid is doubtless on the way?

Boone hands him the list of properties. “I need to know who built these houses.”

“You do. I don’t.”

“All right, Monkey, how much?”

“There are eighteen properties listed here,” Monkey says. “Twenty each.”

“Dollars?”

“No, cat turds, you moron. Yes, dollars.”

“I’ll give you ten.”

Monkey digs in the bag for the next cupcake and shoves it into his mouth. “Round it up to two hundred, you cheap piece of surf trash.”

“Yeah, all right, but I need it now.”

“You don’t ask for a lot, do you,” Monkey says, rolling back to the computer. “Bring a couple cupcakes, think you own me.”

“Griswald’s.”

“Whatever.” He starts banging keys.

“This is on the down low, Monkey,” Boone says.

“Who am I going to tell, idiot?”

True, Boone thinks. Monkey rarely leaves the record room and has no known friends. No one can stand him. Actually, Boone has developed almost a fondness for Monkey, although he doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s the sheer persistence of his unpleasantness, his refusal to let his standards down, or raise them, whichever.

Now he types away, moaning in pleasure from the