The Gentlemen's Hour

117

Monkey sits at his computer at home and looks at Sunny’s Web site.

It’s a satisfying encounter, but all it does in the end is piss him off.

Why should guys like Boone Daniels get all the hot women?

Monkey goes through the checklist of possible answers.

Looks.

Okay, nothing he can do about that. Well, he could shave, get a haircut, brush his teeth, eat something other than processed sugar and pastry items, and hit the personal hygiene section at Sav-on every once in a while, but it isn’t going to make him look like Boone, so fuck it.

Sexy job.

A brainless PI? Forget it.

Become a surfer.

Involves deep, cold, moving water and physical exertion beyond the . . . never mind.

What else attracts women?

Money.

But you don’t have money, he tells himself, looking around his shithole one-bedroom east of the Lamp, a building that will soon go condo, which he can’t afford.

But you could get money, couldn’t you?

What was Neanderthal Daniels sniffing after?

Paradise Homes?

Monkey wipes the keyboard off, logs into his database, and goes hunting. I may not have looks, a sexy job, a surfboard, or money (yet), but I have access to information, and information is power, and power is money and . . .

An hour later he has his answer.

He picks up the phone, waits for someone to answer, and says, “You don’t know me, asshole, but my name is Marvin. You have a problem, and I’m the solution.”

Thinking . . . How do you turn Monkey into money?

Just drop the k, baby.

Invigorated, he goes back to Sunny’s Web site.