"Mr. Monk?" Natalie Teeger pounded on his door, "Mr. Monk, it's me, I know you're up by now, we've got to get going."

There was no reply from inside the apartment. Natalie glanced at her watch: quarter after seven. Adrian was usually up and ready to go at this time. She dug through her pocket for the spare key. "Mr. Monk, come on, the captain'll be upset if you're not...Mr. Monk?" her expression turned to befuddlement as she entered his apartment. The closet was opened and empty except for Adrian's old police uniform, still wrapped in plastic and hanging crisply on the rack. "Mr. Monk? Anyone?" she called out, digging out a can of mace from her purse; it was increasingly looking like an intruder might have gotten inside. A quick glance in the kitchen, however, dispelled that notion, for his cabinets were bereft of the myriad of Summit Creek water bottles that he'd kept for "emergencies." Completely puzzled, she dug out her cell phone and dialed a familiar number. "San Francisco Police, Captain Stottlemeyer speaking, how can I help you?" came the equally familiar voice.

"Captain, it's me," she told him, "I'm in Mr. Monk's apartment; he's not here."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "What do you mean he's not there, Natalie?" came the reply, sounding both disgusted and shocked.

"Just what I said, Captain; he's not here," she glanced into the bedroom, taking note that the bed had been completely made and breathing in relief, as that indicated her employer had certainly not been kidnapped, "It's like he just vanished into thin air; half his supplies are gone too."

There was another long pause, followed by a low, aggravated groan. "And he didn't call you at all about anything since you left my office yesterday!?" Stottlemeyer asked, exasperated.

"No, not since I dropped him off and..." Natalie stopped, as she'd heard the front door swinging open. She spun around and let out a low cry to see a figure standing there. "Oh, Kevin, just you," she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Natalie, pleasure as always," Adrian's neighbor greeted her warmly and shook her hand, "What brings you in here like...?"

"Kevin, did you happen to see Mr. Monk this morning!?" she pressed him.

"Hmm," Kevin thought hard, "See him, no, but I got wakened last night by some intense shouting down on the street; that was probably around ten; it took me a good half hour to get back to sleep; I usually try condensed milk to get..."

"Kevin!!" she glared at him impatiently to get to the point. "Right, um," he nodded, "I woke up again at about two thirty; there was lots of scraping and banging down here, like Adrian was moving all sorts of stuff around; I didn't think anything out of the ordinary about it, since he tends to do it a lot, but it did seem..."

"Wait, wait, what's that note?" Natalie had noticed the paper lying on Adrian's desk over Kevin's shoulder. She strode over, picked it up, and read:

Natalie,

Something's come up that I have to do alone. Please don't try and contact me; I'll contact you in due time. Please don't panic; I'll be all right on my own. I'll tell you about it when I get back.

Your more generous than you care to give credit to employer,

Adrian Monk

"Hey, what's going on in there?" Stottlemeyer's voice came in over the cell phone again. Snapping back to reality, Natalie raised it back to her ear. "He's left on some sort of special mission, Captain, he doesn't say what," she told him.

"Terrific, just terrific!" the captain growled. Natalie heard something get thrown to the floor on the other end of the line. "We're in the middle of a really big investigation here, and he skips out without telling us!" he howled.

"Now, now, Captain, control yourself," she tried to placate him, "It could be something perfectly rational..."

"Perfectly rational!? Natalie, you know full well the words perfectly rational do not apply to Adrian Monk!!" Stottlemeyer continued ranting, "I really needed this case solved as quickly as possible!!" He took several breaths before continuing, more calmly, "All right, just, just start by calling everyone we know he knows; maybe it's something for his brother or something. Meet me in my office in a half hour if you don't here from him by then."

"Right, got it," Natalie hung up. "Kevin, you know my number?" she asked him.

"Of course, 555-4193," he reeled it off, "You want me to do anything?"

"Call me if you hear from him at all," she told him, bustling towards the door.

"OK, but I wouldn't get too worried," he tried to reassure her, "He's probably safe and secure in the last place we'd think of looking."

"Eastbridge," Adrian breathed in relief, taking note of the welcoming billboard along the side of the road. It had been a very long day; fourteen hours to New York on the bus, then another half hour wait at the Port Authority before he'd boarded the bus to Eastbridge. He'd only gotten about two hours of sleep on the way, being far too excited at what might be waiting for him, and was barely able to stay awake.

The bus slowly slid to a stop at the Eastbridge depot near the downtown. Adrian rose up once it had stopped and pulled several smaller suitcases out of the overhead bin (most of the other passengers had their entire possessions in their own overheads, as the rest of Adrian's luggage had taken up all the outside bins). As he stepped down to the curb and started unloading his belongings, it finally dawned on him that he really had no idea where he was supposed to look first. He opened one suitcase and looked the note over again, but Rufus's information was far too vague to gain anything out of. It had been eleven years, after all, and the person in question could be doing anything at the moment. Still, since his subject had been a money dealer back in the day, though, it would stand to reason that he might still be in the field, perhaps even legitimately. Glancing up the street, he happened to notice a bank not more than three blocks away. He looked at his watch: five minutes to five. He'd have to hurry. "Uh, porter," he hailed down one coming out of the depot, "Could, could you watch my belongings here? I'll be back to get it in a moment (he tried to pay no attention to the porter's wild double take at the sight of the massive stack of suitcases before him). Just have to take care of...a couple things."

A nearby trash can was overflowing. Adrian opened another suitcase and snapped open his mechanical garbage claw. He rushed over and picked up as much garbage from the ground as he could, hustled up the street towards the bank, and dropped it in a less-filled can. "Every little bit helps," he said to himself, picking up stray gum wrappers and other litter on the sidewalk and disposing of them properly as well. Ahead of him he could see people starting to file out of the bank. "Sorry, we're closing for the day," a man in a suit tried to tell him, "You'll have to come back...hey!"

"Still two more minutes till closing," Adrian squeezed by him into the bank. "Everyone, can, can I have you attention please?" he announced out loud to everyone still in the bank, "This, this will only take a second. You, are you the manager there?"

He made the mistake of pointing the claw at the manager. "ROBBERY!!!!" came a loud scream, followed by more screams as the staff and remaining customers hit the ground, apparently expecting Adrian to open fire or attack them in some way. An alarm sounded. "No, no, I"m, I'm not a bank robber!" the detective shouted over the alarm's roar, "I, I just need to talk to...!"

The claw was slapped out of his hand. "Not this time!" shouted a large, burly guard, who shoved Adrian into the wall, "Hold him, Nick!"

His partner appeared out of nowhere, and the two of them started pummeling Adrian in the chest. "You're, you're making a mistake!" he tried to rationalize with them, "I didn't come here to...!"

"We're not falling for that again, Charlie!" barked Nick the guard, "After you almost killed us hitting this place last week, we're not taking any chances with you!"

"But my name's...!" Adrian was cut off as a pair of policemen charged through the front door, their weapons cocked. "What's going on in here?" the first one in shouted over the din of the alarm.

"He tried to hold us up!" an old woman cried from under the check table, pointing at Adrian. "Well, well, you couldn't resist trying it again, could you Charlie?" the officer laughed, pushing the detective around and pulling his arms behind his back, "We've got you this time, and your lawyer can't help you out of this jam."

"Hey Stan, look at this," the other officer held up Adrian's claw, "They either must have run out of firearms, or Charlie's really desperate to make an impression."

"My name isn't Charlie, it's Ad--!!" he tried to protest.

"You can't fool us," Stan snickered, snapping his handcuffs on Adrian's wrist, "Half the people at your heist here last week positively identified you as none other than Charlie "the Sledgehammer" Loof. Want to take a bet the same people will ID you again? Why don't we go downtown and find out?"

"I wasn't trying to rob the bank, officer, I just wanted a word with the management!" Adrian tried to reason with his arresters as they led him out the door, "Please, I'm here on official police business; I'd like a word with your superior as soon as possible!"

"You want a word with the commish? No problem at all," the other officer told him with a wry smile as he loaded the detective into the back of their cruiser out front, "Let's go have a word with him, then; he's been wanting a word with you for a good long while now."