"On a plane? Utter torture!"
"Too bad I forgot my teleporter" Jordan snorted, her obsession with the case made Monk's refusal rather blood boiling.
"He'd probably be afraid of those too" Leland said sardonically
"Wanna confront your fear of heights?" Max hinted with a menacing face that he'd lift and put Monk against the wall if he didn't change his mind. Fixation clouded his judgment.
"Save the Kojak crap, asshole!" Sharona gave the pub owner a fierce look.
"Why don't you ..!!" Jordan began to growl at the nurse, while stepping closer.
" Now let's all calm down" the police captain glared at everyone then focused on Max. "I know it's tempting, but banging Monk against the wall isn't gonna to get us anywhere. He hates to be touched, he's afraid of heights, and we'd have a catatonic man on our hands."
"That's why I have to go by car" Adrian seized whilst frowning at Leland. "After all the flying I've done, that one hour could be the last straw."
Sharona moaned, rolled her eyes and mouthed 'ugh'.
Then, she took the sleuth aside.
"You want your badge back, right?" she looked at him dourly.
"More than anything!!" Pain flashed in his eyes.
After some more discussion, and Sharona's chiding, Monk finally agreed to take one last plane trip on the condition that the return trip would be by car.
Before they left, they found that the bookstore was owned by a certain Frederick Kohl, who had no priors.
""Do you remember a man by the name of James Hawet? Max asked a bearded man in his fifties inside the Pasadena-based used book store.
"Sure….we were both SC fans, and would talk about sports whenever he came by."
"Where's your television?" Adrian cut in. He knew that most sports fans, who owned their own businesses, especially mom and pop ones, kept a television handy, so as to be able to keep up with their favorite teams.
"Huh?"
"How else can you talk sports if you don't watch the games?" 'Talking sports' the private consultant knew, involved more than just knowing the scores.
"I listen to the games on radio"
Monk noticed that the man didn't have a radio around and after all, there was no reason for the man to have a walkman since he was his own boss and had to be available for customers.
"Are you sure that nothing else came up?" Max, with a mean look, leaned on the light pinewood counter with his fingertips and looked like a cat ready to pounce.
"We talked about my bunghole." the shopkeeper retorted as Sharona groaned at the Beavis and Butthead reference. Her son, despite her efforts, was a fan of the crude cartoon.
"If you don't corporate you're gonna have pain in your bunghole!" Said cartoon was a guilty pleasure of Max's so he too got the reference. Leland, also familiar with Beavis and Butthead, could barely keep a straight face because of how the word 'bunghole' sounded with a Boston accent.
TBC