Free Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out by Lee Goldberg

up.”
    “It could be a long time before they can afford outside consultants again,” I said. “For all we know, it could even be a year or more. Do you have that much money set aside to support yourself and me?”
    “Hell no,” he said. “That’s why you’re going to have to take a significant pay cut.”
    “How significant?”
    “You’ll be assisting me pro bono.”
    “I see,” I said, trying not to lose my temper. “And how am I supposed to pay my bills?”
    “I suppose you’ll have to work nights at a part-time job.”
    “I need a full-time job.”
    “I am a full-time job.”
    “You certainly are,” I said. “But you aren’t going to pay me.”
    “Don’t be so selfish and materialistic. There are more important things in life than money.”
    “Like assisting you, for instance.”
    “Yes,” he said. “It’s like a higher calling.”
    “What about my obligations as a mother to support and care for my daughter?”
    “Julie is not a child anymore. She’s nearly eighteen. It’s time she got a job, enjoyed some independence, and learned the skills she’s going to need to live on her own. You’ve coddled her for too long.”
    Monk was right about Julie, not that he knew anything about raising a kid or even living on his own. And, as much as I hated to admit it, even to myself, he was right about me.
    I was a widow, Julie was my only child, and I liked having her near me. I didn’t want to let her go. I’d been spoiling her and keeping her too close, limiting her independence out of my own neediness.
    And Julie, being a very smart kid, probably knew that and, as much as she chafed against my overprotectiveness, found ways to use it to her advantage. The conversation we had last night proved that to me.
    I had to agree with Monk. It was time for Julie to get a job, if for no other reason than to gain some work experience and learn that money isn’t easy to come by.
    But that didn’t mean I accepted Monk’s argument and was ready to work a graveyard shift in some menial job just so I could devote my days to doting on him.
    I knew how much Monk needed me, especially now, but I had to put my family first. If he couldn’t afford to pay me, I would have to find a new job, regardless of the consequences for him.
    But I didn’t want to deal with it right at that moment. It had been a long day for both of us. Putting off a decision for another day or two, until I saw how things were shaking out, wouldn’t make a difference.
    “Let’s talk about this tomorrow,” I said. “I’ve got to get going before the bike shop closes.”
    “Okay, but my mind is made up,” he said.
    “It usually is,” I said.
    I left Monk’s place, dropped off Julie’s bike, and stopped at Mama Petrocelli’s to pick up a pizza on my way home.
    I could never walk into the place without Warren Horowitz, the fortysomething owner, flirting with me and begging me to work for him again. I’d waited tables there fifteen years ago right after he bought the place from the Petrocellis. Warren still used their recipes, though he’d added a “Matzorella Pizza” to the menu just to make the place his own.
    “If you won’t work for me,” Warren said, “the least you could do is marry me.”
    “It’s tempting,” I said. “But I think I’ll take a salami pizza to go instead.”
    “Hebrew National or Italian?”
    “Italian,” I said.
    “You’re breaking my heart, Natalie,” he said.
    “I’m making a sacrifice so you’ll marry a nice Jewish girl.”
    “Have you been talking to my mother?”
    I left without getting engaged, set the pizza out on the kitchen table when I got home, and found Julie in her room, video-chatting with three of her friends at once on her Mac.
    She and her friends were sharing video clips and watching them together from afar. Well, not that far. Two of the three girls Julie was iChatting with lived right around the corner.
    I would have preferred that she hung out with her friends in