[In John Ricca's apartment]
[to an officer] Get a list of tenants. Start knocking on doors. [Randy comes in, awestruck] Lieutenant, I thought you had the perimeter. [Randy starts pointing at various Sonny Chow movie posters in the living room]
Fist of the Cobra, 1975. I've got that same poster in my room. [points at another poster behind the TV] Oh look at this! It's from Ten Fingers of Doom. He broke his arm doing that stunt, but he still finished the scene, though. [squats in front of the TV and finds a VHS tape] Oh my God!
He's got a bootleg copy of Enter the Cobra. Can I have it?
No you can't have it, Detective! This is a crime scene!
Let's watch it. [starts to put it into the VCR, but stops and reconsiders it] Okay. Sir, I have a theory on this: this guy John Ricca. He's published a book on Sonny Chow, right?
Well it was a real hatchet-job, I mean it made the Cobra look terrible.
Sonny Chow. Maybe we should be looking for a Sonny Chow fan. I mean they all hated the book, and most of them? Pretty nuts. I mean, I've seen the conventions all the time and they were real fanatics. [Monk and Natalie come in and step over the body to join Stottlemeyer and Disher]
Monk, thank you for coming. [adknowledges Natalie] Miss Teeger. I assume they filled you in downstairs.
More or less. How did he enter the building?
He broke in through a door on the roof around 4:00 AM, but get this: when he left after the murder, he took the elevator down and ran out.
He didn't mind being seen?
Was he really killed with nunchucks?
Yeah, check this out. [walks in with an evidence bag containing the death nunchucks] Gold-plated. Look at those insignias. Sonny purchased ones like these in Ninja Fury.
The killer left these behind?
Well, they either belonged to the killer or to the victim. I mean, he was writing a book on all this crap. [An officer hands a VHS tape to Stottlemeyer]
PPolice Officer
Captain, here's the videotape you wanted.
Ah, thank you. [plugs it into the VCR] Elevator B, at... 4:07. Let's have a look. [He presses play. A grainy image of the ninja getting on the elevator is seen]
You can't even see his face!
He looks like the Cobra. Sonny wore a uniform just like that in Kung-Fu Assassin.
Sonny Chow is dead. [walks back into the other room, where the medical examiner is standing over Ricca's body] Doctor, give me a good note.
MEMedical Examiner
He was clutching some hair. He must have grabbed it off the killer's head. That means we have a shot at some DNA.
How could he grab any hair? We just saw the tape. The intruder was wearing a hood.
Well it could have fallen off during the fight.
MEMedical Examiner
Because we hit her. The victim wrote you a note. [Under Ricca's right hand is the word "OW," written in blood. Monk, Stottlemeyer and Disher all squat to examine it]
"OW"? Why would anybody write "OW"? Usually, that's something you'd say. [Monk moves Ricca's arm aside, revealing the whole word: "CHOW"] Oh my God. Chow's alive. Sir, the rumors are true: he's been hiding out overseas just waiting for a time to make a comeback.
[Stottlemeyer makes a late night visit to Monk's apartment. Monk, carrying a container of lightbulbs, answers]
Sure. [Stottlemeyer comes in and Monk closes the door]
Oh, nothing. I was just... polishing the lightbulbs. What's going on? [He takes his box of lightbulbs back to the kitchen]
Uhh, you remember that convention I went to in Atlanta about three years ago?
Well, something happened there that I didn't tell you about: I landed, I hailed a cab, and, I recognized the cab driver. It was Harold Burnshaw.
Burnshaw. He used to be a Fed, he was a real player. He used to head the FBI's field office in Atlanta until the 1996 Olympic Games.
Exactly. They accused the wrong guy. Burnshaw booted it big-time on network television, instant career-killer. Now he's driving a cab. Monk, you should have seen his face. I'll never forget it.
What does this have to do with-
Twenty years ago, Sonny Chow froze some of his own blood in the event that he needed surgery. So they've got bulletproof DNA for a comparison, and that's a prelim on the hair we found at the crime scene.
[reads from the file] It's a match.
It's Sonny Chow's hair. No question about it. He's been dead for six years, and he's my primary suspect.
Now if I go public with this, and I'm wrong, I'm gonna wind up at the airport, picking up cops who still have jobs! Can you help me with this? I mean, I've gotta know, I've gotta be certain. Is this guy alive or dead?
[Sonny Chow's coffin is being exhumed]
Lieutenant, you realize that if Sonny Chow is alive, he's killed at least two people.
You'd have to arrest him.
He might even try to kill you.
You think so? Wow, that would be so cool! Sonny Chow!
[Cuts to the gravediggers lifting the coffin out of the ground]
Captain. How are you feeling?
I'm a nervous wreck. How'd things go with the Zen master?
Well he said Sonny Chow died in his arms. I believe him.
Good. Well at least the press hasn't gotten wind of this, 'cause once they do, it's gonna be like Christmas morning for those vultures.
[examining the monument] Look at that thing!
Yeah. His fan club in the Phillippines paid for that!
[to the gravediggers] Be--be careful with that! You wanna be careful with that! [One gravedigger, Chris Downey, turns to Monk]
I said you might wanna be careful with that.
Come on, I've been doing this job since I was eighteen years old! I think I know what I'm doing. I don't come down to your station house and, tell you how to beat a confession out of some kid. [Stottlemeyer eyes and appears to recognize Downey]
You're Chris Downey. [incredulously] They let you out?
I did my time. Now I'm doing my job, at least I'm trying to. [swallows some pills from a bottle]
[to Monk and Natalie] I busted this low-life for assault and armed robbery.
Got me on the assault. There was no robbery.
Right. We never recovered the jewels you stole-
Allegedly stole, allegedly. I love that word.
[Monk and Natalie are waiting for Sonny Chow's coffin to be opened; Monk is examining pickle jars containing preserved organs]
Mr. Monk, this was not in my job description. Let's get out of here.
Oh I'm okay. What a beautiful pancreas. [Stottlemeyer, Disher, and a doctor come in]
OK, here we go. [They open the lid of the coffin]
[covers her eyes] Oh, my God...
DDoctor
We're so sorry to disturb you.
[They take a part of the corpse, and examine it under a microscope]
Well, you're the expert. Is it him or not?
It's hard to say. I mean, Sonny had a lot more hair... and skin.
DDoctor
We'll know soon enough. It'll take two minutes to compare these with his old dental records.
[Three police cars intercept Chris Downey's pickup truck as he drives out of the cemetery]
Turn off the motor! Throw your keys out the window! [Downey complies]
[advancing on Downey, his gun drawn] Show me your hands, Downey! Show me your hands! Get out of the car! Get out of the car! [Downey slowly opens his door just as Natalie runs up. Stottlemeyer gets her out of the crossfire]
Natalie, stay back! Stay back! [He forces Downey onto the hood of his truck] Where's Monk?! What did you do with him?
Relax, Captain. He's still alive, for now.
Where is he? What did you do with him? We can save both of your lives.
If you wanna find your friend, I want something too: I want a car to the airport. [produces a small bag from his uniform pocket] I'm already packed. I want a jet that can fly 2,000 miles without refuelling. When I'm in the air, I'll tell you, A) Where I'm going, and B) where you can dig up... [stammers] Di-Dig. Y-you can dig. [immediately has a heart attack and collapses to the ground]
Oh my God, I think he's had a heart attack! [They start to perform CPR on him]
[Monk has been buried alive.]
I want that backhoe ready and running! Keep it running! [to the search party] All right, listen up! We figure he's got about forty minutes of air if he's not panicking... figure on fifteen minutes. This is Monk, I want the best you've got! So we're gonna spread out and we're gonna work the grid, all right! We're looking for fresh dirt, tire tracks, footprints, anything! Let's go-go!
Captain! There's a problem; the cemetery's just expanded. They just tore down a restaurant over there. It's all dug up, like, an acre and a half. Monk could be anywhere.
Captain, it's already been 20 minutes. Even if we find him, he'll be a basket case!
