Al Nicoletto is a character who appeared in "Mr. Monk Gets Drunk".
Biography[]
Al Nicoletto was a professional hitman affiliated with the American Mafia. In 2005, a pair of mob accountants, Rudy Schich and Ben Gruber, stole a large amount of money, leading their employers to sic Nicoletto on them to return it. Nicoletto tracks down Schich to a New York City hotel, where he murders him after unsuccessfully interrogating him for the location of Gruber, who had taken the loot with him to California. After finding a postcard with the Golden Gate Bridge in the room, Nicoletto lights a smoke, looking at his next destination.
Nicoletto books a flight to San Francisco and is able to find out that Gruber was last headed to a winery in Sonoma County. Upon arriving, the staff and other guests tell him that no one under that name nor his description had shown up, safe for Adrian Monk, who is the only one who appears to be aware of his disappearance. Introducing himself as estranged Gruber's brother Alan, Nicoletto claims that Gruber had obtained the cash he was showing off the night before he vanished from a bank robbery and that he had come to convince Gruber to turn himself in. Monk soon uncovers Nicoletto's lies, as his background did not line up with the one given to him by Gruber. Once exposed, he takes him and Natalie hostage at gunpoint, but is soon knocked out by Monk with a bottle of wine. Nicoletto is arrested, while Gruber's corpse is found in a barrel of wine. He had died of a heart attack and his body was hidden away so that the ones who found him could split Gruber's money between themselves.