Retribution: A Lew Fonesca Novel (Lew Fonesca Novels) (15 page)

“What happened?”

“Someone shot him in his house. The police passed on me but they’re probably already looking for Mickey and maybe for you. Let’s talk.”

“No,” she said.

“Ames wants to tell you something,” I said, handing him
the phone, covering the receiver, and whispering, “Keep her talking.”

Ames nodded and into the phone said, “Got yourself some more trouble, girl?”

I ran for the front door, banged into a table sending a burger flying, and went out into the late afternoon. Flo’s white minivan was parked across the street. A young man was behind the steering wheel. Sitting next to him on the cell phone was Adele. As I started across the street Mickey stepped on the gas. He tore rubber and flew down the street. My car was half a block away and who knew which way he would turn.

As I headed back to the Texas, I saw the fire in the trash bin. It wasn’t big, but it didn’t belong there. I went over to it and looked down. What remained of a manuscript, a short one, was burning. I reached down to save some of it but it was too far along. I did read the title just as the flames hit the top page of the manuscript,
Come Into My Parlor
. The title page was off to the side of the burning bits and pieces. I picked up the title page and blew out the fire in the corner.

I went back into the Texas heading for Ames but was cut off by an angry small bull of a man with hell in his eyes.

“You fuckin’ ruined my burger, you little bastard.”

“Had to get outside. Emergency. Kid. I’ll pay your bill and get you another burger. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe sorry don’t cut it,” he said, stepping in front of me as I tried to walk around him.

“Let him by,” came a voice from the bar.

Everyone stopped talking to watch what would happen next. I was only interested in the fact that Ames was still on the phone with Adele.

The little bull didn’t move.

Ed Fairing repeated, “Let him by. Your bill’s covered. You got an apology.”

The bull nodded, stepped aside, and softly said, “I’ve had a bad day.”

I nodded and moved past him to the telephone as the conversation in the room began again. Ames held out the phone to me.

“Adele,” I said.

“You found it,” she said. “We’re going to go around the whole of Sarasota and Manatee destroying the books one at a time, page by page. I’ll let you know each time and you can tell him.”

“Give Sally a call,” I said. “She’s worried about you.”

“I’ll think about it,” Adele said.

“She’s also responsible for you,” I added. “And Flo …”

“I called Flo. I’ll call you when we burn the next one. That’s it.”

“Hold it,” I said, but it was too late. She had pushed the
END
button.

“Got an angry child on our hands,” Ames said.

“What did she tell you?”

“And each one will go, burning like dying little stillborn suns,” Ames said. “She said that’s the last line of
Fool’s Love.”

We headed for Brad Lonsberg. He had a small office on the second floor over Davidson’s Drug Store at the corner of Tamiami and Bahia Vista. Before the Starbucks moved into the middle of the small mall’s parking lot, parking had never even been a minor problem. Now, parking spaces were spiked with signs warning that you had to drink your coffee, do your shopping at Kash ‘n’ Karry, buy your magazines, or get your hair cut in half an hour or find a space at the fringe of the lot. I’m not complaining, just pointing out reality. There was never really a problem finding a parking space in Sarasota. Here people—even if they moved down or are visiting from Toronto, New York, or Atlanta—think parking half a block away from wherever they might be going in Sarasota was a major inconvenience.

Brad Lonsberg’s office was down a carpeted corridor on the second floor past the offices of child psychologists, a small gourmet magazine, the business office of a radio station, and the Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine.

His glass door, with his name in gold letters unchipped on it accompanied by “C.P.A.” and “Financial Management,” was open. Ames and I went in. A harried-looking girl was on the phone trying to be patient. She held up a finger for us to wait a second. We waited while she talked
and tried to push back strands of unruly hair. She was dark, pretty, thin, and looked as if she might be seventeen. She was also frowning as she talked.

“I really am sorry, Mrs. Scheinstein,” she said with just a touch of authentic Florida in her voice, “but we just got the forms and all, you know … if Mr. Lonsberg could get them any faster he’d… Yes, soon as they’re ready to sign, I’ll call you … I can’t guarantee tomorrow morning … It’s really up to … I’ll ask Mr. Lonsberg if he’ll… Believe me, Mrs. Scheinstein, if… I’ll see if he’s available.”

She held the phone away from her and mouthed “just one more minute” to us. Ames and I sat in two of the three waiting-room chairs in front of her desk. She pressed a button and then another one and said, “It’s Mrs. Scheinstein. She won’t listen. Okay. And there are two men here to see you. Okay.”

She pushed another button and said, “Mr. Lonsberg will speak to you now, Mrs. Scheinstein. I’m sure he’ll work it out.”

She pushed yet another button that obviously disconnected her from Mrs. Scheinstein and said, “Ole bitch,” in a whisper. And then realizing what she had done turned to us and said, “Sorry. But some people.”

“Some people,” I agreed.

“You can go right in,” she said. “Mr. Lonsberg’s expecting you. At least if you’re the men Mr. Lonsberg’s expecting.”

“We’re the men,” I said.

As we stepped past her, we could see her reaching with indecision toward the piles of papers and files on her desk and the stack of pink telephone message notes skewered to a pointed post next to the phone. She brushed back her long dark hair, sighed, and reached for a pile of unopened letters.

Ames and I stepped through the door and found ourselves in a small office. The window behind the desk where Lonsberg sat gave a view of the parking lot, Starbucks, Tamiami Trail, and even the white Cutlass we had come in.

The phone was at his ear and he nodded as if the listener could hear him and pointed at the two chairs across from
his desk. We sat. Lonsberg looked nothing like his father except for the lanky body. His face was clear, dark, reasonably good-looking in a Peter Fonda kind of way. Laura had inherited her father’s looks. I guessed Brad had been blessed by his mother. He had a nice patient smile, a recent haircut, and a shirt and blue tie with white circles on it. His jacket hung on a hanger in the corner.

“Maria,” he said calmly, soothingly into the phone, “the government moves in strange ways, its miracles to perform or fail to perform. I have the forms before me. I have your contracts neatly laid out. I’ll have this all finished in an hour and I’ll bring them by myself for your signature … Yes, I’ll have an envelope all made out and fully stamped. You sign. I get to Federal Express and you put it from your mind … I’ll be there between six-thirty and seven … No, I’ll be happy to do it… Give my best to Sam. Tell him not to worry. Yes. Good-bye.”

He hung up the phone, looked at us, and said, “I’ll bring her a yellow rose from Kash ‘n’ Karry, hand her the papers to sign, have a glass of very bad Napa Valley wine with her and her husband, and go home a sadder but wiser man. Dealing with the very old isn’t particularly easy.”

He looked at Ames who looked back.

“Mrs. Scheinstein just had her eighty-sixth birthday,” Lonsberg explained. “She still drives. She shouldn’t. What she does do is pay her bills on time.”

He smiled and with a small sweep of his hand gave us a what-can-you-do look.

“I’m Lewis Fonesca,” I said. “This is my colleague Ames McKinney.”

He examined us, the smile still on his face, a confident smile.

“I’ll try to make this easy for you,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I know. You ask questions. I get Mrs. Scheinstein’s report finished and then if the timing is right I get to see the second half and maybe some of the first half of the Riverview-Booker basketball game. My son Connie’s a guard. Great defense. Fair offense. But you want to hear about father, not son.”

“Adele,” I said.

He kept smiling as he shook his head.

“Met her a few times. She was polite, maybe a little defensive. My father didn’t make it any easier on her. I know he liked her. Sorry for the past tense but given the circumstances…”

“Given the circumstances,” I repeated.

“Conrad Lonsberg knows how to hurt, himself, his children, the feelings of others. A kid like Adele, even a tough kid, could find herself being torn apart by his criticism. It’s hard to put your work on the line, your creative work, in front of a legend and listen to him tell you how rotten it is.”

“You learn this from experience?” I asked.

“When I was about eight, I tried to read
Fool’s Love
. Couldn’t understand a word of it. When I was about twelve, I tried some writing. I tried a story, a few poems, got up the nerve to show them to him. He didn’t say anything, just read. I can still see his eyes scanning the neatly printed pages. Then he turned up to look at me, handed the pages back, and said, ‘You don’t have the gift.’ That ended my literary career.”

“Must have hurt,” I said.

“Hurt? I tore up the pages in my room and never thought again about writing. But you know something, he did me a favor. He was right. I didn’t have the talent. If he had encouraged me, I might have kept on, even written some stories or a book and got them published because I was Conrad Lonsberg’s son. But they wouldn’t have been any good and I would have known it. I could have wasted a lot of years. He could have handled that twelve-year-old better. The message was right but the delivery left a lot to be desired.”

“So your point is that you’ve got nothing against your father?”

“I suppose,” Brad Lonsberg said. “Either of you like a Coke, coffee, something?”

Ames and I both nodded “no.”

“Have you any idea where Adele might have taken your father’s manuscripts or why?”

“I’ve told you. ‘Why?’ My father is full of ‘why’s’ and
talent. His favorite question to his children. ‘Why?’”

“No specific idea of why?” I asked.

“None,” he said.

“If she destroys the manuscripts, it could mean you lose millions of dollars, you, your son,” I said.

He looked down at the papers on his desk and then over at us.

“Millions of dollars would be very nice,” he said. “How’s that for understatement. But we can live without it. I wouldn’t turn it down but there’s something satisfying in not needing it, not having to be tied to a father who’s a myth in his own lifetime. I even considered changing my name when I was younger, straight cut. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t hate my father. In an odd way I love him. We see him fairly often, Connie and I. My wife died when Connie was six, cancer. Connie could use a grandfather. Hell, I could use a father, but I… My sister, my father, and I talk about nothing. My father does seem to like his grandchildren but he gives off the sense whenever we’re with him that he’d like to look at his watch and get back to his typewriter. As the world knows Conrad Lonsberg still uses the same typewriter his parents gave him when he graduated from high school. I think he would grieve more if his typewriter were stolen than if my sister or I dropped dead.”

“So you don’t care what Adele does with the manuscripts?”

“Mixed feelings,” he said. “But I’d rather see him get them back. He doesn’t have much else besides his own lifetime of work.”

“And the money?”

“Well, that too,” he said, “but I’m doing well, better than the size of this office might show. I’ve made some good land and stock investments in the county based, I admit in private, on information given by clients. I have plenty of clients, mostly very old, very grateful for attention and often more than willing to set me up as the administrator of their estates, and I do annual audits for major companies all over the country. I specialize in high-tech companies. I’ve got two lawyers I work with who make it work.”

“In short?”

“In short, I’m doing very well financially which results, in part, in my not having to kiss my father’s behind when I’m with him. It took me almost forty years but I think I have my father’s respect.”

“And his love?”

“I’ll settle for his respect,” said Lonsberg.

“You know a Mickey Merrymen?” I asked.

“That’s the kid who picked up Adele once when we were at my father’s,” he said. “I think that was his name. Tall, young, shy. Stayed outside the gate. My son and I walked Adele out and met him. It wasn’t much of a conversation. Seemed like a nice kid, but what can you tell from a few seconds?”

“Sometimes a lot,” said Ames.

Lonsberg looked over at Ames as if he hadn’t noticed the tall old man in the room before this moment.

“Yes, I guess. I think I’ve learned to size people up fairly quickly in my business. Being a C.P.A. isn’t a glamour job, not like being a writer or a private detective, or a physician, but when people need you, they dump it on you, apologize, and want you to work magic. I’ve got to get to work. So, I apologize but…”

I got up. So did Ames.

“A question,” said Ames.

Brad Lonsberg looked up.

“All this big business and you’ve got a confused kid out there handling things?”

“Daughter of one of my clients, big clients. She just got out of high school,” Lonsberg explained. “She looks vulnerable and pretty when people walk in. It balances. Almost. Yes, I’d say she’s on the debit side. But it’s either pretty, young, and confused or a retiree who wants to go back to work. Tell the truth, I don’t think Maria will want to stay much longer. She doesn’t like making decisions. Next time I’ll try a retiree. Answer your question?”

“It does,” said Ames and we went out the door while Lonsberg put on a pair of glasses and looked down at the forms in front of him.

Maria the receptionist-secretary was frantically looking for something among the piles on her desk.

“It was right on top,” she said. “Just a second ago.”

“Mr. Lonsberg a good man to work for?” I asked.