Retribution: A Lew Fonesca Novel (Lew Fonesca Novels) (20 page)

“Thanks,” I said to Viviase.

“We’ll talk again soon,” he said, moving behind his desk, sitting down, and picking up the phone.

Mickey and I left the office and went into the hallway.

“What happened?” Mickey asked.

“He’s missing a piece and he wants Adele to fill it in,” I said.

“The stolen manuscripts?”

“Right. Walk back to my office. Wait for me there.”

He nodded as we got in the elevator and headed down. I stopped at the second floor. Mickey went down to ground level. Three minutes later I was signing Flo out of the drunk
tank. She recognized me, looked away as I walked her out. She was a mess.

“I have a hangover,” she said as we left the lockup.

I held her big canvas bag that passed for a purse. It weighed at least fifteen pounds.

“You’re surprised?”

“I don’t usually have hangovers,” she said. “I just feel queasy, have a beer, and I’m all right.”

“A beer won’t help you this time,” I said.

“No,” she agreed as we stepped out into the street.

The sky was still overcast but it wasn’t raining.

“They won’t let me take my car,” she said. “I suppose that means I’ll never drive again.”

“Not legally,” I agreed, starting to walk.

“Where are we going?” she asked as I moved down the sidewalk.

“To get a car and take you home,” I said.

“I’ll be stranded there,” she wailed.

“You have money. There are cabs,” I said.

“You’re mad at me, Lewis,” she said.

“No,” I answered. “I’ve learned not to expect much from people so when they don’t deliver I’m not disappointed.”

“You’re disappointed in me?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “But I’m not judging you. I’ll take you home. You hide, wait till you hear from me, drink yourself to death, and hope I find Adele who’ll probably be taken away from you even if I do. If you find the old Flo, have her give me a call.”

We walked slowly down to the corner, turned left, and hit the EZ Economy Car Rental Agency in five or six minutes of silence.

“I look like shit,” Flo mumbled.

I said nothing as we went through the door. Alan was there handing keys to a customer, a young Hispanic in a trim suit carrying a briefcase.

“Fonesca,” Alan said, bright and false. “Your car’s ready.”

I held my hand out for the keys. Alan looked at Flo.

“The cops told you?” he guessed.

I said nothing.

“We had no choice,” Alan said. “You know what kind of profit margin we survive on here? I’ve got a kid starting college next year. Fred’s got a stomach he should donate to Johns Hopkins or the Smithsonian or Barnum and Bailey. We can’t afford to fool around with the law.”

“You’re forgiven,” I said. “Keys.”

He reached over to the rack of keys, selected the right one, and handed it to me.

“New key chain,” he said. “Windshield’s new. We patched the bullet hole. Can’t even see where it was.”

“How close did it come to hitting me?” I asked.

“Not very,” Alan said. “Passenger side about chest high.”

“Someone tried to kill you?” Flo said, coming a bit out of her fog.

“Someone shot at me,” I said.

“Because of Adele?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But that’s a good guess. Let’s go.

“Ten percent off on the next rental,” Alan called as I went out the door with Flo behind me.

Alan followed us out while I helped Flo in and went around to the driver’s side. I looked at Alan and said, “You could have called me before you called the police.”

Alan nodded.

I got in and drove off heading south. Flo wanted to talk but she didn’t have anything to say. I turned on the radio and got two thirty-year-olds talking about the best time of the day to have sex. I changed the station and got a woman psychologist who was setting up brick walls against sex. I wasn’t thinking about sex. I pushed another button and got Louis Prima and Keely Smith singing “That Old Black Magic.”

“What do I do while I’m waiting if I don’t drink?” Flo mumbled.

“Eat, look at the water, watch television, read a book, listen to your records,” I suggested.

“Without Adele, something’s missing. I fill the something with whiskey sours and gin and fruit.”

“Buy a business,” I suggested.

“What?”

“You’ve got money. Buy a business.”

“Gus and I had one. I didn’t like it. Got on my knees and said thanks to the Lord when he retired.”

“Buy one you like,” I said, turning west on Oak right near the DQ. We were in Washington Park, clearly marked, a neighborhood of upscale homes, some of the oldest and best maintained in Sarasota. It looks like an MGM 1940s street where Andy Hardy might have a girlfriend. When I wasn’t in a hurry I’d bicycle through Washington Park, driving back in time for a few blocks to Osprey, which I did now.

“Like what kind of business?”

“I don’t know. Get a small place that specializes in western records or open a little bar where you can get bands in to play country.”

“Good advice,” she said. “I’ll think about it. What about you?”

“Me?”

’Take a big step back to the land of the living,” she said. “Hold my hand. I’ll teach you to square-dance. You tell me to get a life. I’m telling you right back.”

She was right. I had no business telling Flo Zink how to live or die. We were silent the rest of the way to Flo’s.

“Think about it,” I said, pulling into her driveway. “And let me know if Adele calls.”

She opened the door.

“Want to come in for a drink? Beer for you. Sprite for me.”

“I don’t think…”

We could hear the phone inside ringing. Flo left the door of my car open and ran for the house. I got out, leaving my door open too, and followed her as she found her keys, scrambled in, and ran for the phone.

“Hello,” she said.

I stood next to her.

“Sorry? You’re sorry? You’ve got a goddamn good reason to be sorry,” Flo said, a bit of her old self emerging. “Where the hell are you? What the hell are you doing? … I was in jail all night. That’s where I was. That’s why I didn’t answer the fuckin’ phone… No, I’m all right. I
won’t be driving for a while, probably never, but I’m all right. Are you coming back? … No, I just got some ramrod back and I’m asking you a question? I made it before you and I’ll make it again. I’ve got some plans … Yes, I want you back, but this old broad is getting flatter and softer since you started playing games again. I don’t much care for the woman you’re talking to, but I mean to… Fine, here he is. I’m going to take a bath and watch the boats from the deck and think about better times when Gus was alive and kicking ass.”

She looked angry now, more than a bit of the old Flo. She handed me the phone.

“Lew?” Adele asked.

“Yeah.”

“Is she all right?”

“No,” I said.

“Can you help her?”

“Can you?”

“I’m not finished,” Adele said. “I’ve got a lot of work left. You told him what I destroyed?”

“I told Lonsberg what you destroyed,” I said.

“How’s Mickey?”

“He’s confused,” I said. “He’s in my office waiting for me. Why don’t you meet us there?”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m not done. There’s hurting to be done. Did you read
Plugged Nickels?’
she asked.

“Some of it,” I said. “It’s not my kind of book.”

“Chapter six, first five paragraphs,” she said.

“What about them?”

“Read them,” she said.

“I’m getting too old for games, Adele,” I said.

“I was too old when I was twelve,” she said. “My father was screwing me and I was turned over to a pimp when I was thirteen, but you know all that. So a little game playing won’t hurt you or me. I missed out on game playing when I was growing up and going down.”

“I’ll read it,” I said. “But I’ve got a condition.”

“No more manuscripts destroyed. Not for a day or two. You bought time by helping Mickey.”

“Have you any idea who took a shot at me last night?” I asked.

“Son of a bitch shot at you?” she screamed. “Tell the legend I’m tearing two of his books right now. Tearing them and throwing them into the Gulf.
Rains Rising
and
Childhood on Fire”

“I thought you weren’t going to destroy any more manuscripts. We have a truce.”

“Screw the truce,” she said. “You want to get killed? Mickey’s grandfather was a good man. So are you. Flo’s a good woman. Ames is …”

“But not you,” I said.

“No, not me,” she said soberly. “It’s in the genes and the jeans. He saw it in me. I thought I could be … What’s the use. Tell him the titles and take care of yourself and Flo and Mickey.”

“I didn’t sign on as a baby-sitter,” I said. “I signed on to find you. Come to my office. No strings. I won’t hold you. Just you, me, and Mickey.”

“Battery’s low,” she said. “Needs recharging. I’ll think about it.”

She hung up.

“Well?” asked Flo, brushing back her mess of hair.

“I don’t know,” I said. “She’s an angry girl.”

“Don’t I know it.”

I thought but didn’t say that Adele was going to get someone very hurt or very dead if she didn’t stop this mind game with Lonsberg. What I didn’t know was how soon I would find out how right I was.

When I got back to my office and opened the door Mickey Merrymen was against the wall. His father was in front of him, his fist raised ready to strike at an already bloody face.

AT THIS POINT
I want to make some things clear. First, I am in reasonably good physical shape. I bicycle. I work out four or five times a week. I’m a little on the thin side, a bit taller than short, and I don’t have the kind of face that tells people violence lurks behind it ready to explode at some minor infraction of my space or sentiments.

I could also add at this point that I don’t do violence. Most sane and sober human beings could say the same things, but I’ve seen and imagined too much violence from that very active minority of violent humanity. I couldn’t hit anyone. I won’t carry a gun.

Ann Horowitz once asked me what I would do if my own life or the life of a loved one were being immediately threatened. I said I would try to save them, but there was no sincerity or passion in my answer. Yes, I would try to save them and I had no intention of letting myself be killed without trying to do something about it. It was the extreme situation Ann had given. Most violent situations did not push me into a corner of the extreme.

And so instead of leaping forward, turning Merrymen
around, and slamming my fist into his nose or throat, I shouted, “No.”

Merrymen’s fist froze in the air and he turned from his son toward me. Mickey slumped back against the wall.

“They think I killed that old fart,” he said, advancing on me. “You and Mickey gave them the idea that I killed Charlie. The cop told me.”

Viviase was doing what a good cop should do when he wasn’t sure where he was going. He was throwing dust in the air and seeing if it bothered someone enough to lead to answers. In this case, he had turned loose a less than fully sane Michael Merrymen with the idea that his son and I had pointed the finger at him. He wasn’t completely wrong.

The fist was up and ready. My plan, to the extent that I had one, was to get through the door and run. There was a flaw in the plan. Either Merrymen would come after me, and I doubted that he could catch me, or he would turn back on Mickey whose teeth were red with blood.

I wasn’t sure I liked Mickey, but I was sure I was not going to run out on him. If the Lone Ranger hadn’t shown up, I was going to be beaten into something like Tropicana orange pulp, or I’d get in a good or lucky punch and stop Merrymen.

The Lone Ranger arrived. He stepped into the room standing tall, unmasked, years older than I had remembered him from television.

Ames took in the story as he stepped into the room. Just as Merrymen was turning to face him, Ames stepped forward and threw a bony elbow into the younger man’s face. Flannel backed by bone hit flesh and Merrymen staggered back.

The phone started to ring. Ames moved to pick it up, which didn’t strike me as the thing to do in this situation.

Merrymen, now bloody and broken-nosed, pushed himself away from the wall and headed toward Ames with a gurgling sound that could have been his own animal reaction or the result of blood dripping into his throat.

The phone hit Merrymen in the chin just as Merrymen put his open hand out toward Ames’s eyes. This time Merrymen
went down. He hit the floor hard and rolled over groaning, his hands covering his face.

“For you,” said Ames, handing me the phone.

I took it and Ames moved to help Mickey to his feet.

“Fonesca,” I said.

“Horowitz,” said Ann. “Are you incapacitated?”

“Huh?”

“If you are going to miss an appointment, you need only dial my number and give me an excuse, preferably the truth.”

“Things happened,” I explained, looking at the not so very Merrymen.

“That is the nature of life,” she said. “You are late. Are you coming?”

“Yes,” I said. “Ten minutes.”

She was less than five minutes away and I shouldn’t have trouble parking at this hour.

“Ten minutes. I’ll explain when I get there.”

I hung up the phone and used a tissue from the dispenser on my desk to wipe the blood off its corner before putting it down.

“How’s Mickey?” I asked.

“He’ll be fine,” said Ames who had sat the boy on one of my folding chairs.

Michael Merrymen rolled over and looked up at me. He was a mess.

“I’m suing you and that old man,” he said, glaring at me.

It was hard to understand what he was saying. His nose was bent to one side and his jaw was swelling rapidly.

“I’m sure you’ll win,” I said as he sat up still on the floor. “Can you drive yourself to the emergency room?”

He didn’t answer, rolled on one side, and managed to get up on wobbly legs. He put his hand on his head and groaned.

“Hit my head,” he said.

“I saw,” I answered.

“Why are you all after me?” Merrymen suddenly said, his arms outstretched, his eyes moving from me to Ames to his son.