Retribution: A Lew Fonesca Novel (Lew Fonesca Novels) (25 page)

“Don’t take a chance you don’t have to,” she said.

“I’m not suicidal,” I said.

“There are suicides and suicides,” she said.

“I’ve gone a long way with Ann Horowitz,” I said. “I don’t want to die. I just want to stay depressed and hide.”

“Progress,” she said. “I’ve got to get back to the file. Call me.”

I said I would as she went back to work. I took the elevator down, waved at John, who was on the phone, and went back to my office.

Marvin Uliaks was waiting at my door. When I got out of the car after parking at the DQ I looked up and there he was waving down at me.

I hurried up the steps and was twenty feet from him when he called, “Find her yet?”

I hadn’t found anyone yet, not Adele, not his sister, but I had high hopes.

“I have a good lead on where she is, Marvin,” I said, opening my office door.

Marvin followed me in. I didn’t turn on the lights, just pulled up the cord on the blinds Ames had installed the last time my window had been broken. There was plenty of sun. This was Florida. Heat. Sun. Rain. Five months of spring. Seven months of summer. Nothing in between.

Marvin wore dark baggy pants and an oversized white T-shirt that had “
TITUS
” printed in silver, with a picture of Anthony Hopkins in a helmet staring at me when I turned.

“You need more money?” Marvin said as I sat behind my desk and looked at my answering machine. Two messages.

“No,” I said as Marvin reached into both baggy pockets. My “no” was emphatic. It stopped him.

“Where is she? I gotta talk to her. I gotta find her. You unerstan’?”

“A few days, maybe a week,” I said, thinking that I would have to go to Vanaloosa, Georgia, to find the long missing Vera Lynn to deliver her brother’s urgent message.

“A few days. Maybe a week,” he repeated softly to himself as if he were trying to commit it to memory. “A few days. Maybe a week. Okay. You sure you don’t need money?”

“A few days,” I said.

He moved to the door, turned, and stood looking at me.

“A week at most,” I said.

“A week at most,” he repeated. He kept repeating it as
he went through the door. I remembered the newspaper photographs of Marvin as a baby. I didn’t feel like answering my machine, but I pushed the button and heard the voice of Adele.

“Five more, short stories, have been sent to sea on a plastic raft. Tell him. No titles this time. Let him guess.”

Then there was a pause. I expected her to hang up but she came on with a different, less confident voice.

“Lew, I don’t want to hurt Flo or Mickey. The wrong people are getting hurt. I’ll call you back.”

I was pretty sure I could hear her start to cry when she was hanging up. That was a good sign. I needed good signs.

The second call was from Richard Tycinker’s secretary. Very businesslike she said, “Mr. Tycinker has some papers for you to serve. To be precise, an additional summons for Roberta Dreemer. Come by as soon as you can.”

I hung up. All this and Bubbles too. I could turn down the job or call back and say I would need more money to take it on, but I didn’t need more money. I needed to never see Bubbles Dreemer again. But I knew what I was going to do. I would have to face Bubbles. My hand went up to my cheek. The only impression I still had of the enormous Bubbles was not the physical one she had given me but a fuzzy, dreamlike, and definitely unpleasant memory of a confrontation I would like to avoid. Why was it that I kept having to face people I wanted to avoid? Question for Ann. I wasn’t suicidal but I had to admit to myself that what I was planning to do in a few hours was distinctly a confrontation I would prefer to avoid even more than taking on Bubbles Dreemer.

I checked my watch. Nearly five. Time had grown restless. Maybe I had time to simply grab a burger from the DQ and watch a few chapters of
The Shadow
. It was too early for Joan Crawford or Bette Davis. They were for the nights to hold off the dreams. I needed a jolt of Victor Jory’s Lamont Cranston taking on simple evil and hiding his identity.

I called Ames, told him what I planned, and asked him if he wanted to join me. He immediately asked if he should
drive over or I should pick him up. I told him I would pick him up. End of conversation.

I went out, locked the door, walked past the DQ parking lot, and crossed 301. I went into the Crisp Dollar Bill. There were a few people at the bar I didn’t recognize, both men, one in a suit looking at the drink in his hand, hoping it had answers, the other hunched over, thick, tanned arms flat on the bar. He wore a solid black short-sleeved shirt and a look that definitely said, “Leave me alone.”

My booth was empty. I sat deep in the corner listening to Country Joe and the Fish sing about Vietnam. Billy looked over at me from behind the bar where he was busy leaving the muscular guy in the black T-shirt alone.

“What have you got healthy?” I asked.

“Is a steak healthy?” he asked.

“Why not?”

“Onions?”

“Grilled?”

“You got it,” said Billy. “Beer?”

“Beck’s,” I said.

Billy nodded, happy to be doing something instead of pretending to do something. The evening group, never a crowd, was hours away. Billy brought my beer. Country Joe finished singing. The guy in the suit stopped looking at his glass, took its contents in with a single long gulp, dropped some bills on the bar, got off the stool, looked at the door, shook his head, and left.

I was alone with Billy, the bad news black shirt, my thoughts, and now a Mozart string quartet. I glanced at the black shirt whose hands and arms were still on the bar to see if he was a Mozart man. He didn’t move. I could see his face dimly in the window behind the bar.

The steak Billy finally brought was thick, rare, and covered with grilled onions. There were fries on the side. I reached for the ketchup and Billy plunked down a second Beck’s I hadn’t ordered.

“Drinks are on him,” Billy said, nodding toward black shirt. “He says he’s celebrating.”

“He looks it,” I said. “Tell him thanks for me.”

“My pleasure,” Billy said with a perfect touch of small irony.

The steak was good. I ate half the fries, drank the second Beck’s, and checked my watch.

Billy was going classical. It seemed to calm black shirt. Three more customers came in. I recognized one, the clerk at the Mexican food market across the street and four or five doors down. His name was Justo. Justo nodded at me and headed for the pinball machine. Justo was about fifty, a purist. No video games for Justo, just pinball. He stacked up his quarters and Billy kept him supplied with whiskey on the rocks.

The pinball game wasn’t loud, but it was a pinball game and it didn’t go with Mozart. Billy switched to a John Philip Sousa march by the Boston Pops after he had taken all the drink orders.

Black shirt ordered drinks around for everyone again. I didn’t want a third beer. I had a killer to deal with and a body built for no more than two beers even with a full stomach.

Everyone lifted their glasses to black shirt who turned his head toward me and said, “I’m getting married.”

I nodded.

“I’m celebrating,” he said in a surprisingly high voice.

“Congratulations,” I said, paying Billy at the bar.

“Yeah,” he said with little enthusiasm.

I left, spirits not in the least uplifted.

I had time for one episode of
The Shadow
. Victor Jory disguised himself as a sinister Chinese merchant. The bad guys kidnapped the lovely Margo Lane who screamed at least once a chapter and three times in this one, and a bomb was about to blow up a building where the city moguls were meeting.

The phone rang. I got to it before the answering machine kicked in and picked up. It was Adele, reasonably calm and definitely sure of what she wanted and what she had decided to tell me.

“Did you read the section in
Plugged Nickels?”
she asked.

“Yes.”

“Good,” she said and then asked me not to interrupt till she had finished what she had to say. I told her I would be quiet. And I was. I knew or had guessed much of what she told me, but there were a few things I hadn’t been close to.

“That’s it,” she said when she was finished.

“Ames and I are on the way to Conrad Lonsberg’s now,” I said. “They’ll all be there. I’ll take care of it. Don’t destroy any more manuscripts till…”

“You trying to make a deal?” she asked.

“No, a request. Hold off. Are you someplace safe?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Call me back at eleven tonight,” I said. “Thanks for telling me. I know it was hard.”

“It was more than hard,” she said.

At ten minutes to seven I got up, zipped on my blue jacket, and went to pick up Ames.

He was standing in front of the Texas in his slicker, hatless, ramrod straight. I didn’t know what weapon was under his coat but I was sure it was large and formidable. He climbed in.

“Peacefully, if possible,” I said.

“If possible,” he agreed.

We started driving. I had explained why we were doing it this way instead of going to the police. I definitely didn’t have enough evidence for an arrest. I might be able to convince Ed Viviase that there was a reasonably good chance I was right, but the police, the lawyers, wanted evidence or something they could label evidence. And so we drove.

We drove straight south on 41 missing all the lights. Traffic wasn’t heavy but there was some. A little red sports car cut us off as we neared Stickney Point Road and then zipped past a big light blue Lincoln and cut it off. The sports car was in a hurry. I wasn’t.

We pulled up in front of Conrad Lonsberg’s gate at fifteen minutes to eight. I guessed dinner would be over. Both Brad’s and Laura’s kids were certainly there, but it was a school night. They would be heading home soon. There might be a better way of doing this but this was the most direct. I pushed the button with Ames at my side and waited.

A voice crackled on, “What?”

“Fonesca,” I said. “Important.”

The speaker went off and we waited. We could see the sun starting to set from where we stood. I tried not to dream about what could have been and to concentrate on what was.

Laura opened the door, one of her little girls at her side.

“Hi,” the girl said.

“Hi,” I answered.

Ames bowed his head and held up his right hand. The girl giggled.

“Did you find them?” Laura asked.

“No,” I said.

“We just finished dinner,” she said. “My father’s not in … well, let’s say Brad and I are seeing his dark side when the kids aren’t in the room. I’ve got to get the girls home and in bed and Brad twisted his ankle and doesn’t want to be here at all. You sure you want to walk in on this?”

“I’m sure,” I said.

Laura looked up at Ames.

“My friend Ames McKinney,” I said. “He’s keeping me company.”

“Come on in,” she said, opening the door. “But I don’t think the great man’s going to welcome this visit. He had me call the editor of the
Herald-Tribune
today to warn them to keep a reporter away who follows my father whenever he leaves the house.”

“Rubin,” I said, “the reporter’s name is John Rubin. He’s doing his job.”

We followed Laura. Ames chatted with the little girl who switched from a hop to a skip.

“You look like a cowboy,” the girl said.

“Never was,” said Ames. “But I take that as a compliment.”

“You talk like one too,” she said.

’Thank you.”

We were at the house. There were three vehicles at different angles in front of the house. The second of Laura’s daughters, slightly older than the one at Ames’s side, was down at the shore with a tall boy, who I assumed was Brad Lonsberg’s son Conrad Jr.

“Nice sunset,” I said.

Laura looked toward it as if she hadn’t considered this possibility before.

“Yes,” she said.

“Maybe your little girl would like to join her sister and cousin on the beach and watch it go down,” I suggested.

Laura looked at me. There was no doubting now that what I had to say was serious. I wanted the children out of the way. She paused and turned to the little girl.

“Go down with Jenny and Connie,” she said. “Contest. Whoever finds the biggest shell wins. You can search till the sun goes down.”

“What’s the prize?” she asked.

“Five dollars,” said Laura.

“Five dollars?” the girl said in openmouthed disbelief.

“Five,” Laura repeated. “Bring your biggest when there’s no more sun.”

The girl went running and Laura opened the door. We walked in. Lonsberg and his son were in the living room. So was Jefferson, who lay on the floor, looked up at us, and then put his head back down to return to his dozing. Brad Lonsberg sat in a chair to the right. Conrad stood, hands in pockets.

“Does it have to be now?” Lonsberg said, looking at Ames.

“If not now, when?” I said.

“Now then,” he said, looking at Ames.

“My friend Ames McKinney,” I said.

“Good to meet you,” said Ames, holding out his hand. “Read everything you’ve written.”

“You mean everything I’ve had published,” Lonsberg said. “Which I hope is not the extent of your reading or the extent of what will be published.”

Lonsberg and Ames shook hands.

“This is my son Brad,” Lonsberg said.

“Hello,” said the younger Lonsberg, still seated.

“Brad twisted his ankle,” Laura explained.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

Everyone looked at me. Two beers and a big steak with
grilled onions were not enough for this moment and I wanted to get it over with quickly.

“You don’t think so? About what?” asked Laura.

“About your brother’s twisted ankle,” I said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Brad Lonsberg asked, sitting up.

“I think there’s a good chance you were bitten by a dog,” I said.

“Jefferson didn’t…” he began.

“Michael Merrymen’s dog just before or just after you shot him and Merrymen,” I said.

Far away, through the open window of the living room, we heard a girl shriek with delight at the discovery of a large shell.