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.
Still ruffling among the mess, she said, without looking up, “He’s the greatest. Patient, calm. Look at me. I’m a boob. I can’t find a damn sheet he needs and I had it right… here it is.”
She held up the yellow sheet in triumph and showed a great set of teeth.
The phone rang. She looked at it with dread.
Ames and I exited.
“What do you think?” I asked as we walked down the corridor.
“He looks like he’s letting it all out,” Ames said. “I’d say he’s holding it all in.”
“Think I should check on Brad Lonsberg’s tales of the wealth of his kingdom?”
“Might be,” he said.
“And if I find he’s not the mogul he says he is? What does it mean?”
“Don’t know,” he said. “Ever think of trying this?”
He nodded at the window of the Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine. The office waiting room was three times the size of Brad Lonsberg’s. A lone waiting woman sat reading a copy of The Economist.
“They’ve got herbs, stuff for what ails you,” he said.
“What ails me?” I asked as we passed the office heading for the elevator.
“The past,” he answered.
“They have pills for that?”
“Pills and they stick needles in you,” he said as we reached the elevator and I pushed the button.
“And it works? You’ve done it?”
“Ed at the Texas comes here. Has his own problems. Liver. Swears on them. Costs some though.”
“I haven’t got some,” I said as the elevator dinged and opened. There were no passengers inside.
“And if you did?” he asked as the doors closed.
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure I wanted a quick fix on my grief. I wasn’t sure I wanted a pill or a needle to take away what I was clinging to. Dealing with Ann Horowitz was one thing. She wasn’t trying to take away my history, just find a way for me to live with it.
“Cup of coffee?” I asked as the elevator went slowly from the second to the first floor.
“That Starbucks place?” Ames asked.
“Why not?”
“Never been there. Two, three dollars for a cup of coffee with some sweet juice or something.”
“It’ll be a new experience. On me.”
We stepped out of the building and headed across the parking lot toward Starbucks.
“Nice kid,” he said.
“Adele?”
“And the girl back there, Maria.”
We stepped into Starbucks and both ordered the coffee of the day, Irish something. We sat at a table looking at the other customers reading newspapers, talking business.
“Someone in here named Fonesca?” called a girl with a Hispanic accent behind the desk.
I stood up.
“Phone call,” she said.
I crossed the room, inched my way past a big woman in a hat who was filling something that looked like a tall cup of whipped cream with little packets of Equal. The woman handed me the phone.
“Adele,” I said before she could speak.
“Finish your coffee, then go back to your car,” she said. “I left the title page.”
“Adele, did you call Sally?”
“No.”
“Will you?”
Long pause.
“I guess.”
“Can we talk?”
“We’re talking,” she said. “But I’m not stopping.”
“Mickey’s grandfather,” I said. “Someone killed Mickey’s grandfather.”
“It’s his fault,” she said.
“Lonsberg?”
“It’s his fault,” she repeated.
“Why?”
She hung up.
“Let’s go,” I said to Ames, hurrying back to the table.
He took the last of his coffee in one hot gulp and we went out the door past an incoming quartet of Sarasota High School students who had walked or driven over after school, books in hand. The two girls were blond and pretty. The two boys were lean and young-looking. I wondered how Ames and I looked to them.
“There,” said Ames, pointing across the parking lot toward Bahia Vista. The white van turned right onto Bahia Vista heading east.
We hurried to the Cutlass. I couldn’t smell anything burning, but there was a box on the driver’s seat. I hadn’t locked the car. We got in and I opened the cardboard box. It was filled with finely shredded paper, shredded so thin that each piece would tear at the slightest touch. One sheet was intact. It read: Let Me Introduce the Charming Devil. Conrad Lonsberg’s name was neatly typed below the title and he had signed it and written the date, 6/8/88, at the bottom of the page.
I dropped Ames back at the Texas and told him I’d get back to him in the morning. He nodded and leaned onto the open passenger window from where he stood.
“They’re all lyin’,” he said.
“I know.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“Go home, get a banana coconut Blizzard and two DQ burgers, and watch a movie.”
At least that’s what I planned to do when I left Ames standing on the sidewalk. Oh, I got the banana coconut Blizzard and the burgers but when I got back to my office, I found four messages on my answering machine, a new record.
I pushed the REPLAY button and ate a burger.
Caller one
was Marvin Uliaks: “Mr. Fonesca, have you found Vera Lynn yet? I don’t want to bother you, you know. I just want to talk to Vera Lynn. So, have you found her yet? Am I calling the right number?” Marvin sounded confused.
Caller two was Conrad Lonsberg: “Progress or setback? I’ll be home until ten in the morning.” Conrad Lonsberg sounded resigned.
Caller three was Clark Dorsey who had taken time off from constructing his house of irony to say: “Fonesca, my number is 434-5444. Call me.” Dorsey sounded troubled.
Caller four was Sally Porovsky: “Lew, Adele called, left a message on my machine. She says she knows who killed Mickey’s grandfather, but she’s not ready to talk until she’s finished destroying the manuscripts.” Sally sounded tired.
I was almost finished with my burgers and Blizzard trying to decide who to call first. There was a knock at the door.
“It’s open,” I called from behind my desk and in came the homeless Digger.
He stood in the doorway, a Neiman Marcus bag bulging in one hand and an envelope in the other. I could smell him, and like a vampire who has to be invited in, he stood waiting, weaving.
“Hypocrisy,” he said. “It rules the world.”
“I appreciate the information.”
“Monks, Luther’s ghost itself haunts our rickety abode,” he said.
“You saw him again?”
“He just left another message on your door. I watched. There was an aura of the uncanny about him. He floated like a specter.”
“A ghost?”
“My imagination is enhanced by a less than vintage wine, I must admit,” said Digger, “but while this is not a dagger in my hand, it is certainly palpable to feeling and to sight.”
“I thought you didn’t drink,” I said.
“In great moderation,” he said. “And only on special occasions.”
He stepped across my threshold, a vampire uninvited, his hand out to place the envelope on my desk.
“Thanks,” I said.
I didn’t want to say what I said next, but it would have been left hanging and heavy.
“Where are you staying tonight?” I asked.
He pushed out his lower lip and shrugged.
“The lavatory,” he said.
I took out my wallet and handed him a five-dollar bill. It was a mistake. It meant he would be back. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not the next day or the one beyond, but at some point he would come bearing a note from a ghost, a papal bull, the Sunday New York Times, and expect payment.
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