Retribution lf-2

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “No comment,” I said, heading for the door.

  “You get my message on your machine?” he asked, taking another picture.

  “I got it,” I said. “No comment.”

  He took another picture.

  “We can deal here,” the kid said. “I give you this roll of film if (a) you get Lonsberg to talk to me, (b) you talk to me, or (c) you give me something, documents, something I can go on.”

  “I like your tenacity,” I said, pushing Lonsberg’s bell.

  “Then?”

  “Publish and be damned,” I said.

  Rubin smiled and readied his camera. I heard the crackling over the speaker that let me know someone was on the other side.

  “Fonesca,” I said. “A reporter is camped out here. If you don’t want your picture taken, don’t show yourself when you open the door.”

  I turned to Rubin who shrugged.

  “Tenacity,” he said. “Eventually I’ll get it.”

  “You’re wasting your time sitting here,” I said.

  “My day off,” he answered. “We’re a New York Times paper. I can get a story like this on the wire, in the Times, byline. Get invited back to my Journalism Department at the University of Missouri to tell how it’s done. I like my work, Mr. Fonesca. I’m staying with it.”

  The door opened a crack and I jumped in knowing Rubin was taking my picture as I did so.

  “You’re late,” said Lonsberg. Jefferson was at his side looking up at me and panting. I thought of the dead pit bull at Merrymen’s. I thought of the dead Merrymen. I thought of the shell Jefferson and Lonsberg had given me and I thought of the brown packet and fragments of manuscript I handed him.

  We walked back to the house saying nothing. Lonsberg looked at the manuscripts but didn’t read them. He took the pages out of the brown envelope Harvey had given me. He scanned a few pages before we reached the house.

  Lonsberg’s pickup was parked in front of the house. Two little girls were jumping in the back of the pickup enough to make it rock. Jefferson looked at them for an instant and then accompanied us into the house where his daughter Laura sat in an uncomfortable-looking wooden chair with a drink in her hand.

  “Mr. Fonesca,” she said. “Would you like some iced tea?”

  I said I would and she went to get it as Lonsberg took the same chair she had left though there were more comfortable-looking ones in the room. He slowly went through Harvey’s report. Laura returned with the tea and handed it to me. I said thanks and we sat watching Lonsberg read as we listened to Lonsberg’s granddaughters screaming in the truck outside.

  When he was finished, he laid the report on top of the manuscript fragments on a nearby table and looked up at me.

  “It’s over,” he said.

  “Over?” I asked.

  “Forget about the manuscripts. Forget about finding Adele. I’ll give you cash, right now, five thousand, and you walk away.”

  I looked at his daughter. She looked a bit green.

  “It’s gone too far,” I said. “Two men are dead. Someone took a shot at me and a friend of mine. I think it’s someone looking for those manuscripts. But for a man who writes like you do, you keep overlooking the fact that it’s Adele I’m after. Mr. Lonsberg, if I don’t find her or the police don’t find her, Adele could be killed. You could be killed. Your daughter could be killed.”

  Laura stopped drinking.

  “Brad and my grandson are coming for dinner tonight,” he said. “We’ll all talk about it and get back to you.”

  “Your son is all right?”

  “He’s hiding from the press,” he said. “In addition, he’s got the flu or something, but he’s all right.”

  “Tell him to be careful,” I suggested.

  “I’ll tell him what I think needs telling,” Lonsberg said. “You won’t stop looking?”

  “For your manuscripts? I just stopped looking. For Adele, I’ve just started looking.”

  “If you find anything, call Laura,” he said. “I’ll be in touch with her.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay,” he repeated, rising. “I’m in reasonably good health. I’ve got a book or two and who knows how many stories left before I die. I’ve got a legacy to work on.”

  “Then I’d better leave you to it,” I said.

  “I’ll walk Mr. Fonesca to the gate,” Laura said.

  Lonsberg didn’t object. He looked down at the manuscript fragments and brown envelope as we went through the door.

  “Nice kids,” I said, looking at the two girls who seemed to have lost none of their energy.

  “They are,” she said as we walked. “I don’t think my father has any more books in him. Not now.”

  “How about an autobiography?” I suggested.

  “My father?” She laughed and shook her head. “He’d rather die.”

  “It would be worth a lot of money,” I said.

  “Millions probably,” she said as we neared the gate. “But you don’t know my father.”

  “I’m beginning to,” I said.

  “Brad and I will get along without the money,” she said. “But my father has this idea of a legacy. I think he feels guilty about not publishing and giving us a life of luxury while we grew up. He’ll try to work. Brad and I won’t try to talk him out of it. There is no Conrad Lonsberg without his writing. If he couldn’t write, he’d look in the mirror and ask himself who he was. I have a feeling he wouldn’t have an answer. Or worse, the wrong answers. Were you serious about someone killing people, that we might be…?”

  “I was serious,” I said.

  “Mr. Fonesca,” she said.

  “Lew,” I responded.

  “Lew, my real fear is that my father has taken on the same look you wear, depression, despair, weariness.”

  “We both earned the right to wear it,” I said.

  “Maybe someday you’ll tell me your story,” she said.

  “Maybe… someday. Take care of your father and watch out for yourself and your brother.”

  I went out the door and she closed it behind me immediately.

  Rubin was standing there. The afternoon heat had forced him to remove his jacket and his white shirt was stained with sweat. He took my picture and I moved toward the Taurus.

  “I see you don’t have those papers with you,” he said.

  “If you plan to camp out here,” I said, “you’re in for a long wait. It’s my understanding that Mr. Lonsberg isn’t going out anymore today or tonight. And if you plan to follow me, I’ll make a call to whoever is the editor-in-chief at your paper and tell them you’re stalking me. And if that doesn’t work, I call the police. Not good publicity for an ambitious young reporter. Besides, I’m going home.”

  He shrugged. It was a you-win shrug, but one I knew wouldn’t stop him from digging. In an odd way I didn’t want him to stop. He was working hard. He was working with enthusiasm. He was looking for something like the truth and he wanted to get somewhere in life.

  We were direct opposites. I wondered if I had ever been like Rubin. I think I was close once, but that was long ago and far away.

  12

  John Gutcheon sat at the reception desk on the first floor of the three-story Building C in the complex of identical buildings marked A, B, C, and D. The complex was just off of Fruitville and Tuttle. Gutcheon sneezed and wiped his nose with a fresh tissue from the box on the corner of his desk.

  Building C housed some of the offices of Children’s Services of Sarasota. Buildings A, B, and D had a few empty offices but most were filled by dentists, urologists, a cardiology practice, investment advisers, jewelry and estate appraisers, young lawyers, a dealer in antique toys, and at least three allergists. There are a lot of allergists on the Gulf Coast. John Gutcheon was in need of one or more of them. His eyes were watering and he looked ready to reach for the tissues again.

  John was busy on the phone guiding people, giving advice he wasn’t supposed to give, directing calls, taking mess
ages, or transferring them to voice mail. A computer sat on a small, precarious wooden platform that slid out of his gunmetal desk and when he wasn’t on the phone John Gutcheon folded mailings and put them into envelopes, copied handwritten reports onto the computer and printed them, or warded off people who had come to the wrong place for help.

  “Do you know who that was?” he asked, hanging up the phone and looking up at me as he folded his hands on his desk like a third grader.

  “Pete Ward,” I guessed.

  “Pete…?” Gutcheon said, looking at me with pursed lips in the expectation of a pale punch line.

  John Gutcheon was thin, blond of hair, about thirty, and openly gay. He had a sharp tongue to ward off the potential invaders of his life choice and sexual preference and a wary air of conspiracy for those he accepted and who accepted him. I had made the second list but it was difficult for John to keep the pointed words from shooting out like little darts.

  “That was Thomas Warden’s assistant,” he said, proudly tilting his head down and looking up at me expecting me to recognize the name. “And who is Pete Ward?”

  “Was a third baseman for the Chicago White Sox when I was a little kid,” I said. “Solid player, go for any ball hit his direction. That was in the days before AstroTurf,” I said. “AstroTurf ruined the game, football too. Hitting AstroTurf is like landing on a concrete sidewalk.”

  “I’m fascinated,” Gutcheon said, sniffing back.

  “Thought you would be,” I said. “Who’s Wardell?”

  “Wardell Galleries on Palm Avenue,” he said as if I should now know from at least the context.

  I did.

  “Should I be impressed?” I asked.

  “They are going to show two of my paintings during the next art walk,” he said. “You are the second person to know. Actually, you’re the fourth including Alex Wardell, his secretary, and me.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “I didn’t know you painted.”

  “Sanity behooves me to paint,” he said. “They’re painting the building. I can’t breathe but I’m happy.”

  “What kind of paint?” I asked.

  He looked up at me and sighed.

  “Sherwin-Williams or something like that,” he said.

  “Something cheap. Children’s Services is putting up that eight-million-dollar building downtown for offices and meeting rooms for those who lead us in our mission to save the children of this county. The turnover rate of social workers and therapists is a mind-boggle.”

  He pointed to his computer screen and blew his nose.

  “None but those most in need of work or dedicated to the point of insanity stay more than a year. Their caseloads are enormous. Their salaries low. The paperwork is staggering and the work is heartbreaking. So, I take it back. They’re not using Sherwin-Williams. They’re using something mixed by ex-convicts in a basement somewhere in a vacant office of Building B. God, I sound bitter. It’s become a lifestyle even when I’ve had good news.”

  “I meant what kind of paint do you use,” I said. “On your paintings.”

  “Watercolors,” he said, blowing his nose and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I specialize. Dark, gothic backgrounds, decaying buildings, castles, full moons, dark clouds, dense woods, and always a single bright beautiful flower, usually an orchid so bright in hue that it doesn’t need the sun or moon.”

  “Hope,” I said.

  “In the flower, yes,” he said. “Hope, a little beauty, but even the darkness and decay have a fascinating beauty, at least to me and apparently to some degree to Mr. Wardell.”

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “You and Sally are invited to attend, not expected to buy,” he said. “My only hope is that they don’t have that huge bowl of Hershey’s candy kisses for browsers.”

  “Let’s hope. Is…?”

  “You’re in luck,” he said before I could finish my sentence. “She got in about five minutes ago. I think she has a client call in, let’s see, about an hour. I’ll tell her you’re on the way up.”

  He sneezed.

  “Bless you.”

  “That would be nice,” he said, picking up the phone as I headed for the elevator. It was open. I stepped in and pushed the button for the third floor.

  Sally was at her desk. She was brushing back her hair with one hand and thumbing through a file thick with papers and reports on her desk. She and the other workers, some of whom were out, a few of whom, male and female, were huddled with clients and their parents or foster parents.

  “I’m so busy, Lew,” she said. “Court in the morning and I can’t find the case study report. Gone, missing. I was sure it was here. Gone. Or maybe I’ve flipped past it ten times but my mind is among the missing.”

  “Normal day,” I said, sitting next to her.

  “Perfectly normal,” she said. “Adele?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “You?”

  “Haven’t heard from her again.”

  She stopped going through the papers, put both hands to her hair to try to get it to cooperate, and sat back looking at me.

  “Five minutes, Lew. I’m sorry. That’s all I’ve got.”

  “Michael Merrymen is dead, Mickey’s father. Mickey’s grandfather too.”

  “And?”

  “I think I know who killed Merrymen and Corsello and took a shot at me and Flo,” I said.

  “Who?”

  I told her.

  “Why?”

  I told her.

  “Now,” I said. “If I’m right, how do we get to Adele? How do we stop her? Ames and I can try to protect her but you’ll have to put her together when we find her.”

  “Not ‘if’ you find her?”

  “I’ll find her. Maybe you can help with that part, but I’ll find her,” I said.

  Sally nodded. She wore little makeup, still carried a few more pounds than she would like, and had on a serious blue court suit that needed ironing or pressing. She looked serious. She looked dark and pretty, her mouth and eyes large, her cheeks and forehead unlined. Adversity, the loss of a husband, two kids to raise, and a job that could break a hangman’s heart didn’t destroy her looks or determination.

  “Assuming you’re right,” she said.

  “Assuming,” I agreed, leaning forward.

  I listened to her talk. She let her eyes wander toward the photograph of her children on her desk as she talked, making sense, suggestions, pointing out possibilities, ways I could handle the situation with the least harm to the fewest people. She made sense. It was her job. She did it well. Then she looked at her watch.

  “Got to find that case study,” she said with regret, touching my hand.

  “Friday night I owe Harvey a dinner at Michael’s at the Quay,” I said. “Can you?”

  “No kids?”

  “If possible,” I said.

  “Possible,” she said. “I need it.”

  She got up and glanced around and so did I. She stepped close to me and gave me a kiss. It wasn’t long and it wasn’t deep, but it was full. There was promise.

  “Soon,” she said softly.

  I knew what she meant. We had been seeing each other for almost half a year. We had never gone beyond some very close fully clothed kisses. The memory of my wife wouldn’t go away. Ann was working with me but I couldn’t and wouldn’t lose those memories, the good ones and the ones of her death. Before I came into her overly busy life, Sally had decided that she couldn’t add a close relationship to a man to her existence. Celibacy might not be perfect, was her belief, but it beat the entanglements of a relationship. In some ways, I was about all she could handle or want from a man for now. We were a perfect match. A good-looking widow with two kids, and a short depressed Italian process server losing his hair. God had brought us together.

  “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.”