“Admirable.”
“It’s his job. He won’t hurt you.”
We stood looking at each other for a few seconds. Then he said, “You have news.”
“I have news.”
“What kind?”
“Bad,” I said.
“Let’s walk on the beach.”
He turned his back on me and headed toward the water. I caught up with him and Jefferson trotted slightly and uncomfortably behind me.
’Tell it all. Tell it carefully but tell it quickly,” Lonsberg said.
“Adele’s destroyed three of the manuscripts. Burned one. Shredded one. Soaked the third in water till it can’t be read. She made sure to leave the cover pages of each one behind.”
I pulled them out. We were standing on the sand now, the Gulf water washing in, waves a few feet high, wind light to moderate as the TV weatherman said. I handed the envelope to Lonsberg, who opened it and pulled out the three single sheets.
“Meet the Charming Devil, Come Into My Parlor, Whispering Love,” he read from each sheet. “Not my best work. Not my worst. Come Into My Parlor is no loss. Meet the Charming Devil… I can’t even remember it. Whispering Love, not a bad novel, not a good one. I was going through
… through some problems when I wrote it. I wonder if she read them before she destroyed them?”
“I don’t know.”
“She tell you what she wants?” he asked as he motioned for Jefferson to run down the beach. Jefferson ran north along the beach. He seemed to have something in mind.
“No,” I said. “She said something about making you pay page by page. Said she would do it a little at a time and let me know.”
He nodded in understanding.
“So what are you doing?” he asked, looking down the beach at Jefferson who seemed to be trying to catch some gulls and having no luck.
“Waiting, trying to talk to her when she calls,” I said. “She wants to be caught. She wants to hurt you, taunt you, and be caught.”
“If you’re lucky, you’ll catch her and salvage some of my work before it’s all gone,” he said without emotion.
Jefferson was loping back toward us down the beach, something flopping in his mouth.
“Luck would be fine,” I said, “but I’m not counting on it. I know Adele. She’s smart, but she’s angry. And she’s traveling with a kid named Merrymen. You know him?”
“Merrymen,” Lonsberg repeated, leaning down to pick up the dead fish Jefferson had dropped at his feet. The fish had been dead at least two or three days. Crabs had gotten to it and it gave off the distinctive smell of death.
Lonsberg patted Jefferson on the head. The dog’s eyes closed in ecstasy. Lonsberg pointed south on the beach and Jefferson took off.
“Merrymen,” he repeated. “Young, lanky, decent-looking, quiet, didn’t seem bright enough for Adele. Met him twice when he picked her up. The first time he gave me an are-you-a-dirty-old-man look. The second time he just kept his head down, nodded, and got away as quickly as Adele was willing to leave. Jefferson took a definite liking to the kid. Jefferson’s not easy to please.”
Down the beach the big dog decided to plunge into the water where an incoming wave took him in the face. He weathered it and swam out in search of some treasure for Lonsberg.
“What else?” Lonsberg asked, looking at the dead fish.
“Bernard Corsello,” I said. “Mickey Merrymen’s grandfather. Someone shot him.”
“So, what have I to do with Hecuba or Hecuba to me that I should weep so for her?” he asked.
“Shakespeare,” I said. “Hamlet, I think.”
“I apologize,” said Lonsberg. “I was trying to keep you in place. I don’t know what place, but…”
“I read a lot,” I said. “I read and watch old movies. I like the way Shakespeare sounds.”
“My favorite is Titus Andronicus” said Lonsberg. “Murder, mutilation, racism, hubris, mistakes, lies, rape, cannibalism, madness, and a sense of humor. “None of which are really part of what I write. Which is your favorite?”
“Macbeth,” I said. “Nice and straightforward. But I’m more a Stephen King man myself.”
“Underrated,” Lonsberg said. “Overpaid.”
“Bernard Corsello,” I repeated as Jefferson bounded out of the water with a new treasure in his mouth. “Adele and Mickey Merrymen steal your manuscripts. They go to Mickey’s grandfather to hide while Adele destroys your manuscripts. Someone comes looking for them, tracks them to Corsello’s, kills the old man, doesn’t find Adele, Mickey, or the manuscripts.”
“You think I killed this Corsello?” Lonsberg asked with a smile as Jefferson ran up and dropped a large shell at his feet. It was a beautiful turquoise shell without a nick, worn clean and smooth.
Lonsberg picked it up and turned it over. The shell was white inside. He handed it to me.
“A gift from me and Jefferson,” he said. “A bonus. I didn’t kill any old man. If you talk to Adele, tell her that… tell her you told me what she was doing and I said nothing. You can tell her I’m sorry. No, she wouldn’t care. Just tell her I said nothing.”
“Sorry? About what?” I asked.
“Just tell her I said nothing,” he said, looking toward the horizon.
“I’ll tell her,” I said. It would be the truth.
I put the shell in my pocket. We started away from the beach slowly, Jefferson at Lonsberg’s side.
“I met your daughter and son,” I said.
“Did you?” he asked but it wasn’t really a question. “A lost generation, at least in my family. My grandchildren show some promise even if Laura, my daughter, does teach them to hate me as much as she does.”
“I don’t think she hates you,” I said.
“You don’t?” he said, again as if I had made a faulty observation.
“Dislike, maybe. And still…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it so he did for me.
“Love,” he said. “Dislike and love. Almost a good title. Probably also true. And Bradley the C.P.A.?”
“You’re not the warmest man in the world,” I said.
“Not quite a nonsequitur,” he said. “But your point is taken. Bradley wants to be everything I’m not. Warm, outgoing, friendly, uncreative, goes fishing with his son, has a good smile. Likable. That the way you found him?”
“Pretty much,” I agreed.
“I don’t think about my children much or my grandchildren as far as that goes,” he said as we approached the gate. “I think about my wife. I treated her the way I treated my children. She saw something inside me that kept her coming back for more. She gave up trying to make me into something else and accepted what I was. She was a good listener and a more than decent poet. She used a pseudonym. Won’t tell you what it was. No one’s found that out yet. Some avid graduate student will probably make the discovery someday taking weeks or months he could be living to do it. She wanted to make it on her own and she did. New Yorker, Atlantic, little magazines.”
We were at the gate now.
“I just talked to you more than I have to anyone except Jefferson in the last six or seven years,” he said. “You’re a good listener, Fonesca. Now, go be a good detective.”
He put his hand out and we shook. Strong, firm, but there was a tremble, slight but real, early Parkinson’s? I doubted it. Something I had told him? Possibly, but what?
I got in my rented Taurus and pulled out Jefferson and Lonsberg’s gift shell. I laid it on the dashboard and looked at it for a few seconds, hoping it held some secret that would come out as if it were a magical gift from the sea. It told me nothing. I wasn’t surprised. When my wife was alive I used to watch the skies with a telescope we kept on our small balcony. From time to time I thought I spotted a U.F.O. I was always wrong. She humored me. I wanted to find something out in the skies, something that would alter the world and open eternity. When she died, I left the telescope behind. Whoever has the apartment now is either using it, letting it sit in a cor
ner, or has donated it to Goodwill.
On the way back to my office home I stopped at Flo’s. Her car was parked in the driveway. I rang the bell. It chimed back the music from the ten notes of “If You Loved Me Half as Much As I Love You.” I didn’t want to press the bell again. I didn’t have to.
“Who?” Flo called from inside.
“Lew,” I said.
“Alone?”
“Alone,” I answered.
She opened the door, the barrel of a rifle aimed at my stomach.
Her hands weren’t steady, but steady enough. Her mouth was slightly open. Tex Ritter sang “High Noon” behind her, one of Flo’s all-time favorites.
“Where’ve you been?” she asked. “I’ve been calling you. Left a message.”
“Out looking for Adele,” I said.
“Asshole tried to kill me,” she said. “I was out driving in the Ford, pulled into the driveway, and he blasted away from the bushes.”
“Someone tried to kill you?”
“I just said that, Lewis.”
“You saw him?”
“No. I heard him. Heard the bullets hit the side of the car. One went through the window not far from my head. I ran in, got the gun, and took a few shots in his direction. Scared him away. While I went for the gun, he had the balls to open the car trunk. Went back inside and found whoever it was had gone through the house didn’t leave much mess but the broken window he came through. Just opened doors, closets, crawl space, didn’t find what he was looking for, and then waited for me to show up.”
“He was looking for some manuscripts Adele took,” I said. “He was looking for Adele. He or she. I don’t think whoever it was will come back.”
I didn’t think this was a good time to tell her that Bernard Corsello had probably been gunned down for the same reason she had been attacked and that she was lucky to be alive.
“You call the police?” I asked.
“I called you,” she said, backing away so I could get inside and she could close and bolt the door. “I don’t want cops here asking about Adele and asking why I was out driving when my license is goddamn suspended.”
“Whoever broke in took nothing?”
“Not that I can tell, but things were moved, drawers were open in Adele’s room, her closet. I’ve got it all cleaned up now. Guy’s coming to fix the window tomorrow.”
“He won’t come back, Flo,” I assured her as Tex sang, “Vowed it would be my life or his’n.”
“You got it wrong, Lewis,” she said. “I want him back. I’m ready now. I want him back so I can blow his legs off and get him to tell me where Adele is.”
“I don’t think whoever shot at you knows where Adele is,” I said. “They’re looking for her.”
She leaned the rifle against the wall.
“I can use that thing,” she said. “Gus taught me when we were just married. He could shoot a hole through a half dollar thrown into the air. Saw him do it. Did it myself a few times, but I was cold sober then. You want a drink?”
“You made a promise as a bride,” Tex sang.
“No, thanks,” I said.
She moved across the large living room to the liquor cabinet next to the CD and record player and poured herself a hefty glass of something white.
“You promised to stay sober, Flo,” I reminded her.
“That was because I had Adele,” she said, taking a drink. “Now I’ve got nothing again but old songs and lots of bottles and, I almost forgot, someone who’s trying to kill me.”
“I’ll find Adele,” I said. “I’ll bring her back. Get sober. Make a deal with yourself, a bet. You’re a gambler.”
She looked old, her sequined green skirt and blowsy white blouse and dark boots belonged on Catherine Zeta-Jones or Charlize Theron or Salma Hayak, but not Flo Zink.
“Okay, I put the bottles away,” she said. “Stay sober, wait for that bastard who tried to kill me to show up, and you deliver Adele with no charges against her by Wednesday. Wednesday at high noon,” she said as Tex sang, “Do not forsake me, oh, my darling.”
“Wednesday, high noon,” I said.
Flo looked at her still half-full glass for an answer and said, “Deal.”
She dumped the remainder of her gin or vodka into a cactus plant next to the sofa and sat looking up at me.
“Lewis, you brought that girl into my life,” she said. “Bring her back. I don’t know how much she needs me, but I sure as hell need her.”
“I’ll find her,” I said.
“Then do it,” she said, scooting me with one hand.
I went out the front door and moved around Flo’s car. There were eight holes in it and the window was broken. I got out my pocket flashlight and dug out a bullet with my pocketknife.
I was on my way home again trying, without much luck, to figure out who had shot at Flo and killed the old man. Lonsberg? I didn’t think it was in him, but his life’s work had been taken. Did it feel as if a kidnapper had broken in and taken his children? I mean, did it feel like that to him?
And his heirs, Laura, Brad, maybe even Brad’s teenage son, afraid Adele would destroy their legacy. Or might it be…
The shot hit the front window turning it into an intricate instant insane spiderweb I couldn’t see through. The shot had come from a vehicle on my left. That I knew. But I hadn’t looked. The vehicle was ahead of me now and I couldn’t see through the windshield. I slowed down, opened my window, and guided the car through an empty lane of traffic on Webber Avenue. I sat for a few seconds watching for a car that might have someone in it who wanted another shot at me. I sat for about a minute more before getting out. I opened the clean, empty trunk, found the tire iron, went back inside the car, and smashed the front windshield. It crackled and splashed, shards fell forward though some did fall onto the dashboard. I pushed a few pieces of glass off the shell Jefferson and Lonsberg had given me and then swept the rest of the glass off the hood of the car trying not to leave scratches.
And then I drove back a block to 41 and up to 301 and the DQ with a blast of warm breeze in my face. It was about dinnertime for me but I didn’t feel like eating. I knew how Flo felt. I was afraid. I didn’t understand my fear. I cared for nothing much besides what was already lost to me. So why should I care about being shot? I didn’t know, but I planned to ask Ann Horowitz on Monday.
I drove to EZ Economy Car Rental Agency and went into the small office where the older Fred with the cheerful smile and belly was standing in front of Alan, a big young man in his forties, whose hands were folded in front of him as he listened to his partner. It was Fred who first spotted me.
“Decide against that place near Macon?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“You have the second-best car on our lot,” Fred said as Alan turned to me.
“Someone shot a hole through the front window,” I said. “It needs a new window.”
“Maybe it needs a new driver too,” Alan said.
“Window that size will run you over a hundred,” Fred said.
“Fine, can you get it done by tomorrow morning?”
“We can get it done,” said Alan. “Any bullet holes, other damage to the vehicle?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Someone tried to kill you in one of our cars,” Alan said.
“Looks that way,” I said.
“We’re going to have to reassess your insurance,” said Fred.
“When I turn the car in,” I said. “Keys are in the car.”
“What happened?” Fred asked. “Mafia catch up with you? That’s what I always thought about you, that the Mafia was after you, that you did something to make them mad so you came here to hide.”
“I’m from Chicago. I don’t know any Mafia. I have enough trouble right here.”
“I can dig your plight,” said Alan.
“So what are you talking about now, ‘Dig your plight,’” said Fred. “Come down to earth and back from the seventies and help me see if w
e can find Jerry to fix the window.”
Then Fred turned to me and said, “Forgive me, but I’d feel more comfortable with you out of here.”
“Like if two guys with Uzi guns run in here and cut us down, especially after I’ve just had surgery,” Alan said.
I nodded in assent and went out on the street. I walked past the bead shop, the Mexican video store, the Tae Kwon Do Academy, and the abandoned gas station. I was walking up my stairs when I noticed that my office lights were on.
I opened my door slowly and found myself looking at a tall young man in the seat across from my desk. He looked up at me as if he had been called into the assistant principal’s office for smoking pot in the boys washroom. I played the role and calmly sat behind my desk.
“Mickey Merrymen,” I said.
“Yes,” he confirmed, his eyes shifting toward the door.
“Adele told me to come to you,” he said. “She dropped me off. I taught her to drive.”
“That was nice of you,” I said, knowing I had no candy or gum to offer him, not even a cup of coffee unless I ran down to Dave’s DQ, but Mickey might be gone by the time I got back.
“The police are looking for me,” he said nervously. “They think I shot my grandfather.”
“Where’s Adele?” I asked.
“She’ll call soon,” he said. “Mr. Fonesca, I wouldn’t kill my grandfather. He was good to me.”
“How do you know the police are looking for you?” I asked.
“I called my father,” the young man said. “He told the cops I was probably the killer. My father and I don’t get along. He’s a crazy man. Once he had me…”
The phone rang and I picked it up quickly.
“Well?” Adele asked.
“Not very,” I said.
“Can you help Mickey?” she said. “Taking the manuscripts was my idea. Mickey really didn’t know what was going on. He just carried. And he’s been good to me. He isn’t a genius, but…”
“No more destroying manuscripts,” I said. “I help Mickey if you promise not to destroy any more of Conrad Lonsberg’s work.”
“A deal till Mickey’s safe,” she said. “But if the police get him or you don’t get him off, I go back to destroying Lonsberg’s work.”
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