Stuart Kaminsky - Retribution

“Maybe sorry don’t cut it,” he said, stepping in front of me as I tried to walk around him.

“Let him by,” came a voice from the bar.

Everyone stopped talking to watch what would happen next. I was only interested in the fact that Ames was still on the phone with Adele.

The little bull didn’t move.

Ed Fairing repeated, “Let him by. Your bill’s covered. You got an apology.”

The bull nodded, stepped aside, and softly said, “I’ve had a bad day.”

I nodded and moved past him to the telephone as the conversation in the room began again. Ames held out the phone to me.

“Adele,” I said.

“You found it,” she said. “We’re going to go around the whole of Sarasota and Manatee destroying the books one at a time, page by page. I’ll let you know each time and you can tell him.”

“Give Sally a call,” I said. “She’s worried about you.”

“I’ll think about it,” Adele said.

“She’s also responsible for you,” I added. “And Flo…”

“I called Flo. I’ll call you when we burn the next one. That’s it.”

“Hold it,” I said, but it was too late. She had pushed the END button.

“Got an angry child on our hands,” Ames said.

“What did she tell you?”

“And each one will go, burning like dying little stillborn suns,” Ames said. “She said that’s the last line of Fool’s Love.”

We headed for Brad Lonsberg. He had a small office on the second floor over Davidson’s Drug Store at the corner of Tamiami and Bahia Vista. Before the Starbucks moved into the middle of the small mall’s parking lot, parking had never even been a minor problem. Now, parking spaces were spiked with signs warning that you had to drink your coffee, do your shopping at Kash ‘n’ Karry, buy your magazines, or get your hair cut in half an hour or find a space at the fringe of the lot. I’m not complaining, just pointing out reality. There was never really a problem finding a parking space in Sarasota. Here people-even if they moved down or are visiting from Toronto, New York, or Atlanta-think parking half a block away from wherever they might be going in Sarasota was a major inconvenience.

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.”