Stuart Kaminsky - Retribution

“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.

He took the bill and smiled.

“There’s a condition,” I said. “You rent a real bed, at least for tonight. Know anyplace?”

“For five dollars?” he asked. “There are crevices of this city of sun and beautiful beaches where hidden people for two dollars a night provide cots and dubious company. I have a friend who lives beneath a stone bench right on Bayfront Park. His head rests on his guitar and the police leave him alone. For fifty cents, he will move over and share his musical pillow.”

“A roof, Digger,” I said, opening the envelope.

“Then Lilla’s it shall be,” he said, his head lolling. “A refreshing walk in the evening, a cot, and conversation. Life goes on but the pace is so slow.”

“I agree,” I said as he staggered out the door and closed it behind him.

The four-folded unlined sheet of paper in front of me was written in the same block letters as the first one left by Digger’s monk:

YOU CAN’T BRING BACK THE DEAD. LET THEM REST. YOU CAN ONLY MAKE IT WORSE.

That was it. I have been threatened by pimps, muggers, cops-crooked and otherwise-goons, loons, and the completely mad. This note read less like a threat than a warning, a warning that something bad could come out of the box if I opened it any wider and looked in.

I called Sally. Her son Michael answered.

“It’s Lew. Your mom home?”

“Yeah, you ever have zits?”

“Yes,” I said. “When I was about your age. Also boils. Two on my neck. Had to be lanced. Hurt like hell.”

“I don’t have boils,” Michael said.

“I know. I was trying to make you feel better,” I said. “I understand they have all kinds of things for pimples. Over the counter.”

“They don’t work,” said Michael.

“Soap, water, prayer, and the passage of time,” I said.

“Shit,” he said. “I thought you might be able to come up with something. You know, like some old Italian remedy. Italian kids don’t seem to get it as bad as Jewish kids.”

“I always thought it was the other way around.”

“Here’s my mother.”

I heard the clinking of the phone being passed and heard Sally say, “Lew?”

“Yes, Michael and I were just bonding philosophically over adolescent pimples.”

“Adele called,” she said. “Not long ago. Michael just went back in his room. I think the pimple talk was a result of talking to Adele. He’s got a crush on her. God, I’m doing more than showing my age. ‘Crush.’ They must have a better word for it now, or at least a more graphic one.”

“Adele has that affect on men and boys,” I said.

“She told me she was all right and that she planned to continue to burn Lonsberg’s manuscripts. She asked me to tell her how much trouble she was really in.”

“And you told her?” I asked.

“Can’t lie to them, Lew. Once they catch me in a lie they never believe me again. I told her Lonsberg wanted the manuscripts back, of course, but I also told her I didn’t think he’d be going to the police about them. She had already figured that one out. I told her she had to go back to Flo’s or she was subject at worst to criminal charges or to placement in another foster home. She asked me if I’d do that.”