Stuart Kaminsky - Retribution

“Sorry about the gun,” I said.

“I’ll go back for it maybe someday,” he said. “Maybe not. I guess maybe not.”

I parked in the DQ lot and crossed the street to the Crisp Dollar Bill. The place was fairly crowded, at least for the Crisp Dollar Bill. About a dozen people, drinking, talking, laughing, looking up every once in a while at a tennis match. B. B. King was singing “Ain’t That Just like a Woman” above the soundless television as I sat in a booth, not my usual one. That was taken. I was in the one in front of it.

Billy gave me a questioning look and I returned an answering one. He brought me a Beck’s.

“Crazy Marvin’s been looking for you,” he said.

I nodded “yes” and drank some beer. When I looked up a few minutes later, Marvin Uliaks entered, spotted me, and moved forward eagerly to sit across from me.

“Figured I’d find you here when you weren’t in your office. Saw that black car you been riding parked at the Dairy Queen.”

“You figured right,” I said.

“Any luck, Mr. Fonesca?” he asked, squirming.

“Not for Vera Lynn,” I said. “She’s dead.”

“What?”

“You’re too late, Marvin,” I said. “You can’t kill her. She’s dead.”

“Kill her?” he asked, those eyes wide with confusion. “I didn’t want to kill her, Mr. Fonesca. I wanted to tell her I forgave her, about Sarah. I was bad to Vera Lynn a long time ago. I was dumb. I said some bad things to her and Charlie Dorsey. I just wanted to find her and tell her I was sorry. All these years. I didn’t know how to find her. I just wanted to forgive her.”

“For what she did to Sarah?” I asked over a burst of laughter at the bar and B. B. King now doing “Early in the Morning.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Now I lost two sisters, Mr. Fonesca. Sarah and Vera Lynn. I lost ‘em.”

I looked at Marvin and I could see from his battered face that he was telling the truth. Charles and Vera Lynn Dorsey had spent two decades running away from nothing but their own guilt.

“I guess I got no sisters now,” Marvin said.

“You’ve got change coming, Marvin,” I said, pulling out my wallet.

He put his hand on top of mine to stop me.

“No favoring,” he reminded me.

I put my wallet back in my pocket.

“Let me buy you a drink,” I said.

“Just a Pepsi will do,” said Marvin, sitting up with dignity. “You got any sisters, Mr. Fonesca?”

“No,” I said, trying to get Billy’s attention behind the bar.

“Too bad,” said Marvin softly. “Too bad.”

I hardly heard him. The air was full of music.

When I got back to my place, the answering machine told me I had three messages. I couldn’t listen to them. I went into my room, took off my clothes, put on clean underwear, and went to bed. I fell asleep, waking in the morning from a nightmare I couldn’t fully remember though I knew it had something to do with a huge inflated white balloon chasing me on a beach. The ringing of my phone woke me from the dream as something punctured the balloon. The balloon was still screaming as the phone rang.

The answering machine kicked in and I could hear Adele’s voice. I got up quickly but was too late. She had hung up after a very short message.

I fast-forwarded past the three messages before it and heard Adele’s voice say, “Lew, I read the paper yesterday morning. Meet me at Spanish Point at noon.”

My watch said it was a little after eight and the sun coming through the window confirmed the fact. I turned to the window and saw Digger’s face pressed against it. Being pressed against the glass actually improved his battered features. He was squinting in, looking toward me, leaving fingerprints on the window. I scratched my head and still in my underwear opened the door.

“Is this a bad time?” he said.

“It’s a bad day,” I said, heading back to my answering machine.

“I brought you somethin’,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

It was a white plastic cup.

“Waitress at Gwen’s said you take your coffee with cream and sugar,” Digger said, holding out his offering.

“Thanks,” I said.

“I’m working now,” Digger said.

He was, in fact, slightly better dressed than usual. His pants were ancient jeans showing a lot of white and his solid blue short-sleeved shirt was wrinkled. Over the pocket of the shirt stitched in white was “Bobby Jones Golf.”

“You’re a caddy?” I asked, taking the lid off the coffee.

“No, no,” he said, stepping in and closing the door. “Manpower. I signed up. I go to this place over on Fruitville and they send you out on day jobs, loading trucks, packing stuff up in boxes, digging holes. Six bucks an hour. Worked yesterday. They pay right when you come back from a job. Minimum wage, which is all I need.”

“Congratulations and welcome to paradise,” I said, toasting him with my warm coffee.

“Yeah,” he said, what looked like a thoughtful smile on his face.

“You should share the news with your friends.”

“I have,” said Digger. “My friend who sleeps under the bench in Bayfront Park and you. You’re my only friends. I ain’t crabbing about that. It’s all I can handle. Had too many friends before I hit the skids, the bottle, and the bottom.”

“I’ve got to get to work, Digger,” I said.

“Had to give them my name at Manpower,” he said pensively. “For a second there I couldn’t remember. Been Digger so long. But you should know in case I forget. Name’s Ben, Benjamin Kanujian, but don’t call me that. Call me Digger. I’m goin’ to Manpower now.”

“Thanks for the coffee,” I said.

“What’re friends for?” he said as he closed the door behind him.

I thought it was a good question. I thought about my balloon dream as I listened to my answering machine. There had been that television series, The Prisoner, where a big white balloon rolled around keeping people from escaping from an island. That show had given me nightmares when I was a kid. And there was Vera Lynn in her white dress punctured by a bullet from her husband’s gun. Maybe I was missing something. I’d check it out with Ann Horowitz if I remembered.

Two of the messages were from Adele, one saying that she had read the article, the other saying that she’d call, which she had this morning. The final message informed me that if I didn’t pick up and serve the papers on Bubbles Dreemer this morning, someone else would be found to do it.

I shaved, washed and dressed, and made a phone call.

I was lucky, Clark Dorsey didn’t answer the phone, but maybe it wasn’t luck, maybe his wife always answered.

“Mrs. Dorsey, this is Lew Fonesca,” I said.

“You found them, Charles and Vera Lynn?” she asked almost in a whisper.

“I found them,” I said.

“Clark is working on the new room,” she said. “I can get him.”

“No,” I said. “You can tell him or not tell him. It’s up to you. Vera Lynn is dead and Charles doesn’t want to be found.”

“Vera Lynn is dead,” she repeated flatly. “How?”

“An accident,” I said. “But you were right.”

“I was right? About what?”

“You put those notes on my door telling me to stop looking for Vera Lynn, didn’t you?”

There was silence.

“I’ll tear them up,” I said.

“I put them on your door,” she said, her voice so low that I could barely hear her. “After Sarah’s death and… I just didn’t want anyone else hurt. I didn’t want my husband to go through any more.”

“You don’t have to tell him,” I said.

“I probably won’t,” she said. “Thank you.”

She hung up. She had been right. If Ames and I hadn’t gone to Vanaloosa, Vera Lynn would be alive. She wouldn’t be in my dreams. She and Charles Dorsey would probably have lived on entombed in that house torturing and supporting each other till she died of obesity or he went crazy.