Retribution: A Lew Fonesca Novel (Lew Fonesca Novels) Read Online Free PDF

way, Adele had brought us together.

    “I’ll let her know,” I said.
    “She’ll call in the cops,” said Flo. “They’ll find her, put her someplace. They won’t let her come back here. I’m one tough old bitch, Fonesca, but I need that girl back here and I think she needs me.”
    “I’ll be careful,” I said.
    “I’ll write you a check,” she said, putting down her glass and starting to rise.
    “No,” I said.
    She looked at me, closed her eyes, and shook her head in understanding.
    “But I do want two things.”
    “Name ‘em,” she said.
    “I want to look at Adele’s room and I want you to stop drinking.”
    “My drinking is none of your fuckin’ business,” she said, now standing over me.
    “Back on the wagon or I tell Sally this isn’t the place for her.”
    “You little pope-loving wop son of a bitch,” she said.
    “I’m immune to flattery, and besides, I’m Episcopalian,” I said. “Flo, the wagon’s making its rounds. Climb in.”
    “God’s truth,” said Flo, sagging, “I don’t know if I can.”
    “You can,” I said. “You want Adele back?”
    “Oh, shit,” she said, putting down the half-full glass in her hand. “How about beer? Two a day, no more.”
    “Deal,” I said, getting up and holding out my hand. She took it and held on.
    “I’m sorry what I said,” she said softly. “I was wrong to call you…”
    “I can live with it,” I said, still holding her hand.
    “Find her for me, Lew,” she said.
    Now there were definitely tears.
    “I’ll find her, Flo. Let’s take a look at her room.”
    Flo led me down a corridor, past closed doors to an open one. It was clearly a girl’s room. Brightly colored. Flowered comforter. Stereo in the corner. A few stuffed animals. A desk and bookcase and posters on the walls, four of them, three of recent rock idols with blaring colors and one smallone in black and white of a woman from another time and place.
    “Who’s that?”
    “The woman? Willa Cather. Adele says she was a great writer, wanted to be like her.”
    “Anything missing?” I asked, moving to the clean, clear desk.
    “A stuffed penguin is all I’m sure of,” Flo said, looking around. “And clothes. She took clothes.”
    One of Lonsberg’s books was on the shelf along with a collection of classics we all claim to have read in school but never did or don’t really remember. The Lonsberg book, a paperback, was a bit battered from frequent readings. I opened it to the title page. In a scrawl I had trouble reading was a note in ink: “Adele, you have the talent. Don’t lose it. Don’t compromise.” It was signed. I couldn’t read the name but I could make out the “C” and the “L” at the beginning of each name. It was an autographed first paperback edition.
    “Mind if I take this?”
    “Take what you need,” Flo said. “I don’t read that stuff. Louis L’Amour and a few others, Frank Roderus, that’s what I read. Lew, I kept hoping she’d just come back but…”
    There was no diary, no journal, no short stories or notes by Adele in her desk, drawers, bookshelf, or closet. Flo walked me back through the house giving me directions to Lonsberg’s house.
    “You have Lonsberg’s phone number?” I asked.
    “No,” she said. “Come to think of it I don’t think Adele did either. She never called him. He always called her.”
    I touched her shoulder at the door. She gave me a weak smile of courage and out I went. Before I reached the Cutlass, the voice of Tex Ritter blasted through the Zinc house singing of lost dogies.
    When I got in the car, I reached for
Fool’s Love
and flipped it open. Every page was covered with thick black Magic Marker lines. Adele had put in a lot of work making this book unreadable.
    I drove away with twenty minutes to make it ‘til myappointment with Ann Horowitz. I found a two-hour parking spot across from Sarasota News & Books. A new crowded upscale Italian restaurant had just opened across the street