Retribution: A Lew Fonesca Novel (Lew Fonesca Novels) by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page A

century ago with blue and red flowers against a background of what might have once been yellow but was now a worn-out off-white.
    A glimpse of another room on the right as we moved to the sound of Jefferson’s claws ticking against the wooden floor revealed an office with a desk, more bookcases, a row of file cabinets. The desk was clear except for a computer and a printer.
    A few doors were closed. The kitchen was as big as the two rooms in which I lived and worked, which means it was an average-sized room with a wooden table in the middle surrounded by four chairs. Lonsberg put his bag on the table. So did I. Jefferson moved quickly to sniff at both bags. I could now see that Jefferson had jowls and large teeth. I had known Jeffersons in the past. He was a drooler.
    “Have a seat,” Lonsberg said, putting his groceries into cabinets and the refrigerator.
    I sat waiting. Jefferson decided to sit next to me and regard my face with his head tilted to one side.
    “Do the police know you’re looking for Adele?” he asked, stacking his cans in a cupboard.
    “No.”
    He shook his head as if that were solid and solemn good news. Then he turned, wiped his hands on his pants, and sat across from me.
    “What do you see, Fonesca?” he asked.
    “See?”
    “Me, what do you see?”
    “A man, lean, healthy-looking, good head of hair, serious, judging whether or not he’s going to tell me something.”
    “What do you know about me?” he asked.
    “Famous writer, haven’t published much. Man who likes his privacy.”
    “Have you read anything of mine?”
    “Fool’s Love
, long time ago. I’m rereading it,” I said.
    Jefferson moved close to me and rested his head on my lap.
    “What do you think of it? The book?” Lonsberg asked, hands folded on the table.
    “It’s a classic, great book,” I said.
    “What do you think of it?” he repeated.
    “Does it matter?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    “So far, it’s not my kind of book. Maybe when I really get into it…”
    “It was a fluke,” Lonsberg said. “I was a kid who thought he could write. It was short, easy. I expected nothing to happen, except that I’d keep working in my father’s drugstore in Rochester, marry Evelyn Steuben, have children, go to pharmacy school. The book happened to hit the right agent and the right publisher at the right time. Teenage girl rebels, sets off on her own, learns the truth about people, the good, the bad, grows up fast, gets swept up in the anti-Vietnam business, moves in with a cello player old enough to be her grandfather. Controversy on that one. Publicity. Big success. Fonesca, the book is second-rate. Too short. Too easy with answers. It’s smart-ass wit and a few good observations.”
    “I think it’s better than that,” I said.
    “So does most of the world,” he said. “I don’t.”
    I wondered why this famous recluse was giving me the thirty-second biography and interview he wouldn’t have given to
The New York Times
or
Time
. I thought I knew.
    “Adele,” I reminded him.
    “Adele,” he said, turning his head toward the wall to his right. There was an eight-by-ten framed black-and-white photograph on his kitchen wall. Four people were lined up against a background of trees. The man was a young Lonsberg.
    “My wife, Evelyn,” he said, looking at the photograph. “My two kids, Laura and Brad. Both grown. Both with kids.”
    “Where are they?” I asked.
    “Evelyn? She died more than twenty years ago. Laura and Brad live here, not in the house. Laura is in Venice. Martin’s in Sarasota.”
    Jefferson drooled on my leg. I patted his head.
    “Adele,” I reminded him again.
    “What about you?” he asked. “Your story?”
    “My story?” I asked. “Why?”
    “Your story,” he repeated.
    “Adele,” I said again.
    He looked at me and nodded.
    “Your story first,” he said.
    I told him about my wife’s death, a little about my family, less about what I did, a mention of my depression.
    “What do you