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.”
“Must have hurt,” I said.
“Hurt? I tore up the pages in my room and never thought again about writing. But you know something, he did me a favor. He was right. I didn’t have the talent. If he had encouraged me, I might have kept on, even written some stories or a book and got them published because I was Conrad Lonsberg’s son. But they wouldn’t have been any good and I would have known it. I could have wasted a lot of years. He could have handled that twelve-year-old better. The message was right but the delivery left a lot to be desired.”
“So your point is that you’ve got nothing against your father?”
“I suppose,” Brad Lonsberg said. “Either of you like a Coke, coffee, something?”
Ames and I both nodded “no.”
“Have you any idea where Adele might have taken your father’s manuscripts or why?”
“I’ve told you. ‘Why?’ My father is full of ‘why’s’ and talent. His favorite question to his children. ‘Why?’”
“No specific idea of why?” I asked.
“None,” he said.
“If she destroys the manuscripts, it could mean you lose millions of dollars, you, your son,” I said.
He looked down at the papers on his desk and then over at us.
“Millions of dollars would be very nice,” he said. “How’s that for understatement. But we can live without it. I wouldn’t turn it down but there’s something satisfying in not needing it, not having to be tied to a father who’s a myth in his own lifetime. I even considered changing my name when I was younger, straight cut. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t hate my father. In an odd way I love him. We see him fairly often, Connie and I. My wife died when Connie was six, cancer. Connie could use a grandfather. Hell, I could use a father, but I… My sister, my father, and I talk about nothing. My father does seem to like his grandchildren but he gives off the sense whenever we’re with him that he’d like to look at his watch and get back to his typewriter. As the world knows Conrad Lonsberg still uses the same typewriter his parents gave him when he graduated from high school. I think he would grieve more if his typewriter were stolen than if my sister or I dropped dead.”
“So you don’t care what Adele does with the manuscripts?”
“Mixed feelings,” he said. “But I’d rather see him get them back. He doesn’t have much else besides his own lifetime of work.”
“And the money?”
“Well, that too,” he said, “but I’m doing well, better than the size of this office might show. I’ve made some good land and stock investments in the county based, I admit in private, on information given by clients. I have plenty of clients, mostly very old, very grateful for attention and often more than willing to set me up as the administrator of their estates, and I do annual audits for major companies all over the country. I specialize in high-tech companies. I’ve got two lawyers I work with who make it work.”
“In short?”
“In short, I’m doing very well financially which results, in part, in my not having to kiss my father’s behind when I’m with him. It took me almost forty years but I think I have my father’s respect.”
“And his love?”
“I’ll settle for his respect,” said Lonsberg.
“You know a Mickey Merrymen?” I asked.
“That’s the kid who picked up Adele once when we were at my father’s,” he said. “I think that was his name. Tall, young, shy. Stayed outside the gate. My son and I walked Adele out and met him. It wasn’t much of a conversation. Seemed like a nice kid, but what can you tell from a few seconds?”
“Sometimes a lot,” said Ames.
Lonsberg looked over at Ames as if he hadn’t noticed the tall old man in the room before this moment.
“Yes, I guess. I think I’ve learned to size people up fairly quickly in my business. Being a C.P.A. isn’t a glamour job, not like being a writer or a private detective, or a physician, but when people need you, they dump it on you, apologize, and want you to work magic. I’ve got to get to work. So, I apologize but…”
I got up. So did Ames.
“A question,” said Ames.
Brad Lonsberg looked up.
“All this big business and you’ve got a confused kid out there handling things?”
“Daughter of one of my clients, big clients. She just got out of high school,” Lonsberg explained. “She looks vulnerable and pretty when people walk in. It balances. Almost. Yes, I’d say she’s on the debit side. But it’s either pretty, young, and confused or a retiree who wants to go back to work. Tell the truth, I don’t think Maria will want to stay much longer. She doesn’t like making decisions. Next time I’ll try a retiree. Answer your question?”
“It does,” said Ames and we went out the door while Lonsberg put on a pair of glasses and looked down at the forms in front of him.
Maria the receptionist-secretary was frantically looking for something among the piles on her desk.
“It was right on top,” she said. “Just a second ago.”
“Mr. Lonsberg a good man to work for?” I asked.
Still ruffling among the mess, she said, without looking up, “He’s the greatest. Patient, calm. Look at me. I’m a boob. I can’t find a damn sheet he needs and I had it right… here it is.”
She held up the yellow sheet in triumph and showed a great set of teeth.
The phone rang. She looked at it with dread.
Ames and I exited.
“What do you think?” I asked as we walked down the corridor.
“He looks like he’s letting it all out,” Ames said. “I’d say he’s holding it all in.”
“Think I should check on Brad Lonsberg’s tales of the wealth of his kingdom?”
“Might be,” he said.
“And if I find he’s not the mogul he says he is? What does it mean?”
“Don’t know,” he said. “Ever think of trying this?”
He nodded at the window of the Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine. The office waiting room was three times the size of Brad Lonsberg’s. A lone waiting woman sat reading a copy of The Economist.
“They’ve got herbs, stuff for what ails you,” he said.
“What ails me?” I asked as we passed the office heading for the elevator.
“The past,” he answered.
“They have pills for that?”
“Pills and they stick needles in you,” he said as we reached the elevator and I pushed the button.
“And it works? You’ve done it?”