“I’ll find her,” I said.
“Then do it,” she said, scooting me with one hand.
I went out the front door and moved around Flo’s car. There were eight holes in it and the window was broken. I got out my pocket flashlight and dug out a bullet with my pocketknife.
I was on my way home again trying, without much luck, to figure out who had shot at Flo and killed the old man. Lonsberg? I didn’t think it was in him, but his life’s work had been taken. Did it feel as if a kidnapper had broken in and taken his children? I mean, did it feel like that to him?
And his heirs, Laura, Brad, maybe even Brad’s teenage son, afraid Adele would destroy their legacy. Or might it be…
The shot hit the front window turning it into an intricate instant insane spiderweb I couldn’t see through. The shot had come from a vehicle on my left. That I knew. But I hadn’t looked. The vehicle was ahead of me now and I couldn’t see through the windshield. I slowed down, opened my window, and guided the car through an empty lane of traffic on Webber Avenue. I sat for a few seconds watching for a car that might have someone in it who wanted another shot at me. I sat for about a minute more before getting out. I opened the clean, empty trunk, found the tire iron, went back inside the car, and smashed the front windshield. It crackled and splashed, shards fell forward though some did fall onto the dashboard. I pushed a few pieces of glass off the shell Jefferson and Lonsberg had given me and then swept the rest of the glass off the hood of the car trying not to leave scratches.
And then I drove back a block to 41 and up to 301 and the DQ with a blast of warm breeze in my face. It was about dinnertime for me but I didn’t feel like eating. I knew how Flo felt. I was afraid. I didn’t understand my fear. I cared for nothing much besides what was already lost to me. So why should I care about being shot? I didn’t know, but I planned to ask Ann Horowitz on Monday.
I drove to EZ Economy Car Rental Agency and went into the small office where the older Fred with the cheerful smile and belly was standing in front of Alan, a big young man in his forties, whose hands were folded in front of him as he listened to his partner. It was Fred who first spotted me.
“Decide against that place near Macon?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“You have the second-best car on our lot,” Fred said as Alan turned to me.
“Someone shot a hole through the front window,” I said. “It needs a new window.”
“Maybe it needs a new driver too,” Alan said.
“Window that size will run you over a hundred,” Fred said.
“Fine, can you get it done by tomorrow morning?”
“We can get it done,” said Alan. “Any bullet holes, other damage to the vehicle?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Someone tried to kill you in one of our cars,” Alan said.
“Looks that way,” I said.
“We’re going to have to reassess your insurance,” said Fred.
“When I turn the car in,” I said. “Keys are in the car.”
“What happened?” Fred asked. “Mafia catch up with you? That’s what I always thought about you, that the Mafia was after you, that you did something to make them mad so you came here to hide.”
“I’m from Chicago. I don’t know any Mafia. I have enough trouble right here.”
“I can dig your plight,” said Alan.
“So what are you talking about now, ‘Dig your plight,’” said Fred. “Come down to earth and back from the seventies and help me see if we can find Jerry to fix the window.”
Then Fred turned to me and said, “Forgive me, but I’d feel more comfortable with you out of here.”
“Like if two guys with Uzi guns run in here and cut us down, especially after I’ve just had surgery,” Alan said.
I nodded in assent and went out on the street. I walked past the bead shop, the Mexican video store, the Tae Kwon Do Academy, and the abandoned gas station. I was walking up my stairs when I noticed that my office lights were on.
I opened my door slowly and found myself looking at a tall young man in the seat across from my desk. He looked up at me as if he had been called into the assistant principal’s office for smoking pot in the boys washroom. I played the role and calmly sat behind my desk.
“Mickey Merrymen,” I said.
“Yes,” he confirmed, his eyes shifting toward the door.
“Adele told me to come to you,” he said. “She dropped me off. I taught her to drive.”
“That was nice of you,” I said, knowing I had no candy or gum to offer him, not even a cup of coffee unless I ran down to Dave’s DQ, but Mickey might be gone by the time I got back.
“The police are looking for me,” he said nervously. “They think I shot my grandfather.”
“Where’s Adele?” I asked.
“She’ll call soon,” he said. “Mr. Fonesca, I wouldn’t kill my grandfather. He was good to me.”
“How do you know the police are looking for you?” I asked.
“I called my father,” the young man said. “He told the cops I was probably the killer. My father and I don’t get along. He’s a crazy man. Once he had me…”
The phone rang and I picked it up quickly.
“Well?” Adele asked.
“Not very,” I said.
“Can you help Mickey?” she said. “Taking the manuscripts was my idea. Mickey really didn’t know what was going on. He just carried. And he’s been good to me. He isn’t a genius, but…”
“No more destroying manuscripts,” I said. “I help Mickey if you promise not to destroy any more of Conrad Lonsberg’s work.”
“A deal till Mickey’s safe,” she said. “But if the police get him or you don’t get him off, I go back to destroying Lonsberg’s work.”
“And if I do save him?”
“Lonsberg’s not getting his manuscripts back,” she said firmly.
“Adele, what’s the story here?”
“No story. Not yet. What I’m doing is better punishment.”
“For what?” I asked. “For who?”
“Save Mickey,” she said and hung up. So did I.
“You know why Adele took the manuscripts?” I asked Mickey who jiggled in the folding chair and held the seat tightly as if he were about to be thrust into outer space.
“No,” he said. “She asked me to help her. I did.”
“Why?”
“You know Adele?” he asked.
“I know Adele,” I said.
“I love her,” Mickey said, looking me in the eyes for the first time.
“I can understand that,” I said. “Adele’s a great, beautiful, and talented girl. But why is she doing this and where is she?”
“I don’t know where she is,” he said. “Driving around. We hide the van at night and sleep in it. Blankets on top of all those pages. It’s kind of creepy, but Adele likes it. She looks through everything and picks out the one she’s going to get rid of next. That’s all she told me. That’s all I know.”
“You went with Adele to your grandfather’s house and found him dead. You cleared out your things and left him there,” I said.
“We had to,” Mickey cried. “I didn’t want to leave him there like that but Adele said we had to get out of there, that whoever was after her had figured out where we were and had come to get us. I loved my grandfather. I wouldn’t hurt him.”
“And your father?”
“He’s crazy,” Mickey said. “Sometimes I think I’m going to be crazy like him.”
“Could he have killed your grandfather?”
“Why would he do that? He never even talked to my grandfather. They hated each other.”
