Spiral

for the people.”
    The Escort came to a complete stop, and Pepe gestured forward and sideways. ”We on Andrews, and that street go across is Broward, a boul-e-vard. In Lauderdale, you got everything like the compass thing.”
    ”Compass?”
    ”Yeah, like north, south, you know it? Where Andrews and Broward cross each others here, this is center of everything.”
    I thought I got what Pepe meant by looking at the street signs on each side of the avenue. The ones to the right said S.E. the ones to the left, S.W. Across Broward Boulevard were N.E. and N.W., respectively. ”So, northeast of this intersection is N.E., southwest is S.W., and—”
    ”—like that, right. You got somebody’s address you want to find, all you got to do is know the compass part, and the number of the house. So two-five-oh Northeast Fourth Avenue gonna be past Second Street and before Third Street in the northeast.”
    ”Sounds easy enough. But maybe we ought to go see Justo, be sure I need to be oriented much more.”
    Nodding, Pepe shifted into first and feathered the clutch.
    ”This boulevard here, Mr. Whatever, they call it ‘Las Olas.’”
    ”Spanish?”
    ”For ‘the waves.’”
    We were heading east on a Florida version of Boston’s Newbury Street, with tony bars and boutiques crowded together. ”I don’t see any water, much less waves.”
    ”You wait a couple minutes, you see all the water you want.” After another ten blocks or so, there were quaint little bridges like the one over our Public Garden’s swan pond. These spanned some kind of canal, however, and the first two spinal roadways were named Hendricks Isle and Isle of Venice. Pepe finally turned left and over a bridge that said isle of Athens on its convex wall.
    I said, ”Colonel Helides lives here?”
    Pepe nodded.
    After passing a number of mansions—each with frontage on perpendicular canals and many with yachts lashed to docks—Pepe pulled toward a clump of people at the side of the road near a gate. The gate was part of a fence with twelve-foot-high metal spikes enclosing a sprawling, Art Deco home. The people were carrying cameras—some video, some professional photographic, some just little disposable jobbies.
    On the other side of the gate stood a guy who acted like a security guard, but not one of the retired scarecrows the cheapjack companies hire. Except for the casual shirt and hiking shorts, this guy was more Secret Service, with the kind of blond buzz-cut and build that you associate with fullbacks from Nebraska.
    Pepe drove slowly toward the clump, who turned and began shooting footage of us. When the Escort’s nose approached the gate, the guard pointed an electronic device of some kind at the lock. As the gate opened, he returned the device to one of the front pockets in his shorts. There was a bulge visible in the other front pocket that I somehow thought would be measured less in amperage and more in calibre.
    The camera people shouted questions at us, but they were mangled by each other and mostly lost through the closed windows and air-conditioning hum. We pulled up the drive past the guard’s station, designed to look like a gazebo matching the house. The grounds were carefully landscaped with exotic plants and flowers.
    The drive curved and ended at discreetly hidden garage doors for five bays, the cars in front of them ranging from a mud-spattered compact pickup to a Lincoln Continental. Beyond the cars, a multimasted sailboat rocked against its ropes, telling you where the grassy yard had to end.
    Pepe killed the engine, then turned to me. ‘The TV and newspapers, they been at this place ever since.”
    I looked at him. ”Since what?”
    Pepe shook his head. ”I still just the driver, man.”
    He got out, and I followed suit. We walked toward the steps of a ”back” door that could have been lifted off hinges at Buckingham Palace.
    Pepe said, ”Is easier this way.”
    ”Because of the media people out front?”
    A shrug as the door opened, and I assumed the gate guard must have radioed ahead about us. When I looked up, Justo Vega was smiling at me.
    ”John, it is so good to see you again.”
    Justo hadn’t lost any more hair, but he’d started growing a mustache under the wide nose in his moonish face. As tall as I am, Justo wore a light gray business suit with a white, collarless shirt underneath, top button fastened. His broad shoulders moved under the jacket in a swaying motion that always reminded me of a man