Spiral

things where they be?”
    ”Not quite.” I moved forward, he moved back the same distance. Then I looked down at the ground.
    ”Aw, no. That was my daddy’s pipe.”
    ”Your phone, then.”
    ”My...” He glanced at the thing still in his hand. ”But this here cost me—”
    "Your pipe, your phone, or your hand.”
    He dropped the cellular and backed up.
    After finishing with it, I said, ”Take Hack and Luke to a hospital. One’s got a broken nose, the other at least a fractured cheekbone. And if either of them, or anybody else, touches Donna Moran again, simple medical attention won’t be enough. We clear on that?”
    ”Clear,” whispered my guide.
    ”I didn’t hear you.”
    ”Clear,” he said, with some effort.
    ”I truly hope so.”

    My adrenaline surge abated enough in the car for me to think ahead again. Using my own cellular phone, I called the hotel for voice-mail messages. The first was from Justo Vega, saying he would meet me at the Skipper’s house by six for dinner. The second, via Duy Tranh, conveyed the same information, though his tone suggested he viewed the invitation as more an order. The third was from Sergeant Lourdes Pintana, saying another matter kept her at a crime scene but that she’d meet me to talk about Malinda Dujong ”at ten as we agreed.” After hanging up, I tried Dujong’s number at the tennis club, though without much hope. When I got only her outgoing tape, I clicked off the cell phone.

    The same woman who’d helped me the last time was behind the rent-a-car counter at my hotel. When she saw me walking up, the back of her right hand went to her mouth.
    ”Sir, are you all right?”
    How could she...? ”What do you mean?”
    She spoke the next words very slowly. ”Your shirt.”
    I looked down. Hack’s blood had spattered on me in a blotchy, polka-dot pattern.
    I looked back to the woman behind the counter. ”Guess I’ll be needing another one.”
    A very guarded expression on her face as she nodded.
    I trotted out some kind of smile. ”I’m afraid I’ll be needing another car, too.”
    * * *

    After five forms in triplicate, followed by a shower and change of clothes, I was behind the wheel of a red Olds Achieva. When I got to the Skipper’s house, Pepe was talking with Umberto Reyes outside the little gazebo.
    ”Hey,” said Pepe as Reyes opened the gate for me. ”What happen to you Chevy?”
    I pulled up even with him and braked. ”Batting practice.” Pepe nodded, as though my explanation made perfect sense when it came to rental vehicles. ”This look like a better car for you, anyways.”
    As Reyes closed the gate behind us, I said to Pepe, ”Justo already inside?”
    Another nod. ”Mr. Vega and me, we got here maybe ten minutes ago.”
    ”Do you know who else is in there?”
    Now a grin. ”How you say it, the usual suspects?”

    Based on the number of cars parked near the garage bays, I could see Pepe was close to right. Leaving the Olds next to Cassandra Helides’s Porsche, I could also see they were the identical shade of red, though I doubted the Bavarian company’s promo literature would agree on that.
    When I knocked at the back door, Duy Tranh came to it, wearing a very tight smile on his face.
    Through the screening, he said, ”You do this intentionally.”
    ”Do what?”
    ”Come to a different entrance of the house each time.”
    I reached up for the handle on the massive door. ”Why would I?”
    ”To disturb my composure.” The smile went from tight to defiant as he raised his hand. ”You will not succeed in such an endeavor, Mr. Cuddy.”
    ”Frankly, I hadn’t realized I was trying.”
    But I did let him open the door for me.

    ”Forgive us, Lieutenant, but my medications require me to eat at the same time each evening.”
    The salad course had already been served, though most of the people around the elliptical dining table were less than halfway through it Nicolas Helides sat at one end, his wife Cassandra opposite him, a good twenty feet away. On the near long side were Justo, Mitch Eisen, and two empty chairs, a tented napkin still at one of the place settings. On the far long side were all four members of Spiral, which surprised me. I didn’t see David Helides, which didn’t surprise me.
    I took the chair with the tented napkin as Duy Tranh slid silently into his on my left. If pecking order mattered, Justo was closest to the Skipper, with me next and even the band’s manager before the trusted