Spiral

opponent—called twice, once about being stood up for the match, a second time concerned about whether ”you maybe sick or something." Others were names and voices I didn’t recognize, but the nature of all was pretty consistent: Malinda, where are you?
    I waited until after the last message before saying, "I really don’t like this.”
    Pintana pointed toward the machine. ”Anything on there you want to tell me about?”
    ”Nothing you haven’t already heard.”
    She put away her pad and pen. ”Leave the tape as is. I’ll get a forensics team over here, although”—Pintana glanced around the living and dining areas—”nothing looks wrong to me.”
    ”And Dujong’s car is gone, too, so given the security you saw at the gate, I’m guessing our friend waited until she was somewhere outside the club, where his taking her wouldn’t be noticed.”
    ”His?”
    ”I don’t see any of the women I’ve met so far being this...”
    ”Elaborate?” said Pintana.
    ”As good a label as any.”
    ”But still no idea on who might have taken Ms. Dujong?”
    ”Or where, for that matter.”
    Lourdes Pintana started for the door. ”After we give back this key, I’ll drive you to O’Hara’s.”
    ”I’m not much in the mood for music anymore.”
    A shake of her head, the honey-colored hair whisking her shoulders. ”Maybe you really do have that concussion.”
    ”Sorry?”
    ”I meant that I’d give you a lift so you could pick up your
    car.”
    ”Oh.”

    Pintana pulled her unmarked sedan into the open space in front of my Achieva on Las Olas Boulevard. ”The least I could do.”
    ”After setting me up in there?”
    I thought she’d keep her eyes forward until I got out, but her head turned to me now. ”I didn’t intend it as a setup originally.”
    ”Just after you found Ford Walton’s body.”
    Pintana turned back to her windshield. ”A suggestion?”
    ”What?”
    ”Get somebody to teach you how to recognize a compliment.”
    I closed my eyes, realized how tired I was. ”Under other circumstances, I might be able to learn it from you.”
    Lourdes Pintana’s voice said, ”God didn’t give me that kind of patience.”

TWENTY

    I woke up Friday morning at five-thirty, as though my body was punishing itself. Lying under and on the sheets made clammy by my own sweat and the hotel room’s recycled air, I had a strobe memory of the dream I’d been having.
    The churning sea again, the body sinking through the water below me, the dark hair billowing upward. But this time, when I finally dived down far enough to grasp the hair, the face that tipped upward belonged not to Nancy, but Malinda Dujong.
    Which at least gave me a reason to get out of my bed and on with the day.

    The fleet of parked cars had returned to Spi and Jeanette Held’s house. When I pressed the button at the front door, though, no one came to answer it, despite the song chords chiming inside.
    After two more tries, I walked around the side of the house to see if I could raise anyone at the sliding glass doors to the kitchen. Once I came in sight of the pool, though, I spotted Buford Biggs, apparently asleep on a lounge chair. He wore a sweatshirt and sweatpants, reminding me of David Helides.
    Except for being out in the morning air.
    As my shoes hit the tiles of the pool apron, Biggs opened his eyes. When I reached him, he closed them again, a sour smile curdling his lips.
    ”Didn’t see you at the slaughter last night, babe.”
    I said, ”The slaughter?”
    ”Our gig at that place you caught us doing the sound check.”
    There was a patio chair close enough that I didn’t have to move it. Sitting down, I said, ”Things didn’t go well.”
    ”‘Well’? Babe, thirty years ago, we would of got lynched, white boys included.”
    ”What happened?”
    ”What didn’t?” The eyes moved under his closed lids, like a dog dreaming fitfully. ”Even after Ricky talk with the houseman, the mikes and the P.A. system for the audience still all fucked up. And it didn’t help none that Spi figured he needed a toot on the drive over, Gordo not letting any of the lines go to waste.” Biggs moved his head slowly, left-right-left. ”The groups that come back, they don’t do that nose shit no more. Their drug of choice be golf now.” His head stopped moving. ”And then Spi start ragging on the crowd, chase most of them out before we could do a second set.”
    ”That go any better?”
    ”Some, but not enough.” A sigh.