Spiral

”Problem wasn’t just the P.A. and how we sound coming over it, though. Or even Spi and Gordo cruising the ozone. Uh-unh. Problem is, the new songs just plain suck, and ain’t no sound system or musicians in the fucking world gonna save bad material.”
    ”You sound pretty philosophical about it.”
    Biggs opened his eyes. ”Philosophical?”
    ”For a man who told me how much he needed the money from Spiral making this effort.”
    ”My best hope.” The eyes grew troubled. ”And Kalil’s. But when hope die, you better off digging the grave soon’s you can, and move on.”
    ”To what?”
    Buford Biggs closed his eyes again. ”Remain to be seen, babe. That remain to be seen.”

    The sliding glass doors were unlocked, and inside the kitchen, things were quiet enough to hear a clock ticking. It felt as though the rest of the house’s occupants were sleeping off the bad night before.
    As I walked into the hall, I heard a cough from the direction of the living room. A sound I thought might belong to the person I’d come to see.
    When I got to that open doorway, Jeanette Held was lying on the couch. She wore an oversized T-shirt with a Mickey Mouse pattern on it. From the way the bottom of the shirt clung to her, I didn’t think she had anything on underneath.
    Bowie, lying on the floor near her, growled as I said, ”Jeanette?”
    She started, then sat halfway up, thinking after a moment to tug the T-shirt farther down her legs. ”What do you want?”
    ”I’m sorry to bother you, especially after hearing how badly things went at the club last night.”
    ”Yeah,” she said, swinging her feet down onto the floor and rubbing her eyes like a cranky child. ”That’s what I heard, too. But not before three in the morning.”
    ”You weren’t there?”
    ”What, at the big ‘comeback’ show? No, I couldn’t see the point.” Held left her eyes alone, raking at her reddish-blond hair with the left hand. ”You haven’t been around here enough to get a sense of just how shitty Spi’s new stuff is. Believe me, I have. But even if I’d never heard a note or a word, Spi was happy to let me know how everything that went wrong last night was because of the ‘fucking asshole on the control board,’ or the ‘fucking college pricks don’t know what the Beach Boys and Beatles did for the music,’ and so on till I couldn’t stand him anymore.”
    ”So you came down here to sleep.”
    ”And he was probably too zipped on the snow to even notice I was gone.” Held seemed to register something. ”Hey, I asked you before, what’re you doing here?”
    ”Can I sit somewhere, Jeanette?”
    She collapsed back into the cushions of the couch, the T-shirt riding up, her seeming not to notice. ”At this point, I guess I just don’t fucking care.”
    Bowie watched me take a chair to the side of her. Once seated, I put my necessary question. ”Have you heard from Malinda Dujong yet?”
    ”Malinda? No, and she can find somebody else to ‘spiritually advise,’ she doesn’t even return my—”
    ”I was there.”
    Held looked confused. ”Where?”
    ”At her condo, when the police and I played back her tape messages.”
    Confusion became concern. ”The police?”
    ”Yes. No one seems to have seen or been contacted by Ms. Dujong for a couple of days now, and she’s broken more appointments than just yours.”
    Held said, ”Christ.”
    Bowie growled again.
    ”Jeanette, do you know anybody named 'Wendy’?”
    ”Wendy? I suppose I must have gone to school with some, but... nobody down here, if that’s what you mean.”
    I nodded, feeling better about Pintana’s and my speculation at the Homicide Unit. ”Did Ms. Dujong ever mention the names ‘Sundy Moran’ or ‘Ford Walton’ to you?”
    ”Sunday...?”
    ”Moran, a woman. And Ford Walton.”
    Held raked her hair again. ”No. No, I don’t think so.”
    ”They’re both dead, Moran close enough in time to your daughter that I thought they could be related. Now I more than think it.”
    ”What... what did this Moran woman have to do with Very?”
    I explained about Tommy O’Dell and Donna Moran. ”Christ. This wasn’t bad enough as a nightmare, now I’ve got to worry about some dead guy Spi used to play with?”
    ”And write songs with, though I don’t know whether that’s another connection or not. What I suspect is that Veronica’s killer used Sundy Moran to call Malinda Dujong as ‘Wendy,’ a friend of yours.”
    Confused now. ”A