Spiral

years.” Her fingers pinched a littie, playfully so far, urgently soon. ”I’ve waited this long for the lottery, though, I can wait a little longer.”
    ”For your husband to die.”
    ”For nature to take its courts.”
    I stayed on the point. ”Like it did with Veronica Held?” Cassandra Helides withdrew her hand. ”Mister, you didn’t know Very. I did. And given the way she acted, I’d say her getting killed was pretty natural.” She turned and walked toward the back door, each buttock rolling independent of the other in her caricature of a showgirl. Reaching for the handle, Cassandra Helides glanced back at me. ”Nature’s a fucking dangerous place to live, you know?”
    I didn’t stay to watch her climb the steps.

    One of the houses down the street from the Skipper’s had the look of a family off on vacation, though if somebody lived on the Isle of Athens, it was kind of hard to see how they could improve their recreational hand by traveling somewhere else. I backed the Achieva into the driveway far enough that its snout became hidden by some large, red-blossomed bushes.
    I waited only thirteen minutes this time before Cassandra Helides blew by in shades and a baseball cap, the Porsche Boxster probably hitting sixty before I could start after it.

    I nearly lost her three times.
    Once was thanks to a delivery truck that Helides almost sideswiped but that pulled out after the Porsche and blocked my view of it. I could hear the driver’s curses, though, even from fifty feet back and over his engine and mine. The second was when she came within a hair’s breadth of clocking a couple of kids on skateboards, other cars swerving to avoid the chain reaction she’d set in motion. The third time was another two miles on, when Helides started taking side streets in a quartering way northwest. At first I thought she’d spotted me, then I realized where we were. Chalking up her evasive tactics more to a shortcut that avoided traffic lights, I arrived at the gate of the tennis club just as her car bounced over the most distant speed bump.
    A different guard asked if he could help me. This one was African-American and very polite, his nametag reading benjamin .
    ”I’m here to see Shirley Nole.”
    ”And your name, please?”
    ”John Cuddy.”
    Benjamin dialed, waited, and spoke into the telephone. Then he turned to me. ”Ms. Nole wants you to tell me who you were here with last time.”
    Cautious lady. ”Police Sergeant Lourdes Pintana.”
    A nod as Benjamin went back to the receiver, and another nod as he hung up. ”You know her building, sir?”
    ”I do, yes.”
    ”I don’t, no.”
    We were sitting in Nole’s apartment, and I’d just asked her if she knew of any special relationship between Cassandra Helides and Malinda Dujong.
    ”Shirley, how about between Cornel Radescu and Ms. Dujong?”
    ”No. I mean, you say ‘special,’ and maybe that’s what’s throwing me. We all know each other here, but Malinda’s so much better than Cassie, and Cornel’s so much better than Malinda that they’d never play together.”
    ”Actually, I was looking for any relationships beyond tennis.”
    Nole seemed troubled.
    I said, ”I already know about Mrs. Helides and Mr. Radescu.”
    ”Then what don’t you know that you think I could tell you?”
    ”Any arguments, or the opposite. Did Ms. Dujong ever mention Mrs. Helides to you, that sort of thing.”
    ”Well, no. I mean, nothing special, the way I think you mean. But maybe you should talk with Mi Soo.”
    ”Malinda’s tennis partner?”
    ”Opponent, more.” Shirley Nole relaxed just a little. ”They’re still young enough to play singles.”

    ”You want a drink?”
    ”Iced tea would be great.”
    At the patio tiki bar, Mi Soo Temkin put in my order and hers, the male bartender saying, ”You have time to let me brew some fresh?”
    I nodded from my stool, and Temkin said from hers, ”Fresh, Joe, thanks.”
    Then she tilted the sun visor back on her forehead. Early thirties and Asian, Temkin wore a conservative swimsuit under a short robe. I wouldn’t have known how tan she was except for her bare feet, which were pale enough where anklet tennis socks must cover that they reminded me of the white paws on the Helds’ Australian shepherd.
    Temkin said, ”Shirley tell me about you trying to find where Malinda is.”
    ”Any ideas?”
    ”I don’t see her for maybe three days now. I worry, because Malinda never break a match with me