Spiral

father. Which expectation presented quite a problem for a man who hadn’t been out and about much.”
    A drop of fire crawled down my spine, but I thought I saw Helides’s solution. ”Sundy Moran.”
    ”Oh, excellent, John. I’d met Sundy at one of those bars, and her name rang a bell, a conversation I’d overheard between two of my brother’s band members at my father’s house. A conversation about one of their deceased druggie cohorts fathering himself a child with that odd name. I thought it might add some spice, Sundy being completely unaware of my familial connection to Spiral, of course.”
    ”And so you started dating Moran.”
    ”Dating her? Not at all. I said before that sex was not as available in these plague-ridden times, unless, of course, one is willing to have ‘a relationship’ with the woman involved, which in my position would have been awkward at best.”
    ”Or unless you were willing to pay for it.”
    ”My, John, we are on the same wavelength, aren’t we?”
    ”I hope not.”
    Helides seemed not to notice my jibe. Or care about it. ”The ‘allowance’ from my father was sufficient to cover biweekly visits—including the cheap motels Sundy would rent for a couple of hours—so I’d become rather a regular client of hers. Enough so that she explained to me—complained to me, really—about her boyfriend Ford and her ‘momma Donna,’ and how Sundy thought they might be ‘doing it to each other’ and how disgusting that would—”
    ”So you took a thirteen-year-old girl to see a prostitute.”
    ”The girl took herself. My only function was the arranging and the transporting. I didn’t even have to pay, since Sundy was curious enough to service Very on the cuff, so to speak.”
    I thought it through. ”But those visits weren’t enough, were they?”
    ”No.” Another change in the hollowed features. ”No, Very wanted other ‘trips,’ as she called them, a term no doubt cadged from one of the drugged-out band members. So, she found where her dear demented dad kept his cocaine.”
    ”And snorted some.”
    ”Yes. Obnoxious as Very was ‘straight’—no pun intended again—she was exponentially the bitch once under the influence. The first occasion she used cocaine, with Sundy, Very let slip about her becoming a rock star soon, and that she’d take Sundy with her on the road. Fortunately, I was in the room with them, and realized the bitch hadn’t just compromised my anonymity but could just as easily blurt out my secret to her grandfather.”
    ”So you staged Veronica’s ‘performance’”—a searing sensation over my kidney—”for her grandfather at the party.”
    A shake of the head. ”I’m afraid you’re wrong there, John. I of course intended to kill Very then, given all the masking reasons you’ve already recounted. But her decision to snort up was one she made herself. Probably wanted to show the old man what his money was buying in more ways than one.”
    ”And her running from that room gave you the perfect opportunity.”
    ”Exactly. People had used the pool earlier, but no one was interested in going there after Very’s performance. Except for Very herself, whom I found already in her bathing suit. As soon as I entered the pool area, she began to snarl: that she was going to tell her grandfather about my faking the depression, that she thought it had been going on for years, and that I’d been threatening her if she revealed it to him. However, Very was so high on drugs, she couldn’t sense my attitude toward her—at that moment or any other—as being anything beyond the simperings of a pathetic beggar.”
    ”But Malinda Dujong might have.”
    ”Yes. Malinda, Malinda.” Helides looked toward her manchineel tree. ”I’m sorry to say I believe she suspected something about me even during the few times we were in each other’s company. She had a genuine gift, John, and I’m just extremely fortunate that she also was so empathetic as to agree to meet a woman she’d never spoken to before instead of attending my father’s party that day.”
    ”You had Sundy Moran as ‘Wendy’ make the call to Ms. Dujong.”
    ”From a pay phone, shortly before slashing her in our little trysting spot. But I have to say, the sex with Sundy just after the call was the best I’ve ever had.”
    ”Because you were contemplating killing her.”
    ”Yes. I insisted she shower and clean up when we’d finished in bed, because I wanted to take her out