Spiral

lurching steps.
    This time I yelled. ”Tranh!”
    He kept watching Helides. ”Do not quit now, David. You have nearly reached me.”
    Two additional steps by Helides, mechanical motions more than natural movements, and Tranh hefted his third knife by its handle, feet shifting into a striding stance.
    I said, ”Tranh, just back away from him.”
    One more lurching step by Helides, throwing arm cocked by Tranh, blade near his right ear.
    I didn’t say anything more. David Helides, after swaying dizzily, keeled face forward, no attempt by his now limp arms to break his fall. I could see the point of the belly knife pierce the black fabric just above the back of his belt.
    I said, ”He may live if we can get an ambulance out here. Cut Justo off that tree, and then he can do me while you run for a phone.”
    Tranh looked in the directions of Malinda Dujong and Justo Vega before coming back to me. ”The binding material is metal cable.”
    I tried to keep the anger out of my voice. ”And you have a knife.”
    He regarded the artifact in his hand now. ”It might ruin the blade.”
    I gritted my teeth. ”Use your head, then.”
    Tranh lifted his eyes toward mine.
    ”Justo and I can testify you saved us with the second knife, or that you murdered David Helides with it.”
    Tranh blinked once. ”After your call about ‘directions,’ I venture out here to help, and this is the gratitude you offer in return? Why should I not just kill you both, blame everything on David?”
    ”Because then you won’t have any credible witnesses to make you a hero in the Colonel’s eyes despite killing his son, and you won’t have my testimony on what David did to the little girl whose body you found in that pool.”
    Duy Tranh looked down at David Helides, then once around the trees again before holding up his knife, admiring the blade in the moonlight. ”You are right,” he said finally. ”But I want you to know that for me, it is a very close question.”

TWENTY-FIVE

    Why am I not surprised to see you again?”
    I looked up from my hospital bed on Saturday morning at the nice Haitian doctor. ”They say three’s the charm.”
    ”I should hope so.” She asked me to sit up, then gendy pulled the strings on my johnny coat. ”After we admitted you, I did some computer research on this ‘manchineel tree.’ Not much information, but all of it quite nasty.”
    As the doctor very gently touched here and there with latex-gloved fingers, I said, ”How’s Justo Vega?”
    ”I cannot comment, but his associate asked the nurse’s station to call him as soon as you were able to receive visitors.”
    ”Pepe?”
    ”I believe so.” She retied the strings at the back of my neck. ”A most persistent man.”
    ”Do you know whether David Helides made it?”
    The doctor moved toward the door. Without turning her head, she said, ”Not my patient.”
    ”Hey, Mr. Whatever, how you doing?”
    Carrying a small paper bag, Pepe was dressed conservatively in a pale blue shirt and dark blue pants. His lips were smiling, but his eyes weren’t, the bags under them the color of his pants.
    ”Pepe, have you seen Justo?”
    Some rapid blinking. ”I am with Mr. Vega maybe an hour after they bring the two of you into here.”
    I waited.
    More blinking, and then a swipe across his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. ”He gonna be okay. The doctor, she say maybe they have to do a—how you say it, when they take skin from one part and put it on another one?”
    ”A graft?”
    ”Yes, graft. That’s what she say. But other ways, he gonna be okay.” Pepe swallowed hard. ‘You save him from the devil, man.”
    I waited some more.
    He came forward, put the paper bag on my bed. ”I don’t know do you smoke the cigars, but these are Macanudos. Havana got no gasoline and no electricity, maybe, but cigars from there, they still the best.”
    I thought of Mo Katzen, back in his office at the Boston Herald. ”Thanks, Pepe. I know someone who’ll love them.” A nod. Then a pause before, ”Mr. John Francis Cuddy, you save Mr. Vega when he cannot, and when I cannot, because of what he say to me about hiding his wife and little ones. You ever need anything, you call Pepe, understand?”
    ”I understand.”

    ”What’s in the bag?” said Sergeant Lourdes Pintana.
    ”Illegal contraband.”
    ”I think that’s redundant.” She fished some papers from her tote and handed them to me. ”I need this statement signed, but I thought it might be