Spiral

husband seems to prefer Veronica.’”
    Helides began running the snout of the dryer back and forth across her hair. ”Nick’s ‘preferences’ aren’t exactly uttermost in my mind.”
    Another Norm Crosby malaprop, for ”uppermost” this time, but I decided to go with the spirit. ”And why is that?” A theatrical shrug. ”You ever see the TV shows about the old bastards playing softball?”
    ”I 'm sorry?”
    ”They’re all over the place down here, especially on the Gulf Coast The geezers have leagues, uniforms, and all that other guy stuff.”
    ”Must have missed the coverage.”
    ”Yeah, well, let me tell you then. They pull on those cleats and pick up a bat, they think they’re kids again. Or at least young. But you watch them take a swing or try to run the bases, and it’s pathetic, you know?”
    ”Pathetic.”
    ”Yeah.” She switched the dryer to her other hand.
    That’s kind of my problem, too.”
    ”Your problem?”
    ” Nick. When I married him, it was like I got a new daddy, but one with real money who I could sleep with and not have it be some kind of crime.”
    Christ. ”You married the Colonel for his money.” Another switch of the dryer. ”Hey, even the sex wasn’t bad at first. Only problem is, when you marry your father, nobody warns you that ten years later you’ll be stuck with your grandfather, you know?”
    From what Duy Tranh had given me as chronology, I thought it had to be over twenty years, but I also didn’t want to hear any more on the subject. ”Maybe if you’d tell me what you can about Veronica’s death, I won’t make you late for your date.”
    ”Oh, I don’t know.” The sly smile. ”That might be kind of fun.”
    ”What might?”
    She clicked off the dryer. ‘You making me late for my date.”
    Relendess. ”Veronica’s death?”
    Helides tossed the dryer back onto the bedclothes. ”I don’t know anything about it.”
    ”What?”
    She turned and shook her head like a horse does to settle its mane. ‘You deaf? I don’t know a fucking thing about it. I got drunk pretty early that day.”
    ”Why?”
    ”Hey, Nick living out another birthday isn’t exactly a reason for me to celebrate, you know?”
    I spoke slowly. ”But you told me out in the driveway that I should talk with you.”
    ”That was just a fucking line, boytoy. When did you fall off the turkey truck?”
    ”‘Turnip truck,”‘ I said before standing up and walking away.
    From by the bed, Cassandra Helides asked, almost meekly, ‘You sure it’s not ‘turkey’?”

    * * *

    As I closed her door behind me, I registered a flash of movement in my peripheral vision. By the time I turned my head, I had only one frame of a man with shaggy hair in dark clothes disappearing around the corner to the stairway.
    ”Just a second,” I called out. When I didn’t hear any footfalls on the steps, I went over to them. Empty, and no other sounds I could hear.
    At the bottom of the stairway, I got my bearings and walked through the living room toward the corridor leading to the den. From the door, I could see Justo, speaking into a telephone, the Skipper sitting in the same chair again, Duy Tranh standing at his side.
    ”Lieutenant Cuddy,” said Helides in his garbled voice. There was something in his eyes that told me he wasn’t completely in the present. Then I noticed his hands on the binder of a photo album in his lap.
    ”Colonel.”
    ”Come in, please. Duy and I were just looking at some old photos from our time over there.”
    I approached them, Helides using the good hand to swing the album toward me on his bent knees.
    He said, ”A shot of you and Lieutenant Vega.”
    One look, and I remembered. It was during the Tet Offensive, probably somewhere into our twentieth hour on duty that night, some jerk from Stars and Stripes magazine snapping pictures of us coming in off Tu Do Street and appearing impossibly young. I had the blood of a private first class all over me, an MP whose name I never got because most of him had been blown away before I pulled him into relative safety of an alley mouth. Justo was forced to empty his forty-five into two of the ”enemy” rushing us with grenades, neither of the kids more than twelve years old. I could recall seeing the photographer, grinning from ear to ear as he got a shot he was sure would bring him some kind of prize. Or maybe just a ticket home.
    If the Skipper hadn’t been there, I would have taken that jerk’s camera strap