Spiral

to make the comeback, the Colonel don’t have her in school no more.”
    The Skipper again, not Veronica’s father. ”And Duy Tranh became her teacher.”
    ”At the Colonel’s house, yes.”
    ”Why there?”
    ”My brother is guard at the gate, and there is security system in that house. More hard for Veronica to get away than here.”
    ”Did you go with her when she saw Tranh?”
    ‘Yes, I go to house, but not in room.”
    ”Why not?”
    ”I cannot help with teaching,” said Reyes, ”but I can help with kitchen or cleaning.”
    ”Did you ever sense anything was wrong between Veronica and Mr. Tranh?”
    ”No. She tell me she play games on him, too.”
    ”What kind of games?”
    ”She no tell me. Just say Mr. Tranh is no smarter than any other man.”
    ”Meaning?”
    ”I tell you already, I don’t know.”
    Time to ease off. ”What else can you tell me about Veronica as a person?”
    ”Como persona?” The hung head again. ”Veronica think she very smart. And she no is stupid. But she no is so smart as maybe she think.”
    ”In what ways?”
    Reyes didn’t lift her head this time. ”Veronica think she already know things about... men. She do not know enough.”
    ”Examples again?”
    ”When she go to tennis place, sometime I drive her, sometime the Colonel’s wife. Then, one day, the Colonel’s wife tell me she no drive Veronica anymore.”
    ”Do you know why?”
    ”Why the Colonel’s wife no drive her?”
    ”Yes.”
    Reyes kept her head down. ”I think maybe because of the tennis teacher.”
    ”Veronica did or said something to him?”
    The agitation again. ”I tell you, I don’t know all these things.”
    Back to more stable ground. ”Was there someone who would want to hurt Veronica?”
    ”No.” Reyes lifted her head again, the blue eyes tearing up. ”I ask this question to myself many times, but there is no one I can think to do this to her. We are at the Colonels party, there is food and drink and music. A fiesta.”
    ”Until Veronica sang that song?”
    A nod, the tears welling over now. ”She must be crazy to do that, I think, but I see her do it. Then she run out, and her father go after her, and I walk to the kitchen, try to make more food so people be happy again.” Reyes began to sob. ”I don’t think anybody be happy again forever.”
    I was looking around for some tissues or napkins when a voice from the doorway said, ”Delgis, where the fuck’s my food?”
    I looked up at a heavyset man in a leather biker vest and bulging black jeans. His head was shaved, some scarring on the cheeks that looked like poorly healed knife wounds from long ago.
    ”The fuck are you?” he said.
    ”John Cuddy.”
    ”That supposed to mean something?”
    Word didn’t seem to travel very fast in the Held house. ”I’m investigating Veronica’s death for her grandfather.”
    A grin as he stroked a scar on his right cheek. ”The guy we all got to talk to, right?”
    ”Right.”
    ”Well, I’m Gordo Lazar. I don’t know enough to need a lawyer, but you want, we can talk back in the studio while Delgis fixes my fucking lunch. Sandwich for you, too?”
    I looked at Reyes, who had torn a paper towel off a dispenser and was blowing her nose into it. ”If there’s enough.
    ”Hey,” said Lazar as he turned and beckoned to me. ”I may be fat, but I haven’t eaten everything in the place.” His voice carried in from the corridor. ”Yet.”
    I thanked Delgis Reyes for her time, told her a sandwich and a soda would be fine, then left the stool I was on and followed after Gordo Lazar.
    * * *

    ”Hell of a setup, huh?”
    I watched Lazar reach down for a large guitar, unclipping the strap up near the tuning pegs, then hitching the strap over his left shoulder before reclipping it. We were in a cubelike room with lots of instruments on the floor, microphones coming down from the ceiling on elbowed steel components, and cushy green blocks on three walls. An expanse of glass comprised most of the fourth wall, a picture window into what looked like a control room, though no one was occupying the chairs there.
    I said, ”Spi Held gave me the impression he did most of his work up in that turret room.”
    ”The Spi Tower.” Lazar’s fingers went to the guitar, a pick of some kind causing three different notes in a do-re-mi pattern to strum out a bulky hi-fi speaker on the floor next to him. ”That’s where the genius does his writing. Here’s where we try to make the shit he