Spiral

sure?”
    ”I know David rather well. He operates on a very different schedule.”
    From the way Duy Tranh spoke that last word, he might just as well have said, ”dimension.”

    ”You are my father’s detective.”
    I’d used the handle to push in the door after my knock brought a quavering, ”It is open.” The living room area was dimly lit, except for a bright snake-neck lamp over computer equipment that looked as elaborate as what I’d seen in Tranh’s suite the night before. The rest of the furnishings seemed spartan at best, like a church serving a poor congregation.
    And no sign of David Helides.
    The same stilted voice said, ”If you would not mind, please come into the bedroom.”
    I moved left, around a divider in the form of a tall cabinet of bookshelves. Most of the titles suggested computer manuals, and just past the divider, I saw the foot of an unmade bed. The light—from subtly recessed bulbs inside the hung ceiling—was slightly better than in the living area. Or maybe my eyes were just adjusting.
    On the bed lay a figure in the fetal position, facing me. His left hand was palm-up under his right knee, his right hand palm-down atop his left knee. David Helides wore navy-blue sweatpants, the ankle bands pulled down over his toes, like a child’s jammies. A sweatshirt, also navy, covered his torso, and the hood shrouded his head, as though he’d just worked out and was afraid of getting a chill despite the shaggy hair. Helides’s eyes, recessed deep under his brow, were squinched closed in a face that was thirty-three going on seventy.
    ”I am sorry,” he said, ”but it is difficult for me to keep my eyes open when it is not necessary to see. Please take the computer chair. It is comfortable.”
    His voice still quavered, if anything more on this longest passage from him. The tone was apersonal, like the electronic speech of a... computer.
    I dragged the chair over to a conversational distance from Helides, then sat in it. ”I appreciate your seeing me at all.”
    His eyes opened for just a moment, dull and listless, then closed again with a flutter that took a little longer to dissipate. ”I saw you yesterday.”
    ”Briefly.”
    The lips changed position, but less like a smile and more like a person trying to get comfortable, though the rest of his body stayed perfectly still. ”I am sorry I ran from you, but a stranger in the house... a disruption is...”
    I thought of Dr. Henry Forbes and his uncompleted sentences. ”There are some questions I’d like to ask you.”
    ”I know.”
    Time to test the waters. ”How do you know?”
    The eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. ”My father... Dr. Forbes...”
    ”I’ve spoken with your doctor.”
    A sigh, perhaps of relief. ”Then you know about... my condition.”
    ”Yes, but if you don’t mind talking about it, I’d—”
    ”It is all I want to talk about. Dr. Forbes did not tell you that?”
    ”No, he didn’t.”
    Another sigh, this time more of resignation. ”There are many symptoms of severe, clinical depression. Lack of appetite, no enjoyment in the doing of pleasurable things, contemplation of... suicide. But that is nothing compared to what happens in the brain itself. I have read many people’s description of it. Some call it a raging storm, others a deep fog. For me, depression is like the images of a slot machine I have seen on the Internet.”
    ”A slot machine?”
    ”Yes, where the different wheels are constantly whirring past the little windows. Well, if my eyes are those windows it is only for short bursts each day that all the lemons line up. Except for those times, when I can concentrate on something else, the depression is my sole source of identity. It is... me.”
    ”Mr. Helides—”
    ”David, please. It is... easier on the mind.”
    I realized I hadn’t introduced myself. ”I’m John Cuddy, David. Use whichever name you like.”
    ”John would be less... authoritarian for me.” Clinically depressed he might be, but, like Kalil Biggs, not stupid behind his disability. ”You understand that I have to ask you about Veronica.”
    I expected a withdrawal of some kind, but instead Helides did almost smile this time. ”You use her real name.”
    ”Yes.”
    ”Most of the others didn’t. They called her by her ‘stage’ name.”
    ”That’s because I think of her as a real person, not a rock singer.”
    ”I, too.”
    A single tear rolled from under his right eyelid and was channeled by his