Spiral

fucking memorial to the dead kid.” The eyes grew even harder still, the hair plugs marching down his forehead. ”So, what I want to know is, you getting any vibes on this thing?”
    ”Vibes.”
    ”You know. Feelings, hunches, whatever the fuck you call them.”
    ”About who actually killed Veronica Held.”
    Now the eyes widened. ”Of course about who fucking killed her.”
    I decided to use Eisen before he used me. ”I think Spi Held cared more about his comeback than his offspring.”
    ”No question there.”
    ”I also think for Buford Biggs, it’s the reverse.”
    ”Agreed again. Once Buford found out he had the plague, Kalil’s been about the only thing he talks about.”
    ”What was Kalil’s relationship to Veronica?”
    That stopped Eisen for a moment. ”Relationship? You mean, would I bet on whether those two jailbaits were fucking each other?”
    I bit back what I wanted to say. "Start there.”
    Eisen thought a moment more. ”Not unless it was Very’s idea.”
    ”Because?”
    ”Because Kalil fucking worshipped the ground she mashed him into.”
    ”Mashed?”
    ”The little vixen used people, Cuddy. Like I told you, and like probably everybody but her mommy told you, too. Any time I saw them together, Very made Kalil her gofer. Or her whipping boy. She’d do jokes on his stutter thing.”
    ”Kalil said she didn’t.”
    ”Maybe not to his face, but let him go to the kitchen, get her a soda, and Very’d be saying, ‘I j-j-just love Dr P-p-pep-per.’”
    ”Are you telling me Kalil was aware of that?”
    ”Buford sure was. I heard him lay into Spi once about it. ‘Can’t you teach your fucking child some manners,’ etc., etc.”
    ”And?”
    ”And nothing. Spi couldn’t control his daughter any more than...”
    ”Any more than what, Mitch?”
    ”Any more than anybody else. She had a mind of her own, the little bitch.”
    I waited a minute before saying, ”How about a reason why Gordo Lazar or Ricky Queen would want to harm her?”
    ”Maybe just for being a pain in the ass, but I don’t see either of them getting that passionate about it.” A grunted laugh. ”Especially Ricky, for obvious reasons.”
    ”His sexual orientation?”
    ”If you like to call it that.” Eisen suddenly checked his watch. ”Look, it’s getting late, and I gotta be up and at ‘em early tomorrow. So, what’s your take?”
    ”Beyond the things we’ve talked about, I haven’t gotten any ‘vibes’ yet.”
    Mitch Eisen nodded, but not sadly now. ”Let me know if you do, huh? Be a bonus in it for you.”
    ”Bonus?”
    ”Yeah. I don’t want to waste any more of my time on those fuckheads if one of them got terminally stupid.”

    After getting out of the car, I watched Eisen drive away, his shifting of gears winding out into the quiet night air. As I began to cut across the mini-jungle surrounding the pool area, my mind started heading toward the dream of Nancy I might have again. And dreaded having.
    When I got nearer the pool, the hotel lights danced off the water like a dozen setting suns, and a couple of geckos skittered across my path. Then I heard a skittering noise behind me, too.
    It could have been one of the geckos’ cousins, if that side of the family weighed in at two hundred and change.
    I wheeled around, the blade in the guy’s right hand glinting from the lights reflecting off the water. I went back a step with my left forearm up to protect the throat and eyes as my right hand stayed flat and belt-high to shield the belly and chest. But he’d already slashed across the top, my left forearm feeling wet just a second after the branding-iron sensation shot to my brain.
    The guy strode in closer, comfortable with the buck knife. ”This is for Sunday, fucker.”
    An accent like Detective Kyle Cascadden’s, though I didn’t have time to think much about it.
    Now the guy came up from under, for the heart or a lung. Not trusting my left hand for gripping, I pivoted on my left foot, parrying the thrust of his arm with my right hand. Then I kicked out with my right foot at his right knee, getting part—but not all—of the joint as my plant foot slid on the pool tiles like a field-goal kicker’s on a slick turf. I went down and heard more than felt my head hit the corner of a lounge chair, the stars rising up behind my eyes.
    I thought he’d finish me until I registered the whooshing sound of his blade going by, where my throat would have been if I hadn’t slipped. I kicked