Spiral

the dozens of times I watched my MPs—our MPs—crawl on their hands and knees into bars. Inside, combat troops from the bush on two-day passes did their best to drink a month’s worth of booze and forget what they’d just been through and would be going through again. Forget by starting a free-for-all fistfight with whomever supposedly slighted them, any opponents having roughly the same attitudes.
    The MPs would crawl into the bars because the safest way to break up a brawl was to sneak up below the revelers’ line of sight and whack them behind the knees with a nightstick, causing the muscles back there to spasm so badly that nobody could get to their feet for fifteen minutes, by which time the desire—the raw need —to swing on somebody would have—
    ”Lieutenant?”
    The concussion, or just me since Nancy? ”Sorry, sir.” The Skipper searched my eyes. ”I really appreciate what you’re trying to do for me.”
    ”Glad to be here, Colonel.”
    And I knew that I was. At least by comparison.
    He looked back at the Intracoastal, a parade of small fishing boats going by now. ”You remember my penchant for sailing?”
    ”Yes, sir.”
    ”This is a forty-eight-foot sloop, custom-built for me but modeled after one of Phil Rhodes’s Carinas. Cassie and I used to take this fine craft out into the ocean and sail her two-handed to Bimini. We’d hire a guide there, fish the reefs and the flats, then sail back. Idyllic.”
    I waited.
    ”Now, Cassie doesn’t care much for sailing anymore. And while Duy is perfectly competent as crew for the rigging and manning of sheets, it has to be a pretty calm day for me to be able to take the helm for more than an hour at a time. And a ‘pretty calm’ day rather defeats the purpose of going out under sail in the first place.”
    I waited some more.
    Nicolas Helides drew in a deep, deep breath, then let it out slowly, the ruined side of his face making his right upper lip flutter a bit. ”Lieutenant, what possible connection could exist between Veronica’s death and the murder of this prostitute?”
    I didn’t mention the note I’d gotten at the hotel. ”I’m going to be spending the rest of today trying to find out, sir.” A nod. ”Could you also check in with Duy? I’m not sure we’ve covered everything he needed to speak with you about.”

    Tranh was in his suite, sitting at the computer but turned toward the door as I opened it following his ”Come.”
    Dressed in a burgundy, short-sleeved safari shirt and contrasting khaki pants, his solemn eyes and sharp features walked me into the living room area. As I sat in the single armchair, my own eyes went up to his wall of knives. Most were more ornate than the one Ford Walton had tried to use on me, and I didn’t see any empty spaces.
    Tranh stayed seated, but swiveled more to face me squarely. ”Mr. Cuddy, you and I really must reach an understanding.”
    I thought back to what I’d said to Luke as he backed off at the roadhouse that morning. Still a form of brawling with Tranh, just more civilized.
    ”Mr. Tranh, I think we understand each other just fine. You don’t like me, and I don’t like you.”
    A pause, his features softening slightly. ”And yet, we are both devoted to the Colonel. Does that not strike you as... odd?”
    ”Odd because we’re so different?”
    ”From each other, or from his real sons?”
    Tranh’s insight did strike a chord in me, but I said, ”Justo Vega is devoted to him, too. Just a matter of individual choice.”
    ”Or character, perhaps?”
    ”Perhaps.” I wanted off the topic. ”Colonel Helides asked me to check in with you.”
    A slight smile. ”Which is the only reason you would have?”
    ”Probably.”
    ”Very well, Mr. Cuddy. If we cannot be friends, let us at least be forthcoming.” He glanced down at my bandaged arm. ”What caused you to be hospitalized this morning?”
    ”Last night, actually.”
    ”Last night,” very evenly.
    ”I’ve already told the Colonel outside.”
    Tranh frowned. ”I could have been there, as I was in the library on your first visit here. You know he would have permitted it.”
    ”I know the Colonel had a phone in his lap just now. He could have called you to join us, but he didn’t.”
    Tranh watched me, but something was moving behind his eyes. Finally he said, ”Your point?”
    ”Think about it, Mr. Tranh. It’ll come to you.”

    Closing the door to his suite, I caught a flash of motion at the end of the