Spiral

corridor where it intersected with a crossing one. This time I knew to use a name. ”David, wait. Please.” Again, I didn’t hear footsteps going away or coming back, but his shaggy head peered around the corner timidly, like a deer ready to bound away at the slightest threatening movement.
    I said, ”Can I talk with you, just for a minute?”
    Helides moved his lips before speaking. ”It is time for me... to eat, John.”
    I took the remembering of my name as an encouraging sign. ”I’m a little hungry, too, and I just need the answers to a few questions. Please, David?”
    The hollowed eyes looked down and then around and behind him. ”In the kitchen.”

    ”This time of day here... is not so bad.”
    ”Why?”
    ”No one else eats now, so all is... quiet. Orderly.”
    In the same navy-blue sweatshirt and pants I’d seen him wearing in bed, David Helides picked black shavings— olives, I thought—from his pizza. He’d nuked a slice for each of us, every step of the process from refrigerator to plate to microwave executed excruciatingly slowly. To help, I’d poured us both glasses of Coke over ice, and now we sat at the center island of a room laid out exactly like the kitchen in his brother’s house.
    Helides had gotten most of the shavings off his slice of pizza. ”Duy Tranh knows I do not like olives, but he... gets them anyway.”
    ”They’re not my favorite, either.”
    Helides looked from his meal to my bandage. ”Your... arm.”
    A potential ”disruption” for him. ”Just a little cut.
    Nothing to worry about.”
    A nod, but wary.
    ”David, would it be easier for you to eat first, or to eat as I ask my questions?”
    ”I do not know.” He looked up now, almost smiled. ”I do not usually eat with anyone... who talks with me.”
    I paused. ”As we eat, then.”
    Helides moved his mouth close to his plate and bit into his pizza.
    Before doing the same, I said, ”David, last night I asked you if Veronica ever spoke about her life.”
    Chewing, he squinched his eyes shut. ”I thought we were finished with... those questions?”
    ”I have some more, but only a few.”
    A nod as Helides swallowed.
    ”I’m going to say some names, then you tell me if Veronica ever mentioned them to you.”
    Another nod as he opened his eyes and tore off another piece of pizza.
    ”The first one is Ford Walton.”
    No reaction as Helides opened his mouth. ”‘Ford’ like the... car?”
    ”Yes.”
    His head shook.
    I said, ”Veronica never mentioned him?”
    ”Never,” around his food.
    ”How about Sundy Moran?”
    Helides swallowed again. ”‘Sunday’ like ‘Monday’?”
    ”Not the way it’s spelled, but anything like that name?”
    A slower shake of the head. ”No.”
    I tried my pizza and washed it down with some soda. Helides bit another hunk off his slice, causing me to notice something.
    ”You don’t like Coke?” I said.
    He blinked. ”The ice would give me a... chill.” Helides shivered.
    I said, ”Let me pour it out, get—”
    ”No!” Then an intake of breath. ”No, my father does not like... waste.” Another almost-smile. ”And the ice will be gone soon.” Even the almost-smile disappeared. ”Like Veronica, gone... forever.”
    David Helides raised the slice all the way to his mouth, getting the food safely in despite squinching his eyes shut again.

SIXTEEN

    Driving down the driveway, I could see Umberto Reyes coming out of his gazebo to open the gate for me. Instead of continuing through and onto the street, though, I stopped and got out of the Cavalier.
    Because something I hadn’t thought of before occurred to me.
    ”You need help?” said Reyes, looking down at my bandage.
    ”Yes, Berto. The first time I was here, you said you’d logged in all the people who came to the Colonel’s birthday party that day.”
    ”Yeah, but the police took the page and never gave me back a copy.”
    ”How about for the days since?”
    ”Since the party?”
    ”Yes.”
    Reyes said, ”Sure. They’re in here.”
    I followed him toward the little structure, though he just reached in and came out with a blue looseleaf notebook. ”What dates you want?”
    ”Start with yesterday and today.”
    He flipped a page. ”Yesterday, Wednesday the twenty-first.”
    Reyes held it open for me. No mention of Duy Tranh leaving the house or coming back to it. ”And today?”
    Reyes turned the page. ”Thursday.”
    No entry for Tranh again, much less one for around the time Damon