Spiral

to the tennis club, I used the cellular phone to check my voice mail at the hotel. Nothing from Malinda Dujong, but Mitch Eisen was on it, asking me to call him as soon as possible.
    After dialing, I heard a few clicks before ”Mitch Eisen.”
    ”Mitch, John Cuddy.”
    ”Hey, how’s the boy detective?”
    ”In need of a few more answers.”
    ”Well, I might have them, and you’re lucky.”
    ”Lucky?”
    ”I forwarded my office phone to my cellular, because I didn’t want to be out of touch riding to the beach. Where are you right now?”
    I told him.
    ”Perfect. Just go down to Las Olas and take it east to the beach. Park wherever you can.”
    ”And you’ll be?”
    ”In the place on the Oceanside corner, second floor,” said Mitch Eisen. ”Can’t miss it, in both senses of the expression.”

    At street level, a sign read the elbo room. An open-walled bar was packed, mostly by older males acting like college kids. The steps leading to the second floor felt sticky enough to have been slopped with leftover beer. Reaching the upper bar, I couldn’t see much change in the clientele. But a live band was playing surfer music from the sixties, many people chanting the well-worn lyrics. Altogether, it was just about quiet enough to hear a bomb drop.
    From the railing overlooking the beach road, Mitch Eisen waved to me. I slalomed around clumps of swaying party animals, Eisen glancing at the bandage on my arm when I reached him.
    ”That from the mugging thing?” he shouted over the din.
    ”Primarily.”
    ”Well, I hope you’re feeling better.” He motioned with his hand in an encompassing way. ”So, what do you think?”
    ”Of what?”
    ”The Elbo Room. This is it, man. When Lauderdale was the Mecca of Spring Break, where you’re standing now was the holiest of mosques.”
    I noticed Eisen had most of a beer left in a plastic cup. Leaning into him, I said, ”Can we find someplace quieter?”
    He seemed shocked. ”But the view of history...” The hand now went out toward the palm trees and a white, two-foot-square wave wall separating the sidewalk from the sandy beach. ”Remember Where the Boys Are ?”
    I made a hitchhiking gesture toward the stairs I’d just used. Shaking his head, Eisen drained maybe half the beer remaining in his cup and waved a theatrical farewell to the crowd, though I didn’t notice anybody waving back to him.
    When we were on the sidewalk, he said, ”There are some great new places just opened last year. Sloppy Joe’s, that Hemingway bar from Key West. Howl at the Moon, which is a franchise operation, but—”
    ”Mitch, how about we just sit on the wave wall over there, talk about some things?”
    ”Sure,” said Eisen. ”I’ve always been a people-watcher.” After crossing A1A, we found a spot fifty feet from our nearest neighbors, so nobody could eavesdrop on us. I brushed off the top of the wall and sat facing the ocean, my shoes in the sand.
    Eisen eased himself down to my left, feeing the street but even enough with me that a single bullet could have gone through all four of our ears. ”I don’t know about your choice of viewing there, John. Kind of late for bikinis on the beach.”
    ”After the day I’ve had, I find it peaceful.”
    Eisen frowned, his hair plugs inching downward. ”Things okay?”
    ”No, but I don’t need to tell you most of it.”
    ”Hey, I’m happy to hear what you got to say. Like I mentioned last night, it’d be good for me to stay ahead of the media curve on this.”
    ”Investment-wise.”
    ”Every-wise. What have you got?”
    ”Sundy Moran’s connection to Spiral.”
    Eisen made a clucking noise in his mouth. ”Shit.”
    ”I’m glad to see you’re mourning her, too.”
    ”Frankly, I was kind of hoping that’d slide on through.”
    ”Her murder?”
    ”No. Any whiff that she was tied into the band.” Eisen turned sidesaddle to me, his left leg now bent at the knee but resting flat on top of the wall. ”Look, Cuddy. One death from an overdose twenty years ago, that was to be expected, the times and all. A current death of the little girl singer who’s gonna bring an old band back from the grave, that’s like... cachet, we can handle the spin right.”
    ”I heard enough of this angle back in your office.”
    ”Yeah, but you’re adding a new ingredient. We got to go for damage control here, and I can’t afford another leak in the good ship Spiral.”
    ”Which Sundy Moran’s connection with the band would