Spiral (21 page)

”To go, yes.”

The night’s breeze felt good after all the smoke inside September’s. Eisen drove the Corvette carefully, constantly checking his speed and slowing down for significant stretches on the fairly empty streets.

I said, ”Worried about a ticket?”

He didn’t glance over. ”Hot car like this, the cops expect you to be going over the limit. And after a brandy, you can get stuck by the Breathalyzer even if your blood’s still fine. So, I don’t give them any excuse to stop me.”

”What’s the excuse for where we’ve been tonight?” Eisen did glance over this time. ”What do you mean?”

”Those bars, and your ‘lessons’ on music.”

His eyes went back to the road. ”Cuddy, what did you see and hear?”

”Three different kinds of entertainment.”

”Describe them.”

”Why?”

”Indulge me.”

I said, ”Female vocalist with accompaniment, versatile band with fiddler, show band with a male lead singer.”

”Okay, that’s objective. How about subjective?”

I tried to capture what I’d felt. ”People with talent, enjoying themselves.”

”That’s it. On the fucking button. Everybody on those stages was talented, and the better performers brought out the best in the rest. Made them play up to the level of the most talented person on the stage.”

”Your point?”

”My point,” said Eisen, ”is that those people are gonna be talented, and perform like that, no matter what’s hot on the CHR stations.”

”The top-40 ones.”

”Like I told you in my office. All the performers you saw tonight, they’re gonna be fine, regardless of which way the fickle fucking wind blows.”

I thought I saw it. ”But Spiral won’t be.”

A nod, sad in its certainty. ”That’s right, too. Spi and the boys, they’re has-beens, a garage band that just happened to have the right sound for a couple of years, and an echo of the right sound for a couple more. Except maybe for Ricky, and even he has just the talent, not the instinct.”

”The instinct?”

”It’s like an animal thing. The desire to climb the ladder of success with a fucking knife between your teeth.”

”I thought I saw some of that when I spoke with Spi Held.”

”No.” A shake of the head, even sadder than the nod had been. ”No, what you saw in Spi is desperation. The guy was on top once, and that’s a hell of a sweet taste to have in your mouth, Cuddy. Only problem is, it doesn’t last very long And when that sweet taste works its way from your mouth to your gut, it starts rotting down there. Makes you do things you wouldn’t ordinarily.”

Eisen turned into the drive for my hotel. Instead of using the circular spur servicing the main entrance, though, he went past the pool area and came to a stop at the entrance to the parking garage.

I shifted sidesaddle in my seat to face him. ”There a reason we’re back here?”

”Yeah. I don’t want some fucking bellhop hearing me ask you questions with names attached to them.”

”Like what?”

Eisen squeezed the steering wheel of his car like an exercise machine. ”Twenty, twenty-five years ago, I managed a mixed bag of fucking kids with more energy than talent, and more talent than brains. You saw for yourself how fucked up they all are, and believe me, Tommy O’Dell was even more fucked up than the ones who lived through it.”

”Through what?”

”The rock-star scene, with all it does to you for the little it does for you. But there’s one thing it does real well, Cuddy, and that’s produce money. Fuck, you’d think it shits the stuff, the way the green rolls in.”

I thought back to Gordo Lazar’s description of Eisen and Held, on that ”comforter of cash” in the bedroom of their tour bus. ”But that was then.”

”And this is now. Or it could have been, Very didn’t piss somebody off enough to snuff her.”

I stared at Eisen. ”If you have a point, Mitch, I’m not seeing it.”

He returned my stare, the eyes hard. ”There’s a possibility, a faint fucking thread of a chance, that I can get that I mixed bag of fuckheads up and running again enough to make some real money out of all this.”

”You said as much in your office.”

”The right spin, yeah. But that’d take a lot of my time for no real return unless that thread comes through.” Eisen’s eyes grew harder. ”And even that fucking thread gets cut, the money train don’t stop at the station anymore.”

”Colonel Helides backing the band.”

”Right. So here’s what I figure. Very’s killed by somebody in the band, we’re fucked with the Colonel. He’s never gonna keep writing checks’ll remind him of what one of them did.”

”Go on.”

”But, I figure that if somebody else did his granddaughter, then maybe, just maybe, the money train rolls on, kind of a sympathy vote, you might say.”

I willed the words to my lips. ”A memorial almost.”

”Exact-a-mundo. Like a 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 up this time, catching his elbow and hearing a cracking sound before he roared in pain. The buck knife clattered off the tiles to the right of me.

Shaking my head to clear my vision, I saw a blurry figure hobbling toward the parking garage. He was favoring his right leg and cradling his right arm.

Then, from a middle distance, I heard him yell, ”Fucker, next time I won’t stop... to see your eyes before I do you.”

Starting to get up, I found my feet wouldn’t work quite right, and my head spun no matter how hard I shook it There was quite a lot of my blood seeping through—hell, pouring through the slash wound in my left arm, and I realized that’s what had made the lip of the pool so slippery.

A vehicle I couldn’t see through the bushes peeled rubber coming out of the garage and up the drive toward the road. My feet were still flopping a little at the ends of my ankles when I heard the sound of a heavy door by the hotel building and some shouts followed by running footsteps and more shouts.

I closed my eyes, tried to picture the guy. White, rough features, solid build. Oh yeah, and a tattoo on the forearm of his knife hand. Not a Marine Corps one, though. This was of a spider.

Some people were over me now, at least one gagging as another yelled to get a towel or something, for crissake. A third person from nearer the hotel said they’d already called 911.

I’d been hurt before, and I didn’t think I was in shock. In feet, I was sure of it, right up till the moment I passed out.

A
s
Nancy sank deeper and deeper, I dived into the water after her. I thought my clothes would weigh me down, but instead they buoyed me up. Then I realized I was wearing a life vest, which I couldn’t seem to make my fingers unbuckle. When I finally got the thing off, I took a huge breath and started kicking for the bottom.

The salt water burned my eyes, and all I could see was blue-black shimmering, some tiny organisms drifting past my face. Then I spotted Nancy. Or her hair, at least, still billowing up but still out of reach as well.

Locking my knees, I kicked even harder, both legs scissoring from the hips as I extended my fingers toward the waving strands of—

Which was when somebody dropped a garbage can lid next to me.

The other guy in my hospital room looked over, sheepish in the dull glow of the EXIT sign above our door. ”Sorry, pal. Bedpan slipped right outta my hands.”

I think I said something, then lay my head back against the softest pillow God had ever helped the hand of man to fashion.

* * **

”I don’t think it was shock,” said the doctor with a Creole accent overlaid with some French, flipping through my chart at the side of the bed.

”Neither did I before I blacked out.”

She frowned, creating bittersweet chocolate lines in a milk chocolate complexion. ”Mild concussion, more likely. Here,” her finger ran across a page, ‘Patient says that he fell and struck the back of his head.’”

I still felt a little ache there. ”Yeah, but just on a lounge chair.”

”Mr. Cuddy from”—the doctor glanced back at the chart—”Boston, you are almost six feet, three inches tall. Whether we are in your Massachusetts, my Haiti, or our Florida, that is a long way for your head to gather momentum before striking anything.” She put the chart back on its hook at the foot of my bed. ”The reason I admitted you after Emergency finished its work.”

I looked down at my left forearm. The flesh under the white gauze sent a muffled throbbing all the way to my brain. ”How long have I been here?”

”About nine hours.”

Making it sometime Thursday morning. ”How long have you been here?”

A tired smile. ”It is less that and more how much longer I will be here.” Then back to her immediate business. ”You may have some short-term memory loss or confusion about the last forty-eight hours. Other memories may fade in and out. Simply work through all this without worrying about it. There will be two prescriptions waiting for you at the Discharge Desk, both regarding your arm. One will be for an antibiotic; please take it as directed until the pills are exhausted. The other will be a painkiller, to be used at your discretion within the limits on the prescription itself. Please don’t engage in any strenuous activity for a week. After that time, you should come back to us or visit your physician in Boston to have the sutures removed.”

”How many stitches did it take?”

Another tired smile. ”Thirty-six.”

I looked down to my left again. ”Seems like a lot.”

”You were lucky a plastic surgeon was available. A first-year resident would have used about twelve, and your forearm would thereafter resemble a railroad track.”

There was something she said before that.... Right. ”You mentioned the Discharge Desk. When can I get out of here?”

Her smile disappeared. ”As soon as the police have finished with you.”

Detective Kyle Cascadden actually held the door for Sergeant Lourdes Pintana. Both came to the side of my bed. Pintana said, ”I hope you are comfortable.”

”If only I could afford the accommodations.”

She grinned without showing any teeth. ”I am sure Mr. Nicolas Helides will pay your bill.”

Cascadden wore another short-sleeved shirt, the Marine tatt’ on its side to me as he pointed toward my bed. ”Heard you brought your arm to a knife fight, Beantown.”

I said, ”The expression is, ‘ bringing a knife to a gun fight.’ ” He stopped. ”You were carrying, you’d have a lot more to worry about than a couple stitches.”

”At least he didn’t jump me in my hotel room.” Cascadden froze, Pintana looking at me strangely, as though knowing she’d missed something.

I said, ”Then my blood would have wrecked the carpeting.”

Pintana flicked her wrist toward my bandaged arm, ”What happened?”

”I didn’t give any statement?”

She paused. ”The patrol officer who rode with you in the ambulance said you didn’t wake up.”

”Did this officer also recover the buck knife from the scene?”

”Si.
It is being checked at the lab now.” Different tone of voice. ”Tell us what happened.”

”Mitch Eisen took me—”

”That manager fella?” said Cascadden.

”Yes. He drove us from my hotel to three bars for some food and music.”

”And booze,” from Cascadden again, but not as a question.

Pintana said, ”Kyle?”

Cascadden folded his arms across his chest and stood down a little.

I talked to the sergeant. ”After the third place, he brought me back here.”

”Here?” said Pintana.

I shook my head. ”Sorry. I mean the hotel.”

She canted her own head, so much like one of Nancy’s mannerisms that...

”Mr. Cuddy?” said Pintana, now a look of concern in the amber eyes.

I took a breath. ”The doctor said I probably have a mild concussion.”

”Handy,” said Cascadden, but a glance from Pintana stopped him there.

”All right.” She shifted her feet. ”I get that Mr. Eisen drives you back to your hotel, but why were you by the pool at that time of night?”

”He dropped me at the garage.”

Pintana closed her eyes a moment, as though picturing something, then opened them again. ”Why didn’t he drive up to the lobby entrance?”

”We talked in his car for a bit.”

”What about?”

”The band.”

”Huh?” said Cascadden.

”Spiral. He’s worried about his clients.”

Pintana watched me. ”So you get out of Mr. Eisen’s car...

”...and I start walking through the pool area toward the hotel. I hear a noise behind me and turn just in time to take the first try on my arm.”

”Good reflexes,” she said.

”They used to be better.”

A slow nod from her. ”Go on.”

I explained about my kicking the guy and hitting my head.

Pintana said, ”So we are looking for a man with possibly a hyperextended knee and/or elbow. Can you describe him any further?”

”White, a little shorter than I am, solid build, rough features.”

”Big help, Beantown,” said Cascadden.

”Southern accent.”

He said, ”You mean ‘redneck,’ you fucking—”

”Kyle?”

Cascadden shut up.

Pintana sighed. ‘That it, Mr. Cuddy?”

”Except for his prints on the knife. Oh, and the tattoo.”

Both of them perked up.

Pintana said, ”What kind and where?”

”Some kind of spider, on the right forearm.” Cascadden’s mouth opened as he looked to Pintana, but she stayed with me.

”Mr. Cuddy, did this man say anything to you?”

Christ, the concussion at work.
”Yes,
but it didn’t make any sense.”

Pintana seemed to rein herself back. ”What did he say?”

”‘This is for Sunday.’”

Now Pintana did look at Cascadden.

I said, ”I was still in Boston then.”

Sergeant Lourdes Pintana came back to me. ”Mr. Cuddy, I think you’d better get dressed.”

I stared at the array of ten mug shots on my chair’s side of Pintana’s desk in the Homicide Unit. All were white males, seemingly the right build, so much as you could tell from the biceps on up.

”Your assailant among these men?” asked the sergeant from her chair.

I studied them slowly, making sure.

Behind me, Cascadden said, ”Come on, Beantown.”

I ignored him, going back and forth between two of the photos.

”Take your time, Mr. Cuddy,” said Pintana, rather pointedly.

Focusing on the third mug shot in the array, I said, ”This is him.”

Pintana spoke slowly. ”Please pick up the one you are identifying.”

I did.

Cascadden laughed behind me.

I said, ”What’s so funny?”

Pintana extended her hand, and I gave her the photo. She laid it on her desk. ”This man is named Ford Walton.” I shook my head. ”Means nothing to me.”

Pintana said, ”Approximately eleven days ago, a female prostitute, last name Moran, was slashed to death with a knife very much like the one used to attack you.”

I remembered Cascadden saying something about another murder the first time I’d met them. ”Meaning, right around the time that Veronica Held died?”

Pintana nodded. ”Within ten hours or so. Moran’s body was left in a cheap hotel room with the air-conditioning on high.”

”Fuzzing any determination regarding her time of death.”

‘Yes,” said Pintana. ”But there are two further points about

the case.”

Cascadden cut in. ”First is, old Ford was the whore’s sometime boyfriend.”

Pintana let him finish before saying, ”The other is that Moran spelled her street name ‘S-U-N-D-Y.’”

Half an hour later, I was still sitting in the same chair-looking down at the bandaged part of my left arm and giving serious thought to trying one of the Haitian doctor’s painkillers—when Cascadden came back into the room.

He handed a folder to Pintana, who opened it, read something, then looked up at him. Cascadden nodded to her.

She turned to me. ”The prints on the knife used to attack you belong to Ford Walton.”

Cascadden said, ”Blood work’s gonna take longer, Beantown, account of so much was yours.”

I watched Pintana. ”Meaning, the lab’s checking the knife for this Sundy Moran’s blood?”

”Yes”

”Walton would have to be pretty stupid to keep a knife Used in a killing.”

”Old Ford ain’t never been no brain trust.”

I looked up at Cascadden. ‘You know him?”

”Went to high school with the fucker. Back when we had just Stranahan for us and Old Dillard for the nig blacks.”

I kept looking at Cascadden. Could he be that stupid, to roust me himself, fail, and then get somebody he admitted knowing to—

”Mr. Cuddy?” said Pintana.

”Sorry. That concussion again.”

She nodded, but not like she was convinced. ”I’d like to know what connection you had to Sundy Moran.”

”None that I know of.”

”From what you said earlier, Ford Walton appears to think otherwise.”

”Sergeant, Moran was dead over a week before I was even in your state, and I’m sure I’d never seen Walton before last night.” I thought of something. ”After Moran’s body was found, you must have looked for her boyfriend.”

”And found him, Beantown,” said Cascadden, proudly. Pintana glared at him.

I waited for her to look back toward me. ”But not
the
knife in question.”

Cascadden seemed to have decided he’d said enough. The sergeant drummed her nails on the desktop. ”Ford Walton likes to use knives, Mr. Cuddy.”

”I could tell.”

She didn’t nod. ”But he had an alibi for the time period that Sundy Moran must have been killed.”

”What kind of alibi?”

Kyle Cascadden changed his mind. ”Old Ford was shacked up with the whore’s mother. Now, can you beat that?”

From the passenger’s seat of the unmarked sedan, I said, ”How many cases has Cascadden blown for you?”

Sergeant Lourdes Pintana shook her head. ”I thought we already had this conversation.”

”Seems timely again.”

We turned north on an avenue toward my hotel. ”I told you, Mr. Cuddy. Kyle was a hero here, from the gridiron for his school to the streets for our department. He gets cut some slack for that.”

”The department ever cut you any slack?”

Pintana glanced over, frowning. ”For what?”

”There’s only one woman in the Boston Homicide unit, and she doesn’t command it.”

Frown became grimace. ”Meaning, how did a ‘
cubana
chick’ get to the top?”

”Meaning, how did an immigrant woman in a man’s profession end up doing so well so young?”

Pintana seemed to relax a little. ”I worked hard, got my degree in criminal justice, then a master’s. Scored the highest on every test the department gave.” Almost a smile. ”As a detective in Homicide, I also cleared most of my cases, which mattered a little more.”

”Still, there had to be barriers.”

Another glance, but kind of quizzical this time. ‘Tour people are from Ireland originally?”