Spiral

by David L Lindsey

  Haydon wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. The temperature inside the car had swelled rapidly in the few minutes without the air conditioner.

  Mooney looked through the windshield at the picture window of the barbershop and saw the barber cutting hair and glancing out at him.

  "That guy looks like a barber, all right, but he's not our barber," he said.

  "Let's see what he says."

  As Haydon walked around the front of the car to the sidewalk, he heard a parrot squawking from one of the shady backyards a few houses away. From Mexico. There was a burgeoning and lucrative black market in parrots, but hundreds of them died every year from heatstroke and suffocation as Mexican fayuqueros stuffed them into a variety of cruel hiding places in every kind of vehicle crossing the border. The huge colorful birds that had lifespans equal to that of a man were always in great demand in the drab streets of the barrios.

  The barber shop was in a small frame building with asbestos siding. The front door was approached from the sidewalk by ascending three cement steps, but to get to the steps you had to slide around a telephone pole that was inexplicably installed in the center of the sidewalk and aligned with the center of the steps. Herrera had coopted the pole, in defiance perhaps, and painted it barber-pole red, white, and blue up to a height level with the roofline of his shop. It was the most obvious sign on the street. Sparrows had nearly covered the transformer at the top of the pole with their frumpish nests, and their chalky droppings whitened the sidewalk in a two-foot diameter around the pole.

  The barber nodded at them as they came into the shop and sat down in the chrome armchairs covered in pea-green vinyl that were lined up against the wall opposite the two barber chairs. Haydon picked up a copy of Impacto. The cover of the magazine was dominated by a Mexican vocalist smiling brilliantly and singing into a chrome microphone. He wore a shiny, lead-blue suit and was standing against a flamingo-pink background. Mooney looked through a scrungy copy of People. The barbershop smelled of sweet tonics and scented powders.

  The barber put the finishing touches on the middle-aged man in the chair and whirled him around to check out the new job in the long mirror behind the chair. The man looked at himself out of the corners of his eyes as he twisted his head, then nodded and said, "Bien." The barber stripped the apron from around the man's neck and dusted inside his collar with a little round brush into which he had shaken scented powder. The man got up from the chair, paid, and went out the door, using the candy-striped telephone pole to steady himself as he descended the steps.

  Haydon put down the magazine and stood, as the barber looked at him and shook out the stripped apron, popping it twice.

  "We were looking for Ernesto Herrera," Haydon said, reaching in his pocket and presenting his shield.

  "You talkin' about my brawther, Ernesto," the barber said. "I'm Ricardo." He smiled and flashed a single gold incisor. His long upper lip was adorned with a thin mustache that rose in two upright lines at the center.

  "Your brother's not here?" Haydon asked.

  "Naw, he's gone home for lawnch. He won't be back here till two." His face sobered quickly. "Hey, that wass bad business over there, huh? Ernesto, he tol' me." He paused. "Man, I seen ever'thing aroun' here, you know. Shootings ... cuttings ... beatings ... but this one, it's the first nailing/"

  He could hardly keep his face straight until he got it out, a kind of staccato throat laugh followed by, "Shit!" Haydon guessed he had pulled that on every customer he had wrapped his apron around that morning.

  Behind him, Haydon heard Mooney say sarcastically, "Oh, that's apisser."

  "When do you close?" Haydon asked.

  "Close? Six. Nine on Thursdays, but this ain't Thursday."

  "I can find your brother here until six?"

  "Oh, sure, sure. You can catch him later. Ernesto will be happy to talk to you about it."

  "I hope he's got a better feel for comedy than his 'brawther,' " Mooney said, standing, and preceding Haydon out the door.

  Another customer was coming in as they were going out. "Hey, Javier," Herrera said brightly, "Que dice?" The striped apron popped twice.

  They stood on the edge of the sidewalk and looked across to the gates. There was nothing along the wall to indicate what had happened there earlier that morning. They crossed the street and approached the iron gates. Haydon looked through at the dead undergrowth that surrounded the house.

  "Lock's on the inside," Mooney said. He reached in and lifted it, looked at its bottom, and dropped it quickly, shaking his hand. "Shit!" He licked his burned fingers. "Brass facing's scratched around the keyhole." His suit sleeve was smeared with rust from the old bars. He didn't notice.

  He stepped over to the gate hinges next to the wall and examined them. "Rust's been worn smooth in the joints of these pillar brackets. Not regular use, maybe, but recent."

  "Can't really see anything in there," Haydon said, and they turned and walked back across the dusty street to the car.

  Haydon started the motor, and Mooney turned the air conditioner on high, and they waited a moment for the compressor to begin producing tempered air before they rolled up the windows.

  They followed the wall of the estate to the end of the block and turned left. Equidistant from both corners of the back wall there was a tall wrought-iron gate with perpendicular bars. Haydon stopped the car and got out, leaving Mooney in the idling car as he crossed the street. Here the hinges were definitely worn and the padlock was well oiled. Haydon looked down at the dusty ground just inside the gate, where a solid stand of brittle bamboo sprang out of the powdery earth. Above him, rangy cypresses and oaks hung their heavy branches over the top of the wall. There was little else to see.

  He went back to the car, and they continued slowly around the block, straining to get glimpses of the house before turning toward Harrisburg on Chicon.

  CHAPTER 6

  HAYDON took a rain check. He just wasn't in the mood for barbecue or conversation, so he dropped Mooney off at Lockwood's, where Finn said he would gladly bring Mooney by the station when they were through.

  Retracing their earlier route down Old Spanish Trail, Haydon turned north on Fannin, passing along the western edge of the Medical Center. There was construction at the entrance of one of the hospital's parking garages, and a policeman was stepping out in the street to stop traffic and let cars out of the garage. To his left Haydon caught glimpses of the cool green acreage of Rice University. At the Outer Belt Drive he entered the sprawling grounds of Hermann Park, its irrigated green spaces as refreshing as rain in the harsh glare of summer sunlight.

  He worked his way into the left lane just before reaching the Reflecting Pool, where he turned left on Sunset Boulevard. Within a few minutes he was pulling through the pillared gates at the house and making the shallow turn on the brick drive to the porte cochere, where he parked the light tan department car in the shade.

  As he opened the front door the coolness of the old house greeted him like a calming spirit. When his father had built the house of limestone quarried from the central Texas hills in 1943, he had said the heavy finished stones would insulate them from the sweltering tropical summers; like a cave, it would hold a natural coolness. He hadn't been far wrong, though he might have underestimated the severity of Houston summers. Still, the old house did not require much air conditioning, mostly to remove the humidity, and its marble and granite floors were always pleasantly cool. In a real sense it was a refuge, from heat and turmoil. There were days when Haydon didn't want to leave it at all.

  Haydon took off his Beretta, laid it on the hall table next to the library door, and walked through the dining room to the kitchen. Nina had her back to him, making sandwiches on the butcher block in the middle of the large square room.

  "I hope it's someone I know," she said, without turning around.

  Haydon stopped and looked at her. Her cinnamon hair was up in its familiar chignon, a wisp or two coming loose at her neck above the collar of her fa
wn silk blouse. The blouse was tucked into a white linen skirt that reached just to her ankles, revealing a glimpse of her white stockings in low-heeled shoes that matched the blouse. He always liked her in summer colors, which contrasted well with her dusky skin.

  She whirled around.

  "It'd better be you," she said, breaking into a smile when she saw him. Then she turned back to the sandwiches.

  "Make you nervous?" he asked, putting his arms around her waist and hugging her.

  "You don't make me nervous," she said.

  "But you didn't know it was me."

  "You always do that," she said, putting a piece of smoked ham in her mouth. "You want Poupon on this?"

  "You should've put on an apron," he answered, taking one out of a drawer. "Yes, and just plain cheddar. None of the smoked."

  "I like the smoked stuff." She ducked her head as he looped the top of the apron over it and tied it behind her waist.

  Haydon stepped over to the refrigerator and got out a jar of olives and a cucumber. With a paring knife he sliced the cucumber into thin strips and put several on each of the two plates that Nina had laid out.

  "Are you going to work at home this afternoon or at the studio?" he asked, dishing up olives for each of them.

  "At the studio," Nina said. She put romaine lettuce on each sandwich, and then slices of tomato. "It's just too much trouble," she said, cutting the sandwiches. "I'm past the sketching stages on these. I'll need the parallel bar, all that."

  "Which plans are these?" Haydon was opening a bottle of white burgundy.

  "The courtyards for LoeffLer and Mancini."

  "Have I seen those?" He poured some for each of them in bistro glasses.

  "Yes, you've seen them." Nina picked up her plate and a glass, paused and kissed him, and went into the sunroom overlooking the terrace. Haydon followed her, put his things on the glass table beside hers, and looked out the windows to the lawn and the small lime grove.

  "I haven't been down to the greenhouse in three days," he said. "I need to check the humidity system. Pablo said it was all right last night."

  "If he said it was all right, why do you have to check it?"

  He ate a cucumber strip and continued to look outside. "I didn't check on Cinco before I left this morning, either." Haydon missed seeing the old collie lying in the shade on the terrace.

  "Sit down, Stuart," Nina said. "Eat."

  They ate silently for a few minutes, and then Nina said, "What did Dr. Boren say about Cinco last night?"

  "He's just getting too old. The summers are too hard on him."

  "Is he in any pain?"

  "Boren doesn't think so. Just worn out. Said it wouldn't hurt him to sleep so much. Said he might as well."

  Haydon sipped his wine.

  "So. How was your morning?" Nina changed the subject. It hadn't been a good time to ask about Cinco.

  "Spent most of it watching an autopsy."

  "Great."

  "Well, this turned out to be an interesting one."

  "Great."

  Haydon grinned. "You asked."

  Nina smiled back. "You would think I'd learn." She chewed an olive and raised her glass. "Here's to you, handsome."

  "You want to change the subject?"

  "Please."

  "Where's Gabriela?"

  "You don't listen," Nina said, shaking her head and taking another bite of her sandwich.

  Haydon looked at her. "Well?"

  "Ramona Salazar took her out to do some last-minute shopping."

  "That's right," Haydon said. "I forgot. Has she gotten her passport renewed?"

  "I did."

  "Has she gotten her flight ticket yet? I heard some of the flights were being canceled because of the trouble down there." "I did."

  Gabriela Sauceda had begun working for Haydon's parents when she was a young girl and they were living in Mexico City. She had moved to Houston with them a year before Stuart was born, and Haydon had never known the home without her. When his parents died, he and Nina had moved into the family home. There was never any question that Gabriela, who had never married, would stay on. Haydon's father, Webster had been a beneficent patron from the beginning, helping her gain her American citizenship and seeing to it that she had substantial financial security beyond her position with them. Every summer she was given a month off to visit her family in Mexico City, and over the years the Haydons' lives had become intertwined with the Saucedas as Webster, and then Stuart himself, had helped a string of Gabriela's nieces and nephews come to the States to attend a variety of universities.

  Gabriela saved little of her salary for herself. Year after year, monthly checks went back to her family, of which Gabriela was the oldest of five daughters. As her sisters married and had young families, it was Gabriela's money that enabled them to keep her parents out of poverty. When they died, Gabriela continued sending money, though the assistance was not great when divided among the four sisters. She took an active interest in the welfare of her eight nieces and nephews. There were only eight, because Gabriela had been a quiet but emphatic influence in educating her sisters. She had impressed upon them the belief that it was far better to use birth control and pray for divine indulgence than it was to fill their houses with children and pray for food. Her sisters were remarkably responsive to Gabriela's guidance in all matters, and Tia Gabriela had become a familial saint in Mexico, revered and adored. Her annual trips home were occasions for great rejoicing within her extended family.

  Nina and Haydon both thought about her as they looked out to the sunlit terrace. Then Nina said, "I finally said something to her about Ramona."

  "Oh?" Haydon turned to her. "And?"

  "She was a little stiff about it at first, as we expected. It was when we were making the casserole last night. I said that since I was getting busier at the studio I was having less time to help her. I tried to make it sound as if it would be a convenience to me if we got someone to help her. Of course, she said she didn't need any help, and that she never expected me to help her. I said I knew that, but we both enjoyed it. Only now it was getting hectic for me and we ought to go ahead and get someone to take my place. Anyway, we went around like that a minute and then I brought up Ramona's name as soon as I could because I know how much Gabriela likes her."

  Nina sipped the burgundy.

  "She said, well, maybe a few days a week. I said it was entirely up to her. Anyway, we worked it out. Ramona is going to start working with her a little at a time. I suspect she'll be on full-time in a couple of weeks."

  "You've already spoken to Ramona?"

  Nina nodded. "She's perfectly willing to follow Gabriela's lead. I told her that was just part of the job. She knows Gabriela well enough to know that it isn't going to be easy for her to admit she's getting too old to look after everything properly. Ramona's a sweet girl. And she owes a lot to Gabriela, too. Gabriela's treated her like a daughter."

  "When I left this morning I heard her in the kitchen singing 'La milagrito en la maizal.' She can't be too upset."

  Nina smiled. "She'll love it."

  They finished eating, and while Nina was putting things away in the kitchen Haydon decided to check on Cinco and the greenhouse. He stepped into the brilliant sun on the terrace and walked to the steps. Pablo had turned on the sprinkler system to the left of the terrace, and a fine mist was drifting across toward the lime trees, carrying the rich fragrance of damp plants into the hot air. Two bluejays and a scattering of grackles were walking around on the grass enjoying the mist, and a mockingbird had taken up his post in a flamboyana, soaking wet and going through every note in his repertoire as if there were no tomorrow.

  Haydon went through the lime grove toward the greenhouse. He checked the bird feeders hanging in the ebony trees outside, and then went in. He looked at the meters on the wall inside the door. The temperature was all right, the humidity was perfect. While he was standing there the fans in the ceiling kicked on and stirred a gummy breeze through the
upper reaches of the frosted-glass roof. Everything was fine. He quickly walked along the slate paths through a miniature landscape of rising and falling terrain and limestone "cliffs," trees rising toward the highest part of the ceiling. Everywhere there were bromeliads, hanging from the trees, lodged in the crevices of the tons of rocks amid vines and ferns, along the spongy "jungle" floor. The exotic colors ran from brilliant to drab, and Haydon enjoyed every one of them.

  After a moment, he turned and walked back down the path and out the door. He followed a brick walk along a border of cherry laurels to the white bathhouse, and rounded the corner to an open-air shower protected by latticework. Cinco lay on the cool bricks; a ceiling fan mounted on the shadow box overhead stirred a sluggish breeze. Again Haydon noticed the fragrance of the wet plants across the lawn.

  He squatted down and started scratching Cinco behind a mottled old ear that failed to perk up as it used to. The collie opened an eye, and when he saw Haydon his tail stirred on the bricks.

  "How you doing, old friend," Haydon said. He sat down and continued to scratch behind Cinco's ear. He looked at the collie's brindled muzzle, which was getting so gray it was loosing its golden color. Cinco gave a jerky sigh and began a prolonged deep moan of gratification at the attention. His eyebrow perked as Haydon talked to him, but his eye slowly closed. Haydon rubbed the thin coat that used to be thin only in the summer when Cinco shed profusely to accommodate climbing temperatures. Now it was thin the year round.