Spiral Read Online Free PDF Page B

the elderly man in the wheelchair at our departure lounge back in Boston.
    I realized Helides was waiting for me to reply. ”It’s been a long time, Colonel.”
    ”And nearly as long since I merited being called ‘colonel,’ though I appreciate the courtesy and would understand if the old way is more comfortable for you.”
    ”Thank you, sir.”
    Helides gestured with his good hand. ”Quite the view, eh?”
    Until then, I hadn’t looked to my left. Through a picture window twelve feet long and nearly as high, I could see a big yacht putting along the canal behind that moored sailboat. Even moving slowly, the yacht created a three-foot wake that rolled toward us.
    Helides said, ”The Intracoastal Waterway, Lieutenant. A water taxi could pick you up from here and deposit you at the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami Beach, a good twenty-five miles south.” He looked up at the Asian man. ”Mother Goose, I’m forgetting my manners.”
    Mother Goose. The man who never cursed.
    Helides gestured with the crabbed right hand. ”This is Duy Tranh. He’s been with me since the Fall.”
    I didn’t have to ask whether the Skipper meant our prior autumn or the last helicopter out of Saigon in seventy-five. ”Pleased to meet you. Is 'Tranh’ your family or given name?”
    ”We can talk about that when you have a paper and pencil so you can get it right.”
    His accent gave the words a clucky overlay, but the man spoke without inflection, so I couldn’t tell quite how insulting he was trying to be.
    ”Stroke,” said Helides.
    I turned back to him.
    He waved with the good hand this time. ”Thought you should know. Happened in the summer, out on Court One at the tennis club. Went to swing my backhand and remember the green clay surface coming up to hit me instead. Had a greenish-purple tint to my chin till Christmas, something about the dye in the clay.” Helides exhaled through his nose. ”Not the worst news, either. When I woke up in the hospital, the whole right side of my body was paralyzed.”
    I pictured the Skipper in action—in virtually constant motion—during the nightmarish time of Tet. Then I pictured that poor man at the airport departure lounge again, watching the debate over his coffee, and I think I realized for a moment how humiliating this scene had to be for Helides. He said, ”They call them ‘brain attacks’ now.”
    ”Sir?”
    ”Strokes. I suppose to remove some sort of stigma, make the brain seem more like just another organ subject to nature’s aggression. Heart attack, gall bladder attack.” The Skipper paused. ”Every minute in this country somebody suffers a stroke. Every four minutes, somebody dies from one. There’s even an 800 number for those of us who survive, and a few, like me, regain some degree of...”
    He raised the crabbed hand again, a tremor passing through it.
    To change the subject, I said, ”Justo mentioned you wanted to see me... professionally.”
    Helides shot his eyes up at the lawyer.
    Justo shrugged. ”I followed your instructions, Colonel, and I am sure Pepe did as well.”
    The Skipper came back to me. ”They told you nothing about my problem?”
    ”Nothing.”
    ”And you don’t know about it from the media jackals?”
    ”Only what I saw a few minutes ago in front of your gate.” Helides changed the focal point of his eyes somehow, and I felt as though I were a side of beef being scanned by an experienced meat inspector. He said, ”Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
    ”Sir, I’ve just been out of touch for a while.”
    The Skipper wasn’t buying that, but his eyes changed again, as though he needed other answers. ”My older son is Spi—short for ‘Spiro’—Held.”
    I didn’t get it, and Helides clearly expected that I would. ”Your son changed his last name?”
    Justo said, ”John?”
    ”Yes?”
    ”The news coverage on the killing of Very Held.”
    ”Her name was ‘Veronica,’ Lieutenant.”
    ”Sorry, sir,” said Justo.
    I must still