Spiral, page 12
part #13 of John F Cuddy Series
Biggs said, ”Bother you to talk about the war?”
I turned back to him. ”Bother you to talk about how you came to join Spiral?”
A raspy laugh, then a cough before another deep drag on the cigarette. ”You got a little of the bulldog in you, babe. But I admire that, so we cool.” More exhaled smoke. ”Okay, here’s how the shit happened. I was doing studio work—you know what I’m saying?”
”Teach me.”
Another raspy laugh. ”Studio musician, he play for a recording session with a singer don’t got their own band. Producer find out you can lay the tracks down fast and clean, he keep hiring you, account of you save him money.”
”By shortening the session and the rent on the studio?”
”Now you got it.” Biggs dropped the remainder of his cigarette into the can, but didn’t light another right away-”So, like I was telling you, I’m working this studio, and Mitch Eisen—he Spiral’s manager?”
”We’ve met.”
”Mitch, he say to me, ‘Buford, I got this white kid, wrote a couple songs I think might fly. You want in?’”
”Just like that?”
The frown. ”Just like what?”
”Eisen has you match up with another musician you’d never met?”
”Oh, babe. You in the war, but not some time capsule, right? Back in the early seventies, everything be real loosey-goosey. Wasn’t no ‘courtship’ kind of thing. Some bands, now, they been messing around since they in junior high, but lots of groups, they got put together by the front office, you dig?”
”Go on.”
Biggs shook another cigarette from his pack. ”Anyway, I go in this session, and Mitch already has Gordo lined up for bass guitar—I tell you what I play?”
”Eisen said you were the keyboardist.”
”Okay, then. Spi, he was lead guitar and lead singer, and I did backup vocals. This spaceshot name of Tommy O’Dell, he on drums—not to mention more drugs than you could find at twenty Walgreens.”
”I know O’Dell died of an overdose.”
”Yeah, yeah. But that’s a long time later.” Biggs lit his second cigarette. ”You want the early days, right?”
”Right.”
”Okay. Mitch gets us four together, and fact is, we don’t sound half bad. Mitch, he has like a talent for that.”
”For the right mix of people.”
”Yeah, but more than just the music.” Another cocking of the head. ”Name me one brother who play in a rock band, you can.”
”Jimi Hendryx.”
”The main man. Name me another.”
”You.”
The cagey smile. ”How about a third one?”
I thought about it. ”Tapped out.”
Biggs inhaled some smoke and settled deeper into his chair. ”Don’t feel too bad, babe, ain’t many remember the others. There was a brother played with the Allmans— which was a hoot for another reason. And then the bass player for the Doobies—notice any pattern?”
”Black musicians in ‘brothers’ bands.”
”You got it. Make the groups seem like real ‘family.’ The world of rock just one fine rainbow of a place.”
”Which was Eisen’s idea for Spiral, too?”
”Bet on it. He sure did.”
”Meaning?”
”Meaning Mitch, he bankroll our first album—which in those days was a hell of a lot more bread than the four of us could of raised. This was way before Spi’s daddy got himself rich.”
”Go ahead.”
”Okay, so we cut this album, and it hit.” Biggs came forward in his chair. ”Oh, babe, how it do hit. We climb the charts, all of a sudden everybody be calling Mitch, want us to play their venue.”
”Venue as in concert hall?”
‘Yeah. Venues, they get measured by the number of seats in the house. At our best, we couldn’t fill no Yankee Stadium. But our first concert gig, we sell out a forty-five-hundred place called ‘Winterland’ by San Francisco, and then Boston Garden and the Cow Palace—also San Fran’— and they like fourteen-, fifteen-thousand seats each.”
I blocked out the Bay Area references. ”So, success came early.”
‘Yeah, babe.” A long thoughtful drag on the cigarette. ”Early, but not often.”
”How do you mean?”
Biggs settled back into the chair again, watching me. ”Probably should’ve told you this up front. I ain’t hired no lawyer for this Very thing.”
I didn’t reply.
Biggs said, ”And the way I heard it from Spi, his daddy want us to be straight with you, right?”
”I believe that would be appreciated.”
The raspy laugh. ”Okay, babe. ‘Appreciate’ this, then. Manager, he supposed to get only ten, maybe twenty percent of the gross a band make from every kind of thing it does.”
”Meaning albums, concerts—”
”Meaning everything that’s entertainment. Well, since Mitch put the band together, he own the name, he own the logo, he practically own us. We have three, four great years, then the bubble go ‘pop’ like a little kid with his chewing gum.”
I thought back to Eisen’s short course on the history of the music. ”Other groups pushed you off those charts.”
”Not just other groups. Hell, babe, we could rock with the best of them. Problem was other sounds, other kinds of shit. The music was evolving, and Spi, he couldn’t evolve with it. He stuck with his sound.”
”Which was?”
”Raunchy-rock.”
Eisen’s term, too. ”But even after you stopped making albums or doing concerts, you still got royalties or whatever, didn’t you?”
The cagey look behind a cloud of smoke. ”Mitch, he tell you that?”
”We didn’t spend much time on the money side.”
”That don’t surprise me none. Mitch, he spend his own time on the money side, but the man don’t share much of it with the rest of the world.”
I turned that over. ‘You think he cheated you?”
”Oh, he cheat us all right, but he do it by contract, dig? Or by law. Contract say, he own the name and shit. Law say, only the writer of the song get money from ASCAP or BMI when they collect it from the stations.”
”So only Spi Held got royalties from radio play of Spiral’s songs?”
”And Mitch.”
”I don’t follow you. Eisen wrote some of the songs?”
”No, babe. Our ‘personal manager’ had us all do wills with him as the winner.”
”The winner.”
”One of us die, that share go to him.”
I got it. ”So when Tommy O’Dell died...?”
”…all O’D’s royalties for writing the lyrics go to Mitch.”
”With nothing for the other musicians?”
As Biggs started to speak, the hummingbirds came back to the feeder. This time, the two arrived nearly simultaneously and chittered at each other before a third dive-bombed them, the sound now more of clashing wings before all three zoomed away.
Biggs said, ”That’s what break up bands, too.”
I turned back to him. ”Fighting over the goodies.”
”Right on. Those birdies, they just learn to share, everybody get plenty to eat, account of Jeanette, she keep that bowl just as full of sugar water as it can be.”
”Kind of like a ‘royalty bowl’?”
The eyes behind another cloud of smoke went sad for a minute. ”Band usually got just one songwriter. Couple bands—Beatles, now, best example—they had two or three doing it. Spiral, for most of the good tunes, it was more like a collaboration.”
”Meaning you all contributed to the writing.”
”Some more than others.”
”And you more than Gordo Lazar?”
”Right on again, babe.” The sad look still. ”I didn’t know jackshit about this royalty stuff back then. None of us really did, and I mean most every player from the sixties, early seventies. Wasn’t till some bands got lawyers to watch their managers, and then other lawyers to watch their first lawyers, any of us knew what the hell was going down.”
I waited a moment before, ”Yet you signed on for the comeback.”
The cagey look again. ”I sign on for the money. Mitch, he track me down through the union, tell me he got Spi’s daddy to bankroll us for another album—or CD, shit, it’s still just music for the masses, dig?”
”So your heart’s not exactly in it.”
”Wasn’t never my heart.” A change of tone. ”You get to be good foxhole buddies with some brothers over in Vietnam?” I thought back, more to the streets of Saigon than the bush. Dave Waters during Tet, Calvin Mildredge losing an arm, Luther—
”Hey, babe?”
‘Yeah, I had black friends there.”
”Well, then, you got a lot farther along the road of racial harmony than Spi. He was one major pain in the butt, that way.”
”Racist?”
”More just resentful. He knowed how much I help him out on the keyboard with the arrangement of his tunes, but he also knowed he don’t have to share none of the royalties. So there always be this... curtain, like, between us.”
”Same with the others in the band?”
”Have to ask them, babe.” Biggs stubbed out his cigarette on top of the can before dropping it through the hole. I got to be going.”
”What about that third smoke?”
Biggs looked up, the eyes now more baleful than sad. ”You see these here things on my neck?”
The left hand went toward his collar.
”I see them.”
”You know what they are?”
”I’m not a doctor.”
”No? Well, you know what this is, right?”
Pointing now at the red ribbon on his chest.
”I do.”
”Got diagnosed two years ago.” A pause. ”Don’t know how I got it, except I hadn’t been doing no horse for a long while, so I don’t believe it was from a needle. But the doctors, they don’t really know shit about that. They do know one thing, though. There’s these pills can keep you healthy.”
”Veronica Held had a drug in her body that wasn’t so healthy.”
”Not from me, babe. Onliest drugs I take now are that AIDS cocktail and my nicotine. Plus”—his hand went toward the water—”I swim every day in that pool, hour at a time. Ever since we all moved in here.”
That stopped me. ”Moved in?”
”Spi’s daddy, he hire you, but he don’t tell you we all bunking at his son’s crib?”
”No.”
The raspy laugh. ”Rich man know how to save money. He backing the band, but he also paying on this house for Spi. He figure his boy’s band can stay here, not run up the room service at some hotel, or maybe trash the place like the old days.” Now the baleful look again. ”You ask me before about my ‘heart’ not being in this comeback. Let me tell you where my heart is, babe. I doing this gig for the money, account of the money let me buy the pills and leave some left over for my son.”
”Kalil.”
A pause. ”Kalil. I take those pills and I swim the laps, keep me strong so I can stay around long enough to maybe see him growed up.” Another pause. ”And maybe not. But I tell you the truth here so’s maybe the money train don’t stop running.”
”Meaning, so that Nicolas Helides keeps backing the band.”
”Babe, you work for him, I work for him. I help you out, you don’t upset my applecart, dig?”
”I can’t promise that.”
Biggs rose from the chair, but a little unsteadily. ”Wasn’t looking for no promise. Just an understanding.”
”I could use some more answers.”
”Later, you want. I got to go pick up my son at the specialist.”
”Specialist?”
”Another reason I need this gig. Kalil see a speech specialist.”
”What’s the impediment?”
”Don’t use that term no more. ‘Stigmatizes,’ they say. Only they still call themselves speech ‘pathologists,’ which seem to me ‘stigmatizes’ more than anything else, account of it sound like you gonna die from what you got.”
The keyboardist stared down at me. ”And the one thing Kalil ain’t gonna do is die. He gonna live as good a life as my music can make for him.”
And with that, Buford Biggs picked up his soda can, tossed it into a white plastic barrel at the end of the alcove, and walked off the patio and around the house toward getting his son.
I waited in my chair another five minutes, but the hummingbirds never came back.
EIGHT
When I opened the sliding glass door into the kitchen, there was a stolid woman with long, sandy hair at the center island. When she turned, I realized she also appeared on the birthday video. Delgis Reyes had pale skin and blue eyes that picked up one of the minor colors in her simple print dress. I could see the makings of a sandwich on the counter behind her.
”Who are you?” said Veronica Held’s former au pair, in a demanding tone and with a Spanish accent.
”John Cuddy, Ms. Reyes.”
The blue eyes measured me as she put her fists on her hips. ”What you want here?”
”Colonel Helides asked me to investigate the death of his granddaughter.”
”I am sorry.” The fists became hands again and dropped to her sides. ”We are told you will come. You want, I find you someone to talk to?”
”Actually, I’d like to talk with you.”
She did a half-turn toward the counter. ”But I make sandwich for Gordo.”
”I think he can wait.”
Reyes was clearly troubled but said, ”We sit here?”
”Fine with me.”
There were bar stools around the central island, and we each took one.
Reyes said, ”I don’t know what I can tell you about this thing.”
”Let’s start with how you came to be Veronica’s au pair.” A degree of relaxation from Reyes. ”My brother, Umberto, is the guard for the Colonel’s house. I go there sometimes, help with the meals. The Colonel see I am a good worker, so he hire me for Veronica.”
”It was Nicolas Helides and not Spi Held who hired you?” Reyes tensed again. ”Yes, just so. I live here, but the Colonel is the one to pay me for the watching of her.”
I turned that over. ”When you say ‘watching’ Veronica, what do you mean?”
More tension. ”When she alive, Veronica is a... diffi-cult girl.”
Duy Tranh’s term for her, too. ”How?”
”How she is difficult?”
I nodded.
Reyes started rubbing her hands in her lap. ”Veronica do not listen to her father and mother too good. She do what she want.”
”Can you give me some examples?”
”Ejemplos.” Reyes closed her eyes. ”She want to go places by herself they don’t want her to.”
”What kind of places?”
”Clubs they play music, sing songs.”
”Do you mean bars?”
”Yes.”
”But she was only thirteen years old.”
”There are some places, they don’t sell the alcohol.”
”Even for those, though, wouldn’t she have to be—what, eighteen?”
Reyes became agitated. ”She wear the makeup, Veronica look as many years as me, and I have now twenty-five.”
”Wouldn’t they check her identification, though?”
More agitation. ”You ask questions, I try to help you, but I don’t know all these things.”
”I’m sorry. You’re right.”
Reyes took a breath.
I let her take another before, ”Can you give me some other examples?”
”Of when Veronica don’t listen to her parents?”
”Yes.”
A third breath. ”She like to be at the tennis place.”
”Veronica enjoyed the sport?”
Some embarrassment now. ”She like the teacher there.”
I thought back to Kalil’s video. ”The pro who was helping Mrs. Helides?”
”The Colonel’s wife, yes.”
”Do you think there was anything... sexual?”
A darkening more than embarrassment. ”I do not know what the Colonel’s wife does.”
Sometimes you get an answer when you didn’t realize you’d asked the question. ”I meant, anything sexual between the pro and Veronica?”
Now Reyes hung her head as the hands twisted a little in her lap. ”This is most why the Colonel hire me, I think. To be the... chaperone?”
”How did Veronica feel about that?”
”She no get mad at me or anything. She make it more like a game.”
”A game?”
Reyes lifted her head before nodding. ”Veronica try to leave with me no seeing her. I catch her, she laugh, then next day, try a different way.”
”What about when she went to school?”
Tension again. ”After the band start to make the comeback, the Colonel don’t have her in school no more.”
The Skipper again, not Veronica’s father. ”And Duy Tranh became her teacher.”
”At the Colonel’s house, yes.”
”Why there?”
”My brother is guard at the gate, and there is security system in that house. More hard for Veronica to get away than here.”
”Did you go with her when she saw Tranh?”
‘Yes, I go to house, but not in room.”
”Why not?”
”I cannot help with teaching,” said Reyes, ”but I can help with kitchen or cleaning.”
”Did you ever sense anything was wrong between Veronica and Mr. Tranh?”
”No. She tell me she play games on him, too.”
”What kind of games?”
”She no tell me. Just say Mr. Tranh is no smarter than any other man.”
”Meaning?”
”I tell you already, I don’t know.”
Time to ease off. ”What else can you tell me about Veronica as a person?”
”Como persona?” The hung head again. ”Veronica think she very smart. And she no is stupid. But she no is so smart as maybe she think.”
