Page 24 of The Damage Man

“Complicated,” she says.

He gives a slight nod.

“I understand. I’ve spent a good amount of time with him.”

“Why?”

“Because no one else wants to.”

His appreciation is unbounded. “Thank you.”

Her forehead crinkles, the skin paper thin. “For what?”

“Being real.”

“Go on, young man,” she says. “Do what you have to do.”

Evan rests his hand on the door lever. Lowers his head. Closes his eyes.

Inside the room, country music is playing, something twangy and soulful.

He enters.

Jacob Baridon looks like hell.

Stubble sprouts erratically from the sallow skin of his face, patches at his chin and the edges of his lips. Last time Evan saw him he was lanky, loose in his ostrich-quill boots, but now he’s mortuary thin, already in the grasp of death. He still has that great hair he cared so much about, a salt-and-pepper tousle well-suited to hospital bedhead. A pulse oximeter is clipped to his finger, and what looks like a morphine drip threads into his arm.

Evan bears zero resemblance to him; Jacob was a significantly more handsome man when he was fully alive.

The room, smaller than Evan’s walk-in closet, smells of urine and iodine. A Louis L’Amour dime Western with a torn cover rests on the nightstand next to a white plastic pitcher of water and a cup of ice. A ragged straw Stetson Gunfighter tilts from the back post of the visitor chair. The radio is soft, a throaty female crooner playing with a melody, working an almost-yodel into the transitions.

Baridon’s red saggy eyes slide druggedly over to fix on Evan.

If he recognizes Evan, he gives no indication.

Then he says, “Came to gloat?”

His voice is a croak, and it takes a moment for Evan to arrange the sounds into words.

He says, “No.”

“Vulture-circling for money then? ’Cuz I don’t got none.”

“No.”

“Just came to see me on my Medicaid holiday?” With great effort, Baridon spreads his arms, trailing wires and cords. Crepey skin sags from his humeri. He looks like a scarecrow. “The last hurrah.”

Winded from the exertion, he lets his head fall back onto the pillow. His pulse ox shows a flagging 82 percent, the alerts regular.

Evan stands there. There is nothing else for him to do.

“You’re the son of—what’s her name? The rich one, right? College girl?”

Evan feels his head give the faintest nod.

“How’s she doing?”

“She’s dead.”