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“Yes?” she asked in a flat tone.

“I need to talk to him.”

Ilsa hesitated then. He had told her something about me, something that meant I couldn’t be dismissed in her usual cavalier manner.

“It’s okay, Ilsa,” a strong voice called out.

I looked up over her head to see Arman, standing on his own two feet, looking at me like any man I might run into on a city street.

He was wearing a gray suit! Might have been an everyday businessman on Wall Street if it wasn’t for the fact that he wore a T-shirt underneath the gray jacket and pale blue paper slippers on his feet.

“Come on in, Joe,” he said.

Ilsa stood aside while I followed the octogenarian back to his bedroom.

At the small table next to the window there sat a plate with a baked potato, wax beans, and a T-bone steak, all half eaten. Arman lowered into the chair behind the feast.

“I haven’t had me a steak in six months,” he said, unable to suppress the smile.

Ilsa came into the room to stand beside her charge. In this way she exhibited something new between them. At the time I thought… something new for them but old for him.

Reaching over to pat her forearm, he said, “Go down to that tobacco store across the street and get me one’a those Cohiba cigars.”

I was sure she’d tell him that smoking in the hospital was strictly forbidden, but instead she said, “Okay,” and left us.

When I heard the front door close I said, “You lookin’ better every day.”

“Doctor told me not to get used to it,” he replied on a smile, “but you know what the old folks used to say: ‘You got to make hay while the sun shines.’”

I laughed and he nodded, knowingly.

“You makin’ hay with Ilsa?” I asked, not feeling the least bit inappropriate.

“She’s a fine woman.”

I took in a deep draft of air and then said, “Everything should be okay in the next three days. Either that or we’ll all be dead.”

The elder’s smile dried up like a rill in the deep desert on the hottest day of the year.

“I fucked up, Joe,” he said. “Fucked it up the ass.”

“I don’t know about that. You saved a woman’s life, gave life to a beautiful daughter. I mean, really, you acquitted yourself with honor.”

“I killed my best friend, and I knew that a man was a predator and didn’t do one fuckin’ thing to stop him.”

“Then you met Grandma B and hired me,” I explained with a good deal of generosity. “And I’m telling you that in three days Malto will be in jail, Rouche will either be on the run or on his way to death row, and Dalia tells me that her and Twyla will come out to Cali and take you to the beach.”

The old man smiled a smile that was also a lie. “That would be the best thing,” he agreed. “The best.”

Rags answered the door to my grandmother’s suite. She, he, and I settled around the games table, but we didn’t play. Instead, I shared my plans with them, knowing that Rags would figure out something to do if things went awry.

I included Grandma B in this conversation because I wanted her to have the last word if I was unable to talk. She would tell Rags, in case I didn’t make it, if his subsequent plans made any sense.

All this in mind, I said, “On the night after tomorrow, Caledonia Reese will call her Uncle Malto and tell him that I had sent somebody to the bar to get her to tell him that I wanted a meeting.”

“Why not just go there yourself?” Grandma B asked.

“Because Lamming knows that Joe has been to the club,” Rags said, “and either he could have a ambush waiting for him or he might just have a spy that could tell that there was something goin’ on between Caledonia and him.”