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Through an unexpectedly strong smile he said, “Brenda told me you’d be comin’ today. Have a seat. Sit, sit.”
There was a comfortable-looking sheepskin-lined solid oak chair at the side of the high bed. Sitting down, I found that I had to look up to meet the eyes of my ailing host. With an oblong-shaped face bearing strong features, he had a wide mouth and a broad nose, and ears that were big, with hair sprouting from them. His eyes were faded blue and his skin was the color and coarse texture of a pig that my grandmother once illegally kept in the backyard of her home in New Jersey, back when my grandfather was still alive.
Mr. Babylon brought his hands out from under the gray blanket and rubbed them together. Those large hands once must have been very strong. Maybe they still were.
The old man took a deep breath, calling attention to his barrel-shaped chest.
“What kinda work did you do, sir?” I asked.
“I sold insurance. Why?”
“You look like you were either a boxer or a longshoreman.”
He grinned, showing that he had big strong teeth to go along with those hands.
“Had to keep in shape, since I was little,” he recalled. “Back then men was men, no matter their job. Back then motherfuckers didn’t care what you had or who you knew. All they cared about was if you could back it up.”
I smiled, maybe even chortled.
“What you laughin’ at, son?”
“I can see why my grandmother likes you.”
He smiled again, and said, “That Brenda’s a pip.”
“She said that you might wanna tell me somethin’.”
“She told me you used to be a cop.”
After a short, contemplative pause I said, “Used to be.”
“Back in New York?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Manhattan?”
“Brooklyn, mainly. Investigations.”
“Why’d you quit?”
The question, the hospital, maybe even the universal suffering contained within those walls had put me in a unique mood.
“Betrayal,” I said, though I had no idea that I was going to. “The whole system turned against me, almost got me killed.”
Arman’s face took on a somber countenance. He nodded sagely and remained silent for at least half a minute.
After this lull I said, “Grandma B tells me you might need my help.”
Our eyes met and he said, “Yeah, yeah.”
“With what?”
“I got a… I got a granddaughter name of Twyla—Twyla Macintosh—but she mostly calls herself Twyla Mann nowadays. She turned thirty-eight last August. Thirty-eight.”
The utterance of his granddaughter’s name, because of the content of our conversation so far, somehow linked up with my feelings about leaving the NYPD. It also brought out what I can only call a severe bout of self-empathy in the big-handed man. He spent some time thinking about what he was asking for.
“What about Twyla?” I asked at last.
