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“Does she know about Arman?”
Shaking her head, full of regret, she murmured, “Like he said, she thinks that she’s his granddaughter.”
“You didn’t tell her about Arman and you?”
Looking down at the tabletop, she said, “I just couldn’t bring myself to say the words, to tell her that the man Melton sent to murder me ended up bein’ her father.”
“And you don’t know how to get in touch with her?”
“No, I don’t. And even if I did, I don’t know that I’d tell you. Her life is hard enough without you diggin’ in her shit.”
“I hear you,” I said. “And in any other situation I think I’d probably let a case like this go. I mean, I’m gettin’ paid, but this ain’t about the money. I’d walk away if it wasn’t…”
“Wasn’t what?”
I sat back in the dining room chair and took a deep breath through my nose. There were things that needed to be said, and others that couldn’t be revealed.
“It’s like this,” I allowed. “I’ve found out some things that look kinda scary for your daughter.”
“Twyla can take care’a herself.”
“So could Custer.”
It wasn’t the words so much as the tone I employed. I believed that being a consummate musician allowed her to hear that which went unsaid.
“Tell me what you talkin’ about,” she commanded.
“Your daughter ever tell you about a young man name of Randolph David Blass?”
“She stopped seein’ that fool in her second semester at college. He was a—was a drug dealer, and we all knew that he’d come to a bad end.”
“Uh-huh,” I grunted. “But you see, not that long ago, Twyla and him tried to get in to see Paulie Antonucci Jr. up in Hollywood.”
“California? What she doin’ way out there?”
“I don’t know what they wanted, but I do know that somebody was upset with the young man.”
“What do you mean, upset?”
“Like Melton would be with you if he knew you were alive.”
I could see by the expression on her face that she was considering the silent ambush of an encroaching enemy who was advancing under the cover of darkness and her own, unwitting ignorance. She knew the battle songs and even the thoughts in their minds. She understood the foolishness of youth.
“What has he done?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, thinking about the young man’s ruined body, about his gouged-out eye and hacked-off nose, “but the men after him tried to kill me just for asking a question.”
The sun was rising, its burgeoning light holding us in its glow, like two old friends frozen in forever amber.
“How can I believe you?” she pleaded.
“You know you can trust me ’cause you haven’t shot me yet.”
That little grin of recognition reappeared. It came to my mind that we might end up being friends, if we didn’t die trying.
“I have learned not to trust in men,” she said. “One way or another they always let you down. Drugged up, violent, leavin’ you abandoned out in the middle’a nowhere with not a penny in your pocket or hope in your mind. Lyin’ even when they think they tellin’ the truth; givin’ you money and then stompin’ on your heart.”
It was my turn to practice silence. I wanted to say Not me, I wouldn’t do all that. I wanted to but somehow, her words had convinced me that I’d be wrong.
