Page 4 of Hanging and Burning

Arman looked at me, a plea in his eyes.

“She’s… she’s…” He needed time to find and then voice the words, whatever they were.

I wasn’t bothered. As far as the dying man was concerned, I had all the time in the world.

Set on a mechanical table, on the other side of the bed, there was a plastic bottle of water. Mr. Babylon reached for this and then drained it. As soon as he put the empty container down, a woman in white, a nurse, walked up to the table and replaced the water.

“Mr. Babylon needs his rest,” the woman told me. Her name tag read ILSA LUND.

“No, no, Ilsa,” Arman said. “This man here is my, um, confessor.”

I smiled at the forty-something tight-skinned olive-hued woman.

She sneered and said, “Whatever you say,” and then turned away.

When the lady was out of earshot I asked, “What about Miss Mann?”

“She’s—she’s living a lie.”

“That’s probably true for half the people in the world,” I said, exhibiting more street smarts than wisdom.

Babylon sniggered and kept it up until it turned into a full-blown laugh, an actual guffaw. He pressed a hand to his forehead, and his broad chest shuddered on that high bed until he started to cough. The hacking bark got worse and worse until Nurse Ilsa Lund came back and administered another bottle of water.

“He really does need his rest,” she reinformed me.

“No, no, no, Ilsa,” Arman wheezed, the vestige of laughter in his breathing. “Don’t—don’t send him away. That was the first good laugh I’ve had all year.”

“That kind of outburst could kill you, Armie.”

Looking the serious healthcare professional in the eye, he said, “Can you think of a better way for a sinful old man to die?”

Ms. Lund definitely wanted to refute this question, but her expression said that she knew the protest would fall on deaf ears. She walked away again.

This time Arman Babylon watched her lovely stride.

“She kissed me one night,” Arman confided, the laughter dried up and gone. “If it wasn’t for my roommates, I think she might’a stayed till mornin’.”

“Miss Mann,” I reminded him.

“She’s my granddaughter. My real blood.”

“What’s that mean?”

The way the old man stared made me think that he was beginning to take me seriously.

“Her mother…” he managed to say.

“What about her?”

“Her name’s Mara Macintosh and she’s a shill.”

“In what way?”

“She ain’t Twyla’s real mom.”

“No? But Twyla’s your blood?”

“I loved my wife.” He stared out at the bordering hills.