Page 67 of Hanging and Burning

She didn’t seem worried or otherwise distressed. Two men and one woman spoke to her as she went. These weren’t people she knew. The men wanted her to know how good she looked and the woman, probably complimenting some minor aspect of her attire, meant the same thing. But Twyla—Tina Marie—didn’t engage her admirers; she merely nodded and maybe said a word or two. She was carrying a small handbag. I wondered if maybe, like her mother, she carried a pistol therein.

Around Ninth Avenue I increased my pace, made it to about four feet behind her, and said, “Twyla” in a tone just a bit louder than normal conversation.

She stopped and turned her head.

I came up beside her, trying to look like I might not have been sure it was her.

“Twyla Macintosh?” I gently probed.

Under furrowed brows, her expression asked a question.

“My grandmother is a friend of Arman Babylon,” was my reply to this silent inquiry.

This intelligence confused her. I could see, inside her bewilderment, that her grandfather had never been a threat. He was the kind old man with big strong hands who swung her around in circles, who always came armed with sweets.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

“We’ve never met.” My hands were down at my sides and I kept my distance, a few feet from her left. “My name is Joe Oliver.”

“Do I know your grandmother?”

“Arman is in a hospital in LA. He’s undergoing cancer treatments, and my Grandma B is there too.”

“Is it serious?” she asked, at least seeming as if she was concerned.

“It’s cancer.”

The older party girl frowned, bit her lip, and then said, “Sooo… if we’ve never met, then how did you recognize me?”

“In the night table beside his hospital bed he has a small gold-framed photograph of you. He showed it to me when we met.”

“Is your grandmother his, um, girlfriend?”

I was impressed by the ease of her posture. She’d been hiding in a hole in the ground, her boyfriend hadn’t been in touch with her for days, and yet Twyla looked like an easygoing young woman out for a night on the town. At least she wasn’t alarmed by a strange man coming up and claiming to have some connection with her family.

“No. Grandma B met Arman and they started to talk…” I stopped and then said, “Chilly tonight. You know a bar around here where I could buy you a drink?”

It was a risk, but she was a lovely and well-dressed young woman, used to being propositioned in this way. And, anyway, I had information about her grandfather, a man she might have cared for—down deep.

“There’s a bar on Amsterdam,” she offered. “Cronin’s—you know it?”

“Never heard’a the place, but I’m always happy to find a new waterin’ hole.”

16.

CRONIN’S BAR WAS a ground-level gin joint occupied by twenty- and thirty-somethings looking for a good time on a mindful budget. Most of the young men and women were hanging around the bar with smiles on their faces and friendly words in their mouths, ready to greet any friend coming in, laugh at a joke well told, or enjoy the sugary taste of some new cocktail. Most eyes were concentrated on the person with whom they were engaged in conversation, while surreptitiously scanning the room, looking for something better, or maybe just different.

Twyla knew the bartender; his name was Jocko. She asked him, deferentially, if we might sit at a table that was a little isolated, but still, I noticed, situated where he could keep an eye on us.

He was a tall guy, probably in his late forties, with what I can only call Semitic features, enhanced by a few scars here and there, and having festive green eyes that gave absolutely nothing away. His hands, I noticed, bulged with muscle.

He nodded his assent, and she led me to a corner booth, looking me over on the way.

We weren’t out of place at the city tavern. I had come out of the park wilderness without looking dingy. My sunflower-colored suit wasn’t made for a pedestrian tail job, but that, and my hard-red dress shirt, appeared neither serious nor legal.

The design of Twyla’s short silk dress was of a series of snugly fitted comma-like forms of grass green, slightly luminescent gold, and black so dark that it seemed to recede in the presence of the lighter hues.

When we sat, she looked me in the eye, patiently waiting for whatever this encounter was about. That inspection was long enough for Jocko to mix up and bring us two Long Island Iced Teas in tall frosty glasses. This was, I guessed, Twyla’s regular drink.