The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey - By Walter Mosley Page 0,9

flashes of white and yellow from the inner variations as it tumbled between his fingers.

A treasure, he thought. Glee set off in his chest, like the sunlight through the window ignited the jewel in his hand; he felt delight at the reward that Shirley double-u ara eye en gee delivered to him even though they were strangers. He experienced a deep satisfaction in the pleasure of her trust in him. He thought about Letta carrying him in through the window and tolerating his presence while she dressed and put on the red lipstick that her boyfriends paid for so dearly.

The excitement became a pain in his chest. Ptolemy, now gazing into the cloudy-eyed woman’s brown face, understood that these feelings were strong enough to kill.

He smiled broadly then and said, “Girl, you a beam’a sunshine at the end of a long day of rain.”

He put the ring in his pocket. Shirley stared at him, smiling hopefully.

Hilly came up to them then.

“Okay, Papa Grey,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Gimme my money,” Ptolemy said.

“Later . . . at the sto’.”

“Now,” the old man commanded, “right here in this room.”

Hilly handed his great-uncle a paper envelope filled with bills in small denominations.

“This is Shirley Wring,” Ptolemy said. “Double-u ara eye en gee.”

He was no longer looking around the room, wondering at the changing faces. Ptolemy spread the envelope open and took out a ten-dollar bill. He gave the money to the woman and then took the emerald ring from his pocket.

“Will you take this gift from me, Shirley double-u ara eye en gee?”

Hilly moved his big, heavy head back and forth with a perplexed twist to his face. Shirley smiled. Ptolemy lifted the ring higher.

“You’re a sweet man, Li’l Pea,” she said, taking her collateral and squeezing it between gnarled fingers.

She put the emerald in its tissue and placed the pink paper in her velvet bag. Then she put the black velvet sack into the faded red-leather purse. Shirley Wring made a movement that was the start of a curtsy and then shuffled off to get on line to pay her phone bill.

“She a friend’a yours?” Hilly asked.

“That’s a woman there, boy,” Ptolemy replied, thinking about Coydog talking to him when he was young and didn’t know a thing.

“Wanna go to the store now?” Hilly suggested, putting his hand on his uncle’s shoulder.

“What’s your hurry?” Ptolemy asked.

“Nuthin’. We just gotta go.”

They went to Big City Food Mart and filled a plastic basket with bologna, store brand Oat Ohs, margarine, sour pickles, a bag of mini peanut butter cups, peanut butter, rye bread, orange juice, Big City brand instant coffee and creamer, and six ripe red apples. The total at the cashier came to $32.37. When they got out of line Ptolemy counted the money he had left: $169.04. He counted it three times and was starting on the fourth when Hilly said, “Come on, Papa Grey, we gotta take these things home.”

“Somethin’s wrong with my change, Reggie, I, I mean, Hilly.”

“Nuthin’s wrong,” the boy said to Ptolemy’s shoes. “That’s a lotta money you got there.”

They brought the groceries home to the apartment crowded with everything Ptolemy and his wives and his family and theirs had acquired over more than just one lifetime. Hilly put the food onto shelves and into the ancient refrigerator while Ptolemy counted his change again and again, wondering if somehow Shirley Wring had tricked him.

He thought about his trunk and Sensia, the emerald ring and Reggie—where was Reggie?

“Your money’s fine, Uncle,” Hilly said. “Now we got to get to Mama’s house.”

“Where?”

“Mama need you to come see her,” Hilly said, his brutal face ill-fitting the request.

“What for?”

“She di’n’t say. She just said to tell Papa Grey that Niecie need him to come.”

“Niecie?” All the floating detritus in the old man’s mind sank to the bottom then. The ring and Shirley Wring, the money and Melinda Hogarth, even the fire that killed Maude and the stroke that took Sensia disappeared from his mind.

Niecie. He was only thirty-six when Niecie was born but she was still the daughter of his niece. That’s why he called her Niecie, though her mother had named her Hilda. He was her granduncle and her godfather and she was the coppery color of a year-old Indian head penny. Her mother was sitting in the big chair with Niecie on her lap and Charles, June’s husband, was standing behind her. He stood just like that, like he was posing for a photograph. But that’s the way Charles was: pretty