“Okay. I’ll prob’ly be up.”
“You don’t have to wait up for me, Uncle.”
“No. I’m just thinkin’ ’bout things.”
“What things?”
“The modern world.”
At 8:30 there came a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” Ptolemy asked.
“Dr. Ruben, Mr. Grey. Can I come in?”
Ptolemy opened the door and said, “Hello, Satan.”
The doctor was wearing a herringbone jacket, black trousers, and a dark-red dress shirt that was open at the collar. He seemed to grimace under the bale of hair that passed for a mustache.
“How are you, Mr. Grey?” the beady- and green-eyed doctor asked, forcing his scowl into a smile.
“Burnin’ up and singin’ in my veins, rememberin’ all the things that went to pass like they was just this mornin’ and not fifty, sixty, seventy . . . eighty years ago.”
The doctor’s smile grew as Ptolemy watched him. This standoff went on for a while, until the doctor asked, “Can I come in, Mr. Grey?”
Ptolemy spent maybe twenty seconds more trying to think if there was some rule against letting Satan in your door.
“Come on, then,” he said when he couldn’t think of any strictures pertaining to the Devil and simple civility.
Ptolemy sat on his lightweight stool and bade his guest sit on Robyn’s couch.
“Your mind is working well?” Ruben asked. “You’re remembering and able to get your words out?”
“Bettah then evah. I could tell you the kinda cake my mama made on my sixth birthday, and what the driver talked about when I took the bus up to Twenty-third and Central this afternoon.”
“By yourself?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did you take the bus by yourself?” Ruben asked.
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“Do you have any problem walking, handling things?”
“Naw. Mattah fact I seem a little more handy than I was.” He was thinking about the pipe he had swung at Melinda. “I seem to be more—what you call it?—coordinated.”
The doctor smiled and nodded.
“And you say you have fever?” he asked.
“I get so hot sometimes I can feel it comin’ off my skin. I take aspirin an’ a cold shower an’ it go away.”
“That’s just right, Mr. Grey. A shower and aspirin will work for a while. Maybe a long while.”
“Fevah gonna kill me?” Ptolemy asked with no self-pity or regret.
“Could be,” Ruben said. “But you say you feel an electrical sensation inside?”
“In my veins,” Ptolemy replied. “Like a trill played on a flute. It makes me feel like I got butterflies for blood.”
“That’s the medicine,” Ruben said. “It’s working on your chemistry and your body’s electrical system, your wiring. But it should only be in your brain. That’s what we’re trying to work out . . . how to keep the brain alive and functioning well without affecting the other parts of your body. May I take your pulse?”
“The Devil playin’ a healer,” Ptolemy said as he extended his right hand.
After feeling various points on the old man’s arm, Ruben said, “Your blood pressure is elevated.” He reached into his pocket and came out with a small green bottle.
“These pills are very small but potent. There are a hundred of them. Take one when the fever and flute playing bothers you and it should subside for a while.”
Ptolemy took the green bottle and shook it, listening to the beads of medicine tinkle against the glass.
“Tell me sumpin’, Satan. Will I live to finish off this bottle?”
“To tell you the truth, Mr. Grey, I thought that you’d have died by now. I came by to make sure that Robyn was keeping your agreement.”
The candor of the demon brought a smile to Ptolemy’s lips.
“Coy told me about you.”
“Who’s that?”
“My uncle. Well, he wasn’t really my blood but just a old man who taught me everything I know—almost. He told me that even though you called evil in the Good Book that I still had to give you respect. Yes he did.”
Ruben leaned forward, clasped his hands, and placed his elbows on his knees. He was looking deeply into Ptolemy’s eyes.
