The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

heart and that I should handle your estate when the time came.”

“You mean when I died.”

Moishe sat down behind the file and smiled.

Ptolemy put his left hand on Robyn’s forearm. The girl seemed uncomfortable and he wanted to put her at ease.

“This child has saved me,” Ptolemy said. “I was sick, very sick and she cleaned my house and brought me to a doctor that made me well, or at least as well as a man my age can be.”

Moishe’s smile evaporated.

“I want you to make her my heir,” Ptolemy said. “Put her in that trust your daddy said he made for me, and take care’a her business like you did with mine.”

Moishe nodded noncommittally and Ptolemy placed a stack of ten one-hundred-dollar bills on the table.

“This should cover the first part’a the work you got to do.”

The legal adviser turned to Robyn and asked, “What is your name?”

“Robyn Small,” Ptolemy said before she could answer. “That’s Robyn like the bird only with a y instead of an i. An’ she got all her information in her bag.”

“Robyn, would you mind waiting outside for a moment while I talk to Mr. Grey alone?”

The girl nodded and stood right up. She walked from the room, closing the door behind her without a word or gesture of complaint.

After she was gone Moishe turned to Ptolemy.

“How well do you know this girl, Mr. Grey?”

“That’s not the question you should be askin’ me, young man.”

Moishe frowned and said, “No?”

“Uh-uh. No. I know what you thinkin’. You thinkin’ that I’m a old man and this young thing is after anything she can get outta me. But how good I know her ain’t what will tell you what you need to know.”

Moishe smiled as if he perceived something he recognized in the old man’s words.

“What should I have asked, Mr. Grey?”

“What you wanna know is how well I know anybody. Not just Robyn but ev’rybody in my life. You know, a old man don’t have much to go on. He don’t have a big social life. He don’t cut the rug no mo’.”

“Cut the rug?” the lawyer asked.

“Dance.”

“I never danced very much,” Moishe said apologetically. “My father did. He was a wonderful dancer. But I have two left feet.”

“There’s a lady upstairs from me get my mail two times a week,” Ptolemy continued. “Her name’s Falona Dartman. I’d like to leave her a li’l sumpin’ when I pass. And there’s a woman dope addict across the street try to mug me every time I stick my nose out the door. I don’t wanna give her nuthin’. My grandniece Niecie Brown don’t know what’s goin’ on, and her son stoled money from me because he thought I was too old to notice. My other great-grandnephew, Reggie, took care’a me for years. He had a good heart but he didn’t know what he was doin’ and now he’s dead anyway—shot down in the street.”

“Oh my God,” the younger Abromovitz declared. “That’s terrible.”

“Robyn cleaned out my house and took me to a doctor. She beat up that dope fiend and cooks for me twice a day. I offered her all my money and she turned it down. But, you know, Reggie, my great-grandnephew, have left two babies behind him, and my grandniece needs looking after too. Robyn the only one will see my family is taken care of.”

“But how long have you known her, Mr. Grey?” Moishe insisted.

“You see that paintin’ on the wall, Moishe?” Ptolemy replied.

“Yes.”

“It’s called A Study of Darkness in Light.”

“That’s right. How did you know?”

“Your father bought it from a painter friend of his named Max Kahn. I remember Maxie. Him an’ me an’ your daddy used to go to this bar down on the boardwalk and drink beers and talk nonsense.”

“Max Kahn,” Moishe whispered. “I remember him. My mother never liked Max.”

“Your father told me that he bought the paintin’ because of the naked woman, said he liked to have a nude to look at all day. Your mother didn’t like the girlie magazines your father bought, but she couldn’t argue with oil paintin’s.”

Moishe smiled and nodded. It was as if Ptolemy had become a doorway to his lost youth.

“But as the years went by, Abe found himself looking more at the background, at the people in the town who had a light shined on ’em by the deity but didn’t know it. There’s a old woman leading a young woman toward a doorway. One day your father noticed that the young woman was blind. There’s a poor man leanin’ down to pick up a wallet—”

“That a wealthy merchant had dropped on the street,” Moishe said, remembering the words of his father for the first time in many years.