home to an empty apartment. Everything was clean because Robyn cleaned every day. She swept and mopped and dusted and washed. She even ironed Ptolemy’s clothes and hers.
When Robyn did come home he told her that they would have to go see Moishe Abromovitz again.
“All the way down there, Uncle? Why?”
“’Cause I made a mistake an’ told Niecie that you was gonna take care’a my money. You know the minute I drop dead she gonna get some kinda lawyer and try to take that money from you.”
“Niecie wouldn’t do that.”
“Baby, I know that’s what you think. You think Niecie love you and care about you. But all that’s just in yo’ head.” As Ptolemy spoke he realized that Coy had been coming to life in his mind for the past weeks; that his murdered mentor was coming back to see him through this delicate negotiation at the end of his life. “Niecie love you as long as you sleep on the couch and do the things she don’t wanna do. She love you when the old men come around to look at you and you get behind her skirts. But when she find out how much money you gonna get, she won’t love you no more. She won’t ever again. She gonna say you stoled her rightful inheritance.”
“You wrong, Uncle,” Robyn said, “Aunt Niecie wouldn’t evah hate me like that.”
Ptolemy reached across the small kitchen table to take Robyn’s strong hands in his big one.
“I know how you feel and I respect you,” he said. “But do you believe in me?”
“Yes.”
“An’ do you respect me?”
“Yes.”
“So go wit’ me to see Moishe so that I can make sure that your money is yours. And if Niecie come aftah you aftah I’m gone, then I want you to light me a candle on this here table for seven days. Will you do all that for me, baby?”
“I won’t have to light no candle, because Aunt Niecie ain’t nevah gonna think I’d steal from her.”
I have three red apples, two oranges, and a sausage I bought from the market,” Nora Chin said.
They were sitting across from each other at a large conference table of the Terrence P. Laughton Mental Services Center of Santa Monica. Moishe Abromovitz, the old man in the middle-aged man’s body, and Robyn sat at the far end of the table. There was a large tape recorder sitting between Ptolemy and the psychiatrist. The spool of recording tape rolled steady and slow.
A big black fly buzzed past Nora Chin’s face, but she didn’t move or flinch.
“Today’s Robyn’s birthday, Dr. Chin,” Ptolemy said. “She’s eighteen today.”
“How many apples do I have, Mr. Grey?” she responded.
“Two,” he said. “Two apples, three oranges, and a sausage. You know pork sausage an’ applesauce would make my whole day back when I was a boy.”
Chin smiled. She was pretty, though somewhat severe looking. She looked at least twenty years younger than Moishe, but they were almost the same age.
Chin held up an eight-by-ten photograph of a highway scene. There were only four cars evident: three were coming toward the viewer; of these, two were white and one yellow. A blue station wagon, its red brake lights ablaze, was on the other side of the road. After a few seconds Nora Chin put the photograph face down on the table.
“What was the color of the car driving away from you, Mr. Grey?”
“Which way is Toledo from here?” he asked.
“What?” The stern-faced and lovely doctor of the mind was thrown off.
“The road sign said Toledo. I figure you must be askin’ me where am I between that blue car an’ Toledo.”
“I think we’ve done enough testing,” Chin said, her surprise turning into a friendly smile. “Do you know why you’re here today, sir?”
In an instant a dozen thoughts flitted through Ptolemy’s mind: his friends Maude and Coy on fire in the Deep South; Melinda Hogarth, Reggie, the lady newscaster; Sensia, who taught him about love past the age of forty; Robyn, who was sitting there, frowning because the presence of a Chinese woman and a Jewish man made her nervous.
“Because I’m old and for a long time I was confused in my mind,” he said.
“You know that there’s a video camera in the wall behind me, recording our conversation?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And that there’s also a tape recorder running.” She tapped the big box with a slender finger.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And is that all right with you?”
“I want to make it clear that I’m of sound mind so that nobody can argue about my last will and testament.”
Suddenly Nora Chin’s face drew in on itself. It was as if she had heard a sound somewhere and was trying to identify it. Ptolemy decided this was how she looked when she was serious. He also thought that this was the face she put on before a kiss.
