“But you ain’t givin’ a care for them kids. Niecie got the kids.”
Alfred’s eyes bulged and he jumped to his feet, gesturing violently. Ptolemy looked up at him, wondering what the Devil could have put in that injection to make him so unafraid of impending death.
“What would you do with them coins if you had ’em?” Ptolemy asked.
“I already got one.”
“Okay,” Ptolemy said. “What you gonna do with that?”
“Take it to the pawn shop on Eighty-sixth Street. Gold is expensive.”
“So he gonna give ya fi’e hunnert dollahs on a coin worf at least twelve thousand.”
Alfred’s rage was extinguished. His eyes took on a crafty slant.
“Maybe three times that,” Ptolemy added.
Alfred sat back down.
“How?” Alfred asked.
“Did you kill Reggie, Al?”
“He was killed in a drive-by.”
“Was it you with the gun in your hand?”
“Reggie’s dead.”
“An’ you got his woman.”
Alfred smiled then. He didn’t mean to, Ptolemy could tell.
“Streets is hard, old man,” Alfred said, still unable to repress the grin. “People die all the time. All the time.”
“Oh, I know that. I prob’ly know it even bettah than you. I’m dyin’ right now while you lookin’ at me. My head is on fire. My bones feel like dust.”
“You
“And what did you say to that?” Ptolemy leaned forward, remembering leaning into a kiss with Natasha Kline seventy years before. The young white woman couldn’t pay for the ice and so she kissed him instead. He’d never told anybody about that kiss. Back then, in 1936, a Negro kissing a white woman could get him killed anywhere in the country.
“Never you mind what I said,” Alfred uttered through clenched teeth. “Just hand ovah Nina’s gold an’ tell me how to sell it for her.”
“Did you kill him, Al? Did you kill my Reggie?”
Alfred reached across the table and slapped Ptolemy’s face. The old man realized with the shock of the blow that his mind was beginning to slip. His mind had begun to wander. But when Alfred hit him everything snapped back into place.
“It’s a easy question, man,” Ptolemy said. “I got to know what happened to my boy. I got to know. I’m a old man, Al. I cain’t hurt you. I cain’t say I was there.”
“What about the gold?” Alfred asked after clenching and unclenching his fist.
“If you tell me what I want to know I will go to Nina with you and hand her the gold.”
Ptolemy could hear his own blood pumping. Alfred’s lips twisted as if he had just bit into a bitter fruit.
“He was gonna take her away, you know,” Alfred said. “He was gonna leave you with no one to look aftah you. He was gonna take Nina, but Nina’s mine. She belong to me. I don’t care if she married to him, but when I want that pussy it gotta come to me. I ain’t gonna let no fool take away what’s mine.”
Don’t evah mess with a man,” Coydog McCann was whispering to Li’l Pea deep in the memory of Ptolemy the man. “Don’t nevah give him a chance.”
“But what if,” the child asked, “what if you ain’t sure that he mean you harm?”
“It’s you that mean to harm him,” Coy said, pointing his thumb and forefinger like a pistol. “Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t right. Life ain’t no good or bad. What it is is you, boy. You makin’ up your mind and takin’ your own path. Don’t worry ’bout that cop with the truncheon. Don’t worry ’bout that white man in a suit. Don’t worry ’bout a cracker with his teefs missin’ and a torch in his hand. Ain’t none’a that any of your nevermind. All you got to do is make sure he ain’t got a chance.”
Did you hear me?” Alfred was saying.
“No. I missed it. What did you say?”
“I said hand ovah the coins.”
“But you just said what Reggie done. You didn’t say if you killed him.”
“Don’t play with me, old man.”
“Did you kill Reggie?”
“Y-yes,” Alfred said, the confession snagging on his lip. “I kilt the mothahfuckah. All right? Now, where is the gold?”
“I ain’t gonna give you no gold, fool. You killed my family, my blood. I ain’t gonna pay you for that. You, you must be crazy.”
