"Bright day?" Ptolemy asked.

"Yeah."

"Out in the open?"

"Car drove by and opened fire. Every d.a.m.n bullet hit Reggie."

Billy looked up into Ptolemy's eyes. The truth was there between them, like a child's corpse after a terrible fire that no one could have prevented.

Billy parked the car in front of Ptolemy's apartment building. After hearing about Melinda Hogarth, he offered to walk his friend's great-uncle to his door. A man shouted at them from across the street.

"Hold up!"

It was a big dark-skinned man with bright eyes and a nose that had been broken more than once, a man who wouldn't be daunted by a ninety-one-year-old man swinging a steel pipe. Behind him was Melinda, her finger wrapped in thick white bandages and gauze.

"You done attack my girlfriend," the man said to Ptolemy.

The old man wasn't afraid. His revelation about Reggie had taken up all of his feelings and pain. The bl.u.s.tering man in army surplus pants and purple T-shirt was nothing to him; death was nothing to him. All he wanted to do was remember if Reggie had talked about going to San Diego.

In his oversized gray sweater Billy didn't look powerful or strong. He was shorter than Melinda's brute, but he still moved into the s.p.a.ce between Ptolemy and the big man, who, on closer inspection, was past fifty and paunchy.

Ptolemy expected Billy to say something, to warn off the thug boyfriend of the woman mugger. But instead Billy threw a straight punch, hitting the man in the throat. After that the bodybuilder kicked and bludgeoned the big man until he was on the ground, crawling away down the sidewalk. There was a streak of blood on the pavement behind the bully, and the only sound was the beaten man coughing, trying to catch a breath through his bruised windpipe.

"Go on in, Mr. Grey," Billy said in a mild, friendly voice. "I'll stay out here and watch these mothahf.u.c.kers until you inside."

Ptolemy saw that Melinda had retreated across the street. She wasn't complaining or even trying to help her boyfriend boyfriend.

"Mr. Grey?"

"Yeah, Mr. Strong?"

"If you need it, I'll come by an' get you anytime, ya hear?"

"Yes sir, I sure do."

Inside the apartment Ptolemy thought about Robyn, who was so quick to fight, and now Billy, who didn't even utter a warning. He could see that the world outside his door had become more dangerous than it was when he was a younger man. Poor people had always fought and killed each other, but it wasn't so fast and unpredictable. People shot out like rattlesnakes on these modern streets. There was no warning anymore.

The phone rang at 7:27 that evening.

"Uncle Grey?"

"Yeah, Robyn."

"I'ma be home late, okay?"

"Sure it's okay. But be careful when you come back in. That Melinda got her some boyfriend threatened me."

"What you do?"

"I was wit' Billy Strong. He beat the bejesus out that man."

"Billy? He's nice."

"He said the same about you. What time you comin' home?"

"'Bout eleven."

"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, "h.e.l.lo, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 b.u.t.terflies 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 gla.s.s.

"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.

"I ain't crazy, Dr. Ruben, if that's what you want me to call ya. I ain't crazy at all. But I know the Devil when I see him. You don't need no college degree to see evil in front'a yo' nose. Man play with life have crossed ovah. That's a fact."

"But . . . Mr. Grey, I'm helping you, aren't I? Didn't you come to me and ask for my help?"

For a pa.s.sing moment Ptolemy felt fear. Had he sold his soul and not quite realized it? Had he been tricked as so many before him on the long road to ruin?

"But we traded, right?" Ptolemy asked. "You wanted my body, not my soul."

Satan smiled on Ptolemy Grey. His whole face was alight with friendliness.

"That's right, Mr. Grey. I only want your body. I'm trading that light in your mind and that tickle in your veins for your body after you no longer need it."

"Will you shake on that?" Grey asked, and both men extended their hands and grasped each other, reaffirming an oath that they both wanted and needed.

After a moment or two of silent reverie, Ruben asked, "Where's your niece?"

"Out with her boyfriend."

"She leaves you alone and you can take care of yourself?"

"If I had a fifty-gallon drum I could barbecue a pig in the cement yard," Ptolemy said proudly.

"I bet you could, Mr. Grey. I bet you could."

For a long time after the Devil had left, Ptolemy considered their conversation. He remembered every word and intonation, every gesture and phrase.

Satan had called the feeling in his body a tickle, meaning that he knew about the Tickle River and Coy and the theft of the gold coins. He was telling him that Coy had sinned but that he would be forgiven if Ptolemy lived up to his side of the bargain over the disposition of the treasure.

It was a delicate transaction, dealing with the Devil, but in Ptolemy's mind that was his only hope. How else could he save Letisha and Artie, and Robyn too? How else could he make sure that Reggie's killer did not escape judgment?

Ptolemy was feeling giddy after such a close call with oblivion, because he knew meeting the Devil was always a threat to the immortal soul.

What's a soul, Coy?" Li'l Pea had asked his mentor and friend.