"It is now." She put the chalk back. "Call your grandmother. Tell her it's fine. Tell her before somebody else tells her something worse."
He called his grandmother. She picked up on the fourth ring, and he could hear the dryers at the Laundromat thumping in the background like a heartbeat, and he told her, as fast as he could, that a police officer had come to the courts but it was fine, it was all fine, nobody was in trouble, he was still going to play, and there was a long silence on the line, and then she said, "Who called the police," not as a question.
"A man from the committee. He wiped my name."
"Mm-hm." Another silence. "And the officer?"
"He apologized."
"He what?"
"He apologized, Gram. He said it was on him." Ruel paused. "Gram, you know the youth hold? On the board? The sponsor thing?"
"Of course I know it. I read it to you."
"It's his. He painted it. He used to have a desk."
Benedetta Abara had been named after a great-aunt in Lagos, and she shared the name with Perpetua's dead friend only by coincidence, which was the first thing Perpetua had ever said to her, the morning they met, with her hand on her heart: your name is Benedetta? Lord, I'm surrounded. She was sixty-four, and she had worked in the laundry at Merriam General for twenty-six years, and she had raised her grandson since he was four. When she spoke again, her voice had changed.
"The man at the desk," she said slowly. "With the rackets in the box."