I moved outside of myself, got up, and began to walk toward the closet with my eyes seeing only the bulging pockets. So trusting was Hakim, so naïve that Chicago couldn’t possibly be as treacherous as New York City, that he would leave his wallet unattended in the closet of his fiancée’s sister’s home. I reached inside quietly, keeping one ear toward my bedroom door should one of them decide to run to the bathroom like I always did after sex. They were probably hugged up and asleep. Inside, as I had hoped, was a slinky wallet. In the dark, I opened it and stuck my fingers between the slivers in its crease. The radiator clang once more, and I jumped, momentarily frozen that I would be found near the front door once more, with Hakim’s wallet in my hands, and beaten for trying to escape just when everyone thought they had talked some sense into me. I felt what I was looking for: the dry, smooth surface of money. Without seeing, I calmly pulled out all the bills and divided the stack in half. I stuffed the other half back into the wallet as neatly as I could. I tiptoed back to the couch, curling toward the back of it where I counted out the money by the bluish glow of the lights from King Drive. There were two fifties in back of the pile, and the rest was twenties. I prayed he didn’t organize his money by numbers, or that I had started in the middle of the stack with twenties and left most of his largest bills behind. I didn’t have the nerve to go back, so I only counted out what I had gotten on the first try. $260. I stuffed the money underneath the middle couch pillows among loose change, crumbs, and lost barrettes. Satisfied, I focused back onto the sounds I had just heard.