“I don’t think that’s too cool.”

“Well, what else can I do?” Mary-Ann looked up at me. Either she was getting better-looking or I was looking at her different.

“You know when he’s going to be away from the office?” I asked.

“He’s supposed to be in Chicago for some big meeting tomorrow morning,” Mary-Ann said. “He’s leaving tonight.”

We waited around until two thirty in the morning before going to the club. I had my piece, only I didn’t let Mary-Ann know. If Tyrone did double back I wanted some heat to defend myself.

It was dark in Tyrone’s office. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my eyes. Mary-Ann had some matches, and we lit them and looked around the best we could, but they didn’t help too much. Then I took my jacket off and put it on the floor in front of the door so you couldn’t see the light coming from under the door, and we put on one of the lamps in Tyrone’s office. We covered it with a cloth, so it gave some light but not too much. The desk drawers were locked, and none of the keys laying on the desk worked. I tried to pull them open, but that didn’t work, and we figured it would take too long to try to pick the locks. Mary-Ann slipped out and went to her room and got the screwdriver that she used to change the television channels with. I jimmied open the middle drawer, and the rest came open. We looked for the envelope with Paul’s name on it, and we found it along with some other envelopes and a list of names and numbers. Paul’s name was on the list. Cal’s name was on it, too. There was some cash in a box in the same drawer, and we took that and a few other things, including some stamps and a calculator, to make it look like a robbery. I got my coat and went over to the Grant, and Mary-Ann followed a few minutes later. I had the envelopes, and we went over them.

Two of them had IOUs in them, one from a cop that used to hang around the place, and one from somebody else. Then there was a list of names with numbers next to them which I figured was also money that Tyrone had lent people. I couldn’t tell what some of the others were, and neither could Mary-Ann. We had saved the envelope with Paul’s name on for last. I opened it up. They were checks. They were all welfare checks made out to people from around the block. Then I looked on the back of them and saw they had all been cashed at one place.

“How come he’s got these checks in an envelope with Paul’s name on it?” I said aloud to myself.

Mary-Ann took the checks from me again and looked at them.

“You see this check?” She showed me one of them that was made out to Mrs. Susan Jenkins.