He found the house up the hillside and scouted it, walking once along the opposing sidewalk. Lights were on in different rooms and boarders sat out in rockers and gliders on the porch. He went up a ways and cut through into the backyard and stood in the shadow of an old paper birch and studied the back. He counted the second-story windows and found hers. The light was on as she’d left it the night before. A clump of lilac grew up the building, the upper branches obscuring the lower part of her window. He crossed quickly to the base of the lilacs, paused and found the way into their heart, a thin path opening into a small chamber walled round by the woven gnarled growth. He tipped his head back and studied and then went up quickly and paused again. There was no one in the room and it seemed undisturbed. He boosted himself onto the sill on his stomach and wormed his way forward and down. Then was all the way in and rolled onto his back with his knees pulled to his chest, not moving. There was no sound. The room was full of the smell of her. He found her two bags in the closet and went back and forth to fill the bags from her drawers and from under her bed and what was piled atop the bed and then standing in the dark rectangle of the closet to lift dresses down from pegs. Wrapped the three dresser-top bottles of cologne in a blouse and settled them down deep into the already packed clothes. And finally went back into the closet to squat and feel along the baseboard and found the loose lath behind the broken plaster and dug out the tin canister and opened it. It was packed with rolled bills.

Then, on impulse, reached again into the hole and drew out a small velvet bag with the heavy weight of coin. She had not mentioned this to him. It was a curious thing. Not the sort of thing she’d forget. Did she know him well enough to know he’d probe deep like that? He put the bag in his inner jacket pocket and the canister in among her clothes and fastened closed the bags. Then surveyed the room. There were more belongings but he had what she’d told him to take from there. He hefted the bags. There was no possibility of going down as he’d come up. He turned out the light and opened the door. He took up the bags and pulled the door shut with his wrist and went down the carpeted hall and the front stairs and out the front door where he turned and strolled down the hill.