Did you bring the stock statement?”

I patted my jacket pocket.

“The whole retirement account.”

At a quarter to two that afternoon I sat across from the manager at First National Bank on Fourth Avenue, a thin man named Mr.

Ellis who kept a calculator by his right hand.

“Forty-five thousand dollars,” he said.

“That’s what was taken out of the minor’s medical trust.”

“And that’s what I need put back,” I said.