“That’s his habit,” she said.

“Getting in early.”

She wrote a number on a pink pad and turned it so I could read it.

“Certified copies of the full chain, five hundred dollars.

Ready by four thirty.”

Five hundred out of the account that had my name on it and nothing else.

“Do it,” I said.

Edith drew up the request, and I signed the bottom of it, and she asked her question without looking up from the form.