“Look in the bathroom,” Ryan said. He took the beer case from Ruiz and placed it on the bed, laid his cigar stub in an ashtray on the nightstand, and began going through the shorts and trousers on the bed and chairs and on the dresser, removing the wallets and dropping them in the beer case, then checking the pockets for loose bills; he did not take silver. He looked around the room as he fished through the pockets, noticing the two windows that would be at the side and the back of the house. Good. The back window would open onto the porch roof.

“Another bedroom,” Billy Ruiz said. He seemed surprised, but part of it was fright. “The women’s clothes are in there.”

“I’ll check it,” Ryan said. “You wait here.” He moved through the bath to the adjoining bedroom, closed the door to the hall and locked it and turned to the clothes on the bed, in neat piles and messy piles, just as the men’s were. Who goes with who? Ryan thought. That would be something if you had time. Try to match them up. There were seven purses on the dresser; he carried them into the men’s bedroom and dropped them on the bed and began removing the wallets from those that had wallets and checking side pockets for rolled-up wads of bills. They would take all the wallets and go through them later.

When he had cleaned out the purses, he took them back to the women’s bedroom. Just once have all the purses in one place. Man. Seven here, the rest would be scattered all over the house and when it’s time to go, a couple of the women, half loaded, will be running around saying, “I can’t find my purse.” And the guy, more in the bag than his wife, will say, “Well, where did you put it?” He checked sweater pockets quickly but found nothing except tissues and a couple of combs.