The sergeant ran his hand along the inside of the briefcase and found a zipper hidden in the lining, already open, and empty. The daughter turned slowly to her brother and asked, Michael, did you open the lining. There was nothing in there, he said. Then why is your hand on your pocket, she said.
The sergeant told Michael to empty his coat pocket. Michael did not move. And the daughter, her voice cracking, said her father had told her exactly what was in that note, that it was for me, and that it explained why there were never two hundred thousand dollars in that briefcase to begin with.
There had only ever been a hundred and twelve thousand. Michael had pocketed the note and invented the missing ninety thousand to turn an honest cab driver into a thief, so that when the real shortfall came to light, I would take the blame.
I drove that briefcase straight to a police station because it was the right thing to do, and a rich mans son nearly put me in a cell for ninety thousand dollars that never existed.
Michaels hand came out of his pocket with the note in it, because the sergeant was not going to ask a third time. The note was in old Mr. Hales hand, and it was addressed to me, and it said thank you, and it said something else that made the daughter weep.
Robert Hale had been looking for me for thirty-four years. On a night in 1989, a young taxi driver newly come from Ghana had found his teenage son stranded and frightened downtown and driven him home for free, and refused to take a dollar, and Hale had never forgotten the name on the license. Samuel Osei.
They let me out of that little room and they apologized. I went to the nursing home in Chestnut Hill the next day, and I sat with Mr. Hale, and two old men who had crossed paths once, thirty-four years before, finally got to finish the conversation. His son had some explaining to do, to the law and to his father both.