The silver coin tumbled through the yellow light, flashing green verdigris as it spun.
Julian didn’t reach up with his bare hand. And he didn’t pull back to let the coin hit the floor.
With a lightning flick of his left wrist, Julian reached into the outer cargo pocket of his blue orderly scrubs. His fingers caught the stiff, gummed flap of a heavy brown kraft paper pouch--an official St. Jude’s Form SJ-VALUABLES property envelope.
The envelope was made of forty-pound heavy-duty paper, lined with grease-resistant paraffin.
Julian snapped the mouth of the envelope open with a sharp snap of his fingers, thrusting the wide paper opening directly beneath the spinning silver disk.
Thwack.
The heavy 1996 silver quarter dropped straight into the bottom of the manila envelope.
The heavy kraft paper absorbed the kinetic impact with a dull, muffled thud. The coin never touched Julian’s skin. Not a single drop of cold river water made contact with his bare knuckles.
