 Once William received the money from Partridge, what didn't he decide to do?
Not if you believe me. For punishment, he locked me in a windowless room and told me to sit still until he came back. It wasn't so bad a punishment, except that when Dad closed the door, the light turned off and I was left there in the dark. My mother and father must have been glad when I was sent away to reform school after my thirteenth birthday party, the one If you believe any of this at all, you'll see why it couldn't be me who did the stealing. There was reason for me to steal, if I could have got away with it. It was two or three years later that I skulked into Brother Partridge's mission on Durbin Street. Partridge was supposed to think I was just a bum. Partridge didn't seem to notice me, but I knew that was an act. "Brothers," Partridge went on after enjoying the interruption with a beaming smile, "you shall all be entitled to a bowl of turkey soup prepared by Sister Partridge, a generous supply of sweet rolls and dinner rolls contributed by the Early Morning Bakery of this city, and all the coffee you can drink. As soon as I got cleaned up, I was going to have dinner in a good restaurant, and I was going to order such expensive food and leave such a large tip for the waiter and send one to the chef that they were going to think I was rich, and some executive with some brokerage firm would see me and say to himself, "Hmm, executive material. Even Partridge made his way down from the auctioneer's stand like a vulture with a busted wing and darted through his private door. Following the wallboard, I went down the side of the room and behind the last row of chairs, closer, closer, and halfway up the room again to the entrance—the entrance and the little wooden box fastened to the wall beside it. The box was fastened to the vertical tongue-and-groove laths of the woodwork, not the wall. It wouldn't go up, down, left or right. While keeping a lookout for Partridge and somebody stepping out of the kitchen for a pull on a bottle, I spotted the clock for the first time, a Western Union clock high up at the back of the hall. "This," Brother Partridge said, "is one of the most profound experiences of my life." My head hinged until it lined my eyes up with Brother Partridge.
 make a better future for himself
 research the murder  clean himself up  eat his fill  make a better future for himself