to hang around an’ browse. Last thing I want to do is chase you.”
But my customer was on his way, with the door swinging shut behind him.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Aw, he was a stiff anyway, Bern. Never woulda bought that book. Guys like him, treat the place like a library. How you gonna make a dime on a bum like that?”
“Ray—”
“ ’Sides, he looked shifty. Probably woulda stole the book if he had half the chance. An honest guy like yourself, you don’t realize how many crooked people there are in the world.”
I didn’t say anything. Why encourage him?
“Say, Bern,” he said, leaning a heavy forearm on my glass counter. “You’re around books all the time, you’re all the time readin’. What I want to do is read somethin’ to you. You got a minute?”
“Well, I—”
“Sure you do,” he said, and reached into his inside jacket pocket, and just then the door burst open and Carolyn exploded through it. “There you are,” she cried. “I called and you didn’t answer, and then I called and the line was busy, and then I—Oh, hi, Ray.”
“‘Oh, hi, Ray,’” he echoed. “Say it like you’re glad to see me, Carolyn. I’m not some dog that you gotta give me a bath.”
“I’m going to leave that line alone,” she said.
“Thank God,” I said.
“You called and he wasn’t here,” Ray said, “and then you called and the line was busy, and then you ran over here. So you got somethin’ to say to him.”
“So?”
“So say it.”
“It’ll keep,” she said.
“Then maybe you oughta run along, Carolyn. Go get your vacuum cleaner and suck the ticks off a bloodhound.”
“I could make you the same suggestion,” she said sweetly, “but without the vacuum cleaner. Why don’t you go solicit a bribe, Ray? I got business with Bernie.”
“So do I, sweetie. I was just lookin’ for a literary opinion from him. The hell, I don’t guess it’d hurt you to hear what I gotta read to him.”
He drew a little card from his pocket. “‘You have the right to remain silent,’” he intoned. “‘You have the right to consult an attorney. If you do not have legal counsel, you have the right to have counsel provided for you.’” There was more, and the wording wasn’t exactly the way I remembered it, but I’m not going to look it up and reproduce the whole thing here. If you’re interested, go throw a rock through a precinct house window. Somebody’ll come out and read it to you word for word.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why are you reading me that?”
“Aw, Bernie. Lemme ask you a question, okay? You know an apartment building called the Charlemagne?”
“Sure. On Fifth Avenue in the Seventies. Why?”
“Ever been there?”
“As a matter of fact I was there the night before last.”
“No kiddin’. Next you’re gonna tell me you’ve heard of a man named Gordon Onderdonk.”
I nodded. “We’ve met,” I said. “Once here, in the store, and again two nights ago.”
“At his apartment at the Charlemagne.”
“That’s right.” Where was he going with all this? I hadn’t stolen anything from Onderdonk, and the man would hardly have reported me to the police for lifting his letters from Andrea. Unless Ray was taking an elaborate windup before delivering the pitch, and all this Onderdonk stuff was prelude to some more incisive questions about J.C. Appling’s stamp collection. But the Applings hadn’t even returned to the city as of midnight, so how could they have discovered the loss and reported it, and how could Ray have already tied it to me?
“I went there at his invitation,” I said. “He wanted an appraisal of his personal library, although he’s not likely to be selling it. I spent some time going through his books and came up with a figure.”
“Decent of you.”
“I got paid for my time.”
“Oh, yeah? Wrote you out a check, did he?”
“Paid me in cash. Two hundred dollars.”
“Is that a fact? I suppose you’ll report the income on your tax return, a good law-abidin’ reformed citizen like yourself.”
“What’s all this sarcasm about?” Carolyn demanded. “Bernie didn’t do anything.”
“Nobody ever did. The prisons are full of innocent guys who got railroaded by corrupt police.”
“God knows there are enough corrupt police to go around,” Carolyn said, “and if they’re not railroading innocent people, what are they doing?”
“Anyway, Bern—”
“Besides eating in restaurants and not paying for their meals,” she went on. “Besides swapping jokes on street corners while old ladies get mugged and raped. Besides—”
“Besides puttin’ up with insults from some little dyke