It was a nice enough black pinseal billfold, complete with the telltale outline of a rolled condom to recall my own lost adolescence. There was almost a hundred dollars in the currency compartment. I counted out fifty dollars in fives and tens, replaced the rest, and returned the wallet to its owner.

“That’s my money,” he said.

“You just bought books with it,” I told him. “Want a receipt?”

“I don’t even want the books, dammit.” His eyes were watering behind the thick glasses. “What am I going to do with them, anyway?”

“I suppose reading them is out. What did you plan to do with them originally?”

He stared at his track shoes. “I was going to sell them.”

“To whom?”

“I don’t know. Some store.”

“How much were you going to get for them?”

“I don’t know. Fifteen, twenty dollars.”

“You’d wind up taking ten.”

“I suppose so.”

“Fine,” I said. I peeled off one of his tens and pressed it into his palm. “Sell them to me.”

“Huh?”

“Saves running from store to store. I can use good books, they’re the very sort of item I stock, so why not take the ten dollars from me?”

“This is crazy,” he said.

“Do you want the books or the money? It’s up to you.”

“I don’t want the books.”

“Do you want the money?”

“I guess so.”

I took the books from him and stacked them on the counter. “Then put it in your wallet,” I said, “before you lose it.”

“This is the craziest thing ever. You took fifty bucks from me for books I didn’t want and now you’re giving me ten back. I’m out forty dollars, for God’s sake.”

“Well, you bought high and sold low. Most people try to work it the other way around.”

“I should call a cop. I’m the one getting robbed.”

I packed his gym gear into the Braniff bag, zipped it shut, handed it to him. Then I extended a forefinger and chucked him under his hairy chin.