I looked up to see a man in a blue uniform lumbering across the floor toward me. He had a broad, open, honest face, but in my new trade one learned quickly not to judge a book by its cover. My visitor was Ray Kirschmann, the best cop money could buy, and money could buy him seven days a week.

“Hey, Bern,” he said, and propped an elbow on the counter. “Read any good books lately?”

“Hello, Ray.”

“Watcha readin’?” I showed him. “Garbage,” he said. “A whole store full of books, you oughta read somethin’ decent.”

“What’s decent?”

“Oh, Joseph Wambaugh, Ed McBain. Somebody who tells it straight.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“How’s business?”

“Not too bad, Ray.”

“You just sit here, buy books, sell books, and you make a livin’. Right?”

“It’s the American way.”

“Uh-huh. Quite a switch for you, isn’t it?”

“Well, I like working days, Ray.”

“A whole career change, I mean. Burglar to bookseller. You know what that sounds like? A title. You could write a book about it. From Burglar to Bookseller. Mind a question, Bernie?”

And what if I did? “No,” I said.

“What the hell do you know about books?”

“Well, I was always a big reader.”

“In the jug, you mean.”

“Even on the outside, all the way back to childhood. You know what Emily Dickinson said. ‘There is no frigate like a book.’ ”

“Frig it is right. You didn’t just run around buyin’ books and then open up a store.”

“The store was already here. I was a customer over the years, and I knew the owner and he wanted to sell out and go to Florida.”

“And right now he’s soakin’ up the rays.”

“As a matter of fact, I heard he opened up another store in St. Petersburg. Couldn’t take the inactivity.”