“Well, I was thinkin’, Bern.”

“I’m out of the business, Ray.”

“What I was thinkin’, you might run into a coat in the course of things, know what I mean? I was thinkin’ that you and me, we go back a ways, we been through a lot, the two of us, and-”

“I’m not a burglar anymore, Ray.”

“I wasn’t countin’ on a freebie, Bernie. Just a bargain.”

“I don’t steal anymore, Ray.”

“I hear you talkin’, Bern.”

“I’m not as young as I used to be. Nobody ever is but these days I’m starting to feel it. When you’re young nothing scares you. When you get older everything does. I don’t ever want to go inside again, Ray. I don’t like prisons.”

“These days they’re country clubs.”

“Then they changed a whole hell of a lot in the past few years, because I swear I never cared for them myself. You meet a better class of people on the D train.”

“Guy like you, you could get a nice job in the prison library.”

“They still lock you in at night.”

“So you’re straight, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I been here how long? All that time you haven’t had a single person walk in the store.”

“Maybe the uniform keeps ’em away, Ray.”

“Maybe business ain’t what it might be. You been in the business how long, Bern? Six months?”

“Closer to seven.”

“Bet you don’t even make the rent.”

“I do all right.” I marked my place in Soldiers Three, closed the book, put it on the shelf behind the counter. “I made a forty-dollar profit from one customer earlier this afternoon and I swear it was easier than stealing.”

“Is that a fact. You’re a guy made twenty grand in an hour and a half when things fell right.”

“And went to jail when they didn’t.”

“Forty bucks. I can see where that’d really have you turning handsprings.”

“There’s a difference between honest money and the other kind.”

“Yeah, and the difference comes to somethin’ like $19,960. This here, Bern, this is nickels and dimes. Let’s be honest. You can’t live on this.”