I shook my head. “I’d be going with the first figure I quoted you,” I said. “I could pay twenty-seven hundred. And that would include removal of the books at my expense, of course.”

“I see.” He sipped his own coffee, crossed one slim leg over the other. He was wearing well-cut gray flannel slacks and a houndstooth smoking jacket with leather buttons. His shoes might have been of sharkskin. They were certainly elegant, and showed off his small feet. “I wouldn’t care to sell now,” he said, “but if I do move, and it’s a possibility if not a probability, I’ll certainly give your offer consideration.”

“Books go up and down in value. The price might be higher or lower in a few months or a year.”

“I understand that. If I decide to dispose of the books the primary consideration would be convenience, not price. I suspect I’d find it simpler to accept your offer than to shop around.”

I looked over his shoulder at the Mondrian and wondered what it was worth. Ten or twenty or thirty times the fair market value of his library, at a guess. And his apartment was probably worth three or four times as much as the Mondrian, so a thousand dollars more or less for some old books probably wouldn’t weigh too heavily on his mind.

“I want to thank you,” he said, getting to his feet. “You told me your fee. Did you say two hundred dollars?”

“That’s right.”

He drew out a wallet, paused. “I hope you don’t object to cash,” he said.

“I never object to cash.”

“Some people don’t like to carry cash. I can understand that; these are perilous times.” He counted out four fifties, handed them to me. I took out my own wallet and gave them a home.

“If I could use your phone-”

“Certainly,” he said, and pointed me to the study. I dialed a number I’d dialed earlier, and once again I let it ring a dozen times, but somewhere around the fourth ring I chatted into the mouthpiece, as if someone were on the other end. I don’t know that Onderdonk was even within earshot of me, but if you’re going to do something you might as well do it right, and why call attention to myself by holding a ringing phone to my ear for an unusually long time?