“They’ve got an ex-cop doing that?”

“Not in real life,” I said. “Hal Johnson’s a character in a series of short stories by James Holding. He goes off on the trail of an overdue book and winds up involved in a more serious crime.”

“Which I suppose he solves.”

“Well, sure. He’s no dope. I’ll tell you, that book brought back memories. I used to collect butterflies when I was a kid.”

“You told me.”

“And sometimes we would find cocoons. I saw a picture of a cecropia moth and it reminded me. There were pussy willow bushes near the school I went to, and cecropia moths used to attach their cocoons to the branches. We would find the cocoons and put them in jars and try to let them hatch out.”

“What happened?”

“Generally nothing. I don’t think any of my cocoons ever hatched. Not every caterpillar gets to be a moth.”

“Not every frog gets to be a prince, either.”

“Isn’t that the truth.”

Carolyn finished her martini and caught the waitress’s eye for a refill. I still had plenty of Perrier. We were in the Bum Rap, a comfortably tacky gin joint at the corner of East Eleventh Street and Broadway, which made it just half a block from both Barnegat Books and the Poodle Factory, where Carolyn earns her living washing dogs. While her trade provides relatively little in the way of ego gratification, it’s more socially useful than looting libraries.

“Perrier,” Carolyn said.

“I like Perrier.”

“All it is, Bernie, is designer water. That’s all.”

“I guess.”

“Got a busy night planned?”

“I’ll go out for a run,” I said, “and then I may bounce around a bit.”

She started to say something but checked herself when the waitress approached with the fresh martini. The waitress was a dark-roots blonde in tight jeans and a hot-pink blouse, and Carolyn’s eyes followed her back to the bar. “Not bad,” she said.

“I thought you were in love.”