But it still seems like more trouble than it’s worth.

See, that’s how thieving spoils a man.

There was a time a while back when the store began to turn a small but steady profit. What I’d begun as a combination of a respectable front and a cultured pastime was supporting itself, and looked as though it might even support me in the bargain. Before I knew it I had stopped burgling.

Well, I got over that. Prompted by a rapacious landlord, I’d saved the business by stealing myself solvent. Flush with ill-gotten gains, I’d gone and bought the building. Barnegat Books was secure, and I could run it for good or ill as long as I wanted.

And I didn’t have to pinch pennies, either, or send postcards full of price quotations to dealers in Pratt, Kansas, and Oakley, California. I could leave the bargain table where it was while I trotted around the corner, and I didn’t have to have an apoplectic fit if someone walked off with a water-damaged second printing of a Vardis Fisher novel. And when I cover expenses that’s fine, and when I don’t, well, I can always flimflam my way into a building and pick my way past a lock and pick up a quick five grand for my troubles.

Of course I hadn’t received anything for my recent night’s efforts.

And who said my troubles were over?

That happy thought sent me to the telephone, to try Ilona’s number again. No answer. I put the phone down and thought about the question Carolyn had asked me, and the answer I had given. I didn’t know if it was true, but it was close enough to be disturbing.

Reverie carried me back to that grotty little top-floor room on East Twenty-fifth Street. I found myself thinking about the man in the photograph. Where the hell had I seen him before?

He wasn’t the same man as the fellow in the stiff family portrait. I was pretty sure of that. For one thing, the guy with his arm around the huge-haired lady would never be that rigid, not even after rigor mortis had set in. He was used to having his picture taken. The way he was beaming, he looked as though he thrived on it.