“And a colorful one at that. Here are our drinks.”

“And not a moment too soon. Well, here’s to crime. Scratch that, I didn’t mean it.”

“Sure you did,” I said, and we drank.

We talked about my landlord, the book lover, and then we talked about Sue Grafton and her closeted heroine, and somewhere along the way we ordered a second round of drinks. “Two scotches,” Carolyn said. “I guess I don’t have to worry about you tonight.”

“You can sleep easy,” I said, “knowing that I’m half in the bag.” I looked down at the tabletop, where I’d been busy making interlocking rings with the bottom of my glass, trying to duplicate the Olympics logo. “As a matter of fact,” I said, “I had a reason to order scotch tonight.”

“I always order scotch,” she said, “and believe me, I always have a reason. But I’ve got to admit you had a particularly good reason after that scene with your friend Stoppelgard.”

“That’s not the reason.”

“It’s not?”

I shook my head. “I’m drinking,” I said, “to make sure I don’t commit a burglary tonight. For ten days now I’ve been fighting the urge.”

“Because of—”

“The rent increase. You know, I never got into the book business to make money. I just figured I could come close to breaking even. I made my real money stealing, and the store gave me a respectable front and provided me with all the reading material I could possibly want. And I thought it would be a good place to meet girls.”

“Well, you met me.”

“I’ve met a lot of people, and most of the meetings have been pleasant ones. A nice thing about the book business is your clientele tends to be literate and your relationships with them are rarely adversarial, today’s episode notwithstanding. And, amazingly, the store has actually become profitable as I’ve learned more about the business. Oh, it’ll never be a gold mine. Nobody gets rich doing this. But for the past year I’ve been able to live on what I take home from the shop.”