Less forgiving souls would call it a premeditated felony.

Whatever you called it, I was a little sensitive on the subject. I went all cold inside, and then my eyes dropped to the book, and light dawned. “Oh,” I said. “Sue Grafton.”

“Right. Have you got ‘A’ Is for Alibi?”

“I don’t believe so. I had a copy of the book-club edition, but—”

“I’m not interested in book-club editions.”

“No. Well, even if you were, I couldn’t sell it to you. I don’t have it anymore. Someone bought it.”

“Why would anyone buy the book-club edition?”

“Well, the print’s a little larger than the paperback.”

“So?”

“Makes it easier to read.”

The expression on his face told me what he thought of people who bought books for no better reason than to read them. He was in his late thirties, clean-shaven, with a suit and a tie and a full head of glossy brown hair. His mouth was fulllipped and pouty, and he’d have to lose a few pounds if he wanted a jawline.

“How much?” he demanded.

I checked the penciled price on the flyleaf. “Eighty dollars. With tax it comes to”—a glance at the tax table—“eighty-six sixty.”

“I’ll give you a check.”

“All right.”

“Or I could give you eighty dollars in cash,” he said, “and we can just forget about the tax.”

Sometimes this works. Truth to tell, there aren’t many books on my shelves I can’t be persuaded to discount by ten percent or so, even without the incentive of blindsiding the governor. But I told him a check would be fine, and to make it payable to Barnegat Books. When he was done scribbling I looked at the check and read the signature. Borden Stoppelgard, he had written, and that very name was imprinted at the top of his check, along with an address on East Thirty-seventh Street.