“Not yet.”

“Well, you can’t borrow my copy, because it’s autographed. You’ll have to wait for the paperback. Since you haven’t read it I won’t say anything about the murder method, but I have to tell you it’s a shocker. The guy’s a proctologist, if that gives you a hint. Why can’t I ever remember the titles?”

“‘H’ Is for Preparation.”

“That’s it. Wonderful book. I think she’s gay, though, Bern. I really do.”

“Carolyn.”

“What?”

“Carolyn, she’s a character. In a book.”

“I know that. Bern, just because somebody happens to be a character in a book, do you think she can’t have a sexual preference?”

“But—”

“And don’t you think she might decide to keep it to herself? Do you figure there aren’t any closets in books?”

“But—”

“Never mind,” she said. “I understand. You’re upset about the rent, about maybe losing the store. That’s why you’re not thinking clearly.”

It was around six in the evening, some three hours after Borden Stoppelgard had paid me a fifth of fair market value for my copy of the second novel about that notorious dyke Kinsey Millhone, and I was with Carolyn Kaiser in the Bum Rap, a shabby little ginmill at Eleventh and Broadway. While it may hearken back to the days when Fourth Avenue was given over largely to dealers in secondhand books, Barnegat Books itself is situated on Eleventh Street about halfway between Broadway and University Place. (You could say it’s a stone’s throw from Fourth Avenue, but it’s a block and a half, and if you can throw a stone that far you don’t belong on Fourth Avenue or East Eleventh Street. You ought to be up in the Bronx, playing right field for the Yankees.)

Also on Eleventh Street, but two doors closer to Broadway, is the Poodle Factory, where Carolyn earns a precarious living washing dogs, many of them larger than herself. We met shortly after I bought the store, hit it off from the start, and have been best friends ever since. We usually have lunch together, and we almost always stop at the Bum Rap after work for a drink.