It was, but it wasn't right for Playboy. I thought, however, it might be right for The Armchair Detective, a very good magazine devoted to the mystery genre, and to my delight they thought so, too, so that's where "Jumble Sale" was published.

That story, set in Arnie Albright's charming apartment, was written in the fall of 1993, twelve years after John and I had first entered the lists of the ten-yard dash. In that time, we'd combined for seven short stories and one workout, and until then I'd had no particular goal in mind beyond each event, assuming every time that this story was the last, that John and I had longer fish to fry. But now it occurred to me that if we combined on just two or three additional mini-sagas, we'd have enough for a collection. So all I had to do was think of two or three more stories.

I don't know how it is with anybody else, but I can never think about what I'm supposed to think about. Dortmunder short stories had come along and come along, never anticipated and never particularly needed, but as soon as I decided I should do another Dortmunder short story, I couldn't think of one. Here I was, most of the way across the stream, with only two flat stones to touch to reach the other bank, and not a flat stone could I find anywhere inside my head (which is usually full of them).

It wasn't until more than four years later, when I'd given up on the idea of a Dortmunder collection or any more Dortmunder short stories for any reason at all, a time when I was supposed to be thinking about something else entirely, when here it came, and it couldn't have been more simple. John would leave home on a little errand, that's all. "Now What?" the story was called, and it was back to Dortmunder working solo, and all he was trying to do was get from point A to point B. Well, he got back to Playboy; he could settle for that.