Trade picked up as the afternoon wore on, with a steady stream of people finding their way in and out of the shop. A number of them were just browsing, but I’m used to that; it is, after all, part of what a secondhand bookstore is all about. So is chitchat, and I got involved in a little of that, including a spirited discussion of what modern New York might have been like if the Dutch had retained their footing in the New World. My partner in that particular conversation was an elderly gentleman with a neat white beard and piercing blue eyes who had been browsing in the Old New York section, and damned if he didn’t wind up spending close to two hundred dollars before he left.

As soon as he was out the door, a big man in a dark gray sharkskin suit drifted over to the counter and rested a meaty forearm on it. “Well, now,” he said. “I got to hand it to you, Bernie. This place is turnin’ into a regular literary saloon.”

“Hello, Ray,” I said. “Always a pleasure.”

“That was real interestin’,” he said. “What you an’ Santa Claus there were talkin’ about.”

“Don’t you think he was a little thin for Santa?”

“He’ll fill out, same as everybody else. An’ there’s plenty of time. How many shoppin’ days until Christmas?”

“I can never keep track.”

“How about burglin’ days, Bernie? How many of those between now an’ when Santa pops in through the skylight?”

“Don’t you mean down the chimney?”

“Whatever, Bernie. You’d be the expert on that, wouldn’t you?” He flashed a grin that made the sharkskin suit seem singularly appropriate. “But it makes you think, what you an’ the old guy were talkin’ about. We could be standin’ here, the both of us, an’ we could be talkin’ back an’ forth in Dutch.”

“We could.”

“All these books’d be in Dutch, huh? I couldn’t read a one of ’em. Of course, if I was talkin’ Dutch with you, I guess I’d be able to read it, too. I’d have to if I was studyin’ for the Sergeant’s Exam, say, because all the questions’d be in Dutch.” He frowned. “An’ instead of cabdrivers who can’t understand English, you’d get cabdrivers who couldn’t understand Dutch, an’ either way nine out of ten of ’em wouldn’t know how to get to Penn Station. Be a whole new ball game, wouldn’t it?”

“It would.”

“But it sure is interestin’, Bern. I was this close to hornin’ in on your conversation, but then I figured why louse up a sale for you? You’re a bookseller, you’re well on your way to becomin’ a literary saloon keeper, what do you need with a cop buttin’ in and crampin’ your style?”

“What indeed?”

He propped an elbow on the counter, placed his chin in his cupped hand. “You know, Bernie,” he said, “you were talkin’ a blue streak with Santa, an’ now it’s all you can do to hold up your end of the conversation. I see you got yourself a cat, stretched out in the window there tryin’ to get hisself a tan. He got your tongue or somethin’?”

“No.”

“Then how come I can’t get a thing out of you but yes, no, an’ maybe?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe it’s because I’m trying to figure out what you’re doing here, Ray.”

“Bern,” he said, looking hurt. “I thought we were friends.”

“I suppose we are, but your friendly visits tend to have an ulterior motive.”

He nodded. “‘Ulterior.’ I always liked that word. You never hear it without hearin’ ‘motive’ right after it. What’s it mean, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, and reached for the dictionary. There’s a three-foot shelf of them in the Reference section, but I keep one close at hand, and I flipped through it now. “‘Ulterior,’” I read. “‘One: lying beyond or on the farther side.’”

“Like the cat,” he suggested. “Lyin’ on the farther side of that row of shelves.”

“‘Two: later, subsequent, or future. Three: further; more remote; esp., beyond what is expressed, implied, or evident; undisclosed, as an ulterior motive.’”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “That sounds about right. Anyway, that’s what you think, huh? That I got one of those?”

“Don’t you?”

“Maybe I do,” he said, “an’ then again maybe I don’t. It all depends how you answer a question.”

“What’s the question?”

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Bernie? Are you losin’ it?”

“That’s the question?”

“No,” he said, “that ain’t the question. It’s just the kind of thoughts go through the mind of a guy that’s known you a long time, an’ never yet knew you to make a habit of steppin’ on your own dick. So that ain’t the question. Here’s the question.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Why’d you call the guy?”

“What guy, Ray?”

“ ‘What guy, Ray?’ I don’t even need to check my notebook, because it’s the kind of name tends to stick in your mind. Martin Gilmartin, that’s what guy. Why the hell did you call him on the phone last night?”

There was suddenly a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if I’d somehow got hold of a bad burrito. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

I couldn’t have been very convincing, because Ray Kirschmann didn’t even trouble to roll his eyes. “I won’t ask you why you broke into his place,” he said, “anymore’n I’d ask that cat over there why he catches mice. It’s his nature. He’s a cat, same as you’re a burglar.”

“I’m retired.”

“Yeah, right, Bernie. You could no more retire from bein’ a burglar than he could retire from bein’ a cat. It’s your nature, it’s what you are. So you don’t have to explain why you robbed the guy’s apartment. But why did you call him up afterward and taunt him about it?”

“Who says I did?”

“He says you did. Are you saying you didn’t?”

“What else does he say?”

“That at first he didn’t know what to make of it. Then he took a good look around the apartment, and he found out he’d been robbed.”

“That’s the second time you’ve used that word,” I said, “and you should know better. You know what robbery is. It’s the taking of money or property through force or violence, or the threat of force or violence.”

“Here I am,” he said, “back at the Academy, listenin’ to a lecture.”

“Well, it’s maddening,” I said. “‘He found out he’d been robbed.’ You can’t find out you’ve been robbed because you’re aware of it while it’s going on. Somebody sticks a gun in your face and tells you to give him your money or he’ll blow your head off, that’s robbery. I never robbed anyone in my life.”

“You done, Bern?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but words mean a lot to me. How did Mr. Gilmartin discover he’d been burglarized?”

“His property was missing.”

“What kind of property?”

“As if you didn’t know.”

“Humor me, Ray.”

“His baseball cards.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said. “What do you bet his mother threw them out?”

“Bernie—”

“That’s what happened to mine. I came home from college and they were gone, and when I blew up she stood there and quoted St. Paul at me. Something about putting away childish things.”

“Mr. Gilmartin had quite the collection.”

“So did I,” I remembered. “I had a ton of comic books, too. I liked the ones that taught you something about history. Crime Does Not Pay, that was my favorite.”

“A shame you never got the message.”

“As far as I could make out,” I said, “the message seemed to be that crime paid just fine until the last frame. She threw out my comic books, too. You know something? It still bothers me.”

“Bernie—”

“So I can imagine how Mr. Gilmartin must feel, and I’m not saying it was his mother who did it, but I think he ought to rule out the possibility before he goes around accusing other people. I can tell you one thing for sure, Ray. I had nothing to do with it.”

“You denyin’ that you called him last night?”

How could he possibly have known about the phone call?

“Maybe it’s not a good idea for me to confirm or deny anything,” I said slowly. “Maybe I ought to talk to my lawyer first.”