“You’re already telling me to get out of it.”

“Am I supposed to support you in a doomed enterprise? I’m not in business for my health.”

“But,” I said.

“But what?”

“But you’re a patron of the arts,” I said. “I saw your name in the Times last week. You donated a painting to a fund-raising auction to benefit the New York Public Library.”

“My accountant advised it,” he said. “Explained to me how I’ll save more in taxes than I’d have made selling the painting.”

“Still, you have literary interests. Bookstores like this one are a cultural asset, as important in their own way as the library. You can hardly fail to appreciate that. As a collector—”

“An investor.”

I pointed at “B” Is for Burglar. “An investment?”

“Of course, and a hell of a good one. Women crime writers are a hot item right now. Alibi was less than fifteen dollars when it was published a dozen or so years ago. Do you know what a mint copy with dust jacket will bring now?”

“Not offhand.”

“Somewhere around eight-fifty. So I’m buying Grafton, I’m buying Nancy Pickard, I’m buying Linda Barnes. I have a standing order at Murder Ink for every first novel by a female author, because how can you tell who’s going to turn out to be important? Most of them won’t ever amount to much, but this way I don’t have to worry about missing the occasional book that jumps from twenty dollars to a thousand in a few years’ time.”

“So you’re just interested in investment,” I said.

“Absolutely. You don’t think I read this crap, do you?”

I pushed his credit card across the counter, followed it with his drivers license. I picked up his check and tore it in half, then in half again.

“Get out of here,” I said.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing’s the matter with me,” I said. “I sell books to people who enjoy reading them. It’s anachronistic, I know, but it’s what I do. I also sell them to people who get satisfaction out of collecting rare copies of their favorite authors, and probably to a few visually oriented souls who just like the way good books look on the wall flanking the fireplace. I may even have a few customers who buy with an eye toward investment, although it strikes me as an uncertain way of providing for one’s old age. But I haven’t yet had a customer who was openly contemptuous of what he was buying, and I don’t think I want that kind of customer. I may not be able to pay the rent, Mr. Stoppelgard, but as long as it’s my store I ought to be able to decide whose check I take.”

“I’ll give you cash.”

“I don’t want your cash either.”

I reached for the book, but he snatched it away from me. “No!” he cried. “I found it and I want it. You have to sell it to me.”

“The hell I do.”

“You do! I’ll file suit if I have to. But I won’t have to, will I?” He got a hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet, slapped it on the counter. “You can keep the change,” he said. “I’m taking the book. If you try to stop me you’ll find yourself charged with assault.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said. “I’m not going to fight you for it. Hold on a second and I’ll get you your change.”

“I told you to keep it. What do I care about the change? I just bought a five-hundred-dollar book for a hundred dollars. You damned fool, you don’t even know how to price your own stock. No wonder you can’t afford the rent.”

“According to Oscar Wilde,” I told Carolyn, “a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. I’d say that fits Borden Stoppelgard well enough. He doesn’t even read the books but he knows what they’re worth. I called a couple of the mystery bookstores, and the son of a bitch is right about the prices. ‘A’ Is for Alibi has been bringing close to a thousand in decent shape. And my copy of Burglar was a five-hundred-dollar book.”

“I have both of them.”

“Really?”

“In paperback.”

“In paperback they’re worth something like a buck apiece.”

“That’s okay, Bern. I wasn’t planning on selling them anyway. I have all the early books in paperback. I didn’t start buying Sue Grafton in hardcover until the book about the photographer who took blackmail shots of the school principal and the nun. I forget the title.”

“‘F’ Is for Stop.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. I think it’s the first book of hers I ever picked up in hardcover. Or was it the one about the exploitative sex therapist?”

“‘G’ Is for Spot?”

“Great book. I know I’ve got that one in hardcover, and I think I’ve got the F one, too, but I didn’t buy them for investment. I just didn’t want to wait a year for them to come out in paperback. Bern? Do you suppose she’s gay?”

“Sue Grafton? Gee, I don’t think so. Isn’t she married?”

She shook her head, impatient. “Not Sue Grafton,” she said. “I’m positive she’s straight. Didn’t I tell you I met her at a signing last spring at Foul Play? Her husband was there, too. Real muscular guy, he looked like he could bench-press a Pontiac. No, I would say she’s definitely straight.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“No lesbian vibes at all. Hundred percent heterosexual, that’s my take on the woman.” She sighed. “What a waste.”

“Well, if she’s straight—”

“Definitely, Bern. No question.”

“Then who were you wondering about?”

“Kinsey.”

“Kinsey?”

“Kinsey Millhone.”

“Kinsey Millhone?”

“What are you, an echo? Yeah, Kinsey Millhone. What’s the matter with you, Bernie? Kinsey Millhone, leading private detective of Santa Teresa, California. Jesus, Bern, don’t you read the books?”

“Of course I read the books. You think Kinsey’s gay?”

“I think there’s a good possibility.”

“She’s divorced,” I said, “and she’s involved with men from time to time, and—”

“Camouflage, Bern. I mean, look at the evidence, okay? She doesn’t care about makeup, she’s got this one all-purpose dress that she’s still wearing ten books into the series, she’s tough-minded, she’s hard-boiled, she’s sensible, she’s logical—”

“Must be a lesbian.”

“My point exactly. God, look at the men she gets involved with, like that shmendrick of a cop. Pure camouflage.” She shrugged. “Now, I can certainly understand why she’d be in the closet. She’d lose a lot of readers otherwise. But who knows what she gets mixed up in between books?”

“Did you ask Sue Grafton?”

“Are you kidding? I could barely bring myself to speak. The last thing I was gonna do was ask her what Kinsey liked to do in bed. She signed her book for me, Bern. In fact, she inscribed it to me personally.”

“That’s great.”

“Isn’t it? I said, ‘Miss Grafton, my name’s Carolyn, I’m a real Kinsey Millhone fan.’ And she inscribed it, ‘To Carolyn, a real Kinsey Millhone fan.’ ”

“That’s pretty imaginative.”

“I’ll say. Well, the woman’s a writer, Bern. Anyway, I’ve got a signed copy of one of her books, but I don’t suppose it’ll ever be worth a thousand dollars, because there must be a ton of them. The line that day reached all the way to the corner. It’s the book about the doctor. Have you read it yet?”

“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?”