“Which?” said Mr. Lyle.

“You’ve read this one?”

He nodded. “The bit about the maid shaking the pillowcase, and the pistol falling out and going off.”

“You read Spanish?” he asked after a moment.

I looked up and closed the book. The title was Cronica de una Muerte Anunciada. “Is that so odd?”

“Some. It’s the lingua franca, or one of them, but most of the people who use it can’t read it. Many of them can’t read at all.” I remembered my mood suddenly. “I don’t imagine it bothers them. As long as they can count.”

“No, they’re perfectly happy. They have no idea there are things like this out there.”

He might have been talking about the Marquez book, or the library, but I saw something in his hand, and turned to look. It was one of the books on wind-powered generators.

I put the novel back and stood where I was, my arms slack at my sides. “I saw them the first time.”

“I was watching you when you did, too. Once you remembered that you shouldn’t react, you had a very good stone face. What does this mean to you?” He gestured again with the book.

“It’s illegal as hell to have it,” I said, my eyes wide. “Isn’t it? Any of those books.”

“And that’s what impressed you? The wickedness? Maybe it was. But tell me, why is it illegal?”

Well, there was a limit to how brainless I could be expected to be on the subject. I said, “In a town where the City controllers have an energy monopoly? Information about free, unregulated, untaxable energy? Heck, I can’t imagine.”

He smiled. “And don’t you know anyone who buys untaxed methanol? Or has a portable generator with no registration tag in the cellar?”

I raised my hands and opened them; the international symbol of helplessness. “Afraid not. If you’re looking for households to raid. I guess you’ll have to find your own.”

“My own would be a good place to start. But you’ve forgotten, I think. I rode in your elevator.”

I had forgotten. “My elevator?” I asked, blinking.

“Up and down. I was glad you’d left the call button working on your floor, after I had a look at the stairwell. But it took us half an hour to make it run from inside.”

If it had ever occurred to me that I’d be escaping from my own floor, I’d have torn out the damned call button. If I’d realized I’d be facing this exceedingly large person who held a copy of Running on the Wind like a smoking gun with my fingerprints on it, I’d have jumped off the roof before I let him ride in my elevator.

I walked past him to the window seat and occupied it. There wasn’t a chair nearby, and I thought he’d have to stand. “All right,” I said. “What, do you need your VCR repaired?”

Mr. Lyle sat on the rug at my feet. It was like being attended by a folded cast-iron pillar. “A twelve volt to AC inverter, actually. Can you do it, do you think?”