“Just like that?”

“No, not always, just the luck of the day. That’s why I love this business.”

“A question. That pristine copy of The Catcher in the Rye you mentioned. If you decided to sell it, what would you ask?”

“So, you’re liking this business too, huh?”

“No, not at all. I have no brain for business. Just curious, that’s all.”

“Last year I turned down eighty grand. It’s not for sale, but if I were somehow forced to put it on the market I would start at one hundred.”

“Not a bad deal.”

“You said you wanted to see it.”

Mercer shrugged as if she were indifferent and offered a casual “Sure, if you’re not too busy.” It was apparent Bruce wanted to show off his books.

“Never too busy for you. Follow me.” They walked past the stairs, through the children’s section, and to the very back of the store. The stairs going down were behind a locked door that was out of the way and gave every appearance of being rarely used. A camera watched it from a high corner. A security sensor was attached to its top. With a key, Bruce unlocked a dead bolt and turned an old knob, which was not locked. He pulled the door open and turned on a light. “Careful,” he said as he started down. Mercer hung back, careful as he said. He flipped another switch at the bottom of the stairs.

The basement was divided into at least two sections. The front and larger section included the stairs and the metal door that connected to Noelle’s, along rows of old wooden shelves sagging with thousands of unwanted books and galleys and advance reading copies. “It’s known as the graveyard,” Bruce said, waving an arm at the mess. “Every store has a junk room.” They took a few steps toward the rear of the basement and stopped at a cinder-block wall that had obviously been added long after the construction of the building. It ran the height and width of the room and seemed to have been wedged snugly into place. It had another metal door with a keypad beside it. As Bruce punched in the code, Mercer noticed a camera hanging from an old rafter and pointed at the door. Something buzzed and clicked, and they stepped through the door as Bruce turned on the lights. The temperature was noticeably cooler.

The room appeared to be completely self-enclosed, with rows of shelves against cinder-block walls, a concrete floor with a slick finish, and a lowered ceiling made of some fibrous material Mercer had no chance of describing. But she filmed it for her experts. Within the hour they would speculate that the room was forty feet in width and about the same in depth; a spacious room with a handsome table in the center; eight-foot ceilings; tight joints; every indication of a room that was airtight, secure, and fireproof.

Bruce said, “Books are damaged by light, heat, and moisture, so all three must be controlled. In here there’s almost no humidity and the temperature is always fifty-five degrees. No sunlight, obviously.”