“No.” He knew I was testing him. Avenue C was my quick invention, since Alphabetland was deep under water. “Riverhome. Sometime after Hasan, they commandeered a big old barge and built dome shelters on it. Only every time a storm came, it’d wipe the barge clean.” He laughed, like recalling good times. “They’re still around. Got a fancy glass building over west now, at the end of the High Line. They raise hens and goats out on the elevated, drive ’em into the second-floor lobby when it blows. I go down and visit when I can.”

“Risky. I mean, all that glass by the river?”

“Feet in the river, now,” he grinned. “But the glass is hurricane-safe. Supposedly.”

Riverhome was a cooperative den, no real leader. It had the rep of being a transitional place: they wanted you to get back out into the world, such as it was, to fend for yourself. I could see how this guy might be telling the truth. We looked each other over again, in silence.

Finally, he asked, “You got a name?”

Not much to lose, and maybe something good to gain. “Glimmer.”

“Nice. Suits you. Den tag?”

I noticed how he’d slipped into den shorthand, leaving out the extra words. But it could still be a ploy. “Yeah.”

“And before?”

I shrugged.

“Don’t know or ain’t sayin’?”

I shrugged again.

“Okay.” He sat back, like grilling me had worn him out. “Now, about this book.”

“I . . .”

“No, listen. You go home and read it first. Or if it’s too hard, come back and we’ll decipher it together. Then we can talk about selling it.”

“I need the credit.”

“Turn it in to your tellers.” So he did know the system. His open gaze had turned faintly challenging.

“They’d just add it to the cook stove.”

“Not if you told them it was worth something.”

“You know why I can’t.”

He dipped his head. “Probably I do.”

“Besides, what do you care if I read it or not?”

“It’s a thing with me.” Then, quick as it had come, the challenge eased off. He let his mad grin rebloom. “I’m the last champion of the printed word, doncha know? Oops.” He stood up, looking past me and gone all business. “Give me a minute, will you?”

A customer had come into the tent. I moved aside to study the shelves, slipping from view as Daniel went to greet a slight man in a brimmed hat and a long raincoat, buttoned and with the collar turned up past his ears, like he was chilled, even in the sodden heat.

“. . . ephemera . . . old . . . legal documents?”

I caught only a few muttered words, but the last made my skin prickle. I watched past the edge of a bookcase as Daniel led the guy to a row of boxes beside the open tent flap.