The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown

21

What, you wanted more than three little asterisks?

Well, I’m afraid that’s all you get. Whether you bought the ebook or the paperback or the hardcover trade edition, you would have received the same troika of typographical stars for Chapter Twenty. That’s even true if you went whole hog and put the deluxe signed-and-numbered Limited Edition on your American Express card.

Three asterisks, like it or lump it.

See, if you wanted the details, the blow-by-blow account, so to speak, you would have had to spring for the signed and lettered Collector’s Edition, limited to 26 copies (as in A to Z). Handsomely illustrated, sumptuously bound in glove leather, housed in a custom-made titanium case outfitted with a combination lock.

The price? Well, really, what difference does it make? All 26 copies were spoken for well in advance of publication. There’s always the chance one will turn up in the aftermarket, but—

No, just a joke. There is no lettered edition, no spelled-out version of those asterisks.

There are, even in this confessional age, matters one keeps to oneself.