“What this?” he said and took another bite. “I’ll tell you, that restaurant used to be shit. Little chink musta changed the recipe or something, cuz I can’t stop eating it.”

Lola stepped toward the vehicle, ignoring the wet, smacking ramblings of Jennings. The fat man saw her coming and glared at her as she approached.

Her hands wouldn’t stay still, no matter how hard she squeezed them. The butterflies in her stomach had razor blades for wings.

Keep it together. Just do your job.

Come to Daddy, honey.

Lola wrapped her fingers around the door handle, popped it open, but not enough for the fat man to get out. “You’re not gonna give me any trouble, right?”

His lip trembled and his eyes swam in tears. “W-what’s going on?”

Lola’s brow furrowed. “You’re gonna play the amnesia card? Really?”

“I…I was hungry. M-my stomach...it… Why am I here?” The man looked around at his surroundings, taking deep, guttural breaths. He tried to look at himself, but could only see stomach. His eyes widened when they fell on the dried blood there.

“You really don’t remember?”

“The buffet. I…I remember the food.” Then his face contorted into a painful mess of skin and fat. “My wife…where is she? I remember…no. Oh God…”

Lola reached in, grabbed him by the crook of his elbow. He allowed her to pull him out without fussing. “We found you on the floor at the restaurant. You had bitten the owner on the hand and took a considerable chunk from a woman’s leg. You were like…well, like an animal.” Lola tried to stay professional, but doing so proved difficult. She walked him to the front of the station, ushered him inside.

The station buzzed with commotion. Conversations, shouting, shuffling papers, and the tapping of keyboards mixed together. The man’s eyes darted in all directions, as sweat rolled down his messy face. He dragged his feet as Lola moved him along.

“The blood…my wife. You have to help my wife!” He spun on Lola and she almost went for her gun. “Please…”

“What about your wife?”

“At my house. She made me dinner. Oh God… My wife...I—” Tears streamed down his face, washing clean lines through the grime. The fat on his wrists bulged around the handcuffs like toothless mouths chewing on the metal. The skin was pink and torn in places.

“Let me get these for you.” She knew it was probably against the rules, but she could tell this man was confused. He wasn’t the monster she’d detained at the restaurant. Something was going on at the Paradise Buffet, something sinister. Lola imagined the little Chinese man cackling maniacally over a pot of bubbling concoction, sprinkling anciently evil ingredients into it to feed to the Americans.

Lola stood by the front desk, the clerk looking down at her and her hefty detainee with a smirk on his face. His cheeks bulged with food as he chewed. One hand scratched his chin, the other clutched a half-eaten burger.