“There’s the Mad River, in town.”

He made a face. “I make white paper. Nothing but. You don’t make white paper from water the color of cherry goddamn soda. I’d have to put all kinds of bleach in the stock, and that’s bad for the paper, and bad for the river. The little bit I use, I don’t like. That’s why I got the dead fish watermark, to remind me not to fuck up.”

I’m sure there have been drug dealers and serial killers with environmental consciences, but I couldn’t make myself believe that Dave had any active involvement in the plot Rico wanted to bust. For the first time I recalled that this was where the paper was from, and I understood that someone like Dave could make paper that, no matter what its subsequent history, would always bear his magical imprint, would always name him, and this place, as its origin. In spite of his opinion of my talent, I wanted to tell him that his paper remembered him. Then I looked around again, and decided that he already knew that.

In an elaborately patient voice, Rico interrupted. “I don’t suppose you remember who you sold this particular kind of paper to.”

Dave lifted the awning of his eyebrow. “That batch was five hundred sheets. That’s two thousand quarter-sheets, which is my usual trim for writing paper. A little under fourteen reams, if anybody bought it by the ream, which nobody does. I sell it a couple hundred quarter-sheets at a time to shops around town, then some to the big merchant families and business houses, and to individuals sometimes in quantities of maybe twenty-five or fifty. Hell, the town council’s bought stationery from me. Do you want the whole list?”

Rico sighed. “Not really, but I’ll take it, anyway. I have to check ‘em all.”

Dave looked closely at her, for the first time, I think. “What the hell is this about?”

“Somebody is making and distributing some stuff that kills people, and I want to find and stop the somebody. That note on your paper was part of a trap laid to kill a guy who might have talked about it. Instead, it almost got my associate and me last night.” She nodded in my direction.

“My paper?” Dave echoed, his voice surprisingly small. He looked as if someone had told him his kid had shot a liquor store clerk. He shook his head slowly, twice. Then he glowered at Rico. “That’s the other reason I live out here. I forget it sometimes.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because people suck.” He turned his back on us and headed for a flight of wooden stairs up to the loft. “I’ll get you my customer list. Then you can get out of here.”