Janice was Steve’s stepdaughter. Her mother was the sister of Cecil, the local radio host. Steve and Cecil did not get along at all. It was something of a local joke, although Jackie guessed it was less funny if it was your family that had that kind of feud in it. She’d always felt bad for Janice, but Janice wasn’t the type of kid who let you feel bad for her.

“So you know about these papers?” Jackie said.

“KING CITY,” the proffered paper said.

“Oh boy, yes,” Steve said. “Lots of folks have been getting those. Some fellow with a tan jacket, oh, what’s his name? I forget. I keep forgetting a lot about him. He’s been handing them out. I saw some folks at the bowling alley the other night. A whole team on lane nineteen just sitting there crying and clutching their left fists. I saw some of the stockers at the Ralphs standing in front of empty shelves, staring to the sky, small slips of paper hanging from their slack fingers. Every now and then I’d see someone shake the paper away, and it would spiral toward the linoleum floor, only to flutter back up into their hands, and collectively they would moan.

“Once you get one, you can’t let go of it. Suppose that guy handing them out has a reason, but it might just be a hobby. I’ve been thinking of taking up beekeeping, but, you know, bees need a lot of space to run around and they’re expensive unless you keep them on a farm, and then what’s the point of having a pet you can’t keep in your apartment?”

This was how it was what with Steve. The important bit buried in a lot of meandering digression.

“A man in a tan jacket?”

“Sure. Holding a deerskin suitcase. Don’t remember much more about him than that. I took a picture of him. I think I have it around here somewhere.”

He stuck the upper half of his body into a shelf and started shuffling papers around. As he searched, several other stacks of paper fell on the floor, and he came back up, sweating a bit from the exertion.

Jackie felt repulsed by Steve. She had no idea why. He had never been anything other than kind to her, kind to everybody. As the old saying went: “Not all windowless vans have residential surveillance equipment.” In other words, not everything can be as good as it seems.

“Well, isn’t that funny? I just can’t seem to keep it in my mind where that photo is,” Steve said. “It’s the darndest th——Whoa!”

He waved his arms at her. She held her hands up, fingers splayed. The paper dropped, and dropped again, and dropped again.

“You were almost leaning on the popcorn machine there,” Steve said. “Don’t want to do that.”