The Secret Police—who were standing in Diane’s doorway only seconds after she had said “Secret Police” into the poorly hidden microphone mounted above her refrigerator—had said they would look for him.

“We’re looking for him now,” they had said, standing completely still. A helicopter had flown over the house, but this had been unrelated. Helicopters were almost always flying over the house.

Helicopters keep us free, the house had thought.

HELICOPTERS KEEP US FREE, the billboards all over town said.

Helicopters keep us free, the Sheriff’s Secret Police had said to Diane then, in her kitchen, and also during all routine traffic stops and at community events and through bullhorns mounted atop cruisers cruising through quiet neighborhoods on Sunday mornings.

She had shown the police the paper with “KING CITY” written all over it.

One of the officers had held the paper to his face and then showed it to another officer, who had smelled it and then dropped it to the floor, where another officer had belly-crawled by quickly with a clear plastic bag and thick rubber gloves. The crawling officer had grabbed the paper with the gloved hand, put it in the plastic bag, sealed it, and written “nope!” on the bag in black marker. The officer had belly-crawled away, leaving the bag behind.

It didn’t look like they were going to help her at all. The next day she had gotten up early and taken a taxi to the bus station.

As the bus drove on, she tried to sleep but could not. She urged herself to hold still, but would eventually feel an itch on her side and would have to start over. The bus kept its lateral trajectory, which felt flat and straight. Every time she squinted out her viewing slot, she saw desert sameness.

Her phone’s battery was almost dead, even though she had charged it before leaving the house. Anyway, it had no signal to call out or in. She wished she had brought a municipally approved book to read, like Vacation by Deb Olin Unferth or The Complete Plays and Verse of Kurt Russell.

The man across the aisle never moved. His legato breaths stayed constant, a windy metronome.

The bus had been in motion, nonstop, for several hours, and she had not been able to sleep or read or use her phone. There was no visual complexity to the passing scenery or visceral texture to the drive. She was thankful for the man with the lettuce tattoo. She loved him, this man. He was, aesthetically and aurally, perfect. She loved him the way one loves an old bridge or a wool sweater or the sound of a growing tulip.