“If I were you I’d stay away from his town.” He pointed at her hand. She held up the paper.

“King City?” Jackie asked.

“KING CITY,” the paper confirmed.

“He’s here because of Diane, I think,” he said.

“Diane Crayton?”

“Don’t know if he’s helping or hunting her, but he certainly always seems to be lurking around wherever she is.”

“Diane Crayton,” Jackie repeated, in answer to her own question. She considered this information.

“Wouldn’t go anywhere near that town of his if it were me,” he said. “Who knows what you’d find, or what you’d find out and then wish you hadn’t.”

He picked up a Styrofoam cup full of horchata and took a long slurp from it, his eyes on where the man may or may not have been running.

“Mostly we don’t get destroyed,” John said. “Mostly we destroy ourselves.”

Another car pulled into the lot. It was a well-preserved Chrysler from at least a couple if not a few decades past. Out of it came a woman about which much the same could be said.

“Mom?” Jackie said, as the woman entered Jerry’s Tacos.

Jackie’s mom smiled. She was wearing the exact same clothes as she had been that morning.

“Hello, John. How goes the farming?”

“Till we get some of that federal water here, mostly I grow imaginary corn. Grows just as well as anything else. Sells pretty well too. Plus doesn’t take much work.”

“I would not imagine it would, no.”

Her mother said hello to the shadow (Jerry?) behind the glass, glanced over the regular menu, and, not finding anything to her liking, said the code phrase to receive the secret menu.

“I am comfortable with secrets,” she said, then did a quick scan of the proffered yellow page. “Well, I have to say, it all sounds so good. I’ll take the number four, and I’ll never tell a soul.”

“Mom, did you always have that car?”

Her mother looked up from the menu.

“Yes, of course, dear. I’ve only ever had that car. Who ever would have more than one car in their life?”

“Right. Yeah, no. I know.” But why did Jackie not remember it at all?

“Have to get back to farming I suppose,” said John, standing in the open doorway.

“It’s dark out,” Jackie’s mother said.

“Indeed it is,” he said, shading his eyes and looking up at the night sky. “It’s completely dark out. Well, better get back to it.”

He winked, tossed the wrappers and cup into a trash can, and tossed himself back into his truck.

“Mom, you were saying earlier about me as a kid.”

“Yes, dear, suppose I was.” Her mother pulled some napkins from the dispenser and sat down. She didn’t look at Jackie.

“What was that about?”

Her mother laughed. She kept laughing.