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The clerk at the Celebration Centre is browsing a weird-ass catalogue called What On Earth.

He’s currently considering a tee-shirt that says FOR BEARS, PEOPLE IN SLEEPING BAGS ARE SOFT TACOS.

He’s interrupted by a guest striding up to the desk… and not just any guest, that KBI inspector.

He looks mad, too—really mad.

Face all red right up to both sides of his shaggy widow’s peak, which has been disarranged in a way that’s almost comic… not that the clerk feels much like laughing.

The inspector’s eyes are wide and bulgy, sort of bloodshot.

The clerk shoves the retail porn catalogue under the desk’s overhang in a hurry and asks how he can help.

“The chairs are gone.”

“What chairs, sir?”

“The folding chairs.

I had four folding chairs from the conference room, or business center, or whatever you call it.

I had them set up just where I wanted them, and they’re gone!”

“Housekeeping must have—”

“I had the Do Not Disturb sign on my door!” Jalbert shouts.

A woman on her way to the gift shop gives him a startled look.

“Those signs’re pretty old,” the clerk says, wondering if the inspector is armed.

“Sometimes they fall off and the chambermaids don’t see—”

“The sign didn’t fall off!” Jalbert doesn’t actually know if it did or not; he is too upset.

He was looking forward to those chairs.

“I’ll have someone get—”

“Don’t bother, I’ll do it myself.” Jalbert makes an effort to lower his voice, aware that he’s gone a little over the top, but still, to come into his little suite and find those chairs gone! It was a shock.

He goes down to the business center and takes five chairs.

Only two in one hand and three in the other feels wrong.

Unbalanced.

He debates taking a sixth, or putting one back.

It’s a hard choice, because he keeps thinking of Coughlin, how insolent he looked when he said If you want to keep me in Kansas, arrest me.

Then the crowning, infuriating touch: You can’t.

Infuriating because true.

Only for now, he thinks.

Jalbert decides on four chairs, and counts steps back to the elevator by fours, under his breath: “One two three four, two two three four, three two three four.” He knows the counting thing is peculiar, but it’s also harmless.

A way to soothe counterproductive thoughts and clear the mind.

He’s up to nine two three four when he reaches the desk, a total of thirty-six.

To the clerk he says, “I was out of line.

I apologize.”

“No problem,” the clerk says, and watches Inspector Jalbert walk to the elevators.

He seems to be muttering under his breath.

The clerk thinks that it takes all kinds to make a world.

To him this is an original thought.

He thinks it would look good on a tee-shirt.