There's a rumor going that Justin started a documentary. Before he disappeared, people like Janet Jackson dropped hints on stupid second-rate talk shows about Justin's interest in film, how they'd seen a bit of his new hobby at work.

"It's not a new thing," she told the latest version of Oprah.

There's another rumor floating around that where ever Justin is, he has someone tape everything he does. One thirty-second clip of film made it onto an auction site, which Lance snapped up as soon as he saw it, went so far as to call the seller and demand a chance to buy it straight up for twenty times the minimum price.

It's just Justin, smiling and in a stupid looking shirt, coming out of some house. The sun's glaring into the camera lens so really, the whole background is blurry, the only thing you can make out is Justin's face, and a few people behind him, jostling affectionately. The house is white. That's all Lance can tell.

Most of Lance's files are nicely labeled with a black felt pen: year, date, and contents, right on their covers. The contents are a mess, though, piled up in haphazard fashion around him a different order daily. A lot of the time, he just stares down at it helplessly. As if none of it will ever get structure.

This tape, the one of Justin, goes into one of two files that have nothing written on them, a file that's rapidly becoming a box. Lance would label it "Justin appearances", except that makes it seem like he's still doing the talk show circuit, when really he's being spotted in the tabloids like some modern day Elvis.

Justin's current whereabouts don't really have any bearing on the book, except that they do. Because if he can find Justin, then he'll be able to begin.

The other blank file is much slimmer, one folder of rapidly aging police reports and private investigators' findings. Lance doesn't know whether to label this "Chris's appearances" or "Chris's disappearances" so it has just a sticky on it with his name instead, like by leaving the folder pristine it loses its permanence.

Nothing's gone into that folder for a while, and Lance never opens it. All it really proves, all Lance has been able to prove, is that Chris didn't stick around for the aftermath.

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