then paused as if in thought

“Potato chips are gonna kill me one day,” Reynerd said as he returned to the kitchen. “With me it’s ice cream. More of it in my arteries than blood.” Ethan printed DEAR GEORGE in block letters, then paused as if in thought, and looked around the room. From the kitchen, Reynerd continued: “They say you can’t ever eat just one potato chip, but I can’t ever eat just one bag.” Two crows perched on an iron fence. A strop of sunlight laid a sharp edge on their beaks. White carpet as pristine as winter snow lay wall to wall. The furniture had been upholstered in a black fabric. From a distance, the Formica surface of the dinette table appeared to be black. Everything in the apartment was black-and-white. Ethan printed UNCLE HARRY IS DYING and then paused again, as if a simple message taxed his powers of composition. The movie music, though soft, had a melodramatic flair. A crime picture from the thirties or forties. Reynerd continued to rummage in kitchen cabinets. Here, two doves appeared to clash in midflight. There, an owl stared wide-eyed, as if shocked by what it saw. Outside, wind had returned to the day. A dice-rattle of rain drew Ethan’s attention to the window. From the kitchen came the distinctive rustle of a foil potato-chip bag. [29] PLEASE CALL ME, Ethan printed. Returning to the living room, Reynerd said, “If you’ve got to eat chips, these are the worst because they’re higher in oil.” Ethan looked up and saw a bag of Hawaiian-style chips. Reynerd had inserted his right hand into the open bag. The way that the bag gloved the apple man’s hand struck Ethan as wrong. The guy might have been reaching in for some chips, of course; but an oddness of attitude, a tenseness in him, suggested otherwise.