A funny thing happened after I posted my story about ice cream cones.

People started talking about ice cream.

Not counterfeit money.

Not Hong Kong.

Not the Secret Service.

Not the possibility of floating down a river in Bangkok.

Ice cream.

I sent the story to the widow of a dear friend who died a few years ago and broke everyone’s heart. Her husband had been crazy about two things: movies and ice cream.

I suspect she smiled.

I also sent the story to a lovely lady who lives across from our home in Edmonton. She has become a dear friend. I promised her that when Kate and I return to Edmonton for a few weeks in July, we will find some excellent ice cream.

That got me thinking.

For years I believed the story was about counterfeit money.

Apparently it wasn’t.

Apparently it was about people.

The counterfeiting part of the story was real enough. Years ago, after Kate and I were handed a counterfeit hundred-dollar bill in Hong Kong, I ended up speaking with a Secret Service agent.

He told me about a Thai counterfeiter in Bangkok who had produced remarkably good American bills.

At the time, according to the agent, the Secret Service had no jurisdiction in Thailand. If someone printed counterfeit American money there, there was not much the Secret Service could do about it.

Naturally, being a writer, I began asking foolish questions.

“What would it cost to buy a hundred thousand dollars in counterfeit money?”

“About twenty thousand,” he said.

That got my attention.

In those days, I could have flown to Thailand, bought a hundred thousand dollars in funny money, and made a feature film in Hong Kong about the whole operation.

When the film was finished, I might have sold it in North America for a million dollars.

This struck me as a perfectly reasonable business plan.

The Secret Service agent said it was a great idea.

Then he added that unless I knew exactly what I was doing, the bad guys might rob me and toss me into the river that runs through Bangkok.

That struck me as a less attractive business plan.

Kate and I once stayed at the hotel where Somerset Maugham lived for years. It overlooks that river.

One morning I went for a walk along the water.

I remember seeing a body float by.

That sort of thing has a way of reducing one’s enthusiasm for independent film financing.

The Secret Service agent also told me that if I returned to the United States with even one counterfeit bill, I would go to jail.

This seemed like another flaw in the proposal.

So I abandoned the project.

Over the years, I heard that Thailand eventually changed its laws regarding counterfeit currency. I also heard that some of the original fellows involved in the operation were no longer alive.

I once asked the Secret Service agent if he knew anything about that.

He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Which may be the finest Secret Service sentence ever spoken.

For a long time, I thought all of that was the point of the story.

The counterfeit bill.

The Hong Kong office.

The Bangkok river.

The abandoned movie.

The sensible decision not to become either a criminal or a corpse.

But now I am not so sure.

Because when I sent the ice cream story to people I care about, nobody wrote back asking about counterfeit money.

They thought about ice cream.

They thought about husbands.

They thought about old friends.

They thought about summer afternoons.

They thought about promises.

That is one of the strange things about stories.

You may write one thinking it is about crime, money, and international intrigue.

Thirty years later, you discover it was about buying ice cream for someone you love.

The older I get, the more I suspect most good stories work that way.

They begin with something dramatic.

A counterfeit bill.

A dangerous river.

A Secret Service agent who knows more than he is saying.

Then, if you’re lucky, the story grows older with you.

It softens.

It deepens.

It stops being about the clever thing you almost did.

It becomes about the people you still miss.

And the people you are still lucky enough to visit.

This summer, when Kate and I return to Edmonton, I intend to keep my promise.

I will buy our friend some ice cream.

Something good.

Possibly extravagant.

And if the price seems ridiculous, I will not complain.

Compared to jail, it will still be a bargain.