The bar was nearly empty, save for the bartender wiping down glasses and the flickering neon sign casting dull red light across the scuffed floor. Schlatt sat at the far end, hunched over a half-empty tumbler, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up, tie hanging loose like a noose forgotten. Smoke curled from the cigarette burning between his fingers, trailing up into the stale air.

The door creaked open behind him. A soft jingle of the bell. He didn’t look. He didn’t have to. He felt it—the shift in the silence, the faint pull of presence settling on the stool beside him.

“You ever think,” he said, voice low and edged with something bitter, “about how quiet things get right before they go to hell?”