Chili John gets the half-nod from the bartender and follows his thumb: there, obscured by palmetto. Yes. He drops a Sacajawea in a puddle of beer and tries on his most casual mosey.

He stops at the corner table, hooks his thumbs in his belt. “They say you’re the one.”

The man pulls at his Miller Lite.

“Are they right?” Chili John brushes one holster. “About that?”

Silence.

“They say,” he clears his throat, “they say you’re the man knows Greg Fu.”

The man looks up at last, and in his eyes is the look of a raw and ancient doom.