Garrett sat back down in the booth but stayed turned toward the door. Harold disappeared back into the kitchen and the skillet went with him. Dave Pelman very quietly moved his stool 4 inches back from the counter. Brenda kept her hand near the bat but didn't pick it up.
The highway outside was empty. The desert was doing what it always did existing at its own frequency indifferent. The fluorescent light above booth nine hummed on steady, now reliable in a way it hadn't been an hour ago. Headlights swung through the broken door frame.
A car coming slow off the highway. Gravel under tires. The headlights held for a moment sweeping, searching then went dark. Nobody in the diner moved.
The silence lasted exactly 43 seconds and every one of them was its own separate experience. Leo counted them without meaning to the way you count things when your body is looking for something to do with its hands. Corey's breathing was audible. Dave's was not because Dave had stopped breathing around second 15.
A door opened outside. Footsteps on gravel single set medium pace not cautious but not rushed. The door frame filled with a man. Torres was maybe 35 wide across the shoulders with a face that had been hit more than once and had reorganized itself around the fact.
He was wearing a flannel shirt open over a white tee and he had his phone in one hand and he stopped in the doorway and his eyes went in rapid sequence to the broken glass on the floor to Brenda to Leo and Corey at the counter to Dave to Harold silhouette in the kitchen door and then to Declan Reed standing 4 feet away perfectly still looking at him. Torres's jaw tightened. His eyes moved to the booth to Mike to Bobby to Garrett to the patches. His phone was still in his hand.
Nobody said anything for three full seconds. Then Mike Callahan said from booth nine in exactly the same quiet voice he'd used on Leo and Corey an hour ago. You got a call you need to make. Torres looked at him.