Nick thinks, in a rush of dizzying horror-tinged relief, that there should be a saying about not counting your dead friends before they're cold. Grief hits him next, as deeply physical as a sucker-shot to the gut, and he slumps over the bartop with his nails digging into the palms of his hands, blinking desperately. He needs his eyes clear.

But God, these people were his friends. They were as close to family as he'd gotten in years. He can't get his head around it. He doesn't want to get his head around it, not here, in this crowded space full of people he doesn't recognize.

He unknots his hand enough to get pen to napkin, but he doesn't know what to write. There really aren't words, are there?

What happened? He scrawls, finally. When he looks at Larry again his face is set in a terrible, thin-lipped kind of calm, like it's taking everything Nick has just not to come apart.