[It's a leading question, Noct, the point is to get you talking. Don't worry, it makes conversations a whole lot easier, too. Watch. Without missing a beat—as if shifting conversations to strangers in bars is a perfectly normal thing to do on a night like this—he leans against the bar and spreads his hands in front of him. What can you do.]

Too bad for me, I'm just looking for a regular. He usually runs out of the Odyssey, but I haven't seen him in days. I'm starting to wonder if he's gotten himself pushed out.

[Or—as he's working on the assumption—he's gottan ambitious enough to try cutting deals with the eager newbies and letting them do his work for him while he keeps off the grid. An exponentially moving distribution of poison drugs during the biggest party week of the year makes a small problem into a larger one pretty fast. Chasing the trail backward has to start somewhere.]