The smell of bacon was strong in the air at Big Al’s – an all-day diner located far from the Strip in the wasteland of North Las Vegas. Very well-done bacon at that. Crispy, which was to be expected given that the grill was unattended – chipolatas and bacon beginning to burn, fried eggs curling at the edges. There was the smell of coffee too, with rivers of the hot beverage dripping from various points of the countertop and pooling on the linoleum floor. And there were two other smells heavy on the senses inside Big Al’s that day – spent gunpowder and blood.

The silence inside Big Al’s was akin to the unnerving quiet of the battlefield after the guns have died down and the soldiers have retreated to their positions. All that’s left are the dead in no-man’s land, and the remnants of the battle. Today, that battlefield had been Big Al’s. The smells, the eerie silence and the four bodies on the floor were testament to the fact that something catastrophic had just occurred there.