Film-noir detective voice: Eli

Film-noir detective voice, gravelly, world-weary, and fatalistic

Prompt: Low, smoky, and soaked in old regret, this male voice narrates a case like it already knows how it ends. Gravelly and world-weary, it mutters hard-boiled truths dipped in cheap whiskey, every metaphor a bruise. There is a rain-on-the-window, nobody-is-innocent fatalism to it. It sounds like a voice from a dim office at 2 a.m., watching the neon bleed through the blinds, expecting the worst and rarely disappointed.

Script: She walked into my office like trouble that had learned to wear good perfume. They always do. Said she needed my help finding her husband. In this city, husbands don't go missing, they go hiding. And usually for a reason. I told her my rate. She didn't blink.