Farther down, before the shaving gels and creams and razors and trimmers, are sample bottles of cologne, tethered to a shelf by thin metal cables. He sniffs at the nozzles, not sure what to be smelling for. He settles on the Drakkar Noir, its French-sounding name seeming more refined than Adidas or Playboy. He untucks the shirtfront and stuffs the bottle under the fabric, blindly aiming the nozzle at his left armpit.

“Don’t move.”

The rent-a-cop has assumed the self-seriousness of a real cop, posing at the end of the aisle. Thumbs hooked in his utility belt, he approaches Henry, who is now shocked frozen in this compromising position. To make things worse, the panic and embarrassment twitching over his face can’t possibly help him look less red-handed. He goes ahead and degrades himself even further when he tries explaining himself, the situation—just a little mixed-up misunderstanding—by calling the man sir. Like a fugitive spotlit, surrounded, and setting his weapon to the ground, he slowly withdraws the cologne, showing it’s still secured to the shelf.

“I’m not—I wasn’t stealing, wouldn’t steal anything, not ever, sir. Just testing it, I swear—sir? Just, please?”

The security guard deflates like a fisherman, his line snapped by the first keeper all week. Instead of sir, he refers to Henry as bud.

“Had to check. Saw you and you looked, well,” he says, wiggling a walkie-talkie antenna at a black plastic half sphere screwed into the ceiling. “You know.”

Henry does know. This means the rent-a-cop has probably been watching Henry from the moment he’d stomped in, which also means Henry isn’t fooling anyone. Even in this suit, he must look like some deadbeat. Loser. Degenerate. Grifter. Like a fool, he thanks the security guard before shuffling away to grab Junior’s dinner, a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs. He sets this and a Snickers for himself onto the counter. Without looking up, he tells the cashier he needs to put five bucks on his prepay. Gets five digits in only to get thinking, only to reconsider. Jorge won’t call. Those forty dollars are gone, which makes these five all the more precious.

“Never mind,” he says.

“Need help?”

The cashier’s skin is the color and texture of a pecan, imbuing her with a windblown yet sturdy air of knowing. The curls of her weave sit in a lush purple nest on her shoulder. Her question has only one answer, but all Henry manages is, “Huh?”

“With your tie.” She points at the ribbons dangling from his neck. “My ex never got the hang of it either.”