The forest closed around us, the sounds of the crickets vanishing under the crunch of dead leaves underfoot. A few more steps, and Jack continued the discussion as if he’d never left off.

“Drink on a job? Big no-no. But sometimes? Don’t have a choice. Can’t always have a cola, nurse a beer. Job might mean you gotta drink.”

I stepped back to let him lead as the path narrowed, but he waved me on again.

I said, “So you need to know how it will affect your reflexes and your judgment. How to counter the liability. Like shooting at night.”

The path forked. Jack’s fingers pressed against the back of my jacket, prodding me to the left. Ahead I could see a moonlit clearing.

“Might never need it,” he said. “But gotta know how. Perfect chance comes? Nighttime? Or had a beer? A coffee? Know how to compensate? Won’t lose the opportunity.”

He stopped in the clearing, put the rifle case on a stump and opened it. Inside was a takedown rifle and nightscope. He handed me the scope.

“Holy shit,” I said, turning it over in my hands. “I’ve got scopes at home, but this is high-tech. James Bond territory. Yours?”

“Nah. Gadgets and me? Don’t mix. That’s Felix’s area. And his scope.”

He held out the rifle for me to attach the scope, but I was still examining it, a slow smile creeping onto my face.

“Thought you’d like that,” he said. “This is done? We’ll talk to Felix. Get you some stuff.”

I could feel my grin stretching, thoughts of the opera house fading, almost gone now—belonging somewhere back there, in the city. Here was the forest, with its reassuring sense of home, of calm and order. And here was something for me to learn, to focus on, to enjoy. A diversion. Which was, of course, the point.

I finished setting up the rifle and played with it for a while under Jack’s tutelage. Once I had the hang of it, he tried a few rounds, then we put it away. Onto the handguns. That was the real practice. I’d used nightscopes—if nothing so fancy—but I had little experience shooting a handgun in the dark. Night-vision goggles would help but, as Jack had said, this was more about preparing for found opportunities, those times when you see the chance to hit a mark, but something is less than perfect, like the lighting or your blood alcohol level.

“Need a target,” Jack said. “Something we can see…”

“Hold on.”

I ran back to the campfire pit and gathered all the silver-label cans, took them to the clearing and let them clatter into a pile by the stump.

“Now, to do this in proper hillbilly style, we’re supposed to drink the beer, then shoot the cans, but we’ll have to settle for empties and whiskey.”