When we were facing the aisles of merchandise with the conveyor belts clacking overhead, he spoke into a lapel mike. “Jordan? I got a girl here who made it into the warehouse unannounced. She’s heading for the front now—make sure she gets out of the shop, will you? Red parka, tan hard hat.”

I decided telling him I was a woman, not a girl, would just get me into a tiresome exchange that wouldn’t help any more than a physical fight. As he stood with his hands on his hips, snapping at me to get a move on, I started singing the old Jerry Williams song, “I’m a woman, not a girl—I want a real man,” but I did get a move on.

I refused to turn my head to see if Grobian were still watching me and marched down the first aisle with my head held high. I wondered how he would know if I really left, but as I moved through aisles crammed with stuff, beneath the conveyor belts ferrying it around, past the crew in red smocks that read “Be Smart, By-Smart,” stacking everything from crates of By-Smart’s private-label wine to vast boxes of Christmas decorations, I saw the video cams at every corner. Woman in red parka and tan hard hat, visible to all and sundry. As I worked my way through the maze of aisles and forklifts and boxes, the loudspeakers kept booming—“Forklift needed at A42N”; “Bad spill at B33E”; “Runner to truck bay 213.” If I turned back, I imagined they’d start booming, “Woman in red parka on the loose, search and destroy.”

In between the wine and the Christmas decorations, I abruptly squatted behind a forklift laden ten feet high with cartons and took off my parka. I turned it inside out and folded it over my arm, hiding my hard hat underneath it. On the back of the forklift was a By-Smart hat that the driver had chosen not to wear, despite all the signs urging him to “Make the Workplace a Safe Place.”

I put it on, left the parka tucked behind a crate of sunlamps, and doubled back to the hall where the offices were. Grobian was meeting with a Mexican and he didn’t want me to know who it was. That meant—I was going to find out.

Grobian’s door was shut, and someone with the By-Smart guard paraphernalia—stun gun, reflective vest, and all—was standing outside. I backed into the paper room, where the printers and fax machines were. I couldn’t hear what was going on over the noise of the machines, so after a couple of minutes I looked outside again. Grobian’s door was just opening. I ducked my head and moved down the hall to the canteen. In the shadow of the doorway, I watched Grobian summon a guard to escort his visitor back into the warehouse.