“Hey, you O.K.?”

“Herk,” I say, “you know about women. Do you think I did something to make this happen? Is it my fault?”

“How could it be your fault?”

“I lied to her. Have been lying to her. From day one. For over a year.”

“What do you mean?”

“She thinks I work for the New York Mets, Herk.”

“That? Jesus. That’s no big deal. That’s just regulations. You got no choice there.”

“You think?”

“Sure. That’s just lying small. What she did, that’s lying big.”

“I guess so. I just can’t help feeling like it’s my fault.” Looking at the woman, I say, “And also that I had it coming. I mean, she is pretty much out of my league.”

“Out of your league? Are you kidding? You’re a handsome dude. You dress really interestingly. And you’re great with women. Women really respond to you.”

“I’m a handsome dude?” I say. “You think women respond to me?”

“Of course. Blondie blonde over there has been checking you out all this time.”

“She has?”

“For someone with your sense of vision, you don’t see shit, do you? What about Sylvia from the Snug? That waitress from the Lithuanian place? Mackenzie at work? You think Mackenzie is always coming over to your locker for saline shots because she leaves hers at home ten times a month?”

I wonder if he’s right. Maybe I have been spending too much time in dark rooms.

“And blondie blonde here. She’s great, right? Looks good and smells good, too. I walked past her a few times before you got here just to get a good whiff, and sure enough, let me tell you, amigo, the girl is pH balanced.”

Herk nudges me. The woman has taken off her ear protection and has noticed me noticing her.

“My friend was just admiring your form,” Herk says.

“Is that right?” she says, hand on sculpted hip.

“Yes,” Herk says for me.

“And what’s his opinion?”

Herk nudges me again. He is doing the talking but she is looking at me.

“Um,” I say, “I guess... I’d need to see a little more?”

She raises the pistol to the target, giving me her best profile, and then, smiling out of the corner of her mouth, she makes firing bullets into a piece of paper full of concentric circles look sexy. As her body vibrates with each recoil, I do as Herk suggested: I inhale her. It should be wonderful—she smells like a beautiful woman—but instead of being aroused, however, it only makes me sadder. It makes me homesick for Charlie’s odors.

When the woman turns to me and purses her lips and playfully blows the smoke out of the muzzle I wave at my face as if it is the cordite that’s making my eyes water.

WWPD: What Would Pinkerton Do?

WWPD: What Would Pinkerton Do?