“Fine. Why?”

“Do you… handle them without any trouble?”

“What do you mean, ‘handle them’?”

“You don’t seem very forceful to me.”

Tell her you have to go to the Men’s, Raymond thought.

“Too mild-mannered-” She stopped and then said, with some enthusiasm, making a great discovery, “That’s it-you’re trying to look older, aren’t you? The big mustache, conservative navy-blue suit-but you know how you come off?”

“How?”

“Like someone posing in an old tintype photo, old-timey.”

Raymond leaned on the table, interested. “No kidding, that’s what you see?”

“Like you’re trying to look like young Wyatt Earp,” the girl from the News said, watching him closely. “You relate to that, don’t you? The no-bullshit Old West lawman.”

“Well,” Raymond said, “you know where Holy Trinity is? South of here, not far from Tiger Stadium? That’s where I grew up. We played cowboys and Indians over on Belle Isle, shot at each other with B-B guns. I was born in McAllen, Texas, but I don’t remember much about living there.”

“I thought I heard an accent every once in a while,” the girl from the News said. “You’re Mexican then, not Puerto Rican?”

Raymond sat back again. “You think I was made acting lieutenant as part of Affirmative Action? Get the minorities in?”

“Don’t be so sensitive. I asked a simple question. Are you of Mexican descent?”

“What’re you, Jewish or Italian?”

“Forget it,” the girl from the News said.

Raymond raised a finger at her. “See, a man wouldn’t say that either. ‘Forget it.’ ”

“Don’t point at me.” The girl’s anger rising that quickly. “Why wouldn’t a man say it, because he’d be afraid of you?”

“Or he’d be more polite. I mean why act tough?”

“I don’t carry a gun,” the girl from the News said, “and I’m not playing the role, you are. Like John Wayne or somebody. Clint Eastwood. Don’t you relate to that type? Want to be like them?”