“Yeah. I see him around a lot. He gives me a bad feeling. Something’s up with him.”

“I mean, he’s mute and deaf, so I guess I don’t really know him well? He’s a little strange but no more than you’d expect.” Luis? What did Luis have to do with any of this?

“Well, that at least explains why he didn’t rat me out, I guess.”

I was about to ask her what she meant when a shadow crossed the shop and we both turned: a man stood in front of the window. Clara’s posture sagged. “Shit. You should probably go.”

“What’s that about, Clara? Another date?”

“It’s complicated. Let’s just say fortune-telling doesn’t pay the rent anymore.”

“How do you find them?”

“Can we talk about this another time?”

“I mean, you’re worried about Peaches, but look at you. Also, how do you know that these guys aren’t cops?”

She laughed, a cynical chortle. “Some of them are cops. But most cops prefer the Asian massage parlors.” I knew the kinds of places she meant. The ones decorated with cheap bamboo screens and thwarted-looking bonsai trees. “We’re not the only ones. Take a look next time you go for a walk around here—every single one of them has the same door in the back. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But right now I really do need you to go.” Every nerve along my body tightened when I stood to leave, but what else could I do?

Instead of walking to my car right away, I stood across the boardwalk and waited. I remembered what it was like, to be thirteen, fourteen, and notice that men started looking at me in a new way. Like they understood something about me that I didn’t know yet. But I wanted to see what kind of man would walk into that shop and arrange to buy someone that young. Who had no qualms about doing it so openly. A man who felt like he had nothing to fear.

A man in a suit who had been standing against a light pole looked at his watch, glanced over his shoulder, and went into the store. Clara came out a moment later, picked up the chalkboard sign, carried it inside. I watched as she switched the hanging sign on the door from Open to Closed and drew the curtains across the window.