Hutch pushed the door open and brass bells on a string clattered, and they all walked in with their heads up, each of them with his empty duffel bag over his left shoulder. Ben tried to exude his ownership of the store. He tried to wear Teddy’s body as he looked at the person behind the counter—a Chinese boy almost their age, it seemed—and got a bad feeling; kids left in charge of things follow the rules.

Ben remembered the different times he had been into liquor stores with his dad, and there was almost the same smell now—a high, slightly sour cork odor, but he could tell that a cat also lived in this store. The different kinds of liquor were grouped together, whiskey and gin and vodka and rum and tequila, each with its own bright wire shelving unit, various brands from top to bottom, and then two shelves with a scrum of liqueurs and other nonsense. Along the other two walls and on a small island in the middle of the store were various kinds of wine. Ben, Hutch, and Evan focused on vodka, their backs turned to the cashier, and Ben could feel how, with no one else in the store, the full weight of the cashier’s scrutiny lay over them.

So. They looked at the different kinds. Brand names and prices in black marker on notecards taped to the metal shelves. English on top and then Chinese characters underneath—Ben wondered whether the characters on each label just listed the price, or whether they were transliterations of the words “Smirnoff” and “Absolut.” Those brands were off the table, obviously. Quickly they arrived at Randolph’s, which came in a plastic bottle with a hand grip molded into the back, and whose label featured a horse-drawn stagecoach. $8.99 per.

They had money for fifteen bottles. They had promised five different guys that they would buy for them. In Hutch’s room as the others watched, Ben had taken out his own three twenty-dollar bills—the check for his new balance cashed at the bookstore—and slid them into the envelope. But here at Pacific Liquors there were only twelve bottles on the wire shelf. In two loads each, they brought all the bottles up and set them on the counter, white melamine worn down in patches to the dark brown underlayer. The floor behind the counter was slightly raised like a pharmacist’s platform; the boy looked down at them.

“Hi,” said Evan, “do you have more of the Randolph’s in the back?”

“There’s no back.” Ben had expected him to barely speak English. Around his neck were the biggest pair of headphones Ben had ever seen, with plush leather earcups that reminded Ben of Ahmed’s couch.

“Sorry?”

“There’s no back room in the store. Our deliveries come through this door and we stock the shelves with the cases still on the floor.”