.

about lady?”

      “I didn’t used to believe in nothing like that.” She shook her head to animate the point. “Aliens, zombies, ghosts, spirits — all that X-Files junk. But ever since she told me about her grandfather, I believed in ghosts. You never know, eh? Never know what’s out there. Never know what could be watching you. Never know what —”

      “You gonna give my twenty back?”

      “You want me to tell you a secret, handsome?”

      Charlie didn’t answer.

      She moved her face closer to his as if she were going to kiss him. “I’m not,” she whispered very slowly, “a woman.”

      “What?”

      “Only half, darling.”

      “What?”

      She straightened. “It’s Joe, right? Your name’s Joe?”

      “What?”

      “That’s your name, isn’t it? Joe?”

      “What?”

      “Anybody ever call you Joey?”

      “Joey?”

      “Joey. Like the Joey on Friends. Chandler’s roommate, you know? Anybody ever call you that?”

      “No.”

      “Really?”

      “Yes.”

      “Strange,” the person who called herself Martina Hingis said. She turned around and kept walking west along the sidewalk. Neither of us followed. The cheetah-patterned skirt became an orange blur in the cool September night.

      They all started making noises around 7:00 p.m.