“Excuse me, mister, do you need some help? You look a little lost.”

Mila delivered the line sweetly and innocently, with charm that comes only with youth and practice. Yet Janet remarked that her body language left something to be desired.

“Thank you! I’m looking for the Shore Bridge, I’m meant to climb it with a tour…”

The young boy smiled kindly without betraying a hint of a mink in his eye. “You’re not far. Just keep walking in this direction, cross the road-”

“Now!” Ralph whispered to Jane, who immediately and noiselessly approached the befuddled man bewitched by her brother.

In the last ten years, Ralph had perfected the routine to an art form. Finding in the tourism industry the perfect niche, he and his two children positioned themselves at exactly the spot that attracts the lost, the gullible, and went to work.

Watching Jane slip her deft hand into the stranger’s pocket, Ralph felt invigorated. As she removed a wallet, he felt his pulse quicken, and his demons were satiated.