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amoral and crazy, and eventually, if he’d kept on jumping, he would have stopped being
human entirely.”
“But one more switch, Marla. Come on. Would it be so bad?”
“Probably not. But I have to get that Cornerstone, Rondeau, and get back home. In a
day, maybe two, Susan is going to do something very nasty. Hamil will try to stall her,
but I’ve got a couple of days, tops, before I miss my chance. I’m not prepared to tangle
with the guy who runs Chinatown here, not when I have so much going on. When this
thing with Susan is over, if it’s still important to you, I’ll hook you up with someone
who can teach you how to switch minds, and put you in touch with some freelancers
who can help with the wet-work. Okay? But I have too much on my plate right now.”
Rondeau nodded, not happy, but apparently satisfied for the moment. “I’ll take you up
on that, when this thing with Susan is done. I’m serious about this.”
Marla put her hand on his shoulder for a moment. “It’s a deal.” Rondeau had never
exhibited much interest in doing the right thing before—he was one of the most
profoundly self-centered people she knew, though his loyalty to her was real—and
Marla found the change intriguing. Seeing Rondeau develop a moral sense was like
watching a primordial sea-creature climb out onto the land for the first time.
“Spare a quarter?” A scruffy young man smiled and held out a paper coffee cup with a
few coins rattling around at the bottom. Marla and Rondeau went past without even a
glance of acknowledgment.
“See? This place isn’t so different from home. They’ve got panhandlers here, too.”
Marla snorted. “He looked like a guy on spring break from college, begging for beer
money. Back home, the street people have gravitas, you know? They look like they’ve
hit bottom.” She glanced back, once again feeling as if she was being followed, but the
college-boy-bum hadn’t trailed along after them, and she didn’t see anyone else, either.
Rondeau shrugged. “Go to the Mission, or the Tenderloin, and you’ll see plenty of
people like that, I bet. This is the chichi part of town, a major tourist destination. The
cops probably hustle off anybody who might make the tourons uncomfortable.”
They turned off Stockton, onto Geary Street. Marla squinted at the buildings lining the
sidewalk. “Not a Gucci or a Louis Vuitton in sight! It’s all theaters and art galleries.
Those have got to lose money, huh?”
Rondeau shrugged. “A lot of people come here for the culture. Maybe they do all right.”
Marla put her hand on Rondeau’s arm to stop him. “That gallery isn’t doing so well.”
She pointed.
On the other side of the street, near the end of the block, a sawhorse barricade had been
set up. Glass littered the sidewalk from the broken front window of the gallery, and a
bored-looking cop in a uniform stood by the sawhorses, thumbs hooked in the loop of
his belt.