SUBJECT TO CHANGE
BY RON GOULART
Illustrated by HARMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine December 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Pendleton had been away from San Francisco over two months. The airporttaxi left him at his place, where he showered and shaved. Then hedecided he would walk, down through Chinatown and over into NorthBeach, to Beth's apartment.
It was a warm Saturday afternoon and he unbuttoned his dacron blazera block or so into Chinatown. He smiled as he wandered by the brightrestaurants and shops, the rows of ivory Buddhas in window afterwindow. On one corner Pendleton stopped and took a deep breath,watching a scattering of tourists taking pictures of each other.Someone had lost a half dozen fortune cookies on the sidewalk and theycrackled and spread fragments and fortunes as people passed.
While he was waiting for a signal to change, three small Chinese boyscharged a fourth who had ducked around Pendleton. They all ran aroundthe corner and Pendleton looked after them. There was an old curio andtoy shop there. He went toward its streaked window, trying to identifythe objects. Some kind of procession of tin soldiers made up the maindisplay. The door of the shop opened and an old man with a flared whitebeard came out. His dark suit hung loose on him and his tie was cominguntied as he hurried away.
The old man brushed by Pendleton, nudging him. "Many pardons," he said,cutting across the street. He ran downhill, weaving a little, and intoan alley.
The bells over the toy shop door rattled again. "Stop, thief!" shoutedthe fat Chinese, who came running up to Pendleton. The man shoutedagain and stopped on the corner, his hands on his hips, looking.
Pendleton crossed the street and turned down the alley the old man hadused. This would cut off a block of the way to Beth's. He had keptquiet about the thief because he didn't want to get involved in a lotof delaying questioning.
Halfway down the alley he saw an arm dangling out of a garbage can.Pendleton blinked and approached the shadowed area around the can. Heflipped the lid up and the coat sleeve that had been tangled on thecan edge slipped free and dropped into the can. If the old man waswandering around naked, they shouldn't have much trouble catching him.
Pendleton liked the pre-quake apartment house Beth lived in. In almostany weather he liked to see its narrow brown wood front waiting therein the middle of the block. He smiled as a big blue-gray gull flew lowoverhead and then circled up and away behind Beth's building. Pendletontook the rough steps in twos and threes and swung at Beth's bell. Therewas a folded note for him glued on her mail box lid with Scotch tape.It told him she might be delayed a bit and to get her keys from underthe rubber-plant pot on the porch and let himself in. He did that,thinking again that Beth's notes always looked as though she wrote themon horseback.
Upstairs he dropped her keys on the small mantle over the small realfireplace. Her bedroom door was slightly open. Just as he noticed this,Beth called out to him.
"I hope that's you, Ben?" she said from her room.
"Where'll I put the ice, lady?" he said. "You're supposed to be out."