Pendleton had been away from San Francisco over two months. The airport taxi left him at his place, where he showered and shaved. Then he decided he would walk, down through Chinatown and over into North Beach, to Beth's apartment.

It was a warm Saturday afternoon and he unbuttoned his dacron blazer a block or so into Chinatown. He smiled as he wandered by the bright restaurants and shops, the rows of ivory Buddhas in window after window. 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 they crackled and spread fragments and fortunes as people passed.

While he was waiting for a signal to change, three small Chinese boys charged a fourth who had ducked around Pendleton. They all ran around the corner and Pendleton looked after them. There was an old curio and toy shop there. He went toward its streaked window, trying to identify the objects. Some kind of procession of tin soldiers made up the main display. The door of the shop opened and an old man with a flared white beard came out. His dark suit hung loose on him and his tie was coming untied 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 into an alley.

The bells over the toy shop door rattled again. "Stop, thief!" shouted the fat Chinese, who came running up to Pendleton. The man shouted again and stopped on the corner, his hands on his hips, looking.

Pendleton crossed the street and turned down the alley the old man had used. This would cut off a block of the way to Beth's. He had kept quiet about the thief because he didn't want to get involved in a lot of 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. He flipped the lid up and the coat sleeve that had been tangled on the can edge slipped free and dropped into the can. If the old man was wandering around naked, they shouldn't have much trouble catching him.

Pendleton liked the pre-quake apartment house Beth lived in. In almost any weather he liked to see its narrow brown wood front waiting there in the middle of the block. He smiled as a big blue-gray gull flew low overhead and then circled up and away behind Beth's building. Pendleton took the rough steps in 

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