25 Short Stories and Novellas Part 57

roped-off area and were pushing microphones into his face again. Angrily

Carlotta hit her palm control, backing up his wheelchair and pulling it

toward her right through the flimsy rope. At a brisk pace she headed

across the street to the parking area where she hoped their driver was

waiting. Ned Townes, red-faced, materialized from somewhere and

furiously wigwagged at her, but she smiled and waved and nodded and

kept on going. He shouted something to her but didn't pursue.

The driver, miraculously, was still there. "Imperial Hotel," she said.

"Where?"

"Imperial Hotel. Downtown, somewhere."

"I'm supposed to take you back to the East Bay."

"First we have to go to the Imperial. There's a reception there for

my great-uncle."

The driver, sullen, androidal, looked right through her and said, "I

don't know about no reception. I don't know no Hotel Imperial. You're

supposed to go to the East Bay."

"First we stop at the Imperial," she said, "They're expecting us. I'll

show you how to get there," she told him grandly.

To her amazement he yielded, swinging the car around in a petulant

U-turn and shooting off toward Market Street. Carlotta studied the signs

on the buildings, hoping to find a marquee that proclaimed one of them

to be the Imperial, but there were no hotels here at all, only office

buildings. They turned right, turned left again, started up a steep

hill.

"This is Chinatown," the driver said. "That where your hotel is?"

"Turn left," she said.

That took them down toward Market Street again, and across it. At a

stoplight she rolled down the window and called out, "Does anyone know

where the Imperial Hotel is?" Blank faces stared at her. She might

just as well have been speaking Greek or Arabic. The driver, on his

own, turned onto Mission Street, took a left a few blocks later, turned

left again soon after. Carlotta looked around desperately. This was a

district of battered old warehouses. She caught sight of a sign directing