Goulart, Ron - Subject To Change

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Subject to Change

By Ron Goulart

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 comer 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

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 twos and threes and swung at Beth's bell. There was a folded note for him glued on her mailbox lid

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Subject to Change

with Scotch tape. It told him she might be delayed a bit and to get her keys from under the 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 them on horseback.

Upstairs he dropped her keys on the small mantle over the small real fireplace. 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."

"Welcome back. I just got here and I had to change so I left the keys down there in case you got here

while I was changing. How was New York?"

"Okay, but I'm glad I'm with the agency out here. How'd you get in without keys?" He sat down on the

soft, tan sofa chair he'd given her.

"I have a key to the kitchen way. Is the show all right now?"

"I guess we fixed it for a while. How are you?"

"Fine. And, hey, I have a good part in Alex's new play. It Just happened and I couldn't write."

"You have lousy handwriting, you know," Pendleton called. Grinning, he got out a cigarette and reached

into his coat pocket for a book of matches. Something jabbed into the palm of his hand.

"It's because I'm so intense," Beth said, near her bedroom door.

Pendleton winced and pulled a small toy Chinese junk out of the pocket. The price stamp was still on the

bottom of the boat, twenty-five cents. The old man must have dropped it in his pocket when he nudged

him.

Beth came up behind him. "It's warm in here. Give me your coat. I have a whole new concept about

making martinis. This fellow in Actors' Lab told me. You do it with Zen." Her hands rested on

Pendleton's shoulders.

"I'll be damned," he said, rubbing his palm with the boat as he stood.

Beth slid her arms over his shoulders and locked her hands on his chest. "What's that, Ben?"

Pendleton turned around in her hold. He tapped her tanned nose with the toy boat and told her about it. "I

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Subject to Change

suppose I should take it back," he said finally.

Beth laughed. "Makes you a receiver of stolen goods." She took the toy boat and walked to the fireplace.

She put it next to her keys and turned to him. She was wearing a light-blue dress with a flared skirt. No

stockings, flat black shoes. She'd cut her blonde hair short since he'd seen her last. "Welcome back," she

said, smiling.

A light wind was starting up, tapping windows with tree branches, as Pendleton let himself into Beth's

darkening apartment. He flipped the light switch on and started for the tan sofa chair, jiggling the keys in

his hand. The bedroom door slammed.

"You in there?" Pendleton called. Her note said she'd gone out for some forgotten groceries.

Pendleton opened the bedroom door and turned on the lights. The window beyond Beth's low, blue-

covered bed was open and the wind was flapping the curtains against her dressing table. A strong flap

caught a lipstick and flipped it into the thick rug.

Edging around the bed, Pendleton closed the window and picked up the lipstick. He left the bedroom

door a bit open and went back to the chair. There was a paperback by Eisenstein on the coffee table and

he picked that up and read down the contents page.

The wind got stronger and parts of the old building creaked, first something down under him, then

something way up and to the right. Now and then there would be a bang from out in back. Pendleton

dropped the book and got down on his knees in front of the fireplace and kindled a fire. As the fire took

hold, bright sparks popped out into the room.

Something started tapping on the window behind Pendleton's chair. At last, in a lull between creaking

and banging, he became aware of a tapping. He looked at the window and the early night sky. The

tapping went on.

There was a gray cat sitting on the sill outside. The cat was tangled up in an orange and blue bead

necklace. "Lonely out there," Pendleton said. He didn't much like cats, but this one looked sad. He

opened the window and the cat jumped in, the necklace falling free and clattering against the wall. "We'll

see if maybe Beth's got something around to give to wandering cats." Pendleton reached out to pick up

the cat. Sputtering, the animal raked at his fingers and dived between his legs.

Pendleton spun and saw the cat scoot through the open bedroom door. "Hey, you little bastard, you'll

knock over things."

He was two steps from the door when it slammed and locked. Pendleton stopped, wondering how the

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Subject to Change

animal had managed to bang into the door hard enough to close it. He didn't think the cat should stay in

there and anyway Beth would want to get in when she got home. He'd pick the lock. Crouching, he

reached for the knob. Something clicked and the door swung in. He recognized Beth's terry robe and he

looked up and saw her face, very pale.

"Okay," she said. "I guess I was too cute with the key bits. Go away, Ben, and leave me alone. Please?"

"What's the matter?" He was still squatting and her stepping forward sent him over.

"Just go away, Ben. Please, now." She brushed by him and sat in a bucket chair, putting both bare feet

down hard on the floor.

Ben got himself up. "You drunk?"

Beth brushed at her hair. "I thought if you were sitting out here and I showed up in the bedroom, you'd

think I came in the back way. Or that I was already in there and just hadn't heard you." She bit her thumb.

"Just another trick I wanted to try."

"What are you talking about?" He bent and scooped up the bead necklace.

"Go away. That's all."

"Well, why?" He twisted the string of beads around his knuckles. "Somebody else?"

"Yes. Alex." She smiled.

"Alex? That fruiter who runs the Actors' Lab." The string broke and beads splattered away from him.

Three landed in the fire.

"Or maybe my Uncle Russ. Did you know we lived with him for three years when I was a kid and I was

always having odd fevers and things? He had some kind of quack x-ray business."

Pendleton took Beth's shoulders. "You're sick, is that it?"

"No. Go away, Ben."

"Well, what is it?"

Beth sighed, annoyed. "You know about Method. You have to feel the parts, live them."

"Sure."

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