All Tomorrow's Parties

28. FOLSOM STREET

FOOT of Folsom in the rain, all these soot-streaked RVs, spavined campers, gut-sprung vehicles of any description, provided that description included old; things that ran, if they ran at all, on gasoline.

'Look at that, Tessa said, as she edged the van past an old Hummer, ex-military, every square inch covered with epoxied micro-junk, a million tiny fragments of the manufactured world glittering in Tessa's headlights and the rain.

'Think there's a spot there, Chevette said, peering through the bad wiper wash. Tessa's van had Malibu-style wiper blades; old and hadn't been wet for quite a while. They'd had to creep this last block along the Embarcadero, when the rain had really started.

It was drumming steadily on the van's flat steel roof now, but Chevette's sense of San Francisco weather told her it wouldn't last all that long.

The black kid with the dreads had earned his fifty. They'd found him crouching there like a gargoyle on the curb, his face somehow already as old as it would ever need to be, smoking Russian cigarettes from a red-and-white pack he kept tucked into the rolled-up sleeve of an old army shirt, three sizes too big. The van still had its wheels on and the tires were intact.

'What do you think he meant, Tessa said, maneuvering between a moss-stained school bus of truly ancient vintage and a delaminating catamaran up on a trailer whose tires had almost entirely rotted away, 'when he said somebody was looking for you?

'I don't know, Chevette said. She'd asked him who, but he'd just shrugged and walked off. This after determinedly trying to hustle Tessa for God's Little Toy. 'Maybe if you'd given him the camera platform, he'd've told me.

'No fear, Tessa said, killing the engine. 'That's half my share of the Malibu house.

Chevette saw that there were lights on in the tiny cabin of the cat-boat, through little slit-like windows, and somebody moving in there. She started cranking down the window beside her, but it stuck after two turns, so she opened the door instead.

'That's Buddy's space there, said a girl, straightening up from the catamaran's hatch, her voice raised above the rain, hoarse and a little frightened. She hunched there, under some old poncho or piece of tarp, and Chevette couldn't make out her face.

'S'cuse us, Chevette said, 'but we need to stop for the night, or anyway till this rain lets up.

'Buddy parks there.

'Do you know when he'll be back?

'Why?

'We'll be out of here dawn tomorrow, Chevette said. 'We're just two women. You okay with that?

The girl raised the tarp a fraction, and Chevette caught a glimpse of her eyes. 'Just two of you?

'Let us stay, Chevette said, 'then you won't have to worry who else might come along.

'Well, the girl said. And was gone, ducking back down. Chevette heard the hatch dragged shut.

'Bugger leaks, Tessa said, examining the roof of the van with a small black flashlight.

'I don't think it'll keep up long, Chevette said.

'But we can park here?

'Unless Buddy comes back, Chevette said.

Tessa turned the light back into the rear of the van. Where rain was already pooling.

'I'll get the foam and the bags up here, Chevette said. 'Keep 'em dry till later, anyway.

She climbed back between the seats.