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