Blood Engines(21)
A few minutes later Rondeau emerged, dressed in his usual vintage-store finery—a powder-blue ’50s-prom-style tuxedo. He looked at Marla critically. “You’re wearing that?”
Marla considered her outfit. Black cotton pants, loose, so she could run or kick easily. Black boots with reinforced steel toes. Gray long-sleeved T-shirt. Her cloak, white side showing, of course. She was nervous about wearing the cloak, but if Finch got nasty she might need it. As long as she didn’t reverse the cloak and let the purple side show, there was no danger. It was a peculiarity of the cloak that it was not reversible in the usual sense—no matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to put it on with the white inside and the purple showing. The colors simply didn’t cooperate, as if the cloak were made of moebius cloth. If the need arose, however, a simple mental command would reverse the cloak, and the purple would show…but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Things would have to get pretty bad before such steps became necessary. Her dagger was tucked away safely in the magically protected teak box, under the bed. The cloak was enough for tonight, and it wasn’t obviously a weapon, so it stood a better chance of getting through whatever security Finch might have set up. “Yeah, I’m wearing this. Why?”
“Because we’re going to a party, right? A soiree? Don’t you have anything more…” He waved his hands vaguely. “…festive?”
“No, Rondeau, I don’t have anything more festive. I only brought one change of clothes. You brought a freaking suitcase. Besides, I’m not going to enjoy Finch’s hospitality. I’m going to get information.”
“Sure, but I just want us to fit in, so we don’t draw undue attention to ourselves. See, I’m thinking of the mission.”
“Nobody’s going to look twice at me when I come in with you anyway. You wearing that tuxedo is all the camouflage I need. Besides, this is California, where casual is king, right?”
“I guess,” Rondeau said. “It wouldn’t kill you to wear a skirt occasionally, you know.”
“No. But it might kill you to suggest it again,” Marla said, showing her teeth.
They took a bus from union Square to the Castro, Marla sniffing suspiciously. “Where’re the piles of filth? The aggressive panhandlers? The guys at the bus stop who look like they’re just waiting for the right moment to shove a yuppie under the tires? I don’t trust a city that has a bus system this clean.”
“They get a lot of tourists,” Rondeau said, leaning back in a sideways-facing seat. Marla, too antsy to sit, was standing beside him, hanging on to an overhead rail. “They have to observe the proprieties a little more. Nobody comes to our city to visit, unless their relatives die or something. Besides, this is the middle of the city still—it’s got to be nice. I’m sure there are places around here that are unpleasant enough to meet your low standards.”
Marla frowned. “It’s not that I like dirty stuff for the sake of dirt, Rondeau. It’s just…I distrust all this cleanliness. It feels like I’m in Disneyland or something, someplace monitored and managed.”
Rondeau reached up and pulled the cord, making the “Stop Ahead” sign by the driver light up. “Our stop,” he said.
“Already?” Marla said.
“San Francisco doesn’t sprawl as much as our own pockmarked metropolis,” Rondeau said.
The bus stopped, and they got off. “Welcome to the Castro,” Rondeau said as the bus chugged away from them. Marla looked up and down the street. Aside from the rainbow flags hanging from the windows of well-kept Victorians and over the doors of various businesses, it could have been any bustling, well-lit avenue in a prosperous city. Though there were more men holding hands here than Marla generally saw elsewhere, and there was a man wearing a leather vest over his otherwise bare chest. “I thought there’d be more guys in dog collars and buttless chaps,” Marla said.
“We could come back later this year for the gay pride parade, or for Folsom Street Fair, and I bet you’d see more buttless chaps than you can shake a riding crop at.”
“I’ll keep it in mind for my next vacation,” Marla said. There was no gay district as such in Marla’s city, though of course there were bars and clubs geared toward such clientele, and Marla found herself wondering, in a municipal-management frame of mind, whether the incidences of domestic violence in this neighborhood were of greater or lesser frequency than that in straight neighborhoods with similar population and economic conditions. Probably not much different. People were people.