If the news was good Shawn might leave it alone. But if the doctor gave Gus any prognosis other than seventy more years of happy living Shawn would work night and day to prove he was a fraud. Because Gus was healthy. Shawn knew it. He might not be a medical man, but he did have a sense of the way the universe was supposed to work, and people like Gus did not get serious diseases. That was simply out of the question.

Not that the area above the Powell Street station looked like a medical corridor. Not unless the new government health plan covered postcards, T-shirts, and trinkets. One side of the street was filled with tiny boutiques selling touristy kitsch, which was perhaps not surprising since the sidewalk was jammed with out-of-towners lined up waiting for a cable car.

Gus was already walking up Powell Street alongside the line of waiting tourists. Shawn pushed past an unwashed man who’d stopped in front of him to ask for a quarter, and followed.

If Gus were suffering from some kind of terrible disease it didn’t seem to have reached his legs yet. Shawn nearly had to run just to stay twenty feet behind him. After a couple of blocks Gus made a left turn up a side street, then disappeared into a low, gray stone building. Shawn bolted after him just in time to see the door closing behind him. That was when he noticed the sign on the building’s wall.

RUTLAND ARMITAGE, DISCREET INVESTIGATIONS.

Gus wasn’t sick. Gus wasn’t dying. Gus was interviewing with another detective agency.

For the first time in his life Shawn understood the impotent fury of the cuckold. He’d been covering for Gus with their client, coming up with excuses for his poor performance. And all this time Gus had been sneaking around behind his back, looking for a job with a bigger agency. One with a fancy stone building and snooty name instead of a beach bungalow and a snazzy brand.