How To Tail a Cat (22 page)

Chapter 55

THE STEINHART REWARD

ABOUT A HALF
hour later, the niece placed the soggy package from the Swamp Exhibit on the table in the kitchen above the Green Vase showroom. The woman stood on the kitchen’s tile floor, a damp towel wrapped over her wet clothes, while Rupert and Isabella occupied the chairs on either side of her.

All three were intensely focused on the package—Isabella and her person wondering what treasure might be hidden inside, Rupert holding out hope for a chicken-related reveal.

• • •

USING A PAIR
of scissors, the niece carefully began cutting off the package’s outer layer. The fishy-smelling fabric soon fell away from a small plastic box.

The niece bent over the container’s modern design, perplexed. Given its pristine condition, it couldn’t have been submerged in the water for very long, perhaps no more than a few days. The box’s plastic construction certainly wasn’t anywhere close to an early 1900s-era vintage.

Both cats leaned over the table as the woman wedged open the box and lifted out a sealed plastic bag.

“Oh, Issy.” The niece sighed. “I think we’ve been had.”

“
Mrao
,” Isabella concurred.

Rupert, however, began sniffing energetically at the bag’s contents. It was filled with a scent he had tracked down before—in the mattress springs beneath the bed, in the crevice behind the clothes dryer, and, most recently, in a tissue box on the living room end table.

The niece unzipped the bag and pulled out a wad of cash. Each bill contained a heavy fried-chicken scent.

It was a reward from her uncle for following his clues, more than enough to pay the bills for the next several months, but an indication, in her mind at least, that he didn’t yet trust her with one of his valuable antique treasures.

As Rupert hopped up on the table and began rooting through the money, the niece unfolded a single sheet of paper that had been included with the pile.

Her uncle’s familiar handwriting scrawled out a location and the following message: “Make sure Clive gets home safely.”

Chapter 56

A STRANGE DUCK

THURSDAY MORNING, SAN FRANCISCO
awoke drenched in fog, its once bright sun now demoted to a translucent disc in an otherwise empty sky.

The city shouldered up and soldiered on, slogging through the wet commute. The sluggish pulse of traffic coursed along the main thoroughfares, drawing influx from the outlying neighborhoods.

The inbound rush across the Golden Gate split at the foot of the bridge, with one portion of the transit curving along the shoreline, the other half slicing through the Presidio and passing by the northern edge of Mountain Lake.

Despite close proximity to all this hustle, the lake existed in a quiet, isolated bubble, nestled beneath the hill of the Presidio’s challenging golf course.

A feathery breeze creaked through the trees surrounding the water, bending the reeds that grew up along the lake’s southeast corner. The occasional muttered curse floated down through the mist from the golfers on the hillside above. Every so often, a small child shrieked on the jungle gym near the parking lot. Otherwise, there was little to disturb the lake’s inhabitants.

It was a swampy, secluded area, the perfect hideaway for an albino alligator seeking a little R & R from his duties as the Academy of Sciences’ most prominent public ambassador.

• • •

A LITTLE-USED PATH
circled the lower half of the lake, leading to a worn wooden bench positioned in front of an opening in the reeds. The few pedestrians that routinely traveled the path were typically either running or riding a bike, headed toward the Presidio’s extensive trail system, and didn’t stop long enough to search the water for the telltale ripple of an alligator’s snout. Consequently, Clive’s presence in the lake had gone unnoticed since his late-night arrival a few days earlier.

On that particular Thursday morning, however, a slow-moving woman in a jogging suit and sneakers rounded the south corner of the lake. She was perhaps not as energetic as most, her pace hampered by her own physical limitations as well as the small lapdog attached to the leash she held in her right hand.

“Now, now, Fluffy,” the woman said sternly as the dog began yapping furiously at the water. “You know you’re not allowed to chase the ducks.”

The woman stopped near the bench and looked out across the water.

“That’s strange,” she thought. “I don’t
see
any ducks out there in the lake.”

She glanced down at her dog, who was emphatically pulling against his leash, and then returned her gaze to the water, where a trail of bubbles had begun moving toward the shoreline.

Something was swimming beneath the surface . . . something large and white . . .

“Fluffy,” the woman screamed, yanking the dog’s leash. She scooped up her pet just as a large jagged mouth emerged from the water.

Chomp
.

• • •

A HOBO LYING
in the grass about fifty yards from the bench raised himself up on his elbow and whispered into a receiver tucked into his tattered sleeve.

“Wang, this is Lick,” he said, watching the woman fleeing toward the gravel parking lot in a far more expeditious manner than she had left it minutes earlier.

“It’s time for another distraction.”

Chapter 57

AN ANONYMOUS TIP

HOXTON FIN STRODE
briskly up Market Street, heading toward City Hall, where the board of supervisors’ meeting was about to get under way.

The selection of San Francisco’s interim mayor was a serious matter, one in which he would ordinarily have been deeply vested, particularly since he still had no idea who the board would eventually choose. He had dismissed the Previous Mayor’s suggestion of Montgomery Carmichael as pure lunacy, and yet, no other sources had been able to provide a credible alternative.

Despite all this, he couldn’t help himself. His thoughts were fixated on the missing alligator.

“How does this guy walk around town with an alligator—a
white
alligator no less—without anyone catching him?” he muttered under his breath.

A pulsing
beep
buzzed in his shirt pocket.

Hox whipped out his cell phone and read the display. After a quick glance at the incoming number, he let out a groan and sent a pleading look up at the sky.

He was sorely tempted to let the call ring through to his voice mail, but after a few more persistent beeps, he reluctantly pushed the phone’s talk button.

“This is Hox.”

• • •

THE PREVIOUS MAYOR
sat at a lunch table in a restaurant located at the far end of Fisherman’s Wharf. A window near his seat looked out across the foggy bay. A waiter stood a discreet ten feet away, closely monitoring the PM’s dining progress.

The PM wiped the corners of his mouth with his napkin as the reporter’s deep voice growled through his wireless earpiece.

“Hoxton, how are you?” the PM asked pleasantly, ignoring the bitter tone of the man on the other end of the line.

“What’s up, Mayor?” Hox replied tersely. “I’m on my way to City Hall.”

“I’ve just finished an amazing appetizer at a place here on the Wharf,” the PM said smoothly. “It was a phenomenal concoction of raw fish, a refreshing ceviche. The citrus in the marinade had a nice tang to it. The perfect palate cleanser . . .”

“I haven’t got all day,” the reporter cut in harshly. “You didn’t call me to talk about seafood.”

The PM paused for a moment, intentionally drawing out the silence, letting his listener’s impatience build.

“Seafood . . . No, no, not exactly . . . As a matter of fact, I had in mind a discussion about a freshwater creature. I believe certain members of the species can tolerate a moderate amount of salt, but they’re definitely not your traditional ocean inhabitants.”

The PM stopped, letting a sly smile break across his face. He could hear Hox grinding his teeth in frustration.

After a sip from a glass of ice water and an unnecessary napkin dab at his mouth, the PM continued. “I thought you might be interested in a little anonymous tip.”

Hox breathed heavily into the phone. “I’m listening.”

“On my way to the restaurant—did I mention I have a lovely table? There’s a delightful view of Alcatraz. You can barely see it poking through the fog . . .”

“I’m hanging up, Mayor.”

“As I was saying,” the PM continued breezily. “On my way to the restaurant, I passed the most intriguing sight on the pier. An unpigmented swamp denizen, a bit scaly in texture . . . with a rather fearsome-looking mouth.”

The curt response came back immediately.

“I’ll be right there.”

Chapter 58

THE LAST CHICKEN

THE NIECE WALKED
up Columbus Avenue toward Lick’s Homestyle Chicken, a determined expression on her face.

She had stayed up late the previous evening, sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the plastic box from the Swamp Exhibit and the pile of money she’d rescued from Rupert’s rooting. She’d tossed and turned most of the night, thinking about the package. After she finally fell asleep, it had been the first thing on her mind when she awoke that morning.

“Enough is enough,” she’d decided over breakfast.

It wasn’t that she didn’t need the money—she was very nearly broke. But she was tired of being led around by her uncle’s games.

“Make sure Clive gets home safely?” she said, repeating the message she’d found in the box. “As if I’m supposed to go tromping around Mountain Lake looking for him.”

She stuffed the money into the box. “I’m done with this alligator,” she announced, putting the box into her tote bag. “I’m giving the money back.”

• • •

THE NIECE COULD
tell something had changed a few blocks before she reached the empty shell that had once been James Lick’s Homestyle Chicken. The faded green awning that had stretched across the storefront was gone, and the windows were even dustier than before. It was now almost impossible to see inside.

The front door swung open at her touch.

“Harold?” she called out as she stepped cautiously inside, but she immediately sensed that she would receive no response.

The room was empty. The portrait of the original Lick had been stripped from the wall. The tables and chairs in the dining area had all been removed.

Nothing remained but a stack of discarded green paper flyers sitting on the cashier counter. She slipped the pile into her coat pocket on her way to the kitchen.

The back of the restaurant was nearly pitch-black. Reaching into her tote, she pulled out her flashlight. Even with the help of its wide beam, she still tripped on the steps leading to the second floor.

She reached the open upstairs room to find it similarly cleaned out. The terrarium and its amphibian occupants had disappeared. Missing, too, were the mouse cage and its many spinning wheels.

Trying to stifle the deflated feeling in her stomach, the niece returned to the first floor and wandered into the kitchen.

The pots and pans had vanished, along with the other cooking implements. The woman peeked briefly inside the walk-in freezer, whose heavy metal door was propped open with a small wooden wedge. The storage room was still slightly cold, but the racks that had been filled with all of those white butcher paper–wrapped packages were now completely empty.

Slowly, the niece approached Harold’s workstation. His lonely stool was all that remained. Sitting on its seat, she found the restaurant’s last green paper sack.

The bottom of the sack was warm to her touch. She unfolded the top of the bag and looked inside to find two green paper boxes.

On the top of each box, her uncle’s scrawled handwriting had printed the name of the cat for whom the contents were intended.

Chapter 59

A DISCORDANT GROUP

THE PRESIDENT OF
the Board of Supervisors glanced up from his notes and looked woefully out over the cavernous meeting chamber. From his seat in the middle of the wide rostrum at the center of the chamber’s sunken stage, Jim Hernandez had a view of the cordoned-off supervisors’ area and the expansive audience gallery beyond.

The scene was enough to dampen even his habitually cheerful disposition.

As ornately decorated as the rest of the building, a light-colored wood paneling of rare Manchurian oak covered almost every surface of the room. Two long desks positioned perpendicular to the president’s rostrum provided seating for the rest of the supervisors. Each of his ten colleagues sat next to a powered-up laptop. Cell phones accompanied each supervisor, their ringers set to silent, their screens angled to provide constant text updates.

The enormous room took up a substantial portion of the west wing of City Hall’s second floor, and the gallery had seating capacity for several hundred audience members. Today, it was filled to capacity.

• • •

SO FAR, THE
meeting had gone remarkably well, considering. There had been a few protesting amendments—which Hernandez had adroitly handled—and quite a bit of individual posturing, but the process for selecting the next mayor was at last moving forward. That was all he could have asked for.

However, there was one more item yet to be completed before they moved on to nominations.

Reluctantly, the president shifted his gaze past the carved wooden balustrade that separated the supervisors’ desk area and up toward the stadium-style public seating. As he surveyed the audience, his inner dread deepened.

Hernandez pushed back the floppy bangs from his forehead and pounded his gavel against the rostrum.

“We’ll now begin the public-comment period. I would like to remind all of the speakers that they are limited to just two minutes at the mike.” He cleared his throat for emphasis. “
Two
minutes.”

• • •

THE FIRST GENTLEMAN
approached the lectern set up at the front of the gallery area, and Hernandez said a silent prayer of appreciation for the lectern’s thick wooden construction. It was clear, even from his vantage point fifty yards away, that the man was completely nude.

“I would like the board to consider my application to be San Francisco’s next mayor,” the man began. “If selected, I would bring honesty and transparency to City Hall.”

Hernandez put his hands over his eyes as the man stepped to the side of the lectern and swung his arms wide.

“What you see is what you get.”