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Authors: Rebecca M. Hale

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Chapter 18

OFF THE EMBARCADERO

HOXTON FIN STRODE
along a nearly empty sidewalk, heading down Market Street toward the Ferry Building. The bulk of the financial district’s traffic had retired for the evening. Only a few Muni buses and the occasional taxicab bumped along the pothole-strewn roadway.

Despite the late hour, the day’s heat had yet to dissipate. The air was unusually heavy and clogged with exhaust. San Francisco’s signature breeze had temporarily vacated the city, leaving it to suffer in sweltering stagnation.

Hox wiped the back of his hand across his sweating forehead. Then he reached for his collar to loosen an extra button at the neck of his shirt. He’d already removed his jacket, tucking it into the top of his backpack.

The weather was beginning to wear on him. He found it difficult to think under these conditions and, worse, impossible to write.

He, like his city, depended on the wind.

• • •

THE CLEANSING BLAST
cleared out all the toxins, both environmental and emotional, that were constantly created by the crowded metropolis.

Yes, in other parts of the world, people managed to live in cramped quarters without the aid of a clearing wind. Some of those spots were even more densely packed than San Francisco, with citizens crammed inside tiny beehive cubicles stacked, row upon row, into honeycombed towers of uniformity.

Hox had visited such places, and he had come away from each experience with a certain amount of incomprehension.

The average San Franciscan was not amenable to the conforming rigidness that kind of lifestyle necessitated. The Western heart was not so easily tamed.

• • •

A WALK OVER
any of the city’s residential hills proved the point. Houses, though tightly knit together, were painted with a distinguishing array of colors. Garish gables overdecorated many front facades. Each living space, no matter how small, was an important creative outlet. You’d be hard-pressed to find any two buildings that looked exactly the same.

In a city made up of such ardent free spirits, the cooling ventilation of the Pacific kept the excesses of all that individualism in check.

The wild whipping force ripped at hair, clothes, and makeup, defeating all but the most rigid styling mechanisms. It was a great equalizer, giving everyone, no matter his or her race or social stature, a uniformly windblown look, channeling the area’s boundless creativity into matters beyond an individual’s physical appearance.

In Hox’s view, it was the wind that had developed San Francisco’s laid-back, easygoing acceptance as well as its entrepreneurial spirit.

• • •

WITHOUT THE WIND’S
tempering release, conflicts quickly began to build.

Everywhere, it seemed, petty squabbles were breaking out. Hox couldn’t step foot inside the newspaper’s offices without encountering some senseless argument raging at full red-faced volume.

As Hox neared the Ferry Building, he cast a hooded glance at an elaborately coiffed woman, who was painting her lips with a colored gloss as she hurried to catch the next boat.

He led out a gruff snort. This stagnant air led to far too much primping.

Then he caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the glass wall of a nearby storefront. The image elicited a groan.

The painstakingly prepared spike down the center of his scalp was still perfectly in place.

• • •

HOX FOLLOWED MARKET
Street’s bottom hook past the trolley turnaround outside the Ferry Building and set off down a sidewalk lining the inner lane of the Embarcadero.

He soon reached the restaurant where he was to meet his late-night appointment, but he was in no hurry to step inside.

Hox stood staring at the palm trees planted in the roadway’s median. The tropical plants—that in the typical San Francisco fog looked so improbable—suddenly seemed far more appropriate. Their crown of fronds was better suited to the sizzling heat still radiating off the pavement than November’s more typical drizzling rain.

He lifted his gaze to the western span of the Bay Bridge. A row of antlike vehicles sped across the lower deck, their antennaed headlights shining against the bridge’s metal rigging.

Hox desperately wished he were riding in one of those cars. He would rather be headed anywhere else than inside this restaurant.

• • •

WITH A BELLIGERENT
sigh, Hox reluctantly turned his back on the water to face a multi-story gray stone building.

Located in the middle of a block, the structure housed a high-end hotel on its upper floors and, at street level, the restaurant that was the scheduled meeting place for his evening appointment.

His source had insisted that the rendezvous take place in secret. The man had made him promise that the information received would be treated on a strictly off-the-record basis.

Hox rolled his eyes, remembering the phone call. He knew the conversation held only the pretense of being confidential.

When the Previous Mayor penned his next op-ed for the newspaper, the column would no doubt include enough details for those in the know to piece together not only with whom he had been dining and what they had discussed, but also what they had both eaten.

• • •

HIS SQUARE JAW
clenched with resignation, Hox shuffled through the restaurant’s front doors, past the unmanned station for the seating hostess, and into the dining room.

The building’s interior was appointed with dark wooden flooring, matched by a wainscoting of similar texture that covered the lower half of the walls. Plantation shutters blocked out the windows, completing the sense of being closed off from the Embarcadero’s often bustling thoroughfare.

The tables were covered with blue-and-white-checkered cloths, lending a small amount of brightness to the space. Each setting was ringed with white ceramic tubs filled to the rim with hardened butter and beer glasses holding bundles of long, slender breadsticks.

The restaurant primarily served clientele from the nearby financial district. A few hours earlier, the dining area and adjacent bar would have been packed to capacity with lawyers, stockbrokers, and financial analysts who had just left their offices for the day. This late in the evening, however, most of those patrons had shifted to dining establishments located closer to home.

Hox glanced around. Other than a handful of out-of-town conventioneers, the place had emptied out. As he had expected, the Previous Mayor was nowhere to be seen.

He shuffled over to the table held on permanent reserve for the PM, pulled out one of its heavy oak chairs, set his backpack on the floor, and dropped into the seat.

To the anxious waitress who immediately hurried up, he waved a thick hand and said gruffly, “He’s expecting me.”

Before the woman could disappear, he added, “I’ll take a Guinness.”

• • •

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER,
Hox stared sulkily at the wall, absentmindedly twirling a breadstick in his fingers as he sipped his second beer of the night.

His meetings with the Previous Mayor were always lengthy, drawn-out affairs. Half the time, the old man didn’t have anything worthwhile to share.
All
of the time, he was late.

Hox knew the PM loved to torment him. He, in turn, hated playing the stooge. But with an important story brewing at City Hall, Hox couldn’t afford to mutter anything but “I’ll be there” when the PM called to set up a meeting.

It had been almost eight years since the PM left his elected office, but somehow the man still managed to know everything that was going on in San Francisco’s local government. Hox had tried for years to replicate the PM’s sources—and failed.

It put a serious dent in his journalistic pride, but he had finally concluded he had no choice. He had to submit himself to the humiliation of these meetings.

Sucking down the Guinness’s dark, bitter liquid, Hox tilted his head to peek through the wide slats of the nearest blinds. The lights on the Bay Bridge twinkled against the dusky night sky.

There was no telling what time the PM might finally show up.

He’d better order an appetizer.

• • •

HOX HAD EATEN
halfway through a plate of fried calamari when a gray felt bowler slid across the table in front of his plate.

The Previous Mayor’s gravelly voice greeted him with feigned surprise.

“Hox—man, what have they done to your hair?”

“Hello, Mayor,” Hox replied, raising his glass with a surly grimace. He suspected the PM had already been thoroughly briefed on his unfortunate run-in with the television station’s stylist.

As the PM took his seat, the waitress rushed up with his regular cocktail. Hox arched his eyebrows in annoyance. The woman had taken far more time servicing his orders.

“Good evening, Eleanor,” the PM intoned smoothly. “What’s the fish special tonight?”

Hox listened impatiently through a tedious discussion of the menu, which involved numerous questions about ingredients and possible modifications—the answers to which Hox felt certain the PM already knew.

At last, the PM stroked the short gray mustache over his upper lip and voiced his selection.

“I’ll take the fish,” he said with a certainty that suggested he had made up his mind long before hearing all the other options.

• • •

THE PM TOOK
a measured sip of his cocktail. Then he carefully set the dainty glass on the checkered cloth, rested his wrists on the table’s edge, and folded his fingers together.

“Thank you for meeting me, Hox. I have some news to pass on about the business at City Hall.”

Cautiously, Hox pulled out his notebook and leaned forward.

The PM raised his hands above the table, palms outward, a rebuffing gesture meant only to draw the reporter in.

“Of course, I don’t pretend to be an expert on the matter. A man like
yourself
has many reliable sources.”

Hox rolled his bottom lip inward, silently gritting his teeth.

The PM raised an index finger to his cheek and tapped it thoughtfully. “But—I do have an insight that might be slightly . . . ah . . . different from the other information you’ve been gathering.”

Just then, the waitress approached carrying a plate piled high with greens. The PM smiled as she whipped out a pepper grinder from her apron pocket. Hovering the grinder over the dish, she gave the cylinder the PM’s preset number of twists.

The PM inspected the plate and issued a gracious nod, signaling her to depart.

Hox drained the Guinness as he watched the PM reach for a side cup filled with dressing. Slowly, the PM poured the creamy substance over the mound of lettuce. Then he used his knife and fork to thoroughly mix the two together.

After munching down a mouthful of salad, touching his lips with a napkin, and loudly slurping from his water glass, the PM bent his head toward the impatient reporter.

“Obviously, each one of the supervisors would like to get the nomination for him- or herself . . .” The PM tilted his head to one side, as if dismissing the possibility. “But everyone knows that’s not going to happen. They’ll never settle on one of their own. There’s too much infighting.”

Hox licked his lips, hungrily anticipating the PM’s revelation. Maybe the long wait here at the restaurant had been worth his time after all.

If he found out the identity of the dark-horse candidate the city’s political elite were about to push for interim mayor, then he might just have to take back all of the vicious things he’d silently muttered about the PM over the course of the last two and a half hours.

“One of the outsiders, then?” Hox asked eagerly. “Come on, Mayor, give me a name.”

The PM took another forkful of salad and repeated his ritual. Hox was about to leap across the table and strangle the man when at last he made his reply.

“I believe you’re familiar with . . .” The PM paused, his brown eyes twinkling.

Hox held his breath, pencil at the ready.

The PM whispered conspiratorially, “The Current Mayor’s Life Coach.”

Hox bored the pencil into the notepad, breaking the lead.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he grumbled bitterly.

He reached into his rumpled coat pocket, pulled out a wad of cash to cover his drinks and appetizer, and threw it on the table. Screeching his chair back, he stormed out of the restaurant.

• • •

STILL CHUCKLING AT
the hotheaded reporter, the Previous Mayor finished his salad.

The waitress took his plate and brought him a glass of wine while he waited for his main course.

After taking a sip, he pulled out a sleek black mobile device from his jacket pocket and texted an update to his colleagues at the North Beach Homestyle Chicken restaurant.

Chapter 19

THE BAVARIAN BROTHERS

ISABELLA SAT ON
the edge of the bathroom sink in the apartment above the Green Vase antiques shop, guarding the shower while her person finally cleaned up from her run.

Steam rose from the other side of the curtain and began to fog the mirror. As her person’s wet shadow started lathering shampoo into her hair, Isabella quickly calculated the remaining shower time. Then, she gently hopped down from her perch and treaded softly into the bedroom.

Shower surveillance was one of Isabella’s many duties—one she took quite seriously—but tonight, she had other priorities.

She set off into the apartment, looking for Rupert.

It was time to put that brother of hers to some use.

• • •

ISABELLA WAS WAITING
on the edge of the bed when her person emerged from the bathroom, one towel wrapped around her head, a second around her body.

The cat could tell the shower had helped loosen the woman’s thinking. Her lips murmured “Steinhart” as she slid on her bifocal glasses and picked up the green restaurant flyer from her dresser.

Isabella silently observed while her person reread the added paragraph regarding the Steinhart brothers and their contribution to the Academy of Science’s flagship aquarium.

“Steinhart,” the woman repeated, still gripping the towel as she skimmed the fingers of her free hand across the spines of a nearby bookcase.

Here in this shelving unit, the niece had gathered the bulk of Oscar’s reference books on California history. In the entire three stories of the redbrick building that housed the Green Vase, this spot contained the highest concentration of biographical information on the Bay Area’s early movers and shakers: from the explorers who had inhabited San Francisco’s precursor, Yerba Buena, through the masses who had flooded Northern California with the onset of the Gold Rush. Other volumes focused on the city’s later development, covering the bankers and financiers who had helped to construct its initial infrastructure—and those who had rebuilt it from scratch after the 1906 earthquake.

The woman considered this bookshelf to be the most comprehensive source of historical data from her uncle’s vast collections. If there was anything to be known about the Steinharts—particularly a hidden Steinhart treasure—this was the place to start.

• • •

AFTER A MOMENT’S
perusal, the niece selected a book and pulled it from the shelf. Taking a seat on the bed next to Isabella, she flipped through the index to the
S
s.

There was no listing for Steinhart.

“Hmm,” she mused, dropping the book on the bed as she returned to the bookcase for another try.

This time, she picked out a larger, denser text on Northern California’s early history.

“Surely, this will have something,” she said confidently.

But, after a few minutes’ search, she discarded that one as well.

She scanned the rows of books, refusing to accept defeat. The Steinharts were prominently named benefactors of one of the city’s most popular public venues. The influential brothers had to be mentioned in one of Oscar’s references.

As the niece stared down at the bookshelf, a cat-sized ripple appeared in the spines along the bottom row.

Thump.

Rupert’s fluffy white body darted out from the space at the back of the shelf, knocking several books onto the floor at the woman’s feet.

With a sigh, she bent to pick them up. As she began to slide the books back into place, she noticed a clump of white cat hair lying in the exposed portion of the shelf.

“Oh, Rupert,” she muttered. “I’m always cleaning up after your . . .”

And then she stopped, puzzled. In the cavity behind the row of books, she spied a slim paperback with a blue cover depicting an underwater scene. Reaching into the slot, she pulled out
The History of the Steinhart Aquarium
.

From her perch on the edge of the bed, Isabella issued a satisfied
chirp
.

• • •

AN HOUR LATER,
Oscar’s niece was both reclothed and fully up-to-date on what little there was to be known about the biographical profiles of the Steinhart brothers. The aquarium book had provided more information than all the other research materials combined, but the details were still sketchy.

Bavarian-born Sigmund and Ignatz immigrated to America in the 1850s. Seizing on the Gold Rush’s moneymaking opportunities, the brothers built a thriving mercantile business that soon expanded into a mining and finance empire.

Ignatz, the younger Steinhart, married and, by all accounts, was a devoted husband to his lovely wife, showering her with expensive presents and trips to exotic locations.

Sigmund, in contrast, lived the life of a swinging bachelor. A man with substantial means, he was on the guest list to the finest gatherings the growing city had to offer. He was a gregarious fellow and joined several of San Francisco’s exclusive social societies, the most notable being the all-male Bohemian Club.

• • •

ESTABLISHED IN 1872,
the Bohemian Club started out as a meager gathering of artists, writers, and journalists. Over the years, however, it grew into an ultra-exclusive fraternity of the rich and powerful.

Although the actual membership rolls remained shrouded in secrecy, rumor had it that participants included California luminaries such as publisher William Randolph Hearst, sugar baron Claus Spreckels, architects James Flood and Bernard Maybeck, vintner Robert Mondavi, and actor, movie director, and former mayor of Carmel, Clint Eastwood. Several U.S. presidents were also believed to have joined the ranks.

But back in the late 1800s, when Sigmund Steinhart attended his first meeting, the club was still an association of the original Bohemians. Likely, Sigmund would have made the acquaintance of one of the group’s founding members, San Francisco writer Mark Twain.

• • •

AS OSCAR’S NIECE
digested this last piece of information, she shifted the book away from her bifocal glasses and collapsed backward onto the bed, her head whirling with possibilities.

In her mind’s eye, she imagined the private property where the club had held its secretive meetings. The Bohemian Grove, as it was aptly named, was located in the forested coastlands near the Russian River on the western edge of Sonoma County.

It was probably at one of these retreats, she reasoned, deep within the Sonoma woods, that Sigmund came up with the idea of funding an aquarium for the growing city of San Francisco.

Instantly, she pictured the elder Steinhart brother, contemplating his future endowment as he sat on a log next to his fellow Bohemian, a character from San Francisco’s past on whom her uncle had focused a great deal of his research: Mark Twain.

The woman lay there on the bed, pondering. Was this a clue to the Steinharts—or something more?

Information about the Bohemian Club would have been difficult to obtain, even for someone with her uncle’s unique resources.

Had Oscar been a member of the secret club?

Force of habit had driven her to use the past tense. She revised her last thought.

Was
Oscar a member?

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