Nine Lives Last Forever (23 page)

He poked his head out of the kitchen and yelled at the head waiter. “Francois, update the staff. The special of the day has just arrived.”

 

 

OUT IN THE
dining room, Harold was still surveying the menu, his face souring as he read through the list of French dishes. Nothing on offer was the least bit appetizing to him. It was all so froufrou. Too much sauce; too little substance.

Harold put down the menu, picked up his water glass, and guzzled several inches of the ice-chilled liquid.

The Previous Mayor seemed to be enjoying all of the attention his latest guest was drawing to his table. He loved to create a stir, to be the center of attention, especially if it was for one of his many eccentricities. He and his lunch companion were the topic of conversation throughout the restaurant, of this he was certain.

But today’s lunch was more than just a casual meeting. He and Harold had business to attend to.

“Is everything in place on your end?” the Previous Mayor asked, keeping his voice low enough so that he could not be overheard at the next table, whose curious diners were desperately trying to listen in.

Harold grunted his affirmation and leaned over in his seat so that he could reach the back pocket of his overalls. He pulled out a folded sheet of paper and spread it open in front of the Previous Mayor.

The sheet contained a map of San Francisco’s Lands End area, focused in on the region containing the Sutro Baths ruins, the Cliff House, and the beach below.

“Good, good,” the Previous Mayor said as he glanced over the map. Surreptitiously, he slid a page of diagrams depicting the interior design of a large dome structure across the table. “Here’s my contribution.”

As Harold and the Previous Mayor studied the second document, a waiter crept up on the table and tucked a green flier into the center of each of their menus.

Harold flicked a grimy finger at the flier. “What’s this?” he grunted, showing it to the Previous Mayor who read the added menu item with surprise.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he replied, an apologetic look on his face. “I had no idea they would be serving that dish today.” He shook his head ruefully. “It’s the latest food fad. Restaurants across the city are rushing to get it on their menus.”

Harold motioned to the waiter who was still hovering near their table.

“This item you’ve got on the special?” he asked grumpily. “Is it
fresh
?”

“
Oui, bien sur
,” the waiter assured him. “Hopping around in the kitchen as we speak.”

“That’s what I’ll have then,” Harold announced. “But I’ll take mine alive,” he instructed. “I’ll take every one you’ve got—make sure you keep ’em all
alive
.”

MONTY AND I
rode along in stony silence as the van retraced its path back through Golden Gate Park. We had been politely asked to leave the restaurant inside the Cliff House. Apparently Monty’s wet swimsuit attire had constituted a dress code violation. It had certainly shocked the out-of-town tourists sitting at the table next to me.

I let my shoulders rest against the soft, cushioning bucket of the front passenger seat. This was a much more comfortable place to ride than the metal floor of the van’s rear compartment. My knees were still sore from crouching on the hard surface during the trip to the ruins earlier that morning.

I glanced over at the driver’s seat. Water was seeping through Monty’s blue sweatpants into the underlying seat fabric. Large drops collected on the coiled tips of his curly brown hair and occasionally plopped down onto the shoulders of his white T-shirt.

The bronze frog I’d stolen from the pile by the pond sat in my lap, its molded eyes gazing up at me serenely. I picked it up, thinking as I stared into the frog’s little metal face.

“So,” I said, clearing my throat. “You were recruited by the Vigilance Committee—to do what, exactly?”

Monty’s green eyes stared resolutely out the windshield as he gripped the steering wheel with both of his pale, bony hands.

“That’s classified information,” Monty said through stiffened lips. “I really can’t tell you.”

I could see that Monty was struggling to keep this tidbit to himself. If I could just get him talking, I thought, surely he would break. Monty was not one to bear the burden of a secret for very long.

“It must have been awfully cold in that water,” I said conversationally.

Monty nodded numbly. His shoulders shivered beneath the thin T-shirt. He’d turned the van’s heater up to its highest setting.

“I’m just trying to imagine what would be worth diving down into that cold, mucky water. There are only a few things that come to mind . . .” I gestured toward the driver’s seat with the hand holding the bronze frog. “This isn’t one of them.”

“Not
exactly
what I had expected to find,” Monty muttered under his breath.

I looked over at him expectantly, eyebrows raised, frog still tauntingly outstretched, waiting for him to continue. Monty’s eyes shot briefly toward me, but he shook his head firmly and returned his resolute stare to the windshield.

“It was just a man and his frogs, out for an early morning swim,” Monty said tersely, sternly facing the road ahead of us. “You should give it a try sometime. I feel much healthier for having done it.” He huffed up his chest, setting off a spastic coughing spell.

I took in a deep breath, trying to summon patience. “Oscar’s Vigilance Committee—it was about more than trying to influence city politics, wasn’t it?”

Monty coughed again, this time more to create a distraction than out of necessity. His fingers fiddled with the heater controls, adjusting the vents to optimize the airflow.

I tried to press him further with my speculations. “I mean, where did the VC get all of their money? The funds that they were funneling into the Board initiative and then the Milk campaign? As far as I know, none of the VC members were independently wealthy.”

Monty flattened his lips, still refusing to budge.

I decided to cut to the chase. “I think they found someone else’s money.” I paused, drew in my breath, and leaned toward Monty. “Does this have something to do with the funds missing from Adolph Sutro’s estate?”

Monty tilted his head, as if considering his reply. He pulled the van over to the side of the road and parked in a shaded spot near the center of Golden Gate Park. With a shrug of his shoulders, he turned the key in the ignition and stopped the engine.

“Okay, here’s what I know,” he said quietly. “The original members of the VC were all history buffs. San Francisco history, that’s what they had in common. Wang, Dilla, Oscar, and—Napis.”

Monty brushed his hand through the damp curls on the top of his head, spraying water against the back of his seat. “Of course, his name wasn’t Napis at that time. He was using another alias and a different disguise.”

Monty stretched his free hand out toward the windshield and peered down at his fingertips. Curving strips of green algae were stuck into several fingernails. With a sigh, he recurled his hand around the steering wheel.

“Sutro was an obvious target—historically, I mean. It’s well documented that his disastrous term as Mayor left him a bitter, vindictive old man. His entire life, he’d never failed at anything. Suddenly, he had to endure the humiliation of a very public defeat.”

Monty drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and ran his tongue across his front teeth.

“Sutro had always been a private person, but after he left office, he became even more isolated. He holed himself up in the library of his mansion on the bluff above the Cliff House. He became hostile to everyone around him, especially his children. It may have been his increasing paranoia, but he suspected that some of them were secretly aligned with the business interests that had undermined him at City Hall.

“When Sutro died, his finances were in a mess. Sutro had emptied several accounts and dumped his shares in multiple businesses. A sizeable portion of the liquid assets from his estate had gone missing.”

Monty tapped his nose with the tip of his algaed finger. “The Vigilance Committee started tracking down Sutro-related memorabilia, old letters, news clippings, and the like, looking for clues to where he might have stashed the money.”

I leaned forward in my seat as I listened to Monty’s story, my excitement growing. “So, did Oscar find it? Did he find Sutro’s hidden fortune?”

Monty wiped a nervous hand across his brow. “Yes—at least, according to Dilla he did. The VC pumped some of the money into the initiative to change the seating structure for the Board elections. They set aside another chunk of it to help fund Milk’s next Supervisor campaign, to try to get him elected as the President of the Board.”

I collapsed back into my seat and stared up at the van’s ceiling, my thoughts racing. “But that election never happened,” I said. “Because of the shootings.” I turned to look back at Monty. “What happened to the money?”

Monty reached over to the center console where I’d set the bronze frog. He snatched it up and thrust it into my face.

“Well, it sure didn’t end up in the bottom of the Sutro Baths ruins, I can tell you that much.”

 

 

UP IN THE
steeple above the dome in City Hall, Sam the janitor creaked open a door and walked into the attic. The space was filled with several glass aquariums, each one receiving a small trickle of water that pooled beneath a collection of rocks and green plants. With the combination of the heat rising up through the building and the moisture Sam was piping in for the tanks, the attic had begun to take on a moist, rain forest-like atmosphere.

Inside the aquariums, countless frogs slid amongst the greenery, splashing in the water and lazily sunning themselves beneath heat lamps. The lids on each of the tanks had been removed, leaving them open at the top, so that the frogs could hop in and out at will.

Sam opened up a large cardboard container he’d carried with him into the attic. He popped off its lid, reached inside with a grubby hand, and pulled out a handful of squirming bugs and scrambling crickets. He dropped a generous amount of both into each of the aquariums, where the insects were quickly devoured by the waiting frogs. A chorus of appreciative croaks echoed through the attic chamber.

On a ledge next to the row of tanks, the highly polished bronze statue of a frog glimmered in the light filtering in through the window.

A FEW BLOCKS
away from City Hall, a group of children crossed the street in front of a glass-enclosed merry-go-round. Located within the several-block campus of the Yerba Buena complex, the merry-go-round was strategically positioned across the street from a multiplex theater, kitty-corner to the Moscone Convention Center, and just outside of a kid-friendly art and media museum.

The boisterous crowd of six- and seven-year-olds chatted excitedly with each other, eagerly anticipating the afternoon’s birthday party. It would be the kind of wild, frenzied affair typical for their age group, complete with pizza, cake, presents, and an exuberant hour and a half’s worth of merry-go-riding.

The children were escorted to their party destination under the watchful eye of an elderly caretaker. She ushered her charges through the crosswalk, hurrying the children along to ensure that the last partygoer cleared the street before the light changed.

A tangle of helium-filled balloons bounced in the air beside the woman as she walked. Each balloon had a long twine tail, which was tightly tied to a loop near the waist of the woman’s furry green frog costume.

The main part of the frog outfit comprised a green jumper with frog-ish spots spaced evenly across a jiggling spring-form belly. Gloves in the shape of green webbed mitts covered the woman’s hands. A frog-shaped head mounted on her shoulders featured round googly eyes that rolled in their sockets when shaken.

A car waiting at the intersection for the children to pass gave a playful honk at the woman’s frog costume. The nearest child squealed in delight as the human-sized frog waved and mock-hopped in front of the car.

The children had been amused, at first, by their furry green chaperone. But with the merry-go-round in sight and the smell of hot pepperoni pizza tickling their tummies, their attention was focused elsewhere. Curiosity concerning their amphibian friend’s bright green go-go boots had long since lapsed.

The merry-go-round was mounted on a circular concrete platform accessed by a short flight of steps that curved around the circumference of its base. A decorative topper of metal flashings mounted on the ride’s aluminum roof spun spastically in the breeze. Undulating waves cut into the concrete paid tribute to the merry-go-round’s earlier home near the Cliff House in the Playland-at-the-Beach amusement complex.

The merry-go-round was well traveled for such a stationary device. Manufactured in Rhode Island in the late 1800s, the ride was first featured at a park in Seattle, Washington, before moving down the coast to San Francisco. After nearly fifty years of service in Playland-at-the-Beach, the carousel was purchased by a private collector and stored for several years at a warehouse in New Mexico. The merry-go-round then changed owners and was put on display in Southern California, before it finally made its triumphant return to the Bay Area. Now fully restored, the ride was a favorite treat for children and parents throughout the city.

A protective glass-walled enclosure surrounded the merry-go-round, ensuring that the ride could be enjoyed in both wet and sunny weather. In addition, the enclosure prevented vandals from marring the brightly painted creatures inside.

Dilla herded her charges up the stairs to the glass door entrance where she fished a key out of a furry green pocket and fed it into the lock. The key still retained a slight fishy smell from its time spent in Lily’s custody behind the oyster bar, but the odor did not affect its primary function. The key turned easily within the casing of the lock.