Nine Lives Last Forever (11 page)

“What . . . happened . . . in here?” I murmured, reeling from the extent of the mess.

“Wra-oooo,” Rupert yodeled in response, the white ruff of his chest puffed out like a lion’s.

I shook my head, mystified, and grabbed a bottle of kitchen cleanser and a roll of paper towels. I began wiping down the trail of sticky paw prints that tracked across the counters, table, and floor, stopping—in disbelief—when I came to a small triangular-shaped smudge.

It looked as if it had been left by a frog’s webbed foot.

PARKED ABOUT A
hundred yards down the beach from the Cliff House, the faint outline of Harold Wombler’s rusted-out pickup truck could barely be distinguished in the misty premorning haze of sand and ocean. Inside the cold, damp cab of the truck, its occupants had been listening to the full, battering roar of the Pacific for the last half hour.

Montgomery Carmichael shifted his body beneath the dingy brown blanket. The cloth reeked of motor oil and engine fluid, but it appeared to be warding off some of the chill. Harold Wombler sat in the truck beside Monty, stolidly silent and hunched behind the steering wheel.

“Maybe you’ve got the wrong place,” Monty mumbled sleepily, but Harold did not acknowledge this expression of doubt.

Harold’s runny, bloodshot eyes glanced out across the choppy surface of the ocean, and then back up to the square pillbox edifice of the Cliff House. The pounding sea dominated the small building huddled up against the rocks; the barren scene lacked any of the bustling hallmarks of human activity. It was, as yet, too early for the tour buses to begin making their obligatory stops at this bygone hub of old-time San Francisco’s social oasis.

This area hadn’t always been so desolate, Harold reflected as he stared up the beach toward the Cliff House’s solid bunker.

Back in the late 1800s, almost all of the land visible from the pickup truck’s beachside parking spot had been owned by one man—mining millionaire, philanthropist, and eventual San Francisco Mayor Adolph Sutro. Sutro’s property holdings had extended up and down the beach, including the battered bluff that ran alongside it.

Sutro had invested heavily in the land’s development, turning his oceanfront acres into a recreational weekend destination for San Francisco’s working-class families. Lands End, as the area became known, included the Sutro Baths, the Sutro Gardens, a collection of privately run amusement park rides, and, of course, the Sutro-era Cliff House.

If Harold stretched his neck so that he could see above the rim of the steering wheel, he could just make out the rocky outcropping abutting the opposite side of the Cliff House where the Baths had been located. In addition to numerous seawater swimming pools, the aquatic center had featured a theater, several restaurants, a large gymnasium, and a museum. During its heyday, the complex could accommodate up to twenty-five thousand visitors on any given weekend.

The Baths’ water collection system was a tribute to Sutro’s engineering genius—a trait which had earned him his first fortune in the Comstock mines. For the Baths, Sutro designed a seawall along the shoreline’s rocky embankment. Strategically placed tunnels beneath the wall trapped incoming seawater during high tide. The captured water was then filtered and used to fill several large bathing pools. The collection of pools were all covered by an enormous glass-paned solarium and warmed to a range of temperatures to provide the optimal swimming experience.

Harold’s weary eyes continued their scan across the highway to the craggy bluff overlooking the beach, where Sutro had built his mammoth mansion. While the living quarters remained private, Sutro had opened up the estate’s elaborate Italianate gardens to Lands End picnickers.

Of course, if picnicking wasn’t your cup of tea, Harold mused, you could have ventured across the road to Sutro’s recently rebuilt Cliff House for a more refined dining experience.

The Cliff House was already a well-established San Francisco institution when Sutro built the Baths—but not one known for family friendly entertainment. It had been a favorite haunt of the Barbary Coast crowd and had acquired a scurrilous reputation for the shady activities allegedly conducted in its back rooms.

Sutro purchased the Cliff House, determined to clean the place up to meet the standards of the surrounding Lands End attractions. His efforts were facilitated by the early-era Cliff House’s complete destruction, not long after ownership was transferred to him. The building imploded when a schooner carrying a load of dynamite wrecked on the hazardous rocks below.

Sutro designed a new Cliff House that was far more grand and elegant than the one that had preceded it. His Cliff House was styled as a fanciful eight-story French castle. The towering building’s foundation exceeded the horizontal space provided by the rocks beneath it, so that it appeared as if the whole structure might fall into the ocean at any moment. Inside, the glamorous establishment provided fine dining for both the high society who arrived at Lands End in horse-drawn carriages as well as the swimmers who walked up from the Baths.

It was important to Sutro that the Lands End amenities be both affordable and accessible for San Francisco’s working-class families. He ensured that the entrance fees for both the Baths and the Gardens were kept at a low, nominal rate. Then, to prevent the local railroad barons from gouging Lands End travelers, Sutro constructed his own passenger rail line to transport visitors to the site from downtown San Francisco.

Harold sighed grouchily as he surveyed the near-empty coastline. Time and neglect had erased almost all evidence of this earlier-era grandeur. Sutro’s palatial Cliff House was destroyed by fire in 1907. The building that replaced it introduced the current shoebox-shaped structure, which, over the years of subsequent renovations, gradually shrank down to its current size.

Sutro’s elaborate gardens and estate were torn down in 1938 when his heirs donated the land to the city. The rail line succumbed to earthquakes and frequent mudslides. The Baths fell into disrepair and were eventually closed. An ill-fated condo development was planned for the Baths’ property in the 1960s, but the project never commenced construction. The structures above the Baths later burned to the ground, leaving a series of exposed ponds inside the ruins of the deteriorating seawall.

The once heavily trafficked stretch of beach was now an abandoned afterthought of the city’s history. While a stop at the Cliff House remained a must-see on many tourists’ checklists, Lands End had long since lost its niche as a regular destination for San Franciscans.

“A perfect out-of-eye space for this morning’s meeting,” Harold thought as Monty began to snore beneath the blanket. “Shielded from the influence and speculations of the other political power brokers.”

A moment later, the headlights of a shiny black Lincoln Town Car swept into a parking space close to the entrance of the Cliff House. A uniformed driver leapt out to open the passenger door for a slim, black-coated figure.

Monty winced from the sudden glare of the car’s lights and noisily roused himself. “Well, I’ll be,” he murmured, giving Harold an impressed look as they watched the man unfold his long limbs and climb out of the Town Car’s leather-seated interior.

The occupants of the truck watched closely as the slim man paced toward the steps that led down the embankment to the Cliff House’s front door. The man’s knee-length unbuttoned overcoat flapped loosely in the breeze, revealing a dark double-breasted suit and pencil-thin baby blue tie. His brown hair was slicked back, exposing the bulbing crest of his wide forehead.

Monty sat entranced, his slender fingers absentmindedly trying to brush down his own tight, towering curls, which were springing with even more vigor than usual in the ocean air’s high humidity.

The Mayor paused briefly in front of the Cliff House entrance. His posture slumped apprehensively, as if he were reconsidering his decision. He wiped his left hand over the bottom half of his face, rubbed his fingers into the narrow corners of his mouth, and thoughtfully flicked his thumb against the pointed stub of his chin.

After a moment’s reflection, the Mayor smiled to himself, seemingly convinced of the appropriateness of his action. He flashed a solid fence of chalky white teeth and walked inside.

The front doors of the Cliff House were still swishing shut behind the Mayor when a neon green hybrid-electric compact slid confidently into a slot next to the Town Car. The driver secured the parking brake and stepped briskly out onto the tarmac. With a flick of his wrist, the man beeped the little car’s electronic security system and strutted confidently toward the entrance.

The Cliff House’s second arrival wore no overcoat; he appeared not to notice the morning’s chill. His grayish brown suit matched the flat color of his limp, floppy hair. Parted just off center, his mousy brown locks curved gently in toward his soft, unaging baby face. Despite its tailored cut, the man’s suit wrinkled around the slight pudging of his middle.

“Is that . . . ?” Monty gawked, first at the man walking through the parking lot and then at Harold.

“President of the Board of Supervisors,” Harold confirmed tetchily.

The Supervisor hopped down the front steps, casually brushing back his loose bangs before firmly gripping the door’s handle and pulling it open.

Back in the pickup truck, Monty shuddered off the blanket and fumbled with the rusted latch to release his door.

“Wait,” Harold grunted brusquely.

“Aren’t we going in?” Monty protested, a confused look muddling the still sleepy lines of his face.

“Wait,” Harold repeated tersely.

A third car swept in from the highway. This time, the graceful, sliding curves of a creamy pearl-colored Bentley pulled into a Cliff House parking space, a few slots down from the first two vehicles.

Monty’s jaw dropped as he recognized the showy car’s driver.

The man removed his black felt bowler and carefully ran his hands along its curling sides, smoothing the veins of a stylish feather neatly tucked into its brim. A closely barbered rim of gray hair circled the smooth brown skin of the man’s balding crown. Above his lips, another patch of gray hair had been expertly shaved into the outline of a tightly cropped mustache.

The man’s face beamed widely as he replaced the bowler on his head and tipped it toward Harold’s dilapidated pickup truck.

Harold nodded, almost imperceptibly, back at the Former Mayor who stepped out of the Bentley with a dignified, debonair ease.

As the Former Mayor entered the Cliff House, Harold inserted his corroded key into the stem of the steering wheel and cranked the engine.

“But, but, but—” Monty’s sputtering protest was quickly drowned out by that of the motor.

“We’ve got work to do,” Harold explained enigmatically as the truck pulled back onto the highway and started its return trip to the Green Vase.

BACK IN THE
Green Vase showroom, I collapsed onto the stool behind the cashier counter, feeling far more weary and decidedly less clean than I had when I’d stepped out of the shower earlier that morning. After several hours of work, the kitchen was finally back in serviceable condition, all of the scattered spices swept up, the sticky smears of honey wiped away.

Two freshly bathed cats sat on the floor next to the counter, their tongues loudly grooming through their clean, damp fur. Despite the webbed footprints I’d discovered upstairs, I still couldn’t believe that a frog had been the instigator of all of that feline mischief. Rupert and Isabella continued their grooming, both of them refusing to comment on my frog-chase speculations.

I grabbed the corner of the counter and leaned back in my seat, trying to imagine the scene that had played out in the kitchen during my shower. Perhaps I had developed a frog fixation, but all of my scenarios inevitably implicated an amphibian intruder.

Frogs in the Green Vase—were they real or just the product of my imagination? How on earth would they have found their way inside? Even more importantly, I pondered as I sucked in on my lower lip, where were they now?

My frog-focused thoughts were interrupted by the unmistakable pounding of stiletto heels approaching on the pavement outside. Rupert looked up, midlick through a patch of thick, fluffy hair, and emitted a startled half snork. Each of us instantly recognized the step of Miranda Richards. The increasing volume of stiletto smacking against concrete advertised her imminent arrival.

With a shuffling whump, Rupert bunny-hopped into his hiding place behind the row of books on the first shelf of the nearest bookcase. A moment later, Miranda’s curvy figure swiveled on the threshold as she pulled open the front door and swung herself inside.

Miranda’s ensemble this morning revolved around the color purple. She wore a pale lavender dress, the folds of which were tightly tucked around every rounded inch of her voluptuous figure. Dark plum high-heeled shoes on her feet complemented the dress and matched the large, chunky stones strung around her neck.

Isabella stood up and strolled toward Miranda, alone in her unbothered nonchalance. I watched, tension twitching across the back of my neck, as Miranda dropped the sharp edge of one of her plum-painted nails into the smooth fur on the top of Isabella’s head.

Miranda’s face, as always, was heavily made up. Her lips scrunched together under a deep violet layer of lipstick. Purple-hued eye shadow spread across her eyelids; a purple-tinged mascara thickened her lashes. I guess she might have been pretty if she weren’t so scary—if there’d been Dalmatian puppies on the premises, I would have hidden them in the basement.

“Hello, Miranda,” I managed to breathe out as I waited for my intimidating visitor to resume her full commanding height.