Nine Lives Last Forever (29 page)

Between the artificial frog habitat, the disembodied mustache, and the delusional card-playing janitor, I was unsure how to proceed.

“So, uh, Sam, how long have you been living up here?” I asked gently as Monty grappled with an irate Isabella. One of her sharp, stabbing claws nicked his right cheek.

“Just a short while,” Sam replied with a sheepish shrug. “I’m not supposed to be sleeping up here, but this is such a nice spot for a nap.” His ruddy face broke into a broad smile. “Beautiful views, even at night. Check out the city lights.”

I carried Rupert over to the east-facing window for an appreciative look out at the sky-high panorama of the surrounding city. Not far in the distance, a cluster of towering concrete buildings marked the edge of the financial district. Just beyond, the lighted lines of the Bay Bridge spidered across the water toward the Oakland Hills.

Behind me, Monty cursed under his breath as he continued to struggle with Isabella. I took a wide circle around them and returned to Sam.

Another pair of tired frogs emerged from the stairwell as I approached the card table. Once inside the attic, they waddled, without hesitation, across the room to the frog tanks. An electronic box, I noticed, was mounted on the wall behind the row of aquariums.

“What’s this?” I asked, pointing at the box. Two round speakers on the front side of the device faced up against the tanks. A dial on the top of the box had been turned to a marker indicating three-fourth’s power.

“Yeah, that’s a radio,” Sam said blithely. “My mom gave it to me for the frogs. It plays music on a spectrum that only they can hear.” Sam nodded his head toward the tanks. “That’s why they keep coming—for the music.”

“That’s what’s bringing the frogs all the way up from the basement?” I asked, amazed. “This box? Is it sending out sonar or something?”

“Oh no,” Sam said confidently, “just music. That’s what my mom told me. The frogs don’t dance or anything silly like that. They just like to listen to the music.”

“Sam,” I said, still puzzled. “There are an awful lot of frogs headed up here. The moat in the substructure of the foundation is filled with water—”

“And about a million tadpoles,” Monty interjected, despite his ongoing duel with Isabella. “Who put those in the moat, Sam?”

Sam thumped his chest proudly. “My mom showed me where to put the hose. She took me down there about a week ago—through the trapdoor in the janitor’s closet. She knew about it from when my dad worked here. You know, all this time, I never thought to look down underneath the building into the foundation layer. It’s really a different world down there.”

He strummed the grubby stubs of his fingers on the table, remembering. “We dumped a couple of packages of tadpoles into the water. I was afraid, at first, that they wouldn’t make it all the way up here to the top of the dome, but Mom told me the music would get them going, give them inspiration. She knows how much I like frogs. It’s been great to have them up here with me. They keep me and my dad company—it turns out he’s a frog-man, too.”

Monty was losing his battle with Isabella. His hands and arms were bloodied from numerous scratches. I turned my back to Sam, set Rupert on the floor, and held out my arms for her. She leapt easily over to me and put her front paws on my shoulder to cover the nametag, all the while glaring haughtily at Monty. Rupert yawned sleepily and trotted over to Sam’s cot.

“Your father?” I asked, turning back toward Sam as Monty shook his head emphatically back and forth, trying to ward off my inquiry. I bit my lip, but decided to press on. “I’m sorry—I thought he had passed away.”

“Yes, you’re right. He did.” Sam acknowledged cheerfully. “But, he came back a couple of months ago.”

Sam leaned forward in his chair. “I was a bit surprised, right at first. You know, you sometimes hear of this sort of thing occurring to other people, but you never think it will happen to you.” Sam arched an eyebrow at me. “You’ve got to keep an open mind, that’s what my dad always says.”

Monty rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, but Sam was already off and running with his story.

“That’s why I’ve been spending so much time up here, you see,” Sam explained. “So I can hang out with him and the frogs. You never know how long something like this will last.”

Sam leaned back in his chair and stroked the red stubbled hair on his chin. “One day, not too long ago, I was running a sweeper on the third floor hallway. I looked up and saw a man standing next to the door for the stairwell that leads up into the dome.”

Sam rubbed his eyes. “I thought, for sure, I must be seeing things, because this guy looked just like my old dad. Next thing I knew, he was waving at me.”

Monty put his head in his hands, but Sam seemed not to notice.

“I couldn’t believe it at first. My dad’s been dead now for nearly fifteen years. But, sure enough, the closer I got, the more it looked just like him. He motioned for me to follow, so I did—all the way up to this room in the steeple.”

The chair creaked as Sam shifted his weight to cross one leg over the other. “I got to tell you, it’s so quiet when you reach the higher parts of the dome. I was starting to get kind of scared as I climbed up all of those steps, especially since I was following a ghost. Kind of creepy if you let your mind go there. But when I walked into this room, there was my dad, nice as you please. Sitting right here at this table.”

There was a gleam in Sam’s eyes as he spoke, and I realized that this reunion, however much imagined, meant a lot to him.

“It’s amazing how fast we reconnected. Just like the old times. I’ve been coming up here as often as I can ever since. See, look, my dad and I, we started this game of cards. Of course, you have to be patient when you’re interacting with a ghost. Sometimes, it takes him a while to make his next move.”

Monty stared down at the empty seat and the downward facing, immobile playing cards. He clearly wasn’t buying Sam’s ghost story.

I leaned toward Sam and asked cautiously. “And do you, er . . . uh, see him sitting at the table, right now?”

Sam gave me an incredulous look. “Of course not.” His eyes narrowed as if he, Sam, were questioning
my
sanity.

“But, you’re . . . playing cards with him?” I asked tentatively.

“With his ghost,” Sam replied, in a matter-of-fact tone. “He can’t always be visible, you know. It takes a lot of work to make himself seen.” Sam pointed to his chest. “But he’s always with me in spirit, even if I can’t see him with my eyes.”

Monty had given up on this conversation. He began snooping around the room, peeking into the bags underneath the frog tanks. He was still searching, I suspected, for the hidden Sutro fortune.

I was more concerned about the role of the fake mustache. I was beginning to suspect that
it
was the reason we’d been led to this location.
Follow the frogs
I thought with growing apprehension—and find Frank Napis.

“Uh, Sam,” I said, my voice trembling as I pointed to the object occupying the seat on the opposite side of the card table. “What is that doing in your father’s chair?”

My fingers gripped into Isabella’s thick fur as Sam chuckled. “Oh, that’s just a placeholder. I found it lying around City Hall somewhere. I figured one of the tourists probably lost it.”

Sam got up from his chair, walked around the card table, and picked up the mustache. “It gives me something to focus on when I can’t see him in person. You see, Dad always has a bit of facial hair, a stubble, you know, like me. He doesn’t shave much.”

Every nerve in my body tensed as I forced myself to ask the next question. “Does your father sometimes have a mustache like that one?”

“Well, not exactly,” Sam said affably. He dropped the mustache on the card table and strolled over to the bench near the entrance of the attic. He picked up the Mark Twain book, flipped open its green cover, and pulled out a black-and-white photo.

“Here’s a picture of him,” Sam offered, pointing at a group of four people standing in front of a Castro Street storefront. It was an exact copy of the photograph I’d found in the wardrobe in my basement. “He’s the guy here on the end.”

“The end?” I stammered. “No, you mean there in the middle.” My shaking finger lined up with Frank Napis.

“I think I know my own father,” Sam replied with a wary look. “He’s the one with the big white beard. This one.”

Sam shifted the photo to the right, so that my paralyzed finger now pointed to the image of my Uncle Oscar.

I CLIMBED OUT
of the white van in front of the Green Vase and stumbled wearily up the steps to the front door, struggling to carry both cats in my arms.

After the adventures and revelations of the last two days, I thought, I might never leave home again. My head was pounding, unable to process the implications of my conversation with Sam. I felt exhausted; the stress and emotion of recent events had completely drained me.

But as I set the cats on the top step of the entrance and reached out my hand to insert the tulip-shaped key into the lock, I noticed that the front door was slightly ajar. Someone had stopped by while I’d been out. I had a pretty good idea of who it was—but, at this point, it wouldn’t have surprised me if Oscar himself had greeted me at the entrance to the Green Vase.

Sighing tiredly, I pulled the door open to allow Isabella to slide through. Then, after scooping up a sleepy Rupert, I stepped inside.

With an alert chirp, Isabella trotted through to the back of the showroom where an elderly Asian woman was stretched out on the dentist recliner. Her bright green go-go boots were propped up on the footrest, and she appeared to be dozing quietly. The fingers of the woman’s left hand were wrapped around a key with a tulip-shaped handle, similar in size, shape, and function to the one I had just slipped back into my pocket.

“Ah, there you are, dear,” Dilla said drowsily. “I hope you don’t mind, but I let myself in.”

“Not at all,” I replied as I turned back toward the cashier counter. “Here, let me get your package.”

“You’ve been out late,” she said, bending her head to check her watch.

I smiled to myself. Dilla, I suspected, knew exactly where I’d been.

I leaned behind the counter and carefully slid Dilla’s book back into its wrapping. With the flat of my hand, I pressed the tape down along the seams of the refolded paper. “I’ve got your package,” I said, glancing cautiously toward the recliner.

“Excellent,” Dilla replied. She flipped the lever to collapse the footrest and bounded up, her energy apparently restored.

I met her halfway across the room and handed her the package. She studied it for a second, examined the wrapping, and then looked up at me.

“Did you open it?” she asked. Her eyes had an eager gleam to them.

I thought about trying to cover up my unauthorized examination of her book, but I didn’t have the energy to even make the attempt. I shrugged my shoulders apologetically and grinned sheepishly.

Dilla clapped her hands together in delight. “Good!” she said. “That’s exactly what your uncle would have done.”

My uncle, I thought—that phrase had never elicited a more muddled image.

At this point, I honestly couldn’t guess what Oscar would have done while couriering such a package. My memory of him seemed to be slipping away from me, the sharpness of his features eroding even as my mind tried harder and harder to hold on to them.

Dilla’s eyes sparkled. “Did you compare it to the older book?” she asked. “The one Harold left for you? Did you see the extra essay about the Cliff House?”

“Yes,” I replied with a short laugh. “It’s one of my favorite Twain pieces of those I’ve read so far.”

Dilla held up the brown-wrapped package. “It’s located right after the story about the jumping frogs.” She leaned forward and looked at me intensely, gesturing with the book. “Don’t you see? It
follows the frogs
!”

I rubbed my eyes, feeling another wave of exhaustion. After the discovery about Oscar I’d made in the steeple room above City Hall, I was done looking for hidden treasure. I didn’t want to know any more of his secrets.

I reached into the pocket of the overalls and pulled out the folded-up piece of paper with Oscar’s handwriting on it.

“We followed many,
many
frogs tonight Dilla,” I said tiredly as I handed her the paper. “But all we found was a janitor named Sam who seemed to believe that he’s being visited by the ghost of my Uncle Oscar.”

Dilla made a confused stirring noise beneath the mask as she reached for the paper. She held it up to her face so that she could read the writing.

“Oscar?” she asked, her voice as hidden as her face.

It was too much to recap, too much that my mind just couldn’t grapple with. “Dilla,” I sighed. “Sometimes, I think maybe I never really knew him at all.”

I pulled my version of the black-and-white photo out of a pocket in the overalls. “Sam had a copy of this.”

The smile visible through Dilla’s mask was oddly frozen. She brushed her hands against the front of her ratty wool sweater and tugged self-consciously at the scarf around her neck.

“Ah yes, the old Vigilance Committee days.” Dilla sighed, the air fluttering out of her like the restless tweet of a small bird as she studied the photo. “That was a different era, dear. That photo was taken before . . . before the Milk and Moscone assassinations.” Her voice darkened slightly. “When that man snuck into City Hall through the basement window.”

“The window in the basement . . . next to the janitor’s closet.” I struggled to find my voice. “Oscar’s window?”

Dilla put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Yes, dear. Your Uncle Oscar was working as a janitor at City Hall when the murders occurred. He felt so responsible for what happened.” She tutted her disagreement. “But, of course, he wasn’t. Not in any way. He couldn’t have known what would transpire that day. Even if he had, I doubt he could have stopped it.” She sighed sadly. “That event changed him. He holed himself up afterward, here in the Green Vase. He spent all of his time hunting through the past . . . searching for a way to change it.”