“Morning, Stanley,” he replied back with his broad, bleached-tooth grin.
As the Mayor settled into the car’s soft leather cushions, he fidgeted once more with the knot of his tie and asked, “Can we make a stop on the way in?”
The driver grunted, as if he had been expecting this request.
“I called ahead. They’ll bring your package out to the car when I pull up.”
“Thank you, Stanley. You’re a good man.”
The driver shook his head. “You must own more umbrellas than anyone else in the state of California.”
• • •
MINUTES LATER, THE Mayor gazed out the car window, watching as his sparkling city flashed by. Everywhere, it seemed, people were outside running, jogging, walking, sitting, and even lying on their backs, soaking up the last bit of sun. He tried to latch onto this exuberance, buoying himself as the town car approached City Hall’s front steps.
Wrapping a pale hand around the polished wooden handle of his newly purchased umbrella, he stepped from the car’s backseat and tentatively climbed the stairs to the building’s entrance.
The security guards manning the scanner booth casually waved the Mayor through. As soon as his slim figure turned the corner for the rotunda, the youngest of the guards swallowed the last bite of his morning donut.
With a wink, he turned to his partner and whispered.
“Ribbit.”
• • •
THE MAYOR SKITTERED across the marble floor beneath City Hall’s ornate rotunda and started up the central staircase. His fingers clenched tighter and tighter around the umbrella’s handle as he neared the second floor.
With an obligatory nod to the Harvey Milk bust in the alcove at the top of the stairs, the Mayor raised the umbrella in front of his body, gripping it like a sword.
His office was located on this floor at the opposite side of the building. To reach it, he just had to traverse the outer hallway overlooking the central open space beneath the rotunda.
He had reached the least populated—and therefore most precarious—portion of his journey. He shuddered with foreboding, steeling his nerves for the long passageway. Frogs, in his experience, preferred quiet, isolated locales.
Despite this route’s inherent risks, it was still preferable to the more direct path, which would have involved either the elevator or one of the inner staircases. Both of those options were far too closed in for his liking. There was too great a chance of amphibian attack.
• • •
CAREFULLY, THE MAYOR approached the first corner. Umbrella at the ready, he crept up to the nearest marble column and cautiously peeked around its polished curve.
The length of the empty corridor stretched out before him. On the plus side, it was well lit by the sunlight streaming in through the windows lining the exterior wall, and it was wide enough for evasive maneuvers, should the need arise.
And yet, the Mayor noted with a cringe, there were still a number of nooks and crannies where a sneaky amphibian might be lying in wait, ready to ambush him.
Summoning his last reserves of courage, the Mayor proceeded slowly down the corridor, his heart beating faster with each trembling step. On the lookout for the smallest sign of his slimy green enemy, he thrust the umbrella tip into every crevice he passed.
It was an exhausting, nerve-racking procedure, but at long last, he reached the south side of the building. He could see the entrance to the mayor’s office suite up ahead. He had almost reached his destination.
He wiped a pale hand across his brow, pushing back a flop of hair that had swept forward during one of his overenthusiastic parrying maneuvers.
The hair’s escape from the gel’s goopy grasp momentarily distracted the Mayor from his anti-amphibian vigilance. Wetting his fingers, he began frantically trying to stick the wayward lock back into place.
It was at this moment that he heard a man’s deep voice.
“Now, here we are on the second floor. That right there is where the mayor works. The supervisors have their get-togethers on the opposite end.”
Must be a docent, the Mayor thought, relieved at the security extra foot traffic would bring. He’s giving an early tour.
The Mayor sucked in his breath, straightened his posture, and eased out a polished, high-wattage smile. I’ll give them a surprise meeting with the mayor, he thought brashly.
He ran his hand over the top of his head one last time to ensure that his hair had been returned to its proper alignment. His facade of confidence firmly in place, he rounded the corner.
The Mayor was unprepared for the sight that awaited him.
It wasn’t a frog—of that, at least, he could be thankful.
One glance at the fearsome creature attached to a leash held by a burly red-haired man wearing a green vest achieved in an instant what hours of therapy had failed to accomplish.
Every last remnant of the Mayor’s persistent frog phobia fled his fragile mental psyche when he took in the image of the albino alligator sprawled across the marble floor outside the south bank of elevators.
• • •
THE PRESIDENT OF the Board of Supervisors exited his office and strode briskly past the Harvey Milk bust at the top of the central marble staircase. The board would be voting soon on the Current Mayor’s replacement, and he was getting desperate.
Jim Hernandez had decided to make one last attempt to convince the Mayor to support his bid to fill the temporary position.
The mere thought of asking that man for any favor—much less one of this magnitude—caused the typically sunny Hernandez to grit his teeth. Politics, however, sometimes made for strange bedfellows. This was his only shot left at winning the nomination.
Still grumbling about his unfortunate position, Hernandez turned onto the hallway leading toward the mayor’s wing at the south side of the building. Halfway down the corridor, he noticed a crumpled form curled up on the floor near the hallway’s opposite end.
Rushing to the Mayor’s side, he bent over the man’s unusually disheveled head of hair.
“You’ll be all right, sir,” Hernandez said as he pulled out his cell phone, but he stopped, mid-dial, at the faint words tumbling from the Mayor’s thin lips.
“Alligator,” the Mayor said fearfully, his eyes tightly shut. “There’s an alligator on the loose in City Hall.”
Hernandez sat back on his heels and shook his head. He cleared the emergency digits from his phone and punched in the number for the Mayor’s administrative assistant.
“Mabel,” he said grimly as the woman picked up on the other end. “I just found your man in the second-floor hallway.”
With a sigh he added, “You’d better bring the straitjacket.”
• • •
ON THE NORTH side of the second floor nearest the supervisors’ offices, Spider Jones leaned his dust mop against a marble column. He’d just watched Supervisor Hernandez help Mabel carry the apparently incapacitated Mayor into his office.
Still puzzling on what he had seen, Spider whipped out a small notepad and pencil from the front pocket of his janitor’s coveralls and scribbled a few notes. Then, he turned and ran down the central staircase to the phone cubby on the first floor to report the news to the Previous Mayor.
Chapter 25
THE JAPANESE TEA GARDENS
WHILE THE CURRENT Mayor continued to insist to anyone who would listen that he’d seen an albino alligator taking a guided tour of City Hall, the proprietor of James Lick’s Homestyle Chicken left his fishing partner on Pier Seven and hobbled aboard a Muni streetcar headed toward the Inner Sunset district.
Half an hour later, Lick pulled the rope above his window, signaling his stop request to the conductor. At a street corner near the southern length of Golden Gate Park, Lick hobbled down the grated steps to the sidewalk.
As the Muni car rumbled off, continuing its winding caterpillar march to the coast, Lick slid his laminated senior pass into his back pocket, hefted a heavy canvas grocer
y bag over his left shoulder, and lumbered down the block toward the park.
• • •
CLOSER TO THE outside than the inside of the bay, beyond the protective mouth of the Golden Gate, the working-class neighborhoods in this part of the city bore a disproportionate share of the Pacific’s cold, brooding fog.
The area’s long, straight streets lacked the imaginative curves and elevation so prominent in other regions of San Francisco, allowing the weather to dominate the landscape. The fog’s drab, color-leaching pallor settled in on these parallel rows of square, squatty buildings, often socking in residents for weeks at a time.
It was no surprise, then, that the recent stretch of sunny days had been greeted more joyfully in the Sunset than almost anywhere else in the city.
• • •
LICK THREADED HIS way through the unusually vibrant bustle, navigating around the tables of a local diner that had been dragged out onto the sidewalk for the morning’s breakfast service.
After maneuvering past a group of previously pale, now pink-tinted eaters, Lick followed a line of joggers across a busy four-lane intersection and proceeded down a shady, tree-lined lane.
The layout inside Golden Gate Park broke with the uniformity of the surrounding streets. As the road entered the first of many sweeping turns, the sidewalk spun off a network of winding footpaths that quickly disappeared into the thick greenery.
Many found themselves disoriented by this labyrinth of trails, but Lick knew the route by heart.
Without hesitation, he veered off through a narrow opening in the bushes, taking a little-known shortcut to his destination.
• • •
A SHORT DISTANCE later, the pointed tips of the Japanese Tea Garden’s painted pagodas began to peek through the trees. Emerging from a dense thicket, Lick made his way toward the swooping red and gold roof that marked the entrance.
The gardens were open, free of charge, for the next half hour, and he walked through the front gates without hindrance. Numbers of local Asian residents were already inside, some practicing their morning meditation while others sipped tea beneath the central pavilion, taking in the scenery.
Despite the growing crowd, a tranquil hush prevailed over the peaceful area. Only the occasional squawk of a duck or the call of a passing loon broke the silence.
An inviting path meandered through the grounds, running alongside and over a rock-lined creek. Several plump goldfish floated in the shadows, waiting for their morning meal to drop into the water.
Lick paused at a wooden bench near the front entrance, gripping its railing for support as he rested a sore knee. While he waited for the pain to subside, he gazed thoughtfully at a collection of miniature shrubs. Each mound of branches had been painstakingly trimmed and trained into a sculpted, compact shape.
Yawning, he looked back toward the front gate, as if he were expecting someone, but after a moment’s pause, he set off along the path.
• • •
NOT FAR DOWN the trail, Lick stopped and bent over the stream to stare at a particularly fat, languid fish. As he shifted the grocery bag to his opposite shoulder, an elderly woman with curly gray hair sidled up next to him.
“Tonight’s special?” Dilla Eckles asked cheerily.
“I don’t think this fellow would go with the rest of my menu,” Lick replied dubiously.
He offered Dilla the crook of his elbow. As they began a slow stroll through the flowering grounds, he scratched his chin and added, “Now, a catfish, I might be tempted to squeeze onto the list . . .”
• • •
IN SOME RESPECTS, they looked like a typical retired couple out for a little morning air. Lick had adjusted his hobo garb so that he looked more scruffy than homeless. His walking partner wore sensible walking shoes, ankle- length capri pants, and a simple white shirt.
Any sense of normalcy, however, ended with Dilla’s headpiece, a feather-topped creation with piles of plumage that hid most of her curly hair.
“I’ve been waiting for just the right weather to bring out this hat,” she said proudly as she and Lick rounded a bridge fashioned into the shape of a waterwheel. “I thought this would be the perfect day to introduce it to San Francisco.”
Lick gave Dilla’s head a skeptical sideways glance.
“I got the design concept from England,” she explained. “You should see the fashions those ladies wear, especially at the horse races.”
She turned a pivot to show off an extra-long clump of feathers poking out of the hat’s back brim. Lick had to duck to avoid being poked in the eye.
His companion didn’t appear to hear his muttered comment as he returned his gaze to the path.
“I didn’t know the English used piñatas.”
• • •
LICK AND DILLA continued their casual walk through the gardens, Dilla chatting merrily about her new hat, Lick issuing an occasional grunt whenever she paused for his feedback.
At the far end of the grounds, they turned onto an extra loop that led into a secluded patch of redwoods.
Lick motioned to a shaded bench overlooking a manicured setting of bushes and raked gravel. As soon as his weight hit the seat, he reached to rub the soreness in his right knee.
“What did you need to see me about, Dilla?” he asked, his fingers working a knot in the portion of his thigh just above the kneecap.
Dilla pursed her lips, her soft face taking on a worried expression. The hat had been a cover for more than her head.
“It’s about Sam,” she said with a tense sigh. “I think he . . . well . . . he might be in a spot of trouble.”
Lick slid the canvas shopping bag from his shoulder and asked casually, “What kind of trouble?”
Dilla fiddled nervously with the feathered fringe of her hat.
“You know my son,” she replied nervously. “He takes up some strange notions. First it was the frogs, and now it’s . . .”
Lick issued another noncommittal grunt, still apparently preoccupied with his knee.
Dilla’s voice took on a deeper layer of strain.
“I’m afraid he may have borrowed something . . . something that I’ll need your help to return to its proper place.”
Straightening his posture, Lick stroked the paunch of his belly and leaned against the back of the bench.
Wordlessly, he reached his hand inside the grocery sack, pulled out a large plastic bag, and held it up for her to see.
Dilla read the label on the outside of the packaging and gasped.
“Osca—” she whispered before swallowing her surprise.
The description read: “Compacted fish pellets, specially formulated for domesticated alligator consumption.”
Chapter 26
THE BEST OF FRIENDS
AT ITS SURFACE, downtown San Francisco was a puzzling network of narrow, often congested streets, many of them designated for one-way traffic—although drivers frequently failed to obey those instructions.
Cable cars trundled up the center medians of roads that crested so steeply, it was almost impossible to clear the summit’s intersecting lanes. Bike messengers weaved deftly in and out of a sea of moving bumpers, while impatient pedestrians risked life and limb darting through crosswalks against the light.
Even the most routine of journeys required a certain amount of faith, hope, and reckless daring. It was the organized chaos typical of many a thriving metropolis, underlaid with San Francisco’s peculiar brand of West Coast whimsy.
Few people understood just how far beneath the surface that whimsy went.
• • •
WHEN THE GOLD Rush tsunami of Forty-Niners hit Northern California’s isolated backwater, the surging wave of population triggered decades’ worth of frenetic construction. The city that resulted from this hasty, haphazard growth hid the shadowed skeleton of its past deep within its architectural footings.
Below the layers of asphalt and concrete, intertwined with the subway lines and half incorporated into the se
wage system, lay a series of tunnels whose framework traced back to the late 1800s. Dirt paths that had once skirted the shoreline had become underground passageways that threaded through the base of the modern-day city.
One tunnel, in particular, roughly followed the line of a downtown alley marked with a street sign reading “Leidesdorff.” This secret passage ran beneath the financial district, connecting the lower levels of the Palace Hotel, on one end, to Jackson Square—specifically the basement of the Green Vase antiques shop—at the other.
• • •
THE TUNNEL WAS a dark, clammy place filled with insects, rodents, and other rank undesirables. A permanent dampness seeped into every available surface, the combined result of the surrounding water table and the constant drip of leaking sewage pipes.
Many San Franciscans might have found this odorous environment off-putting, but the two residents navigating the tunnel that morning were happily enjoying the experience.
They were an unlikely pair: one large and lumbering with a ruddy face and broad shoulders, the other toothy, brutish, and positioned low to the ground.
Despite their intimidating size and bulky physique, both characters were likable, sympathetic types. Together they proceeded down the slime-walled corridor, enjoying its dank, musty smell as they conversed, albeit one-sidedly, in the darkness.
• • •
THE TALLER OF the duo reached into his pocket and pulled out a round pellet shaped like a hockey puck.
“And so, I gave up my job as a janitor at City Hall to become a frog expert,” Sam said affably. “Changed my life. Best decision I ever made.”
His short-statured partner lumbered along in companionable silence as a rodent scampered across the path.
“Myself, I actually prefer to travel below ground,” Sam said jovially as he tossed the pellet through the air to his partner. “Fewer hassles. A lot less traffic.”
As if on cue, the blare of a car horn echoed down from the street, causing several insects to scurry into their holes.
“It’s far more discreet,” Sam added with a wink as his albino friend snapped at the treat. “You don’t have to worry about drawing attention to yourself.”
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