“What else can you tell me about this Eckles character?” he asked, leaning in toward the glass.
Before the attendant could answer, Hox’s cell phone began to buzz. He held up an apologetic hand and glanced at the incoming number.
“Just a minute,” he said as he saw the digits for the newspaper’s dispatcher. “I have to take this.”
Stepping back from the guard station, he brought the phone to his ear.
“What do ya’ got?”
He listened for less than ten seconds before clicking off the phone and ramming it into his shirt pocket.
“I’m going to have to get back to you on this,” Hox called out to the ticket booth attendant before rushing back to the street.
Panting heavily, he climbed into the waiting taxicab.
“Ballpark,” he barked hoarsely. “And step on it.”
• • •
TEN MINUTES LATER, Hox sat impatiently in the taxi’s rear passenger seat as the vehicle idled in place. The street ahead was clogged by rush-hour traffic. There was no way he would get to the ballpark in time.
The notepad made a snapping pop against his thigh. He was about to be outmaneuvered by an alligator—again.
He reached for his phone and dialed back the station’s dispatcher.
“Tell the van to meet me there,” he said tersely. He leaned forward in his seat to check his reflection in the rearview mirror and then added with a grunt, “They’d better bring Humphrey.”
• • •
SAN FRANCISCO’S REDBRICK waterfront ballpark was just over ten years old, but the facility still gleamed with newness, the cornerstone of a redevelopment effort that had completely transformed the South of Market neighborhood of Mission Bay.
In the not-too-distant past, the area had been a wasteland of abandoned warehouses, empty lots, and flagrant criminal activity. But with the ballpark’s installation, the once sketchy streets were soon paved over with new construction. The neighborhood now featured sky-rises of multi-million-dollar glass-walled condos, high-end restaurants, a life-sciences technology center, and one of the city’s largest grocery stores.
The local baseball team’s success on the field had further buoyed the redevelopment venture. Every home game, San Francisco’s rabid baseball fans flocked to the park. Hox, a season ticketholder, was one of many who enjoyed the venue’s stinky garlic fries and handcrafted bratwurst sausages.
The intrepid reporter did not, however, participate in the waterborne antics in McCovey Cove, an inlet off the bay that encircled the south side of the park.
No matter how gruesome the game-time weather, the cove routinely filled with all manner of improvised watercraft, precariously stacked with fans waiting for home runs and, more frequently, foul balls, to soar over the wall and plunk into the water.
In addition to making unplanned swims, the McCovey faithful were known for their elaborate costumes. One of the local favorites was a masked Batman and Robin duo who sped around the park’s perimeter on a makeshift raft powered by an outboard motor.
Although Hox wouldn’t have been caught dead in a superhero outfit, much less out on the water in an inflated air mattress, he did often join in the tradition of wearing a loose-hanging black beard to the game.
The beards were a tribute to one of the team’s closers, an eccentric man—even by San Francisco standards—who had both a wicked fastball and bizarre tastes in dress and demeanor. The pitcher was known throughout the city by his signature beard, a rough, overgrown mat of hair dyed jet-black that covered the lower half of his face.
At any given baseball game, a number of men, women, young children, and babies could be seen at the park sporting enormous black beards.
To Hox’s recollection, however, he had never seen a beard wearer quite like the one in the image that had been forwarded to his phone by the newspaper’s dispatcher. The time stamp at the bottom of the photo indicated it had been taken about a half hour earlier. As the taxi struggled through traffic, Hox shook his head, staring at the picture.
It wasn’t the burly man with reddish orange hair wearing the team’s signature orange and black jersey that struck Hox as unique—although he was keen to learn more about that odd fellow. Dr. Kimberly Kline, he mused, would have some explaining to do about her frog-expert friend.
Hox rubbed the scruff of his mustache as he shifted the phone’s image toward the big man’s feet and the albino beard wearer standing on the sidewalk beside him.
“How in the heck did he get a beard on that alligator?”
Chapter 50
POWERED BY PELLETS
THE NIECE HOPPED off the Muni train at the first return stop inside the financial district and climbed the steps to the Montgomery Street exit.
A cold blast hit her at the top of the concrete stairs. She zipped up the collar of her jacket and pulled the cloth over her nose, but the effort did more to block her vision than the arctic air.
Thinking of the warm apartment above the Green Vase antiques shop, the woman hurried down the block toward Jackson Square. Between her rush to get home and the impediment of her collar, she almost missed the white cargo van pulling up to the curb outside Wang’s flower stall. But as the van’s rear doors swung open and a burly man with ruffled red hair hopped out onto the pavement, she momentarily forgot the cold.
“What’s going on here?” she murmured as she watched from a corner about a hundred yards away.
“Sam!” she called out, but the wind caught her words.
The niece began jogging across the intersection as Sam turned back toward the van’s cargo area, scooped up a long, tarp-covered object, and eased it out the rear doors. After taking care to clear both ends of his log-shaped bundle from the van, Sam carried it into the flower shop, where Mr. Wang’s daughter, Lily, helped him through the entrance.
The niece ran the rest of the way down the block, but by the time she reached Wang’s, she found the front door had been locked. With a quick glance at the stall’s exterior, she saw that sheets of plywood had been secured over the windows, sealing off the interior. The place was closed up as if the business would be shut down for the rest of the day.
She cupped her hands against the glass portion of the front door, trying to see inside, but a rack of flowers had been rolled in front of the entranceway, strategically blocking her view into the stall.
Puzzled, the woman knocked on the door.
There was the slight scraping sound of a cane against the floor. Then Mr. Wang’s crippled form hobbled around the rack.
“Hello,” he said with a cryptic smile as he unlocked the latch. “We’ve been expecting you.”
• • •
THE NIECE FOLLOWED Mr. Wang past the flower rack and into the shop, trying not to breathe in the room’s high concentration of pollen.
The rest of the display shelves had been pushed to the sides of the room, creating an open space in the middle for the tarp-covered object Sam had just set on the floor.
Suspiciously eyeing the tarp, the woman circled to the small area at the rear of the stall. On the table beside the broom closet, she spied a bag of brown alligator pellets—next to a red Hermès scarf and a scraggly black beard.
She turned back toward the main room, her eyes widening with realization.
“What’s under the tarp?” she asked warily as her nose began to tingle with a coming sneeze.
Gray eyes glittering, Mr. Wang nodded at the floor. “See for yourself,” he replied.
As the niece bent toward the tarp, her sinuses swelled and her eyes began to water. She put her hand over her mouth to try to stifle the coming sneeze.
“Ach-oo!”
She jumped back as the tarp started to wiggle from the creature hidden underneath.
Chuckling, Sam lifted the edge of the heavy fabric, revealing a scaly white foot that was missing its right pinky digit. Even in the flower stall’s dim light, the woman recognized the leathery texture of the albino alligator’s skin.
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p; Cautiously, she stepped toward the tarp. “Surely, that’s not . . .”
With a flourish, Sam flipped off the rest of the cover. After a brief moment of panic, the niece sighed with rueful relief. She couldn’t believe she’d been duped.
Though incredibly lifelike, the alligator was in actuality a robot whose metal frame had been encased in a spongy synthetic material.
Wang stroked his long spindly beard; then his thin voice rasped hoarsely, “I believe you’ve already met our friend Clive.”
• • •
“SHOW ME HOW this thing works,” the niece said after a close inspection of the robot.
“It’s quite simple really,” Sam replied. He walked over to the table in the back room and returned with the bag of fish pellets.
“There’s a motion sensor in Clive’s head. He’s been programmed to follow the pellets—it’s just like how the scientists at the Academy lead around the real alligator.”
“The robotic version is a bit safer for the general public,” Wang added with a wry grin.
“So this is the alligator that was in my basement,” the niece said as she watched the demonstration.
Sam tossed the pellet through the air in front of the robot. Its internal motor made a barely perceptible hum as the lizardlike legs powered forward.
“Then . . . where’s Clive?” the woman demanded.
Mr. Wang arched his thin eyebrows and nodded toward the robot.
“No,” the niece said, trying to keep a straight face as Sam tossed another pellet. “I mean the real one.”
The robot’s mouth opened wide, catching the brown lump.
Chomp.
Chapter 51
A SECRET PROJECT
AS NIGHT FELL across a shuttered San Francisco, the wind retreated into the Pacific, releasing a damp fog that squeezed its thickening mass through the Golden Gate and slowly oozed out onto the bay. Seeping inland, the pillowing invader swept across the city’s steep hills, erasing huge tracts of land with a single swallowing gulp.
Gliding through the disappearing streets, the smooth shadow of a pearl-colored Bentley motored toward the Civic Center’s open plaza of government buildings. The driver parked his stylish ride in an underground parking garage, killed the purring engine, and stepped from the front seat.
The Previous Mayor stood beside the car, shaking out the tailored folds of his black trench coat. He straightened the gray felt bowler perched on his balding head and tugged at the cuffs of his hand-sewn leather gloves. Then he reached into the passenger seat and picked up a small paper bag.
Carrying his package, he rode an elevator to the surface and strolled off into the darkening mist.
• • •
AFTER A SHORT walk, the PM strode briskly up City Hall’s stone steps. With a confident tap on the gilded glass doorway and a wave to the security guards manning the front entrance, he held up his bag, which was filled with hot donuts, fresh from a local bakery.
The door was quickly buzzed open by the chubby night-shift guard seated behind the security desk.
“Evening, Mayor,” the guard said, hungrily reaching for the bag as the PM slid it across the counter.
• • •
A SINGLE LIGHT burned at the end of a darkened corridor in the far corner of City Hall’s basement. The vacant area was quiet and still, save for the occasional belching burps from the building’s boiler, which had recently been cranked up to its highest setting.
Spider Jones bent studiously over his desk, seemingly unbothered by the solitude or isolation.
Teetering piles of papers, news clippings, and folders were stacked on either side of his workspace. An additional heap towered up from the floor beside his chair. Almost all of the papers bore sticky flags and Post-it notes, but it was the contents of the yellowed file laid open on the desk that held Spider’s full attention.
After months of research, he had finally closed in on his prize. The secret he had only speculated he might find was now sitting before him, plainly written on the file’s faded sheets.
The only question that remained, he pondered, was what he would do with this unearthed information.
As Spider contemplated his discovery, a dark figure crept down the narrow hallway toward his desk. The young staffer failed to notice the approaching intruder; the gurgling boiler masked the man’s footsteps.
The shadow paused, tilting his head as he tried to discern the contents of the file spread open on the staffer’s desk. The man’s hand reached up to the curved brim of his bowler and then thoughtfully drifted down to his neatly trimmed mustache.
Earlier that day, the Previous Mayor had confirmed his suspicions about the young man’s research. Whatever project Spider had been working on all these late nights down in the basement, it wasn’t one officially sanctioned by the Current Mayor. The PM’s years of practical experience told him there was something odd going on here.
After a long moment staring at the papers on the desk, the PM cleared his throat, announcing his presence.
“Spider, I thought I might find you here.”
• • •
SPIDER LOOKED UP from the file, noticeably startled.
“Mayor,” he said, quickly slapping the folder shut. “Good to see you.”
“What’s got you working so late?” the PM asked casually, trying to hide his keen interest.
“Oh, it’s just a little project I’m working on for the Mayor,” Spider replied, patting his hand on the closed file. It was a casual gesture, but, the PM noticed, one that blocked the writing on the outside label.
Stroking his chin, the PM ambled over to the red-painted bike propped up against the edge of the cubicle, watching out of the corner of his eye as Spider shoved the file beneath a stack of papers.
The PM tapped the shiny helmet hanging from the handlebars.
“That’s my mom’s idea,” Spider offered with an embarrassed grin. “She’s always nagging me about wearing it.”
The PM smiled knowingly. He’d once had a protective mother, too. He shifted his gaze back to the young staffer.
“How did you get on with the Mayor’s Life Coach?” the PM asked casually.
“It’s as you suspected,” Spider replied, eager to change the subject. He pulled the notepad from his pants pocket and began flipping through the pages. “The Current Mayor’s definitely throwing his support behind Mr. Carmichael.” He looked earnestly up at the PM. “I’d stake my life on it.”
“There’s no need to go that far,” the PM replied with a laugh. He placed a gloved hand on the staffer’s shoulder. “We should meet for dinner tomorrow night after the vote.”
He gave Spider a stern smile and nodded at the pile of papers where the young man had hidden the file. “Then you can tell me about your other little project.”
“All right, sir,” Spider replied sheepishly. He had known that eventually he would have to share his findings with the elder statesman. The implications were too politically sensitive for him to handle on his own.
With an impish grin, Spider added firmly, “But this time, I’m picking the restaurant.”
Chapter 52
INTO THE SWAMP
OSCAR’S NIECE STOOD in the Green Vase showroom, watching the evening fog drift across Jackson Square as she waited for her ride to arrive.
Sam was returning to the Academy that night for a second unauthorized visit—to take care of some “unfinished frog business,” as he put it—and he had agreed to bring her along with him so that she could search the Swamp Exhibit for whatever Steinhart treasure or valuable memorabilia might be hidden there.
The woman nervously tapped her fingers against the cashier counter as she thought about the task that lay ahead. In the hours since she’d left the flower shop and started preparing for her upcoming trip, the realization that she might have to explore the area in the bottom of the tank’s exhibit had begun to sink in.
“Water,” she muttered anxiously. “Why did it have to be water?”
The experiences had left the niece with a strong aversion to any body of water. Swimming in an unoccupied alligator tank was not an activity for which she would have otherwise volunteered.
She glanced down at the tote bag near her feet, where she’d stuffed a pair of goggles, a towel, and her flashlight. It was a rudimentary collection of tools, but there was no piece of equipment that could have quashed the tension building in her stomach. She was feeling rather ill-equipped for this challenge.
• • •
AS THE BURLY Frog Whisperer drove up in the white cargo van, Isabella circled the tote bag with one last certifying sniff. She had given her person as much help as was felinely possible. It was up to the woman to put together the last pieces of the puzzle on her own.
Isabella looked up and waved an instructive paw in the air. With a warbling “Mraw-wow,” she issued her last piece of advice.
“I’ll try to remember that,” the woman replied as she swung the tote up to her shoulder and pulled open the door.
Rupert gazed hopefully out the window as the woman circled the van and climbed into its front passenger seat.
Don’t forget to bring back some chicken, he thought as he propped his front feet against the glass.
• • •
THE NIECE HAD little time to worry about the potential perils of the Swamp Exhibit during the drive through the city to Golden Gate Park. Drowning was soon the least of her safety concerns.
Sam was a well-intentioned but easily distracted driver. Eager to get to the Academy to check on his frog conspirators, his attention was now dangerously diverted.
“My guys played their part perfectly,” Sam said as he drove down Jackson Street to the first corner past the Green Vase. He glanced over at his passenger.
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