How to Catch a Cat

by Rebecca M. Hale

  The citizens of San Francisco were not impressed.

  With each devastating loss, the Baron became more irritable and frustrated. He was unaccustomed to dealing with such gut-wrenching failure.

  He held meetings to motivate his crew members.

  He held meetings to denigrate them.

  He threatened to fire the captain.

  Nothing seemed to work or have any effect. Some of the races were close. Others were total blowouts. Either way, the end result was the same.

  The Baron couldn’t believe he had backed a team of losers.

  —

  WITH THE COMPETITION appearing to be all but over, the Kiwis became a bit cheeky.

  While the New Zealand crew members tried to maintain a sense of sportsmanlike decorum, their supporters openly mocked the Baron, who they saw as having outspent their team with his lavish payroll and development budget.

  Midnight following their fourth successful day of racing, a trio of Kiwis dressed in skintight hooded suits plastered his Russian Hill residence with New Zealand flags. The symbols were promptly removed, but not before a shaky cell phone video had been taken. By morning, the gleeful Kiwi display had been widely distributed across both San Francisco and the sailing world.

  The Baron woke on day five testy and tense. They now faced a must-win situation for today’s two races and, if they miraculously managed to make it past that hurdle, for six more straight races in the days after that.

  It was an insurmountable hurdle.

  There was no chance of success.

  Resigned to the inevitable, he set off for the racing pavilion to meet with his team one last time before the ninth and what looked to be final race.

  • • •

  THE BARON SHOULD have drawn inspiration from his surroundings. If ever a place offered hope for the doomed and down-and-out, it was San Francisco.

  It turned out all his team needed was a change in luck.

  It would come from the most unlikely of sources.

  Chapter 67

  THE WINDS OF CHANGE

  ON THE FIFTH official day of the America’s Cup regatta, the television screen in the mayor’s office suite sprang to life with the by-now-familiar video of racing sailboats scooting around the San Francisco Bay.

  The scenic panorama was accompanied by a grim prerace commentary. The home team was in a terrible position, having lost the first eight races in a best-of-seventeen racing series. The event that had started out with circuslike fanfare was now met with the solemnity of a funeral dirge.

  Certainly, the atmosphere inside the reception area was much more subdued.

  After making an early soup run, the niece sat at her desk, trying to tune out the television while she studied the reference text on the 1775 voyage of the San Carlos.

  Van sat on the floor in front of the television, sleepily slurping the last bits of his minestrone. Rupert had retired to the cat bed for a postsoup nap. Even Isabella yawned from her filing cabinet perch.

  Monty lay in a heap beneath the America’s Cup poster, occasionally emitting a plaintive moan.

  “How can I not be involved in this race?”

  This had been the gist of Monty’s ongoing commentary for the past four days—and yet, the meaning seemed not to have reached the conscious portion of Van’s brain until just that moment.

  “You know, I have a friend . . .” the intern said thoughtfully.

  The niece cringed, anticipating Van was about to launch into yet another discussion about the book he was writing on his bicycle ride across California. In her estimation, each completed sentence generally equated to at least twenty minutes’ worth of uncompleted fragments—if not more.

  Isabella shared the niece’s intuition. The cat shoved her head into her chest and wrapped her paws over her ears.

  Van tossed his empty soup container into the trash can by the niece’s desk. “My friend, he’s got a boat.”

  This unexpected announcement received an immediate response.

  “That’s it!” Monty exclaimed, leaping up from the floor. “I’ll borrow a boat and join the race on my own!”

  He closed in on Van, who looked surprised at the sudden rush of attention. “Your friend, how much does he charge to rent out his boat?”

  Van stroked his chin, considering the question, and then shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  “Is it available this afternoon?”

  There was another pondering pause. “Don’t know.”

  “Would he let us take it out on the racecourse?”

  This time, the silence stretched out almost a minute. “Don’t know.”

  Monty opened and closed his mouth, temporarily stymied.

  The niece sighed patiently. Much as she hated to intervene, this could go on for hours. “Can you ask your friend about the boat?”

  “Okay. Yeah, sure,” Van replied, as if that course of action hadn’t occurred to him. Then he leaned his back against the front surface of the niece’s desk and returned his attention to the television screen.

  The niece peered over the top of her desk and cleared her throat. “Perhaps now would be a good time.”

  Another flash of realization spread across Van’s face. “Oh.”

  Then he got up, slid on his jacket, and left the room.

  “Where’s he going?” Monty asked.

  The niece hurried to the main door, cracked it open, and watched the tall intern step into the elevator.

  “Hmm.”

  On a hunch, she trotted across the reception area and cut through the mayor’s office to the windows overlooking the front balcony.

  Monty caught up to her as she watched the pedestrians on the street below. A few minutes later, she spied Van’s head, slowly meandering out of the building and lumbering in the direction of the nearest BART station.

  The niece shook her head. She had little faith that this boat idea would pan out or even that such a boat actually existed.

  They probably wouldn’t hear from Van until the following day at the soonest. Given his penchant for wandering, she wouldn’t be surprised if he disappeared until the following week.

  She stepped away from the window and returned to the reception area, leaving Monty to gape at the disappearing intern.

  “I guess he’s gone to ask about the boat.”

  Chapter 68

  THE LOANER BOAT

  THE REGATTA’S FATEFUL ninth race was scheduled for a one thirty P.M. start, but Mother Nature refused to cooperate. Strange as it may seem for a sailing competition, there were strict regulations on both the upper and lower wind speeds that were deemed suitable for racing.

  High wind conditions forced the race organizers to delay the ninth competition and reorganize the rest of the day’s schedule. Likely only one race would get off that afternoon, and it wouldn’t start for at least another hour, assuming the actual weather conformed to the forecast.

  For the Baron and his demoralized sailing team, the postponement only extended their torture.

  While outwardly, they proclaimed their intent to fight to the finish, inwardly, they had all but given up.

  —

  BACK AT CITY Hall, a lull had settled over the mayor’s office suite.

  The reception area was sealed off from the gusting wind that had disrupted the day’s sailing. In fact, the room had grown quite warm. The stuffy temperature combined with satiated stomachs to create a den of peaceful slumbering.

  The television had mercifully been put on mute. Human and feline snoring filled the void.

  Rupert sprawled across the cat bed, Isabella lay flopped across the top of the filing cabinet, and Monty had stretched his long frame over two office chairs.

  Only the niece remained awake, and she was struggling to keep her eyelids open.

  When the phone rang, she picked it up and said sleepily, “Mayor Carmichael’s office.”

  “I got the boat.”

  “Van?”

  “Well, yeah,” he responded, somewhat incredu
lous.

  The niece’s comment instantly brought Monty back to life. He nearly fell to the floor in his scramble to reach the niece’s desk.

  “Did he get the boat?”

  The niece nodded warily. “He got the boat.”

  At Monty’s wild hand waving, she spoke into the receiver.

  “We’re on our way.”

  —

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the mayor’s black town car stopped at a curb near the city’s baseball park. There weren’t any available parking spots, so this was the closest the driver could get them to the address Van had given them.

  Monty jumped out and began lifting the cat stroller through the car’s side door as the niece consulted a map.

  “Van said to meet him at the Mission Bay boat launch . . .” She squinted at a walkway that ran beside the stadium, leading toward a dock beyond. While it was sunny directly overhead, a thick wall of fog had begun to roll in through the Golden Gate. “Um, I’m not so sure about this . . .”

  Monty was already guiding the cat-filled carriage down the sidewalk. “Come on! The race could be starting any minute now. There’s no time to waste!”

  —

  VAN MET HIS City Hall colleagues behind the stadium and motioned for them to follow him down the walkway toward the pier.

  “What kind of boat is this, exactly?” the niece called out, realizing she should have posed this question at the outset.

  Van appeared not to hear her.

  She soon had her answer.

  When she caught up to Van and Monty, they were standing beside an inflatable raft. Van held an electric pump in his hand, which had presumably been used to inflate the tubing.

  The niece stared at the raft, puzzling. “Wait, isn’t that—the Batman boat?”

  During every home baseball game, local fans took to the water outside the stadium in the hopes of catching fly balls or home runs that sailed over the wall and landed in the bay.

  This being San Francisco, it wouldn’t do to simply float about in black monochrome wet suits or unadorned canoes—such activity must be performed while wearing elaborate costumes and gear.

  One of the most popular participants in this bonanza was a pair of sports enthusiasts who dressed up like Batman and Robin and drove through the stray ball zone on a handcrafted Batman-themed boat.

  The duo—and their distinctive inflatable raft—were regularly featured in cutaway shots from the televised game.

  The niece looked up at Van. “Your friend is the Batman guy?”

  Van cleared his throat. “Technically, I’m Batman. He’s Robin.” He shrugged. “Because I’m taller. But since it’s his boat, he calls himself Batman, even though he wears the Robin outfit.”

  Monty murmured to himself, trying to follow the convoluted logic.

  The niece shook her head, unable to imagine her intern as the masked figure she’d seen on television news clips.

  “I never would have recognized you.”

  “Well, we wear costumes.” Van opened a locker next to the dock. “The water’s cold. You’ll need to put on a wet suit.”

  Isabella poked her nose against the stroller’s zipped cover, sniffing at the inflatable raft. Her eyes focused on the rubber tubing, inspecting its seaworthiness.

  Monty reached for one of the decorated wet suits.

  “I have to be Batman,” he said emphatically. “I’m the mayor. I can’t be Robin.”

  Van shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t be Robin. I won’t fit in the costume.”

  Monty and Van turned toward the niece.

  “No,” she said adamantly. “No way.”

  An overriding feline voice called out from the stroller.

  “Mrao.”

  —

  MINUTES LATER, VAN waved as the raft pulled away from the dock, powered by an outboard motor attached to the rear of the inflated tubing. The motor had been rigged so that its power and direction could be controlled from a front-mounted steering wheel and drive shaft.

  Monty stood behind the front console wearing the Batman wet suit, which included a long rubber cape and a pointed mask that covered the top half of his face.

  The niece occupied the copilot position beside the mayor. Under protest, she had donned the red, green, and gold Robin outfit.

  The cats, of course, couldn’t ride along without some form of accoutrement.

  Van had improvised their costumes from a stuffed animal that was typically mounted to the boat during the baseball sessions.

  It took some convincing, but Isabella eventually allowed herself to be fitted with a black waterproof vest. Rupert had agreed to wear the cat-sized cape.

  With all of its passengers suitably attired, the raft, which was thankfully far sturdier than it appeared at first glance, sped off into the foggy bay.

  “Which way to the racecourse?” Monty hollered over the motor’s loud hum.

  The niece was unable to point directions. She was too busy holding on to the front railing with one hand and Rupert with the other.

  Isabella assumed responsibility for navigational instructions.

  “Mrao.”

  Chapter 69

  I’M BATMAN

  RUPERT HUDDLED IN his person’s arms, trying to avoid the spray coming off the water as the raft motored toward the buoys marking the eastern edge of the regatta racecourse.

  Being a cat, he had only a vague notion of the famous superhero who had inspired the boat’s elaborate décor. He hadn’t read any of the comic books that featured the fictional character’s Gotham City exploits. Nor had he seen any of the movies dedicated to the Batman franchise.

  Rupert’s only frame of reference was based on the humans he’d seen dressed up like the famous masked crusader. He gathered the costume gave the wearers a sense of empowerment—that it conveyed unique skills and made possible otherwise unachievable feats.

  He was a little unclear as to why a bat-human hybrid would inspire such beliefs, but he could support the underlying theme.

  Moreover, Rupert knew this about the caped crusader: Batman had opposable thumbs—thumbs that could be used to rifle through a phone book or to access online databases to search for the secret location of a kitchen with the capability of making both fried chicken and donuts—or, more important, fried chicken baked inside donuts.

  Yes, a superhero could do that.

  And he, Rupert, now wore a superhero cape.

  Bravely, Rupert lifted his head, letting the breeze catch the tiny cape tethered to his neck.

  He flexed his front paws, imagining the extra digits sprouting from his wrists.

  I’m Batman.

  Chapter 70

  HELLO, SAN FRANCISCO!

  THE LATE-SUMMER FOG filled the bay, a dense wall of liquid air that swallowed everything in its path.

  The peaks of the Golden Gate Bridge rose above the mist, the red pillars floating as if suspended in midair. The city itself lay cloaked in a feathery gray boa that had been slung across peaks, valleys, and street shoulders in elegant adornment.

  Despite the inclement weather, the niece had never seen so many watercraft squeezed into such a limited space. The area surrounding the racecourse was a literal traffic jam of boats.

  Alcatraz was under siege, surrounded by an armada of yachts, motorboats, and local ferries, the last of which had been co-opted to provide special racing tours. The ferries still making their regular routes maneuvered with difficulty through the bottleneck of boats.

  And there in the middle of it all was the Batman and Robin raft—which in addition to its regular cast of superheroes today included two orange and white cats.

  —

  MUCH TO THE niece’s chagrin, Monty had found a bullhorn in one of the raft’s front storage compartments.

  With delight, he steered toward a high-end yacht. After waving up at the yacht’s regatta spectators, he hollered into the horn’s mouthpiece, “Hello, people of San Francisco!”

  Given the Batboat’s popularity in the Bay Area,
a few of the passengers raised their wineglasses and beer bottles in toast. Some even clapped and cheered—a sure indication that they hadn’t recognized the mayor in the Batman costume.

  Monty cleared up that misconception with his next announcement.

  “It is I, Mayor Carmichael!”

  Hisses and boos were hurled over the water. One man looked as if he was about to throw an empty bottle at the raft, but an environmentally conscientious colleague held him back.

  Other observers were more interested in the raft’s feline passengers.

  “I didn’t know Batman had cats . . .”

  —

  WHILE MONTY CONTINUED to blast the yacht spectators with his bullhorn, Isabella focused on driving. Perched on the front console next to the steering wheel, she was able to control the raft’s direction—so long as Monty was suitably distracted.

  The pedal that regulated the motor’s speed, however, was beyond the reach of her back legs, a source of constant frustration. She glared down at the lever, cursing the raft’s poor design.

  “Mrao.”

  “Aren’t we supposed to be staying outside of these buoys?” the niece asked, worried they were veering too close to the racecourse.

  The question was answered by an earsplitting blast from a Coast Guard cutter, whose horn volume far surpassed that of Monty’s.

  Monty waved cordially as Isabella steered the raft out of the zone.

  —

  IN THE DISTANCE, at the far west edge of the course, the two racing boats picked up speed, heading toward the starting line.

  Shifting Rupert in her arms, the niece fiddled with a shortwave radio mounted onto the raft’s console and dialed to the frequency broadcasting the race announcer.

  “They’re off! It’s a clean break across the line!”

  Monty revved the engine. Dropping the bullhorn, he wrapped his hands around the steering wheel, gripping it on either side of Isabella’s paws.

  “Let’s go!”

  —

  UNDER ISABELLA’S EXPERT steering, the raft dodged in and out of the much larger boats that had been prepositioned along the edge of the course. Soon, the Batman crew neared the center of the race action.