Nine Lives Last Forever

by Rebecca M. Hale

  “One of the most vocal in that group of new Supervisors was Harvey Milk, who was elected from the district that included the Castro. While he was primarily concerned with gay rights issues, his populist, progressive stance struck a chord with a wide cross section of San Francisco voters, particularly those that felt they had been shut out by the big-business interests. Milk garnered support from both the Irish working-class unions and the traditionally underrepresented Chinese community—groups that previously wouldn’t have been caught dead in the same room together, much less one that was headlined by an openly gay man like Harvey.”

  Miranda began walking back toward the front of the room. I felt myself shrink behind the counter as she approached.

  “A general alignment of interests framed the battle lines in City Hall. On one side were Milk and four other progressive Supervisors; they were supported by the recently elected populist Mayor George Moscone. The opposing side comprised the President of the Board and the five remaining Supervisors.”

  Miranda was now standing across the counter from me. Her piercing gaze fixed on my feeble one.

  “On vote after vote, the slim majority of conservatives thwarted Mayor Moscone’s antidevelopment initiatives. Not having a vote himself, the Mayor was powerless to pursue his populist agenda without the support of the Board.”

  Miranda lightly tapped the counter. “But change was in the air. It seemed clear to most observers that Harvey Milk would gain enough clout by the next election to take the Board presidency. Tensions were high; some of the city’s most powerful people risked losing a lot of their wealth and influence. Oscar’s Vigilance Committee geared up their resources to support Milk in the next Supervisor’s election.”

  Miranda stopped speaking and issued a pointed glance in my direction, as if she expected me to fill in the next event.

  “Then, they were murdered,” I offered slowly. “Milk and Moscone were shot dead in City Hall.”

  Miranda nodded, pursing her lips. “By one of the conservative Supervisors, Dan White.” She leaned over the counter, halving the distance between us.

  “Citywide seating was reinstated the following year. In the aftermath of the riots and protests that followed the manslaughter verdict of Dan White’s trial, district elections were deemed too divisive. Everything the VC thought they had accomplished was wiped out in a single blow. Disillusioned, they disbanded. District elections made a comeback in the 1990s, but the murders of Milk and Moscone forever changed the course of San Francisco politics—and the face of the city itself.”

  I had been listening, raptly, to the entire background lecture, but I still had no idea why Miranda Richards, of all people, had come to the Green Vase to speak to me about it.

  “I just don’t—” I began, but she cut me off.

  “It seems that the Vigilance Committee, Oscar’s Vigilance Committee, has been reconstituted,” Miranda said bluntly. She bit her lip, as if she were holding something back.

  “Oscar’s dead, Miranda,” I said tentatively, more perplexed than at the start of the conversation. “Who’s leading the group now? And what does this have to do with me?”

  Miranda stared at me from across the counter, her dark eyes throwing bullets in my direction. “You know exactly who’s in charge of it,” she said curtly. “My mother.”

  “Dilla?” I replied, immediately thinking of the strange trip she’d sent me on to City Hall.

  “Don’t play games with me,” Miranda said bluntly. “I know you’re in on it. You would have been one of the first people she turned to.”

  “No, no,” I stuttered. “Honestly . . .”

  Miranda was hearing nothing of my protest.

  “I know you’re involved,” she repeated stiffly as she speared the shiny green cover of the nearest Mark Twain book with the curve of her plum-painted nail. She flicked her finger to spin the book across the counter toward me. “Because you’ve got this.”

  The tip of her nail slowly rose toward my stunned face. “Tell my mother that I need to speak with her.”

  And without further explanation Miranda turned and stormed out of the Green Vase.

  Chapter 15

  THE LITTLE GREEN BOOKS

  RUPERT’S FURRY ORANGE ears rose tentatively up from his hiding place behind the row of books on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. His blue eyes slid back and forth, seeking confirmation that Miranda Richards had truly vacated the premises.

  I placed the two Mark Twain books that Miranda had so accusingly fingered next to each other on the counter. Isabella hopped down from the top of the bookcase to assist in my comparison as I stared down at the emerald green covers, trying to understand their significance to the apparent resurgence of my Uncle Oscar’s Vigilance Committee.

  Isabella’s slender tail curved up in the air as she sniffed at the books, drinking in their scent. She looked up at me, a curious expression on her face.

  “Wrao,” she announced as if she’d made a profound discovery.

  Rupert apparently interpreted her commentary, even if I could not. There was a brief shuffling from the bottom of the bookcase as, having satisfied himself that the coast was clear, he prepared to make his exit. With an announcing “Merooo,” Rupert hopped out from behind the shield of books and bounced around the counter to my stool.

  His fluffy tail wiggled as he prepared to leap up onto the cashier counter. I knew, from hard-learned experience, that he was unlikely to successfully complete this endeavor.

  “Wait,” I called out urgently, trying to disrupt his internal countdown clock.

  But the Rupert-rocket had, unfortunately, already ignited, and his furry, round body burst up into the air. I managed to catch him midleap—receiving a few unintended scratches in the process—and dump him onto the surface of the counter. Unruffled, Rupert quickly joined Isabella in the inspection of the green books.

  I dodged two swishing, upstretched tails as the cats maneuvered back and forth around the books. Rupert paused with his head bent down toward the nearest green cover and took in a long, snorkeling sniff. Then, he dropped his left shoulder to the book and began rubbing the side of his body against it.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” I said, reaching beneath Rupert’s rolling belly to rescue the book. “That’s not necessary.”

  I pulled the book back from the counter and tried to brush off the layer of long white Rupert fuzz that now coated it. Rupert stood up and leaned toward me with a deep, rumbling purr as he tried to rub his cheek against the binding edge of the book.

  “What are you—doing?” I protested, yanking the book farther away from Rupert’s amorous attentions, bringing it closer to my face.

  And then, I smelled it. Strange that I hadn’t noticed before. In the atmosphere of the Green Vase, particularly the upstairs kitchen, the faint smell emanating from the book’s pages had mixed with the permanent scent left over from the decades of Uncle Oscar’s cooking. I sniffed again, trying to be sure, but there was no mistaking its source.

  The book had the distinct smell of fried chicken.

  I picked up the second Twain book and found the same fragrance wafting from its pages.

  It wasn’t just any fried chicken odor, I confirmed with another concentrated whiff. Both of the Mark Twain books bore the distinct scent of my Uncle Oscar’s special fried chicken recipe.

  I glanced down at Rupert, who was now sitting on the counter, his pudgy, round belly spilling out around his feet. He looked hungrily back at me and licked his lips. Rupert had always been particularly fond of Oscar’s fried chicken.

  Slowly, I walked around the showroom, studying the displays of Oscar’s antiques. I carried the pair of green chicken-smelling books in my left hand, drumming them against my leg as I pondered. Rupert trailed closely behind, loudly smacking his lips.

  Burnished gold artifacts glimmered from every corner of the room. There were displays of lockets, canes, cufflinks, and other forms of Gold Rush-era ornamentation along with several bookshelves holding traditi
onal mining equipment.

  I’d been through every item currently in the showroom; I’d examined and cleaned each piece thoroughly and completely. Other than the medallions from the 1800-era VCs, there was nothing in the antique shop that could be even remotely connected to the modern-day Vigilance Committee that Miranda had described. Surely there was something else in Oscar’s possessions that gave some clue of his connection with the group.

  My eyes sank reluctantly down to the floorboards. The most obvious location lay beneath me. I’d stuffed boxes and boxes of Oscar’s belongings into the basement.

  I tucked the pair of Twain books behind the cashier counter and grabbed my Uncle’s trusty broad-beam flashlight. At the back of the showroom near the stairs, I bent down to open the basement’s trapdoor.

  That a basement existed beneath the Green Vase showroom had been a complete surprise to me when I first moved in. I’d discovered it by accident after Oscar’s death. Many of Oscar’s most intriguing secrets had been hidden down there—including the entrance to the sewage tunnels that ran beneath the financial district.

  I shuddered, trying not to remember my last basement encounter with Frank Napis. The place still gave me the creeps.

  I inserted my finger into a small hole in the floor that was fashioned to look like a knot in the wood paneling. Hooking the tip end of my finger, I tugged gently upwards, releasing an oval cover that popped out of the floorboards. I could now reach a retractable handle that was mounted into a recessed cavity beneath the cover. I flipped a small lever that extended the handle to a position where I could wrap my hand around it, stepped back off of the hatch, and lifted it open.

  The trapdoor swung up toward me, at the same time releasing a short flight of rickety steps that unfolded down into the basement. The steps slapped against each other as they unwound, the bottom one slamming with a loud clap as it landed on the basement’s rough concrete floor.

  Rupert peered over the edge of the hatch, his tail whirling hungrily in the air. His expression grew more and more concerned as I started down the steps. He had never known fried chicken to originate from the basement.

  “Wao?” he asked, disappointment filling his voice.

  A moment later, I stood on the basement’s concrete floor. A bare lightbulb next to the stairs provided the only light for the entire room. I flipped on the flashlight and swung it into the dark, cavernous space.

  The basement stretched the full length of the showroom above. It was dank and musty; anything that spent any amount of time down here was soon crusted with a layer of congealed dust. The walls were formed of crumbling red bricks, most of whose interlocking mortar had chipped and fallen out over the years.

  Between the brick walls lay several decades’ worth of Oscar’s treasured possessions, a disorganized clutter of cardboard boxes, sheeted furniture, and wooden shipping crates.

  Isabella, followed by an extremely hesitant Rupert, joined me at the bottom of the stairs. Rupert huddled nervously near my feet. He had never been a fan of the basement, but he refused to be left behind.

  Gingerly, I stepped forward into the room, flicking the wide beam of the flashlight into the basement’s shadowed corners, trying to shake off a growing sense of creeping uneasiness. The terrain quickly became impassable, blocked by haphazardly stacked boxes and crates. I stretched my legs to straddle the impediments, reaching to plant the balls of my feet on the few open spaces of grungy concrete floor.

  Isabella hopped a trail ahead while Rupert and I struggled to follow in her wake. Slowly, the three of us traversed the length of the basement. I stopped every so often to open a box and rifle through its contents, but I reached the far wall without finding anything of interest. There was nothing in the basement, it seemed, that could shed light on Oscar’s involvement with the Vigilance Committee.

  I was about to give up when I heard Rupert issue a snuffle of surprise from his position a couple of feet to my right. It took me a minute to find him with the flashlight—all that was visible was the orange-tipped two inches of his tail. The rest of Rupert was a humped shadow beneath the cloaked sheeting of a wardrobe.

  I wiped my hand across my brow, a clammy feeling seeping over me. This was the same wardrobe Rupert, Isabella, and I had hidden in two months earlier on the night of the cat auction. From the wardrobe’s main compartment, I had watched Frank Napis emerge from the basement’s tunnel entrance—just as the delusional effects of his toxin were about to take hold of me. A few minutes later, I was convinced that the basement was filled with water and that I was drowning, without air, beneath the water’s surface.

  Rupert rustled beneath the sheet, cooing hungrily. Cautiously, I slid my way over to the wardrobe, my heart pounding uncomfortably in my chest as I lifted up the corner of the sheet.

  Rupert was standing on his back legs, his front paws and his nose crammed into the half-inch opening of a lower drawer that was situated below the large clothes-hanging cupboard of the wardrobe.

  With difficulty, I removed a squirming Rupert from in front of the drawer. My hand shook as I wrapped my trembling fingers around the knob. The drawer slid open with a slight pull, and I shone the flashlight down on the single item that lay inside.

  It was a faded black-and-white photo. Carefully, I picked it up and brought the photo toward my face. Its scent was unmistakable; it was the same fried chicken odor carried by the Mark Twain books. Rupert looked up at me hopefully.

  “It’s not like I don’t feed you,” I sighed, shaking my head at him.

  Rupert replied with a withering look as I trained the flashlight’s beam on the faces in the photo.

  A middle-aged but much younger-looking Dilla smiled slyly on the film. Her face wore an almost naive confidence, the shining gleam of self-conceived invincibility.

  Next to her stood a slim Asian man, whose skin still retained a youthful plumpness and firmness. It took me a moment to identify the pre-raisined, pre-emphysema Mr. Wang.

  On the far end of the line, a middle-aged man in a wrinkled linen suit hid behind an overtly false hanging of white hair, fashioned into an oversized mustache and beard. The scraggly eyebrows above his sparkling eyes were naturally grown—and instantly recognizable.

  It was my Uncle Oscar, humorously costumed, I realized, as the writer Mark Twain.

  Between Oscar and Mr. Wang stood a figure that made my whole body chill in anger.

  The man’s left arm stretched amicably over Oscar’s shoulders. A pair of wire rim glasses drew attention away from his flat face and thin, almost indiscernible lips. Perhaps I wouldn’t have recognized the man if I hadn’t subconsciously been looking for him. If I squinted my eyes, I could almost imagine a fluttering carrot-colored mustache perched on the stretch of skin beneath his nose.

  A jovial Uncle Oscar was chuckling next to an earlier-era Frank Napis.

  Chapter 16

  AN INTRUDER IN THE BASEMENT

  THE PHOTOGRAPH SHOOK in my hand as I stared down at the loathsome face of Frank Napis. My eyes fixed on the arm embracing my late uncle’s shoulder, my stomach sickening at the sight. The Napis in the photo, I felt certain, was up to no good.

  I tried to read into the eyes of my uncle, the small sliver of them that was visible beneath his wild, bushy eyebrows. Had Oscar known then that Napis was a fake and a fraud? Had he any inkling of the danger residing within the man standing next to him?

  The dark corners of the room expanded around me, blooming into blackened flowers whose petals snuffed out the meager lightbulb on the opposite end of the basement. I was left alone with my flashlight, the dreary fascination of the photo—and the eerie sensation that my cats and I were not alone.

  The surface of my cheeks dropped in temperature; my forehead became a damp sponge of sweat. I spun around in a frantic circle, wildly waving the flashlight across the crowded basement, spanning its beam along the crumbling brick walls, trying to squelch my panicked imagination.

  Isabella and Rupert looked up at me, startled by my actio
ns. I grabbed hold of the side of the wardrobe and took in a deep breath, trying to calm the pounding in my chest.

  But as my racing pulse began to slow, a slight shuffling sound issued from the opposite side of the basement. The suctioned underside of a set of tiny webbed feet were inching across the cold, grimy concrete floor.

  Plunk.

  Two fuzzy white blurs leapt up into the air, bolting off on an instant hunt. I nearly dropped the flashlight in my effort to jump out of the cats’ way.

  It was impossible for me to keep up as Rupert and Isabella took off on their pursuit. Several feet ahead of me, Isabella’s sleek form soared up and over a low pile of debris before disappearing again into the crowded maze of boxes and crates. I juggled the flashlight, trying to train its beam on the path of rustling cardboard and fluttering sheets as the cats raced across the basement.

  Plunk.

  The thudding sound was barely audible over the crashing chase of the cats. They appeared to be headed to the far corner of the basement, near the fold-down stairs.

  Brow furrowed, I crept back across the room, all the while trying to get a line of sight on the action at the front.

  Plunk.

  Rupert’s heavy bulk leapt through the air, swatting ferociously at a green springing form that my eyes couldn’t quite focus on.

  I crawled over an upended box, scraping my elbows against the rough edge of a crate as I eased myself closer. Brandishing my flashlight like a sword, I slowly cut its beam into the dark corner behind the steps where the cats appeared to have trapped the basement’s intruder.

  This corner of the basement was the current home of one of the more intriguing items from Oscar’s eclectic collection—the stuffed carcass of a large kangaroo. I had found it packed into a shipping crate shortly after Oscar’s death. The product of an ill-fated attempt at amateur taxidermy, the kangaroo was posed in an upright position with its right arm crooked out to rest on its hip.