Rupert slunk back to the bottom of the stairs, surprised to see that the low-hanging beam above the sixth step had swung down to reveal the rungs of a ladder. A moment later, a man wearing a pair of worn house slippers began climbing down the steps.
Rupert’s heart soared. The man was holding a plate—a special plate with a lovely, fragrant smell.
It was a plate of fried chicken.
Chapter 24
THE SUTRO BATHS RUINS
IT WAS STILL dark when I crawled out of bed the following morning. I’d given up trying to sleep with all of the racket Rupert was making.
He’d kept me up half of the night with his constant pestering—bouncing all over the bed, swatting at my hair, and howling at me with an oddly strangled caterwaul. It was no use trying to convince him that the smell on my clothes was from something altogether different than fried chicken. I’d been about ready to throw him out the bedroom window when he collapsed near my pillow and settled down to sleep.
But long before the clock hit four a.m., Rupert was back in action. At first, I tried to ignore the strange bumping sounds emanating from throughout the apartment, but after nearly half an hour of imagining the mess he might be making, I finally exited the bed and crawled into the shower.
It was Friday morning in name only when I trundled downstairs to the Green Vase showroom. Light from the streetlamp outside still shone in through the front windows. No one else in Jackson Square, it seemed, had been roused from their bed by the middle-of-the-night machinations of a chicken-obsessed cat.
With a groggy yawn, I settled onto the stool behind the cashier counter, pulled out the pair of green Mark Twain books, and began flipping through the pages to compare the contents.
After a couple minutes of side-by-side comparison, I realized that the older book, the one Harold had left on my counter, included an extra essay. Early Rising as Regards Excursions to the Cliff House was tucked in just after the famous frog story. I took a sip of my fresh-brewed coffee and began to read.
Before long, I found myself chuckling at Twain’s exaggerated recounting of his misadventures during an early morning carriage ride to the pre-Sutro-era Cliff House. In his hallmark tongue-in-cheek rant, Twain railed against the bitter cold, the soupy fog, the offensive smell of the horse blanket he had taken refuge in, and the alleged benefits of “early rising.”
I was almost at the end of the essay when a white van stopped on the street outside. I glanced up from the book as Monty jumped out of the driver’s seat and sprinted into his studio. He left the van stranded, motor running, in the middle of Jackson Street.
Monty typically used the van to transport paintings and other art for his studio. The large cargo area in the back of the van provided ample storage space for even his largest picture frames. Monty was probably preparing to load some items for an out-of-town show, I told myself sleepily.
But the events of the past two days made me think again. It was an odd hour for Monty to be up, about, and moving so vigorously. Like Twain, he generally preferred to sleep in.
Monty had left the motor running, indicating his studio stop would be a quick one, unlikely to involve multiple trips to load the van. Maybe he was up to something else, I thought—something related to his recent membership in the revitalized Vigilance Committee.
Rupert sat on the floor gazing wistfully at the van. Then, for some strange reason, he licked his lips.
I shook my head at my cat’s ridiculous behavior and returned my concentration to the van. If it weren’t already packed with picture frames, there would be plenty of room in the back of it for me to sneak inside and ride along undetected.
After the previous day’s unplanned bus ride, I was loath to experiment with another impulsive form of transportation, but my reticence was overcome as the image of the black-and-white photo flashed into my memory. The frogs, the Mark Twain books, and the sudden reappearance of Frank Napis, I sensed, were all somehow linked to the group in the photo. I was slowly being dragged into whatever scheme this renewed Vigilance Committee was cooking up, and I had the sneaking suspicion it involved more than mere political maneuvering.
I considered my options for another half second; then I grabbed my shoulder bag, snatched up my coat, and sped around the corner of the cashier counter to the front door.
“I’ll be right back,” I assured Rupert, who glanced up at me with concern. He followed me to the door, a forlorn droop in his fluffy tail. He put his front paws up against the glass as I closed him in. I looked down at his sad, dejected face and vowed to prepare him some fried chicken when I returned.
A light flicked off in the second floor study above Monty’s studio. I heard Monty’s flat feet slapping loudly against the slats of the steps, indicating that he was returning to the first floor. If I were going to make my move, I had to do it now.
I scampered across the street to the rear of the van and snuck around the far corner of its back bumper. With a tug of the handle, I pulled open the back door and peeked inside.
The racks cinched into the floor that usually held Monty’s picture frames were all empty, and there was none of the extra padding he typically carried to safely transport his artwork. I had to decide, quickly, just how curious I was about Monty’s next destination. There was a good chance, I thought with a sigh, that I would regret hitching this ride.
Without further hesitation, I hopped inside the dark metal interior and carefully secured the door behind me. A moment later, I heard Monty jangle the studio’s front exterior lock.
I caught a glimpse of Monty’s tall shadow circling around to the front of the van as I crouched down on my knees and hid behind the partition that separated the driving area and the cargo space. Wincing from the painful hardness of the metal floor, I listened as Monty wrenched open the driver’s side door, slid into his seat, and slammed the door shut. Before I had time to second-guess my decision, Monty snapped his seat belt into the buckle and hit the accelerator.
I clutched the frame of the nearest empty rack to steady myself as the van sped smoothly forward and then swung around the corner at the end of the block.
The van rumbled swiftly through the vacant streets of the yawning city. Only the earliest of risers had begun to emerge from their slumber. Streetlights occasionally flashed into the dark cavern of the van’s interior, but I quickly lost navigational track of where we were headed. There were no windows on the back or the sides of the van, and I dared not poke my head up to look out the front window for fear of being spotted.
So far, Monty appeared oblivious to his extra cargo. Several times, I nearly yelled out to alert him of my presence, but my gut instinct told me to wait. I was going to feel awfully silly if he were simply driving to Sonoma to pick up a painting.
We’d been briskly traveling through the stop and go of city streets for about twenty minutes when the road beneath us suddenly smoothed out to a quieter ride. Holding my breath, I risked a quick glimpse over the seat partition out through Monty’s front windshield.
A dense net of trees had closed in around us. Painted lines on either side of the road’s black tarmac demarcated bike lanes, and a chalky trail of well-maintained sidewalk snaked a running path through the grass along the curb.
Even though I’d been closed off from all visual clues in the back of the van, I was fairly certain we hadn’t crossed any of the local bridges, meaning that we were still within the confines of San Francisco’s peninsula. Given those parameters, there were only a few possibilities for our current location, and, from the glimpse outside, I had a good guess of where we were. I’d taken many a glorious jog through this multi-acre green zone. I was willing to bet we were driving through the long rectangular length of Golden Gate Park, heading, I suspected, toward the beach.
Before long, the van was greeted by the quiet roar of the ocean, and I chanced another peek out the front windshield. The eastern edge of the Pacific stretched out before of us; its swath of deep, churning blue lined up against the pale mo
rning gray of the lightening sky. We had reached the ocean end of Golden Gate Park.
The van paused long enough to clear traffic, and then it turned right onto the highway that ran along the coast. I felt the curve of the road as it threaded through the narrow track between the Cliff House and the rocky bluff of Sutro Heights.
Monty slowed the engine to navigate a blind turn. After the short span of a couple hundred feet, he turned left into a parking lot. I knew from my jogging experience that this lot serviced the trailhead for the Lands End recreational area, a park that covered the water’s edge from here to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Monty hummed to himself as he opened his driver’s side door and stepped outside. I peered out along the top rim of the seat partition, trying to see what in the world he was doing.
Monty was not a runner, a jogger, or even a casual walker. He took great pride in maintaining a fastidious appearance at all times: dressy slacks, neatly pressed collared shirts, and leather pointed-toe loafers. As a rule, he generally avoided any situation where he might risk breaking a sweat.
I was surprised, then, to see that Monty had changed clothes when he’d stepped inside his studio earlier that morning. He was now wearing a white T-shirt, blue sweatpants, and, I noted before sliding back below the partition, a pair of shiny white tennis shoes.
I waited for the slamming crunch of the driver’s side door before I poked my head back up again. I watched in awe as Monty’s slim figure jogged across the parking lot to the trailhead. Beyond the edge of the lot, the trail dropped out of sight down a steep slope toward the ocean. Monty reached the trail’s entrance and quickly sank from view.
The sun was just breaking its morning half-light. To the left, beneath the rise of the road, the distinctive outline of the Cliff House etched the horizon. I slowly eased out the back door, closely hugging the van’s shadow.
A pair of joggers passed me, chatting with each other as they took off across the parking lot. I followed them to the trailhead and looked down the embankment.
Montgomery Carmichael off on a vigorous, early morning run—I simply refused to believe it. I scanned the hillside, trying to make sense of Monty’s atypical behavior.
The trail led down a flight of stairs that had been cut into the sandy, eroding soil of the hillside’s upper embankment with the use of four-by-four beams. A loose post-and-rope fencing structure lined both sides of the path to discourage visitors from trampling the hillside’s carpet of freshly planted succulents. Rows and rows of tiny yellow flowers bent toward the rising sun as the plants sucked in a morning drink of dew.
Scattered across the lower roll of the hillside lay the ruins of the Sutro Baths. Occasional piles of crumbling bricks gave hints of the huge complex that had burned to the ground almost half a century earlier. At the bottom of the hill, up against a rocky interface with the ocean, the gutted remnants of Sutro’s seawall still retained enough integrity to fill a large, stagnant pool with water.
A manicured running path cut off toward the Lands End trail about forty feet down from the parking lot’s entrance. I watched as Monty’s blue-suited figure bypassed the running route and progressed into the lower portion of the ruins.
A minute later, Monty reached the bottom of the hill, near the spot where the ocean’s foaming waves broke against the seawall. He spread his long arms out for balance as his white tennis shoes trod carefully across the crumbling flat edge of the wall. At the opposite end of the wall, he stepped off into the eroded remains of the Baths’ lowest foundation.
I continued my descent on the trail, puzzling on Monty’s suspicious foray into the Sutro Baths ruins. This seemed far more in line with his personality than a coastline jog, but what, I wondered, was he up to?
Monty was now twenty feet past the first section of the seawall; he had begun to navigate through a maze of chipped concrete that surrounded the remnants of the Baths’ semi-intact pool. The outlines of the pool’s long rectangular shape stretched out parallel to the ocean. Several families of ducks circled through the brown brackish water, occasionally diving beneath its surface to chase a bottom-crawling insect or a small, briny fish.
The formal structured trail with its carefully chiseled steps and side barriers transitioned into a sandy dirt path occasionally interspersed with uneven stretches of chewed-up asphalt. It was as I reached this point that I lost sight of Monty’s blue sweatpants down in the ruins.
An ominous, prominently positioned sign warned of the likelihood of sudden powerful waves and cautioned me against proceeding further. The posting included a drawing of a flailing stick-figured man being swept out to sea by an unanticipated surge of water. Grimacing, I continued on.
After I descended another forty or fifty feet, I reached the spot where I had seen Monty turn off into the ruins. I passed a second warning sign, this one offering more dire predictions for anyone foolish enough to wander so far down the cliff.
Nervously biting my lip, I crept along the top of the same seawall Monty had traversed, trying to split my concentration between the ledge’s loose footing and the waves crashing on the rocks just below.
As I reached the end of the wall and hopped off, I regained sight of Monty. Oblivious to the safety warnings, he sat down on an outcropping of concrete next to the stagnant swimming pool and began taking off his tennis shoes.
I crept up behind a pile of concrete so that I could sneak in closer. Monty finished removing his shoes and stood up, barefoot, next to the edge of the swampy pool of water. He stretched his arms out over his head, as if preparing for some type of strenuous physical activity—then he stripped off his white T-shirt.
I gasped at the sight of his bony, narrow chest. A light sprinkling of curly brown hairs dotted the otherwise pale expanse of his skin.
Eeeek, I screeched internally. This was far more of Monty than I had ever hoped to see.
But he wasn’t done yet. Before I could blink, he slid off his sweatpants to reveal a pair of tight-fitting baby blue swim trunks. I covered my face with my hands, trying to obliterate the shocking image now seared into my memory.
As I huddled behind the concrete pile, I heard the slapping snap of spandex on skin immediately followed by a large human-sized splash. Anxiously, I looked back up over the pile of concrete to the pool of water.
A small duffle bag that Monty must have been carrying with him sat open on the ledge next to the stack of clothing. Monty stood chest-deep in the murky water, struggling to fit a snorkel mask over his head. A pair of rubber flippers poked out of the mouth of the bag, waiting to be slipped onto Monty’s feet.
I shivered, imagining how chilly the water must be. When the Baths were in operation, a system of heaters had been used to warm the water for the swimmers. No such warming device was working on the pond where Monty was now immersed. Even in the heat of San Francisco’s warmest day, the seawater collected in the pool would have been a frigid, icicling temperature. At this early hour of the morning, it had to be bone-shattering cold. I couldn’t imagine what would have inspired Monty to jump in.
To my surprise, Monty appeared unaffected by the freezing water. Once he had put on his snorkeling equipment, he started swimming down the length of the pool. When he reached the far end, he turned, moved over about one yard to the left, and began his return. He continued to swim back and forth, as if in formation, sweeping along the surface of the dingy water, his eyes submerged as he breathed through the air tube of the snorkel. A small family of ducks squawked angrily at him, but he paid them no heed.
After about ten minutes worth of this regimented paddling, Monty and his snorkel tube dove beneath the surface, leaving behind nothing but a stream of bubbles.
Chapter 25
IN THE MAYOR’S OFFICE
THE MAYOR’S RECEPTIONIST sat primly at her desk in the anteroom outside of his office on the second floor of City Hall, preparing to sort through the towering heap of Friday morning’s mail. The receptionist stretched her arms up over her head as she surveyed the h
aphazard collection of envelopes, packages, and postcards spread across the surface of her desk. With a quiet sigh, she cracked her knuckles, slid on a pair of white cotton gloves, and attacked the pile.
First, she culled out all of the standard letter-sized items and placed them into a neat, even-sided stack. Meticulously, she slit open the long edge of each envelope, scanned its contents, and categorized the correspondence.
Invitations to upcoming events took the most prominent position on her desk. These represented valuable opportunities for free publicity, and the Mayor’s staff tried hard to work them into his schedule. Rarely did the Mayor stay more than five minutes at these photo ops, but his personal photographer closely shadowed his every move to ensure that each brief appearance was extensively documented. The Mayor was expected to be a prime contender in the coming year’s gubernatorial race, and the voluminous photo catalogue of his bright, flashing smile standing next to constituents of every possible ethnicity, age, gender, and social status would be used to create a wide array of campaign literature.
The receptionist flipped through the stack of invitations, identified the ones the Mayor was the most likely to accept, and set them aside for his perusal.
Next, the receptionist moved on to the large pile of constituent mail. Some of this correspondence related to legitimate proposals to improve life in the city: suggested maintenance projects, modifications to traffic or safety ordinances, changes to sections of the housing code, and the like. She shifted the most reasonable requests to the top of the pile, although she doubted any of them would ever reach the Mayor’s in-box. Few constituent ideas passed the litmus test of the Mayor’s recently hired campaign manager.
Since his arrival, the campaign manager had insisted on personally vetting any new policy or initiative for statewide suitability. The rest of California already considered San Francisco to be an outlying bastion of crazy, kooky liberals. The Mayor was seen by many across the state as a prime example of this caricature. The campaign manager had firmly clamped down on any new proposal that might further enhance that image, severely curtailing the Mayor’s legislative agenda.
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