Nine Lives Last Forever

by Rebecca M. Hale

  The campaign manager was a burly, forceful figure, and the receptionist didn’t much like his brash, overbearing manner. But he was deemed an important cog in the machinery that promised to propel the Mayor’s nascent political career forward, so, she resolved with an irritated grunt, she would just have to put up with him.

  The receptionist turned her attention to the remainder of the constituent correspondence—that not containing serious proposals or complaints. Of all of the Mayor’s daily mail, this group of letters most accurately reflected the wacky, irreverent personality of San Francisco’s citizenry. These missives, she knew from long experience, would include bizarre, random commentary on all manner of odd issues, including, of course, the Mayor’s highly controversial sweptback hairstyle. Lately, the receptionist mused as she ran a mental tally, the volume of hair mail was far outpacing that of all other categories.

  The receptionist shook her head and shoved the entire mound of constituent mail into a large interoffice envelope for the campaign manager. Wryly, she surveyed the bulging package. The campaign manager would never state such a thing out loud, but she suspected the main reason he read the constituent mail had nothing to do with the Mayor’s legislative initiatives. The campaign manager was greatly concerned about the public’s perception of the Mayor’s hair.

  The receptionist pulled the last pile of mail to the center of her desk. This collection included thank-you notes, mostly for the Mayor’s numerous public appearances of the previous week. The receptionist saw no reason to burden the Mayor with this correspondence; typically she simply filed each one into the folder for the related event. But as she sifted through the cards she’d accumulated in this stack, one of the names scribbled on the signature line caught her attention.

  “Surely not,” the receptionist muttered to herself. She skimmed the information in the note and quickly pulled out the Mayor’s calendar. There, listed at 2:45 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, was a name on the appointment ledger that caused the receptionist’s eyes to pop in panic.

  She, herself, had spent the afternoon at an excruciatingly painful dentist appointment having a root canal done on one of her molars. Two days later, she was still unable to chew anything more resilient than a mound of Jell-O on the right side of her mouth.

  A temp had been brought in to handle the Mayor’s affairs for the afternoon. That woman, the receptionist thought grumpily, had better not ask for a recommendation. She had returned from the dentist’s office to find the reception desk a cluttered, disorganized mess. What’s more, the room had been filled with a strange orange-infused scent of stale fish. And now this—an utterly and completely inappropriate appointment had somehow made its way onto the Mayor’s calendar.

  The receptionist leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples, wondering if she should call the campaign manager immediately.

  One of the receptionist’s primary responsibilities was to screen the Mayor’s appointments for any potentially embarrassing interviews that might endanger his future political prospects. As part of this duty, she scrupulously studied the credentials of each individual who requested time on his calendar. She’d caught a few unregistered lobbyists and the occasional underhanded political spy, but the bulk of her efforts were directed at far more obvious targets. The receptionist spent the vast majority of her time walling off the Mayor from the leagues of his amorous female fans.

  Being young, handsome, and recently divorced, the Mayor was constantly sought out by all manner of persistent women. The groupies, as the campaign staff called them, followed the Mayor with a level of devotion typically reserved for rock stars and movie actors. These desperate women showed up, en masse, at each and every one of the Mayor’s public appearances—another reason the campaign manager sought to keep those stops as brief as possible.

  But among this group of obsessed admirers, one woman stood out above the rest. This well-meaning but downright loony old lady was unmatched in her creative efforts to finagle meetings with the Mayor. Never mind that he was at least thirty years her junior—or that she, herself, professed to be happily married. Somehow the old bird always managed to circumvent the receptionist’s efforts to block her advances. And every time, every time, it seemed, the old lady managed to create an odd or embarrassing headline for the Mayor.

  The campaign manager would blow his top if he knew that Dilla Eckles had been in the Mayor’s office Wednesday afternoon. The receptionist shuddered, imagining his wrath. She knew full well who would be blamed for this lapse in protocol.

  The receptionist tapped the thank-you note against the edge of her desk. Maybe, she thought hopefully, there was an innocent explanation. Maybe she could avoid making the call to the campaign manager. She got up from her desk and headed toward the Mayor’s office.

  THE MAYOR SAT behind the wide expanse of his mahogany desk staring down at a shiny green portfolio Dilla Eckles had given him during her visit the previous Wednesday afternoon.

  He stroked the sides of his chin as he recalled their meeting. It had been one of their more memorable interactions—and that was saying something.

  Dilla had arrived wearing a peculiar disguise. Her face had been covered by a thick rubber mask designed to make her look like an elderly Asian woman. Her clothing had been unusually drab and subdued, the only exception being the bright green go-go boots she’d worn on her feet. The Mayor had been somewhat confused by the outfit, but then, he’d seen far stranger things than that during his term as Mayor of San Francisco.

  He had to admit, he had a soft spot for Dilla. She was one of the most endearing of his eccentric constituents, and the proposal she had laid out for him on Wednesday was certainly worthy of consideration.

  The emerald green portfolio contained detailed plans for an amphibian preserve to be established on the grounds of the old Sutro Baths ruins. Under the proposal, the brackish water in the ruins’ last remaining swimming pool would be drained and the seawall at the bottom of the ruins modified to create a desalinated habitat amenable to an endangered species of frog that was once plentiful in the Bay Area. An anonymous donor had agreed to put up the funds for the necessary renovations to the seawall and for the creation of several smaller freshwater ponds farther up the hill.

  Dilla had certainly worked hard on this proposal, the Mayor reflected. The morning after she’d outlined the idea for him in his office, he had found himself at the Cliff House discussing the project with his mentor, the Previous Mayor, and his arch nemesis, the President of the Board of Supervisors. No other political operative in the city could have arranged such a gathering, he thought with an impressed grin.

  The Mayor strummed his long fingers against the edge of the green folder. This seemed like a reasonable use of the land, the environment was one of his signature issues, and Dilla was awfully persuasive, but he was still wavering. It had nothing to do with the merits of the proposal, or even the fact that the President of the Board of Supervisors had decided to support it. Okay, the Mayor conceded with a brief pang of conscience, perhaps the Supervisor’s involvement had a little bit to do with his reticence. But no, the main reason was the underlying subject matter. It was the frogs.

  Frogs had always made him nervous, ever since he was a little boy. There was something about the spongy, slimy texture of their skin that was off-putting to him. The substance was so unfamiliar, so unlike that of any other creature. Simply put, the Mayor thought as he carefully ran his hand over the gel-coated crest of his sweptback hair, frogs made him extremely uncomfortable.

  It was as the Mayor rifled through the documents in the portfolio, pondering his frog phobia, that he first had the sensation that he was being watched.

  He looked up from his desk and scanned his surroundings. It was easy to spook oneself in this room. Every occupant of this office since the horrifying events of 1978 had routinely done so. And yet, no one had dared to change the layout or design of the room, afraid such a move might evoke accusations of cowardice or insensitivity. Almost every a
spect of the office remained essentially the same as it was when the City Hall murders of Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk occurred.

  The Supervisor-assassin had entered the Mayor’s office suite through a side corridor, bypassing the bodyguards who stood at the main entrance. The man had then slipped into the reception area and convinced a secretary to arrange an impromptu meeting with the Mayor. Five minutes after the Supervisor entered the Mayor’s office, shots rang out. Mayor Moscone was soon found dead, sprawled across this very floor, with multiple gunshot wounds to his head and torso.

  As the Current Mayor remembered all of this grim history, his vision drifted up toward a nearby window—and locked in on a pair of bulging eyeballs that were quietly observing him from the window’s ledge. The eyeballs belonged to a slender, inquisitive-looking frog.

  The Mayor rubbed his eyes in disbelief. He must be hallucinating, he thought hopefully. Slowly, he removed his hands from his face and looked anxiously over at the window.

  The frog tilted its head as if in greeting. Its red zipper of a tongue flipped out of its wide mouth and licked its nose.

  “Ribbit.”

  The Mayor’s mouth issued a sound halfway between that of a startled mouse and a hissing squirrel.

  “Cheeeeeee,” he whimpered hoarsely.

  The terrified Mayor gripped the sides of his desk as the frog wiggled its back legs, preparing to jump.

  “Please don’t,” the Mayor pleaded. “Please, please don’t . . .”

  The frog leapt through the air and landed on the red plush carpet near the Mayor’s desk with a muffled plunk. The Mayor scrambled to scrunch his legs up into his chair as the friendly frog waddled toward him.

  “Ribbit.”

  THE RECEPTIONIST CARRIED the thank-you note with her as she approached the massive wooden door leading into the Mayor’s office. She knocked briskly against its smooth, polished surface.

  Other than a strange shuffling sound coming from the room within, there was no response. She knocked again, this time a bit more authoritatively.

  The Mayor’s strained voice called back, “Uh, yes?” “Are you okay, sir?” she asked, concerned.

  “Uh, yes,” he replied, but he did not sound convinced.

  The receptionist glanced down at the incriminating thank-you note, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

  “Sir, there’s something I need to see you about,” she said persistently. She wrapped her hand around the door-knob and rotated it to release the barrel from the lock. “I’m coming in, sir,” she announced boldly.

  The receptionist pushed open the heavy wooden door, took one look at the sight of the Mayor cowering on top of his desk, and returned to the reception area to call the campaign manager.

  Chapter 26

  MONTY’S MISSION

  I WAS BEGINNING to worry about Monty’s trail of bubbles. The open tip of the snorkel tube had followed him beneath the surface of the water and was no longer providing him with fresh air. I hadn’t been counting the seconds, but it seemed as if Monty had been underwater, holding his breath, for an inordinately long amount of time.

  A quick glance around the ruins revealed no one else who might be called upon to rescue him, and I had no intention of setting foot in that cold, algae-ridden water.

  “What could be worth diving down there for?” I muttered out loud as I peeked over the pile of concrete and stared into the muddy mire of the pool.

  I was willing to bet that Monty’s early morning visit to the Sutro Baths ruins and his absurd swimming routine related in some way to his new role in Dilla’s Vigilance Committee. I combed my memory for what I knew of Adolph Sutro—the octopus wrangler, as Monty had called him.

  The Prussian engineer’s first California success had come in the silver mines. Sutro had developed a groundbreaking tunnel system that drained excess water away from the mineshaft, greatly increasing both the safety and the efficiency of the drilling process. The use of the tunnels during the silver mining boom had earned Sutro a small fortune.

  While many entrepreneurs had profited from the mines, Sutro was one of the few who managed to hold on to his money. He sold his mining shares mere months before the main lodes dried up and the California silver boom collapsed.

  Sutro invested a large portion of his mining proceeds in San Francisco real estate. He focused his investments on the cold, gray scrubland stretching along the coast to the west of the city. The property in this area was generally deemed worthless by many of Sutro’s contemporaries, but he was undeterred.

  Sutro would eventually own almost one-twelfth of the land included within the current city limits of San Francisco, including the majority of the modern-day Richmond and Sunset districts. Sutro doubled his mining fortune several times over as this once barren area was developed to provide housing for San Francisco’s ever-growing population.

  An ardent populist, Sutro shared a great deal of his wealth with his adopted city. The Sutro Baths, the Cliff House, and the public gardens surrounding his estate were all popular attractions. To ensure the Lands End entertainment area would be affordably accessible, Sutro built his own low-fare rail line to connect it with the city.

  For this last act of benevolence, Sutro drew the ire of the railroad barons, who were widely seen as exerting an unfair monopoly over many of the city’s essential goods and services. Sutro refused to cave in to the barons, a move that made him a hero among the city’s working classes. He rode that wave of popularity straight into the Mayor’s office.

  Sutro’s political success, however, was short-lived. He served only one two-year term; his brief tenure was seen by most as a failure. Accustomed to running projects by dictate and command, without the need to build consensus, Sutro was ill equipped to adapt to the inevitable compromises necessary for success in politics.

  Sutro died two years after he left office, still bitter and reeling from his disastrous term as Mayor.

  Upon Sutro’s death, his finances were discovered to be in unexpected disarray. While most of his land holdings remained intact, there was little cash left to manage them. To make matters worse, Sutro’s surviving children sought to overturn his will and battled for years over the estate, further leading to its eventual ruin. The reason for the mismanagement of the once acute businessman’s assets has never been fully explained.

  I checked again on the pool. A small brown duck paddled over the last few bubbles left from Monty’s dive beneath the surface, muddling their distribution. I considered the brown soupy water once more, tamping down a wave of guilt. Monty dove down into that fetid water of his own volition; he could come out of it the same way.

  I scanned the hillside as I waited for Monty to emerge, trying to fill in the buildings mapped out by the crumbling mounds of rocks, bricks, and concrete. The Sutro Baths ruins were an apt reflection of the forgotten image of the once influential philanthropist. For all of Sutro’s contributions to the city, there was little left to remember him by.

  The rail line he’d built along the coast had been susceptible to both earthquakes and mudslides. The frequent occurrence of both made the line impossible to maintain, and it fell into disuse. All that remained today was a wide trail that ran through the woods between the Lands End parking lot and the Golden Gate Bridge.

  The Sutro mansion and its surrounding Italianate gardens were torn down when the last surviving heir died and the property passed to the city. The modern-day park on the brutally windswept bluff that hung with foreboding above the Cliff House featured Sutro’s name—and little else.

  And here, in the ruins of the Baths, the spot where I stood looked as if it should be condemned to prevent just the type of dangerous activity Monty was now engaged in.

  At the far side of the pool, twenty feet from the edge where I stood, a duck squawked in protest as a shot of bubbles poked it from underneath.

  I scrambled back behind the pile of concrete to avoid being seen as Monty’s snorkel pipe, followed by his curly brown head, popped up out of the po
ol. The rising sun had begun to reflect off the water, so I had to squint to see him, but Monty appeared hale and healthy, unaffected by all of the time spent crawling along the bottom of the pond. I was awfully glad I hadn’t jumped in to fish him out.

  Monty shook his head as he emptied the excess water from his snorkel mask. Then, he began swimming back toward my side of the pool.

  For a moment, I thought he must have seen me, but I kept myself tucked down in the hiding spot just in case, all the while trying to think of a plausible excuse that would explain my presence here in the Sutro Baths ruins crouched behind a pile of concrete.

  It seemed to be taking Monty much longer to cross the pool this time. Carefully, I peeked back over the concrete to check on him. He was swimming much slower than before; his stroke was awkward, somehow labored.

  It wasn’t until he reached the nearest edge of the pool that I realized he’d been carrying something in his left hand. With a splash, he swung a goose-pimpled arm up out of the water and dropped a small, soggy package onto the concrete rim of the pool.

  Monty left the soggy lump on the ledge and swam back out into the water, returning to his more effective side-stroke. He resumed his methodical sweeps of the pool, his eyes scanning the bottom through his snorkel mask. Back and forth he swam, each lap moving another yard further across. Every so often, he dove down to retrieve yet another soggy package, all of which he piled together on the ledge. Before long, a heap of soggy lumps had accumulated on the opposite side of the concrete pile, just a few feet away from me.

  As I stared at Monty’s collection, trying to imagine what might be wrapped up inside, I realized that the prospect of Sutro’s lost fortune would have been far more in line with my Uncle Oscar’s interests than a tribute to the man’s populism. Now more than ever, I was certain that there was more to the Vigilance Committee story than I’d been told.