Nine Lives Last Forever

by Rebecca M. Hale

  “Up again,” Monty called out as Isabella hiked the stairs ahead, leaving the panting frog bested in a corner of the steps.

  The already slim width of the staircase shrank further as the steps began to spiral in the ascent. The cramped walls of this off-limits section of City Hall were far less polished than the creamy stone balusters below. Dusty wooden panels and beams began to replace the marble siding.

  There was only one possible direction for the path to take from here. Isabella hurdled up the steps, her pace now unhindered by frog escort. Monty huffed after her, struggling to keep her in sight.

  Rupert and I trailed behind, the cumbersome bulk of Harold’s oversized construction boots and Sam’s rolled-up overalls slowing my navigation of the steps. But I couldn’t blame all of my slow pace on the burdensome clothes. A gnawing nervousness was growing in the pit of my stomach as we grew nearer to the end of the frog trail.

  Several turns up from the third floor entrance, I passed the first firmly shut door I’d seen since the hallways in the basement. A sign mounted on the wall identified this locked passage as the entrance to the Whispering Gallery, the highest balcony visible from the floor of the rotunda.

  I thought back to the wooden model of the dome in the ground floor display area and the spindly steps that stretched up into the dome-topping spire. We would soon be passing above the dome’s faux drop ceiling; the spire’s attic seemed our inevitable destination.

  The spiral of the stairs tightened again as I continued to climb, the passageway constricting down into a throttling two-foot width. The lightbulbs were interspersed now at greater distances, so that the already dim lighting disappeared on the farthest corners of each turn. The stale, musty air trapped within the tubular staircase did nothing to diminish the sweat beading across my forehead.

  I hadn’t seen Monty and Isabella for several minutes now. Even the dull thud of Monty’s footsteps had vanished into the stuffy atmosphere of this elevated hideaway. It was deadly quiet in the isolated upper heights of the dome.

  Rupert dug his claws into the front fabric of the overalls as a slap, slap, slap accelerated toward us, signaling Monty’s return. His lanky body popped suddenly out from around the spiraled corner of the staircase, his hands awkwardly wrapped around Isabella’s middle as he held her at arm’s length to avoid her scratching claws. All four of Isabella’s feet stabbed out in protest as Monty descended the steps toward me.

  “Come on,” he urged breathlessly. “You’re almost there.”

  “What did you find?” I asked, observing the irritated expression on Isabella’s face.

  “The attic,” Monty replied in a hoarse whisper. “Filled with, well, you’ll see.” He made an up-and-down motion with Isabella, as if he were trying to make a silencing signal. “But keep it quiet.”

  Sucking in my breath, I hurried up the remaining steps. Rupert squirmed nervously in my arms as we cleared the last turn of the stairs. The climb terminated in a flat, open room at the base of a steepled spire—the building’s uppermost feature, situated above the crest of the dome.

  A cool evening breeze filtered in through the many decorative arches and windows that ringed the gilded structure. Protective screens prevented a mass of pigeons on the surrounding circular balcony from entering the room. But the coolant of the fresh air and the stunning vastness of the city view could not draw my attention away from the oddity of the interior.

  The room was cluttered with twenty or thirty glass aquariums. Each one had been plumbed so that it received a light trickle of water to feed the aquatic plants living inside. Resting under and alongside the plants was a nirvana of hundreds, if not thousands, of frogs.

  The roof of each of the aquariums had been removed, facilitating easy access for the inhabitants. Every so often, a frog hopped up into the air, transferring itself from one tank to another.

  Several burlap bags lined the floor beneath the tanks, each one filled with an assortment of frog-keeping paraphernalia. On the far side of the room, near one of the larger screened windows to the outside balcony, a narrow cot had been unfolded. An unrolled sleeping bag stretched out along the cot’s length.

  A couple of books lay on a bench positioned next to the entrance. Three of the texts related to frog caretaking and maintenance. The fourth had a familiar shiny green cover; it was a collection of Mark Twain essays.

  But the room’s most intriguing feature was seated right in front of us at a card table.

  A redheaded man wearing dingy gray-striped overalls sat on one side of the table, carefully studying an array of cards fanned out in his hand. He appeared to be carrying on an animated conversation with the unoccupied seat across from him. The seat was empty except for a collection of cards, turned facedown, and a feathery orange mustache.

  Chapter 39

  ABOVE THE DOME

  SAM SEEMED OBLIVIOUS to our arrival; his eyes were fixed on his cards. His grubby fingers strummed the surface of the card table as he considered his options. At long last, he ran his tongue across his top lip and laid down a card faceup on the deck stacked in the middle of the table.

  “Ha!” he cried out to the empty seat and the orange mustache. “I’ve got you now.” He leaned back in his chair and grinned broadly to his invisible opponent. “Let’s see you wiggle out of this one.”

  Monty raised an eyebrow at me as he bent down to set Isabella on the floor. She quickly stepped away from him, snapping her tail into the air to communicate her offense at the undignified manner in which she’d been carried.

  Monty cleared his throat and rapped his knuckles on the threshold of the entry, trying to draw Sam’s attention.

  Sam glanced over at us, his expression welcoming and disturbingly unsurprised. “Hey there, Mr. Montgomery and, uh . . .” His face clouded, as if he were struggling to remember my name. He shrugged good-naturedly. “. . . and Monty’s friend. Nice to see you both.”

  Sam laid his cards down on the table and pointed at Isabella, who was sniffing the aquariums, and Rupert, who I had shifted in my arms to try to block the “Sam” nametag on my overalls. “You know, cats aren’t allowed inside of City Hall.”

  But frogs, apparently, were perfectly acceptable, I thought to myself.

  Monty appeared to have had the same idea. He struggled to straighten a smirk from his face. “Please don’t tell on us, Sam,” he pleaded. “We brought them in for an after-hours tour, when no one else would see them.” The honest tenor of his voice was almost convincing. “They’re very well behaved, for cats.”

  Isabella hopped up on one of the counters holding the aquariums and stuck her head inside the nearest tank. Monty looked at me beseechingly to intervene, but I motioned at Rupert, who I was afraid to put down lest I reveal the “Sam” nametag on my overalls. Monty replied with a sour look, threw his hands up in the air, and rushed over to grab Isabella. He received an annoyed “wrao” in return.

  Between the artificial frog habitat, the disembodied mustache, and the delusional card-playing janitor, I was unsure how to proceed.

  “So, uh, Sam, how long have you been living up here?” I asked gently as Monty grappled with an irate Isabella. One of her sharp, stabbing claws nicked his right cheek.

  “Just a short while,” Sam replied with a sheepish shrug. “I’m not supposed to be sleeping up here, but this is such a nice spot for a nap.” His ruddy face broke into a broad smile. “Beautiful views, even at night. Check out the city lights.”

  I carried Rupert over to the east-facing window for an appreciative look out at the sky-high panorama of the surrounding city. Not far in the distance, a cluster of towering concrete buildings marked the edge of the financial district. Just beyond, the lighted lines of the Bay Bridge spidered across the water toward the Oakland Hills.

  Behind me, Monty cursed under his breath as he continued to struggle with Isabella. I took a wide circle around them and returned to Sam.

  Another pair of tired frogs emerged from the stairwell as I approached the card
table. Once inside the attic, they waddled, without hesitation, across the room to the frog tanks. An electronic box, I noticed, was mounted on the wall behind the row of aquariums.

  “What’s this?” I asked, pointing at the box. Two round speakers on the front side of the device faced up against the tanks. A dial on the top of the box had been turned to a marker indicating three-fourth’s power.

  “Yeah, that’s a radio,” Sam said blithely. “My mom gave it to me for the frogs. It plays music on a spectrum that only they can hear.” Sam nodded his head toward the tanks. “That’s why they keep coming—for the music.”

  “That’s what’s bringing the frogs all the way up from the basement?” I asked, amazed. “This box? Is it sending out sonar or something?”

  “Oh no,” Sam said confidently, “just music. That’s what my mom told me. The frogs don’t dance or anything silly like that. They just like to listen to the music.”

  “Sam,” I said, still puzzled. “There are an awful lot of frogs headed up here. The moat in the substructure of the foundation is filled with water—”

  “And about a million tadpoles,” Monty interjected, despite his ongoing duel with Isabella. “Who put those in the moat, Sam?”

  Sam thumped his chest proudly. “My mom showed me where to put the hose. She took me down there about a week ago—through the trapdoor in the janitor’s closet. She knew about it from when my dad worked here. You know, all this time, I never thought to look down underneath the building into the foundation layer. It’s really a different world down there.”

  He strummed the grubby stubs of his fingers on the table, remembering. “We dumped a couple of packages of tadpoles into the water. I was afraid, at first, that they wouldn’t make it all the way up here to the top of the dome, but Mom told me the music would get them going, give them inspiration. She knows how much I like frogs. It’s been great to have them up here with me. They keep me and my dad company—it turns out he’s a frog-man, too.”

  Monty was losing his battle with Isabella. His hands and arms were bloodied from numerous scratches. I turned my back to Sam, set Rupert on the floor, and held out my arms for her. She leapt easily over to me and put her front paws on my shoulder to cover the nametag, all the while glaring haughtily at Monty. Rupert yawned sleepily and trotted over to Sam’s cot.

  “Your father?” I asked, turning back toward Sam as Monty shook his head emphatically back and forth, trying to ward off my inquiry. I bit my lip, but decided to press on. “I’m sorry—I thought he had passed away.”

  “Yes, you’re right. He did.” Sam acknowledged cheerfully. “But, he came back a couple of months ago.”

  Sam leaned forward in his chair. “I was a bit surprised, right at first. You know, you sometimes hear of this sort of thing occurring to other people, but you never think it will happen to you.” Sam arched an eyebrow at me. “You’ve got to keep an open mind, that’s what my dad always says.”

  Monty rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, but Sam was already off and running with his story.

  “That’s why I’ve been spending so much time up here, you see,” Sam explained. “So I can hang out with him and the frogs. You never know how long something like this will last.”

  Sam leaned back in his chair and stroked the red stubbled hair on his chin. “One day, not too long ago, I was running a sweeper on the third floor hallway. I looked up and saw a man standing next to the door for the stairwell that leads up into the dome.”

  Sam rubbed his eyes. “I thought, for sure, I must be seeing things, because this guy looked just like my old dad. Next thing I knew, he was waving at me.”

  Monty put his head in his hands, but Sam seemed not to notice.

  “I couldn’t believe it at first. My dad’s been dead now for nearly fifteen years. But, sure enough, the closer I got, the more it looked just like him. He motioned for me to follow, so I did—all the way up to this room in the steeple.”

  The chair creaked as Sam shifted his weight to cross one leg over the other. “I got to tell you, it’s so quiet when you reach the higher parts of the dome. I was starting to get kind of scared as I climbed up all of those steps, especially since I was following a ghost. Kind of creepy if you let your mind go there. But when I walked into this room, there was my dad, nice as you please. Sitting right here at this table.”

  There was a gleam in Sam’s eyes as he spoke, and I realized that this reunion, however much imagined, meant a lot to him.

  “It’s amazing how fast we reconnected. Just like the old times. I’ve been coming up here as often as I can ever since. See, look, my dad and I, we started this game of cards. Of course, you have to be patient when you’re interacting with a ghost. Sometimes, it takes him a while to make his next move.”

  Monty stared down at the empty seat and the downward facing, immobile playing cards. He clearly wasn’t buying Sam’s ghost story.

  I leaned toward Sam and asked cautiously. “And do you, er . . . uh, see him sitting at the table, right now?”

  Sam gave me an incredulous look. “Of course not.” His eyes narrowed as if he, Sam, were questioning my sanity.

  “But, you’re . . . playing cards with him?” I asked tentatively.

  “With his ghost,” Sam replied, in a matter-of-fact tone. “He can’t always be visible, you know. It takes a lot of work to make himself seen.” Sam pointed to his chest. “But he’s always with me in spirit, even if I can’t see him with my eyes.”

  Monty had given up on this conversation. He began snooping around the room, peeking into the bags underneath the frog tanks. He was still searching, I suspected, for the hidden Sutro fortune.

  I was more concerned about the role of the fake mustache. I was beginning to suspect that it was the reason we’d been led to this location. Follow the frogs I thought with growing apprehension—and find Frank Napis.

  “Uh, Sam,” I said, my voice trembling as I pointed to the object occupying the seat on the opposite side of the card table. “What is that doing in your father’s chair?”

  My fingers gripped into Isabella’s thick fur as Sam chuckled. “Oh, that’s just a placeholder. I found it lying around City Hall somewhere. I figured one of the tourists probably lost it.”

  Sam got up from his chair, walked around the card table, and picked up the mustache. “It gives me something to focus on when I can’t see him in person. You see, Dad always has a bit of facial hair, a stubble, you know, like me. He doesn’t shave much.”

  Every nerve in my body tensed as I forced myself to ask the next question. “Does your father sometimes have a mustache like that one?”

  “Well, not exactly,” Sam said affably. He dropped the mustache on the card table and strolled over to the bench near the entrance of the attic. He picked up the Mark Twain book, flipped open its green cover, and pulled out a black-and-white photo.

  “Here’s a picture of him,” Sam offered, pointing at a group of four people standing in front of a Castro Street storefront. It was an exact copy of the photograph I’d found in the wardrobe in my basement. “He’s the guy here on the end.”

  “The end?” I stammered. “No, you mean there in the middle.” My shaking finger lined up with Frank Napis.

  “I think I know my own father,” Sam replied with a wary look. “He’s the one with the big white beard. This one.”

  Sam shifted the photo to the right, so that my paralyzed finger now pointed to the image of my Uncle Oscar.

  Chapter 40

  DILLA CHECKS IN

  I CLIMBED OUT of the white van in front of the Green Vase and stumbled wearily up the steps to the front door, struggling to carry both cats in my arms.

  After the adventures and revelations of the last two days, I thought, I might never leave home again. My head was pounding, unable to process the implications of my conversation with Sam. I felt exhausted; the stress and emotion of recent events had completely drained me.

  But as I set the cats on the top step of the entrance and reach
ed out my hand to insert the tulip-shaped key into the lock, I noticed that the front door was slightly ajar. Someone had stopped by while I’d been out. I had a pretty good idea of who it was—but, at this point, it wouldn’t have surprised me if Oscar himself had greeted me at the entrance to the Green Vase.

  Sighing tiredly, I pulled the door open to allow Isabella to slide through. Then, after scooping up a sleepy Rupert, I stepped inside.

  With an alert chirp, Isabella trotted through to the back of the showroom where an elderly Asian woman was stretched out on the dentist recliner. Her bright green go-go boots were propped up on the footrest, and she appeared to be dozing quietly. The fingers of the woman’s left hand were wrapped around a key with a tulip-shaped handle, similar in size, shape, and function to the one I had just slipped back into my pocket.

  “Ah, there you are, dear,” Dilla said drowsily. “I hope you don’t mind, but I let myself in.”

  “Not at all,” I replied as I turned back toward the cashier counter. “Here, let me get your package.”

  “You’ve been out late,” she said, bending her head to check her watch.

  I smiled to myself. Dilla, I suspected, knew exactly where I’d been.

  I leaned behind the counter and carefully slid Dilla’s book back into its wrapping. With the flat of my hand, I pressed the tape down along the seams of the refolded paper. “I’ve got your package,” I said, glancing cautiously toward the recliner.

  “Excellent,” Dilla replied. She flipped the lever to collapse the footrest and bounded up, her energy apparently restored.

  I met her halfway across the room and handed her the package. She studied it for a second, examined the wrapping, and then looked up at me.

  “Did you open it?” she asked. Her eyes had an eager gleam to them.

  I thought about trying to cover up my unauthorized examination of her book, but I didn’t have the energy to even make the attempt. I shrugged my shoulders apologetically and grinned sheepishly.