How to Moon a Cat (31 page)

The morning’s bright sunshine cast a warm glow on the sidewalk as the Life Coach strolled around the corner to the Larkin House. My son, he thought as a slight facial tick tweaked his upper lip, has proved useful once again.

The Life Coach strode briskly up the porch steps and gazed at his full reflection in the adobe’s front windows. Clem’s Mark Twain outfit had been a simple enough disguise to copy. It had easily fooled that silly accountant who had seen him sitting across the table from Monty at the Sonoma restaurant—he had seen the surprised look on her face through the window.

Now, he was ready to give her an up-close viewing.

“Clem,” he muttered under his breath as he stepped from the end of the porch through a gate to a side courtyard. “I know who you really are.”

A dark chuckle rumbled in his chest as he fed a key into the lock of the door to the main house.

“Oscar, you’re no match for the likes of Frank Napis.”

AFTER A SHORT
walk down Calle Principal, I stood in front of the two-story structure of Consul Larkin’s former residence, unaware of the danger that lurked within. A cream-painted composite of adobe and brick with a fir green trim, the building fit in seamlessly with the surrounding neighborhood, a quiet mix of residential and discreetly commercial buildings.

At first glance, the house didn’t have the look of a hundred-and-fifty-year-old building, but as I took in the details, I began to see evidence of its longevity. A wide balcony stretched around the circumference of the house, reminiscent of the architectural style of the Sonoma Barracks I’d visited the day before. I climbed a short flight of steps to a front porch whose flooring was paved with smooth timeworn bricks.

At the end of the porch stood a green-painted gate marked “Entrance.” Pushing it open, I found a courtyard that spanned the adjoining half-acre lot. The area was filled with redwood trees whose tops soared hundreds of feet above the roof of the house.

Beneath the sky-high canopy, the yard looked as if it could use a good pruning. Several overgrown bushes and shrubs crowded in among the tree trunks. Toward the opposite side of the courtyard, I could just make out the edge of a large stone shed.

Immediately to my right, a door led into the main house. A sign hanging over the knob indicated that the curator had stepped out and would return within the hour. Inching up onto my tiptoes, I tried to look through the dusty panes of glass to the interior.

As my forehead touched the surface of the door, it swung inward, creaking open a few inches. The lock hadn’t engaged properly, it seemed, when the curator left the premises for his break.

I leaned back from the doorway and checked through the courtyard gate to see if anyone was approaching from the street, but it was empty. There was no telling how long the curator would be gone. Slowly, my head swiveled back toward the entrance of the house.

The door squeaked on its hinges as I pushed it fully open and crossed the threshold to a small parlor. Family photos and several midsized paintings hung from walls painted a dull off-white color. A pair of mismatched love seats lined the longer sides of the rectangular-shaped room; a fireplace occupied the wall at the far end.

The sign hanging over the outside knob fluttered slightly as I pushed the door shut behind me. Catching a breeze, the sign flapped upward and flipped back against the glass, revealing a small plaque affixed to the door’s exterior framing. The printing on the plaque listed the regular hours for the museum—which was closed on Tuesdays.

 

 

ALTHOUGH IT HAD
been extensively renovated over the years, the Larkin House still retained the same basic floor plan as the original adobe. What had once been a breezeway running through the center of the first floor was now a fully enclosed hallway that connected the front and back portions of the house.

Standing in this central hallway, just behind the entrance to the front parlor, Frank Napis stroked his fake mustache as he heard the front door creak open, tentatively at first, then, after a long moment, with a second squeaking shove that indicated a fully committed entrance. Tentative footsteps trod across the ancient wooden floorboards as someone stepped inside and began to look around.

Through the reflection of a mirror posted at the front end of the hall, Napis watched as Oscar’s niece began her search of the sitting room.

 

 

I MADE MY
way slowly around the parlor, carefully studying the details, my eyes peeled for any reference to the Bear Flag Revolt.

The room was tastefully done, if a bit ragged around the edges. A couple of frumpy lamps, a few tottering end tables, and several worn throw rugs furnished the space. Outlets on the wall indicated the house had been wired for electricity. Several generations of Larkins, I suspected, had lived in the adobe, each one layering on its own renovations and personalizations.

I scanned the room, honing in on the pictures hanging from the walls, which seemed the most likely to have a connection to the 1846 time frame. My eyes swept from frame to frame, finally stopping at a small, dusty portrait propped up against a window seat near the front of the room.

The boyish face hiding behind the wild curly nest of an unkempt beard was instantly familiar. I’d stared at another version of the same man in the display area at Sutter’s Fort. I bent over to look more closely at the picture of Captain John C. Frémont.

The sunlight streamed in through the window, causing a glare on the picture’s protective glass covering, so I picked it up to get a better view. As I brought the frame closer to my face, my fingers pressed against its loose cardboard backing, and the brackets holding it together began to slip. I had to juggle the frame to keep the glass cover from dropping to the floor. Gathering the pieces on my lap, I sat on the window seat to fit them back together.

“My luck, this is when the curator will walk in,” I murmured to myself.

Just then, there was a creaking shift of the floorboards, followed by a jarringly familiar voice. “I see you’ve taken an interest in Captain Frémont.”

I looked up to find a man standing in the doorway leading from the parlor to the interior of the house. He wore a familiar linen suit, rumpled black bow tie, and ankle-high lace-up boots.

“Oh, ah, hello,” I stuttered, my cheeks blushing at the disassembled picture frame in my lap. “I hope you don’t mind, but I let myself in.”

I set the pieces of the picture on the window seat, stood up, and took a step toward him. “We haven’t formally met,” I said, holding my hand out. “My name is—”

“Haven’t we?” he cut in. There was an odd gleam in his eyes.

The man’s upper lip twitched, causing his mustache to vibrate. Something in the movement struck a panicked chord in my memory. I hadn’t picked up on it during his stage performances, but now, standing face to face, I was starting to feel a wary premonition creeping up my spine . . .

“Clement Samuels,” he said, gripping my hand as he cleared his voice. The thin lips behind the mustache formed a disconcerting smile. “I’ve seen you in my audiences, haven’t I? Weren’t you at the Nevada Theatre?”

MONTY PUSHED HIS
bike along Columbus Avenue, tired, weary, and dejected. After a long wait by the side of the road at the east entrance to Golden Gate Park, he’d given up hope that Sam was coming back to pick him up.

It had been a long ride home for the aspiring mayor of San Francisco. Several steep hills had impeded his progress, and the chain had fallen off his gear shaft, complicating his navigations through the city’s heavy traffic. What’s more, he couldn’t stop worrying about where that crazy ex-janitor had run off with his precious van.

Monty stopped at a curb to wipe a layer of sweat from his forehead. He looked down at what had been his last clean cycling shirt. It was now smeared with grease from his attempts to fix the chain. Finally, he had to confess, he was ready to give up on the cycling-themed photo op. It was time to admit defeat and move on. He’d sit down with the Life Coach later in the week to plot out another approach.

But first, he thought as a luscious fried chicken scent wafted out of a newly opened North Beach bistro, it was time to get some nourishment.

 

 

AN HOUR LATER,
Monty arrived at the doorstep to his Jackson Square studio, still uncomfortably grimy and sweaty, but feeling much more optimistic about life after having eaten nearly half a bucket of fried chicken. He paused, licked his fingers, and glanced across the street at the Green Vase storefront.

Aha,
he thought with a flash of inspiration.
There
was an audience who would listen to his woes.

He crossed the street, leaned his bike against the red brick edifice, and peeked through the showroom windows.

“Halloo!” he called out, cupping his hands against the glass. As his voice echoed through the building, the racing patter of padded footsteps thundered across the second floor kitchen, thumped rapidly down the steps at the back of the building, and skidded at top speed across the showroom floor. A moment later, Rupert threw himself against the front door’s glass panels, wheezing and huffing with his highest level of sniffing power. Every fiber of his being squealed with delight at the smell emanating from Monty’s paper bucket.

Grinning, Monty fished a key out of a small pocket in his bike shorts and slid it into the lock. Isabella crossed the showroom in a far more dignified fashion and watched with disapproval as he opened the front door.

“If she didn’t want me in here, she’d change the locks,” Monty replied defensively to Isabella’s accusing glare. He peeled off a chunk of chicken for Rupert, who was bouncing up and down, vainly trying to reach the bottom of the bucket. “Here you go, mate.”

Isabella leapt onto the cashier counter, her tail swishing testily back and forth.

“Peace offering?” Monty suggested, holding out a piece of chicken. Isabella sniffed disdainfully, but edged her nose toward his hand.

Monty left the morsel on the counter for Isabella; then he swaggered across the showroom to the dental recliner. After dropping onto its worn leather cushions, he pulled the recline lever and extended the footrest.

“That’s much better,” he said with a sigh. Rupert hopped on his lap and immediately stuck his head into the bucket of chicken.

“Hey, hey,” Monty protested. “That’s not all for you!” He reached over to the display case and picked up the handles of the tooth extractor. Playfully, he aimed the pinchers at the back end of the furry white body snorkeling inside the bucket.

“And what do we have here?” he asked, dropping the pinchers onto the floor as he noticed the trapdoor to the basement lying open. “Is your person down there?”

He glanced at Rupert, whose head was still firmly planted inside the bucket. Then he looked questioningly at Isabella.

“
Wa-ow wa-ow
,” she replied, her voice garbled by a mouthful of chicken.

Monty eased off the recliner, leaving Rupert to the bucket, and bent down to look into the hatch.

“Hall-oo,” he called out again, this time aiming his voice at the dark hole, but there was no response.

“Hmnh,” he mused. He started down the steps, the soles of his cycling shoes clapping loudly on the loose slats.

When he reached the basement’s concrete floor, he tugged a gray moth-eaten string to turn on the single bare lightbulb mounted to the ceiling. The bulb provided little additional lighting, but it was sufficient to illuminate the wide empty place behind the stairs. A sweeping pattern in the otherwise dust-covered floor indicated that a large object had been pushed to the foot of the stairs and, presumably, carried up to the showroom.

After staring at the bare spot on the floor, Monty called up to the cats in the showroom, “Hey, what happened to the kangaroo?”

THE MAN IN
the rumpled linen suit dropped my trembling hand.

“Yes, I’m sure I remember you from my previous performances,” he said slowly as I stared at his white mustache and flyaway eyebrows.

Despite his matching costume, I was beginning to doubt this was the same Clem I had seen in Nevada City and at Sutter’s Fort.

He raised a stubby finger into the air near my face. “But—I think you’re still missing the last act. Please, let me finish the story for you.”

Gulping nervously, I glanced sideways at the door to the courtyard, several feet to my left. The linen-clad man hovered a mere arm’s length to my right.

“After his role in the Bear Flag Revolt,” he said dismissively, “Captain Frémont becomes far less interesting—to you and me anyway.”

“Less interesting?” I repeated tensely as I tried to ease toward the door. “Why do you say that?”

The Clem impersonator let out an indifferent
sfit
of air. “A few months after taking command of the Osos in Sonoma, Frémont found himself caught in a political tug-ofwar between the U.S. Army’s General Kearney and the U.S. Navy’s Commodore Stockton. It would take Washington several months to catch up with the events on the ground in California. In the absence of a clear chain of command, the first two American military leaders on the scene fought with each other as much as with the Mexican resurgence in the south. In the end, Frémont managed to get himself court-martialed for disobeying orders. Despite a subsequent presidential pardon, his reputation and motives—particularly regarding his role in precipitating the Bear Flag Revolt—would be forever questioned.”

The man paused and stroked his hands across the front of his chest. “But, as I said before, that aspect of the story is of little interest to us.” He leaned toward me, his mustache twitching unnaturally. “Frémont’s fate wasn’t the focus of
your uncle’s
investigations.”