Authors: Rebecca M. Hale
How to Wash a Cat (31 page)
Sighing heavily, I looked over at the front door. The tulip shape embossed on its handle glinted in the morning light. “And what’s the deal with all of the tulips?” I muttered to myself.
I set my thoughts aside as Ivan’s truck pulled up to the curb. On cue, Monty stepped jauntily out the door of his studio and danced across the street, a fresh application of citrus aftershave glistening on his face.
I opened the door and walked out to the sidewalk where Ivan had begun to unload the special glass panels inlaid with the Green Vase icon.
I began to yawn a greeting to Ivan and Monty, but it caught in my throat as a short, rounded figure stepped out from behind Ivan’s truck.
“Gordon,” Monty said brightly. “Top of the morning to you!” He grabbed onto one of Gordon Bosco’s pudgy white hands and began an energetic hand pump. Gordon smiled obligingly as he wrenched himself free from Monty’s grasp.
“Good morning, dear,” Gordon said, stroking the front buttons of his suit as he turned his attention towards me. “I was wondering if I might have a word with you? It’s about your uncle and that business matter I mentioned the other night at the dominoes game.” He ushered me towards the front door. “Perhaps we could step inside?”
“Okay,” I said timidly.
I glanced nervously back at Monty and Ivan as Gordon mounted the steps to the Green Vase. He turned the handle, his thumb rubbing the tulip embossing on the doorknob. Sucking in my breath, I followed him inside.
Gordon strolled into the crowded showroom, his eyes sweeping over the dusty piles and cardboard boxes. Slowly, he rounded the dental chair and turned to face me, his confidence and authority undiminished by the dusty surroundings. I shuffled to a stop in front of the cashier counter, feeling much smaller than the short-statured man in front of me.
Gordon’s thin lips stretched into a smile. He tilted his head at the stuffed kangaroo standing next to me. “That’s an interesting addition.”
I smiled meekly, gulping. “I found it in one of the shipping crates.”
“I see.” The pale skin above Gordon’s lips twitched as he rubbed his stubby fingers together. “Have you found anything else—unusual—in the shipping crates?”
“No.” There was barely enough air in my lungs to squeeze the word out.
Gordon ran a hand along the back edge of the dental chair. “Oscar was a good business partner,” he said, his voice slow and measured. “One of the best I ever had.”
Gordon stepped around the chair, edging closer to the cashier counter. “But, a couple of months ago, I began to think he might have changed his mind about our partnership . . . I began to suspect that Oscar was hiding something from me.”
My back stiffened against the edge of the counter.
Gordon stared at me intently. “So I had to proceed with
alternative
means to keep the pressure on Oscar—to ensure the success of the operation.”
alternative
means to keep the pressure on Oscar—to ensure the success of the operation.”
I shifted uncomfortably against the counter as Gordon turned away from me and strode, Monty-like, through the Green Vase showroom.
“You see, a couple of years ago, I bought a small biotech company. They were foundering, about to go under, but I had a lead on a new drug that could turn it all around for them.”
Gordon’s eyes jumped in and out of the open crates as he circled through the room.
“I’d been sitting on the board here in Jackson Square long enough to hear the Leidesdorff rumors. How he faked his death, hooked up with Ralston, maybe even made off with those missing diamonds.”
My breath shortened as Gordon’s tiny feet turned back towards the front of the store. His turnip-shaped figure advanced through the room, twisting deftly around cardboard boxes and display cases until he stood, once again, behind the dental chair—only a few feet away from me.
“As the story goes, somewhere in his travels, Leidesdorff came across a recipe for a sleeping drought that would put a person into a trance—slow down their body functions—so much so that they looked as if they were . . .” Gordon’s hands crunched down on the head cushion of the chair as he leaned towards me and said squarely, “dead.”
Gordon’s keen eyes squinted together as if he were trying to look inside my head. “I hired Oscar to track down the recipe. He knew everything about the Gold Rush era. I was sure that he was the man to find it.”
Gordon took two swift steps towards the counter, his dark eyes curdling with his suspicions. “That Sunday morning, I came by the Green Vase to get the formula from him.” He paused and pursed his thin lips. “But he was already . . . gone when I got here.”
I looked down at the short man glaring up at me, now no more than six inches away from my chin. There was a faint reddishness on his upper lip, just beneath his enormous, strangely immobile nose.
“That formula is worth a great deal to me. I’ve banked everything on it. We’re already in licensing negotiations to partner the development of the drug with several large pharmaceutical companies. This could revolutionize the treatment for traumatic injuries, replace anesthesia for surgeries. The potential applications—and revenue streams—are endless.”
I turned my head towards the stuffed kangaroo, trying to avoid the flecks of spit issuing from Gordon’s hardening lips. “What about the brain swelling?” I asked, remembering the description of Leidesdorff’s symptoms. “It sounds like there were some pretty gruesome side effects.”
“Don’t worry your pretty head about that, dear.” Gordon’s thin lips curled up, as if they held a valuable secret. “All I need is the information that Oscar uncovered about the formula. I’m quite certain that it—and whatever else he might have found—are hidden here, in the Green Vase.”
The sound of breaking glass crashed against the sidewalk outside; Ivan had dropped one of the glass-containing cartons.
Gordon stepped back from me. As he turned towards the door, he tugged down on the cuffs of his sleeves, which, for once, appeared to be missing their tulip-shaped cufflinks.
“I would appreciate it,” he said, his voice flattening to a more business-like tone, “if you would let me know as soon as you find it—the formula that is. The diamonds are yours to keep. That was my agreement with Oscar.”
I watched Gordon exit out to Jackson Street. He breezed past Monty and Ivan, who were both bent over the dropped container, picking up shards of glass from the pavement.
I chewed on my lip, pondering Gordon’s business plan and wondering how William Leidesdorff had found his way to the bottom of the bay so soon after taking the potion Gordon was so desperate to get his hands on.
Chapter 37
BY NOON, IVAN had finished with the installation of all but the broken pane of glass. He left only after issuing numerous apologies for the breakage. Shortly after his departure, Monty sped off for an appointment.
I decided it was time to pay a visit to Mr. Wang.
I slipped in among the lunch crowds as I approached the flower stall. Mrs. Wang and her daughter were swamped with customers, but Mr. Wang was nowhere to be seen.
Just then, the slight figure of Harold Wombler emerged from behind an enormously wide man contemplating the begonia rack. I watched as Harold lumbered jerkily inside the store.
“Does he not own another pair of overalls?” I thought as the breeze caught one of the flaps of material and flashed the pale skin of his knobby knees.
Harold Wombler swung behind the tulip rack, nimble despite his gimping leg. The top edge of the broom closet door opened and closed. No one else in the crowd of shoppers seemed to have noticed.
I glanced over to where Mrs. Wang had begun to interrogate the overweight begonia shopper. Her daughter was busy counting out change at the register. I slid behind the tulip rack and turned the knob on the broom closet door.
I waited for a moment inside the closet, wanting to make sure Harold got far enough ahead, so that he wouldn’t hear me open the hatch. A discarded flowerpot had been tossed into the corner. I counted slowly to ten, imagining what Monty must have looked like with the pot on his head, then I eased open the hatch.
The iron bars of the ladder disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel. I had no flashlight, I sighed ruefully as I stared down into the abyss. Grimacing away my hesitation, I swung my foot out to catch the first iron bar of the ladder and started down, silently closing the hatch above me.
My feet struggled to find each rung in the darkness. I waited, hanging against the wall, hoping that my eyes would adjust to the absence of light. Slowly, the shadowy margins of the ladder emerged in front of my face. I gripped the metal bars tightly as I continued down the ladder, feeling a great relief when my right foot hit the solid surface of the floor of the tunnel.
Damp, clammy air sunk in around me as I looked up and down the dark passageway. A buzzing murmur of insects percolated beneath my feet, up the walls, and over my head.
To my left, heading away from the direction of the Green Vase, a dim light bobbed in time with Harold’s unmistakable limp. I headed off after him, struggling to keep my footing on the slippery concrete floor.
With each step, the walls that I could sense more than see crept closer and closer towards me. The tunnel’s width collapsed down, feeding the claustrophobic frenzy building in my brain. I tried not to think of the corpse I’d seen earlier that morning, buried for a hundred and fifty years, submerged first in water, then in yards and yards of sand and mud.
Finally, I drew near enough to the glimmer from Harold’s light to see more of my surroundings. The constricting sides of the tunnel were wetter than I remembered, undulating with a myriad of insect inhabitants, each of them ogling me with their antennaed eyes. I wrapped my arms about my waist, trying not to touch the pulsing, suppurating wall.
The corners of the tunnel rustled resentfully as I edged forward. I gripped my sides tighter, hunching over as legions of insect legs scrambled across the low ceiling. Armored plates of black, shiny chitin clicked at me in a menacing, threatening undertone. My presence in this subterranean domain was clearly unwelcome.
I had to force myself to slow my pace. Every screaming instinct demanded that I hurtle pell-mell to the nearest exit. I crunched myself up into a walking ball and tried to focus on the straggling glimmer of Harold’s dim light.
The tunnel became rougher and more unstable. The damp draft of air funneling through it carried the feculent tang of raw sewage. A slimy, glutinous coating layered the floor and the walls. I stared desperately at Harold’s light, still bumping along about twenty feet in front of me.
To my over-hyped imagination, the grumbling, discordant chant of the tunnel’s insects seemed to be taking on more of a hungry tenor. I clamped my hands down over my ears, trying to dampen the voice shrieking inside my head, warning that the bugs were preparing to eat me. My pulse quickened as an unmistakable whirl of ravenous cravings suddenly raced down the tunnel towards me and swarmed around my head, boring into my ears with its deafening roar.
I dropped to the floor, my voice screeching in terror. The rippling surface of the ceiling erupted into a frenzied, flying foment. A multitude of creatures pelted down on top of me, clattering like pecans as they landed and chivied across the concrete. My fingers frantically scraped at my scalp. Every inch of skin shivered in a retching effort to dislodge the scattering hoards.
Hoping that my scream had been masked by the thundering passage of the BART train, I slowly pulled my head up from its fetal position and glanced down the tunnel towards Harold’s light. My breath caught in my throat as the beam stopped and swung upwards.
Each second dragged out until I realized that Harold and his flashlight were moving up a ladder. A loud sigh escaped my petrified lungs. I was finally getting out of this wretched tunnel.
I watched Harold’s costive movements as he slowly scaled the ladder. My initial relief was quickly muted by the dimming of his disappearing light. A few moments later, I stood in the darkness, listening as Harold clambered through the hatch and snapped it shut.
A narrow shaft of light filtered through the tunnel, lifting the cloak of blackness enough for me to see my hands if I held them in front of my face. As I did so, a delicate, tickling sensation scurried up my arm, launched over my shoulder, and disappeared down my back.
My whole body shook violently as I tried to dislodge the interloping insect. Trembling, I brought my hand back up, scanning its surface.
Tears began streaming down my face as a quivering cockroach blinked back at me, tittering conversationally, inquisitively twitching his long, sinuous antennae. I slung my hand up and down, trying to dislodge him. But when I dared to look back down at my hand, he was still there—amorously batting his beady eyes at me, whirring his wings in a proud, preening fashion.
I cringed as the roach began to pace back and forth on my palm, chattering away in a foppish manner. Then he paused, one antennae hovering pointedly in the air as his angling eyes studied me. “I have a theory.”
“Surely, I’ve lost my mind,” I replied.
But the convivial bug wasn’t finished. He resumed his discourse, fluttering his wings as he circled my palm. “What if Oscar pulled a Leidesdorff? What if he faked his death? Shouldn’t you at least consider the possibility?”
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