How to Catch a Cat (25 page)

A CHANGE IN PATTERN

THE NIECE SIGHED
when she saw the daily soup line snaking around the foot of the central staircase, at least thirty customers deep. She had mistimed her soup procurement run. She’d been so caught up in Oscar’s history book, she’d missed the short window early in the lunch hour for getting through the soup selection process without a lengthy wait.

The race would be half-over by the time she returned to the mayor’s office suite.

Resignedly, she took up her spot at the end of the queue.

Even though she knew the vendor, soup acquisition followed a strict first-come, first-serve protocol. It was a necessary regulation, preventing the riot of hungry soup-eaters that would otherwise ensue.

No one was allowed to cut in line.

Not even the chef’s niece.

•   •   •

MABEL WAS MAKING
her regular rounds through City Hall when the niece emerged from the mayor’s office suite.

While maintaining a discreet distance—and not deviating from her usual routine—Mabel tracked the niece to the rotunda’s first floor.

The woman was picking up soup for herself and several others, Mabel surmised, just like she did every day. Although, Mabel reflected, on this particular occasion, the niece was a bit late in attending to her soup duties.

It was only a slight aberration in the pattern, but for the pattern-obsessed, a development of keen interest.

Mabel crossed to the ceremonial rotunda, keeping her thinly veiled focus trained on the niece.

It was an easy surveillance to maintain. Due to the nature of her disguise, Mabel could stand by the Harvey Milk bust, staring out over City Hall’s vast interior, without having to provide any rationale or excuse for her presence.

As the niece slowly moved through the line, Mabel reached into her purse. Her fingers threaded through a skein of yarn until they found a pair of knitting needles. Her hand wrapped around one of the curved metal rods—a twitching, itching response to the visual display on the marble floor below.

Mabel felt herself nearing another off-kilter moment. She needed to change the pattern, create an erratic stitch.

Her eyes narrowed as the niece approached the soup vendor’s cart and made her selections. The old man nodded and dutifully filled several paper cartons with the indicated soup formulations.

Mabel gripped the needle even tighter.

She was ready to make her next kill.

And this time, her victim wouldn’t be an intern.

•   •   •

THE NIECE GATHERED
her soup containers and carefully stacked them into a paper bag. Loaded with enough soup to feed an army of hungry mayors, interns, and cats, she started up the central marble staircase.

Midway up the steps, she stopped, startled by a feathered shadow flitting past the stained glass windows that framed the rotunda’s upper half.

She squinted up at the image of the
San Carlos
and then turned a slow pivot, her eyes scanning her periphery.

The regular collection of tourists cluttered the building. A few wedding parties were grouped near the licensing office in the south wing. And, of course, several City Hall employees had lined up for soup.

If Mabel was hiding amidst this crowd, she had done an excellent job of masking her identity.

The niece detected nothing out of the ordinary—nothing except for a faint trace of lemony-sweet perfume.

A DELICATE COURTSHIP

THE BARON STOOD
on his megayacht, watching the regatta’s first race unfold from the ship’s top deck.

So far, his team had performed admirably. With just a few more legs to go, the US boat was neck and neck with the challengers from New Zealand.

He expected his men to pull ahead at the next turn.

He glanced down at his watch and nodded with approval. Everything was running according to plan.

The only item on the day’s agenda left to be achieved was a win for the first race.

—

BEING A TECH
guru, the Baron had employed every possible tool to monitor his team’s progress.

A pair of binoculars hung from his neck, ready for quick consultation. His headset was tuned to the official race radio, and a portable television hooked up on the yacht’s deck played the live video feed.

Despite the multiple information inputs, there was little he could do, at this point, to affect the outcome.

Waiting was a frustrating activity.

Patience had never been one of his virtues.

—

SEEKING A DISTRACTION,
the Baron thought back to the prerace festivities. This had been one aspect of the day’s events that he could control. Every detail had been choreographed down to the letter.

The welcoming ceremony at the racing pavilion had been headlined by a talented stunt pilot who would be appearing throughout the regatta. His shiny red plane had performed a series of stomach-churning maneuvers in the sky above the venue.

A military band had played the national anthems of both the home and challenger countries. Following this fanfare, the crew members for each team had been introduced.

The only wild card of the morning had failed to show up.

The Baron had been relieved to see no sign of Montgomery Carmichael. He had taken every precaution to ensure that would be the case. An elite security team patrolled the pavilion perimeter. They were specifically tasked with keeping an eye out for the mayor and preventing any attempted incursions.

And, of course, if the guards caught sight of an evil-looking granny with a bag full of knife-modified knitting needles, they were to detain her and immediately call the police.

Truth be known, the Baron’s fear of the former far surpassed that of the latter. He firmly believed that if he kept Monty out of the event arena, he would have no problems with Mabel.

“Nothing but bad luck, that priest.”

The Baron frowned, shook his head, and corrected himself.

“I mean politician.”

—

ABSENT THE TWO
uninvited guests, the first-day crowds were a bit less than the Baron had hoped for—okay, a lot less.

But he took comfort in the numbers that had turned out. He could build on the local interest in the race. He was developing a support base from the ground up. Over the long course of his business career, he had done more with less.

The Baron knew his hometown, every finicky corner and curve. San Francisco was a city that must be wooed.

This would be a delicate courtship.

A mosaic of diverse, demanding individuals, the citizenry insisted on the best in food, wine, and entertainment. The city’s grocery stores offered the finest produce in the nation; her dining establishments routinely received superior star ratings.

San Francisco would expect no less than excellence from this new sporting enterprise that had taken over her waterfront, and he intended to give it to her.

He cupped his hand over his brow and scanned the shoreline. All along the Embarcadero, pedestrians peered inquisitively at the spectacle unfolding on the water, the spectator watercraft jockeying for observation positions along the racecourse, the helicopters hovering overhead, and, of course, the unmistakably grand racing boats whose sky-high masts could be picked out from any vantage point.

The people were flirting coyly around the edges of the race, waiting to see what was on offer. They wanted to be lured in and seduced by the action.

He had no doubt that San Francisco would soon fall in love with sailing.

After all, he thought proudly, it was her birthright, her heritage. It was in her blood.

He just had to provide the right enticement.

The Baron jammed the binoculars against his face, muttering unheard orders to his crew members.

It would help immensely if the home team finished this first race with a win.

—

IT WAS A
close contest for much of the route, but the challenger team from New Zealand took the lead on the last turn, gaining the advantage of a favorable wind. The Kiwis won the race by several boat lengths.

The Baron winced at the visible disappointment that rippled through the crowds, but he refused to accept defeat. Given the regatta’s best-of-seventeen format, there were still plenty of races to go, including the day’s second race, which would start within the hour.

His crew would quickly rack up the nine points needed for the championship, he assured himself.

Even if he had to hop on the boat and captain it himself.

Modern-Day San Francisco

LOSERS

THE FIRST RACING
loss was followed by another—and another—and the next six after that.

In surprisingly short order, the home team found itself down an impossible, seemingly irrecoverable zero points to eight. It was an unprecedented losing streak in the history of the regatta.

New Zealand needed only one more win to take home the America’s Cup trophy and to top off their complete and utter humiliation of the US team.

The citizens of San Francisco were not impressed.

With each devastating loss, the Baron became more irritable and frustrated. He was unaccustomed to dealing with such gut-wrenching failure.

He held meetings to motivate his crew members.

He held meetings to denigrate them.

He threatened to fire the captain.

Nothing seemed to work or have any effect. Some of the races were close. Others were total blowouts. Either way, the end result was the same.

The Baron couldn’t believe he had backed a team of losers.

—

WITH THE COMPETITION
appearing to be all but over, the Kiwis became a bit cheeky.

While the New Zealand crew members tried to maintain a sense of sportsmanlike decorum, their supporters openly mocked the Baron, who they saw as having outspent their team with his lavish payroll and development budget.

Midnight following their fourth successful day of racing, a trio of Kiwis dressed in skintight hooded suits plastered his Russian Hill residence with New Zealand flags. The symbols were promptly removed, but not before a shaky cell phone video had been taken. By morning, the gleeful Kiwi display had been widely distributed across both San Francisco and the sailing world.

The Baron woke on day five testy and tense. They now faced a must-win situation for today’s two races and, if they miraculously managed to make it past that hurdle, for six more straight races in the days after that.

It was an insurmountable hurdle.

There was no chance of success.

Resigned to the inevitable, he set off for the racing pavilion to meet with his team one last time before the ninth and what looked to be final race.

•   •   •

THE BARON SHOULD
have drawn inspiration from his surroundings. If ever a place offered hope for the doomed and down-and-out, it was San Francisco.

It turned out all his team needed was a change in luck.

It would come from the most unlikely of sources.

THE WINDS OF CHANGE

ON THE FIFTH
official day of the America’s Cup regatta, the television screen in the mayor’s office suite sprang to life with the by-now-familiar video of racing sailboats scooting around the San Francisco Bay.

The scenic panorama was accompanied by a grim prerace commentary. The home team was in a terrible position, having lost the first eight races in a best-of-seventeen racing series. The event that had started out with circuslike fanfare was now met with the solemnity of a funeral dirge.

Certainly, the atmosphere inside the reception area was much more subdued.

After making an early soup run, the niece sat at her desk, trying to tune out the television while she studied the reference text on the 1775 voyage of the
San Carlos
.

Van sat on the floor in front of the television, sleepily slurping the last bits of his minestrone. Rupert had retired to the cat bed for a postsoup nap. Even Isabella yawned from her filing cabinet perch.

Monty lay in a heap beneath the America’s Cup poster, occasionally emitting a plaintive moan.

“How can I not be involved in this race?”

This had been the gist of Monty’s ongoing commentary for the past four days—and yet, the meaning seemed not to have reached the conscious portion of Van’s brain until just that moment.

“You know, I have a friend . . .” the intern said thoughtfully.

The niece cringed, anticipating Van was about to launch into yet another discussion about the book he was writing on his bicycle ride across California. In her estimation, each completed sentence generally equated to at least twenty minutes’ worth of uncompleted fragments—if not more.

Isabella shared the niece’s intuition. The cat shoved her head into her chest and wrapped her paws over her ears.

Van tossed his empty soup container into the trash can by the niece’s desk. “My friend, he’s got a boat.”

This unexpected announcement received an immediate response.

“That’s it!” Monty exclaimed, leaping up from the floor. “I’ll borrow a boat and join the race on my own!”

He closed in on Van, who looked surprised at the sudden rush of attention. “Your friend, how much does he charge to rent out his boat?”

Van stroked his chin, considering the question, and then shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Is it available this afternoon?”

There was another pondering pause. “Don’t know.”

“Would he let us take it out on the racecourse?”

This time, the silence stretched out almost a minute. “Don’t know.”

Monty opened and closed his mouth, temporarily stymied.

The niece sighed patiently. Much as she hated to intervene, this could go on for hours. “Can you ask your friend about the boat?”

“Okay. Yeah, sure,” Van replied, as if that course of action hadn’t occurred to him. Then he leaned his back against the front surface of the niece’s desk and returned his attention to the television screen.

The niece peered over the top of her desk and cleared her throat. “Perhaps now would be a good time.”

Another flash of realization spread across Van’s face. “Oh.”

Then he got up, slid on his jacket, and left the room.

“Where’s he going?” Monty asked.

The niece hurried to the main door, cracked it open, and watched the tall intern step into the elevator.

“Hmm.”

On a hunch, she trotted across the reception area and cut through the mayor’s office to the windows overlooking the front balcony.

Monty caught up to her as she watched the pedestrians on the street below. A few minutes later, she spied Van’s head, slowly meandering out of the building and lumbering in the direction of the nearest BART station.

The niece shook her head. She had little faith that this boat idea would pan out or even that such a boat actually existed.

They probably wouldn’t hear from Van until the following day at the soonest. Given his penchant for wandering, she wouldn’t be surprised if he disappeared until the following week.

She stepped away from the window and returned to the reception area, leaving Monty to gape at the disappearing intern.

“I guess he’s gone to ask about the boat.”