Nine Lives Last Forever Read Online Free PDF Page B

next to him, carefully licking one of his ears.
    I searched the entire area, peeking behind the nearest bookcase, searching for any crevice where a trapped creature might be hiding. I couldn’t identify anything out of the ordinary.
    “What was going on back here?” I asked, wondering if I should set a couple of mousetraps. “What were you two trying to catch?”
    Isabella glanced up from her grooming project. “Wrao,” she replied noncommittally.
    I shrugged and shook my head. “I have no idea what that means.”
    Isabella gave me an appeasing look, as if to placate a clearly less intelligent creature, and then returned her attentions to the hair in Rupert’s ear.
     
     
    TWENTY MINUTES LATER , I headed out the door for City Hall.
    Let’s get this over with, I thought, pausing for a moment at the cashier counter. Harold’s green-covered text still lay on top of the pile of books. I picked it up and scanned through the index.
    The featured essay in the volume was one of Mark Twain’s more famous California pieces, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County .

Chapter 3
    REDWOOD PARK
    DILLA ECKLES HUNG up the pay phone and nervously scanned the area surrounding the booth. She stood at the edge of a small park tucked in behind the TransAmerica Pyramid building, a few blocks away from Jackson Square.
    The outer struts of the Pyramid’s massive concrete base flanked one side of the half-acre park, almost all of which shivered in the perpetual shadow of the building’s cold, lumbering mass. A formation of redwoods ringed the park, their long, straight trunks rocketing skyward, racing against the Pyramid’s pointed skyscraper to reach the warmth of the sun.
    The vertical plumes of a fountain caught the few splashes of sunlight that filtered down to the ground level of the park. The statues of a half dozen gangly legged frogs hopped amongst the fountain’s stone lily pads, their bronze, green-tinged legs outstretched, the wide span of their webbed flippers flying through the air.
    The fountain’s frogs were San Francisco’s tribute to Mark Twain, who manned a newspaper desk in the downtown Montgomery Block building during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In addition to providing office space, the Monkey Block, as it was affectionately called, also featured bars, restaurants, and, in the basement, a series of steam baths where Twain allegedly met a San Francisco firefighter named Tom Sawyer.
    The historic building was torn down in the 1950s; it was replaced first by a parking lot and later by the towering Pyramid structure.
    Redwood Park was all that remained of San Francisco’s former downtown artist haven. In modern times, the park was frequented primarily by early morning tai chi practitioners and lunching office workers. The two groups used the space in peaceful, noncommunicative coexistence. Consequently, no one in that day’s crowd of lunchers took notice of the elderly Asian woman using the pay phone near the fountain.
    Dilla Eckles shuddered in her oversized ratty wool sweater. The loose-fitting legs of her putty brown pants flapped against her ankles as she shifted her weight back and forth.
    It was like splitting glue, Dilla thought, trying to get that woman out of the Green Vase showroom. Oscar had tracked down a sizeable bounty prior to his death. Much of that treasure, Dilla knew, still lay hidden throughout the city. If his niece were to pick up where Oscar left off, she was going to need a little push.
    Dilla clapped her gloved hands together to ward off the chill, her mouth firming with resolve. She had assured Oscar that she would look after his niece, and she was determined to make good on that promise—no matter how difficult that vow was becoming to keep.
    Dilla stretched her neck to glance down at her watch. She had difficulty reading the time; her eyes were impeded by the thick rubber mask plastered over her face. The slanted oval slits around her eyes cupped as she tried to