Bewitched and Betrothed Page 18

  “Thank you.” I had awakened last night at three in the morning, wondering whether I needed to worry about that coat. I knew only too well that our clothes carried traces of us, and could be used against us by those of ill intent.

  Besides, it was my favorite coat, and perfect for San Francisco’s foggy mornings.

  When Maya and Bronwyn arrived for the day at Aunt Cora’s Closet, I told them the good news about Elena. I skipped over the details but reported that she was relatively unscathed.

  “And what about you?” Bronwyn asked, noting the scratches on my arms.

  I examined them, surprised. The mugwort salve should have resolved them already. “I’m fine, nothing a few days of healing won’t fix. I put some salve on it that should help. Maya, would you be willing to print out a few things from the Internet for me?”

  “Of course,” she said, opening up the shop laptop. I wasn’t able to speak Sitri’s name aloud without risking calling him, so I pointed to his name in a reference book listing all known demons, and asked her to download a drawing of him, along with his sigil. She gave me a questioning glance, but didn’t say anything.

  “Oh! Lily, look at what I found!” Bronwyn showed me the 1970s pantsuit she had picked out for the wedding. “Patience decided on the emerald green silk—a wee bit formal for a handfasting but there’s no denying it will add a touch of glamour! Lucille has already pinned the dress for the alterations. So: Three down, one to go!”

  I glanced at Maya.

  “Yeah, I’m still looking,” she said. “I’ll find something eventually, don’t worry. I think I’m overwhelmed with choices. Would you pick out, like, four or five dresses, using your ‘special abilities’? I’ll try them on in the next day or two.”

  “I’d be happy to!” I said, pleased. Maya generally preferred jeans and rarely got into the spirit of trying on dresses just for the fun of it. “I’ll take some time to pick something tomorrow morning. For the moment, I have to run a few errands before our noon appointment. Are you two okay holding down the fort this morning?”

  They both agreed.

  First things first: I really needed to consult with Aidan. Usually I went by his office at the wax museum because I’m not a fan of talking on the phone. But time was short, so I went into the workroom and called. No answer.

  Was he avoiding me? I rarely had this much trouble getting in touch with him.

  Determined, I loaded my backpack down with supplies and headed out.

  In theory, I had agreed to meet with Renee only with Aidan at my side. But since he was AWOL, I went by the cupcake shop only to find it still closed. I left a note for Renee saying I wanted to speak with her, along with a jar of salve for the black eyes she’d gotten from her head injury. She probably wouldn’t trust it, but it was a peace offering of sorts, an invitation to speak. It seemed ridiculous to communicate in this way, but then everything about Renee seemed ridiculous, starting with her cupcakes and cheery face and the fact that she kept potent lachrymatories alongside her collection of silver spoons.

  Next, I drove to the Transamerica Pyramid Center at 600 Montgomery Street. The elongated, pyramid-shaped skyscraper took up an entire city block and for years had dominated the San Francisco skyline, until the bullet-shaped Salesforce Tower arose to dwarf it. The Transamerica building always made me think of The Towering Inferno—a cheesy disaster flick from the 1970s that was one of Oscar’s favorites. My familiar was a major Steve McQueen fan. Supposedly the pyramidal design had been inspired by nothing more sinister than a desire to allow more sunshine to reach the street level. But if Oscar was correct, the building sat at the point of a truncated pyramid made up of streets—though I’m not sure what that might or might not mean.

  Still, it seemed interesting that Kyle Cheney had his offices here in this building. On the other hand, there were dozens of renters here: lots of fancy corporate clients, banks, investment companies. Cheney’s offices sat among many moneyed, powerful peers.

  I marched into the lobby and approached the reception desk, asking if I could go on up to Cheney’s offices.

  “Sorry, there’s no public access to the building. Was there someone in particular you were looking for?”

  “Could you call up to Seth Barbagelata?” I said. “He works with Kyle Cheney’s company. I don’t have an appointment but maybe he has a few minutes to talk. Do you happen to know him?”

  “Do I know him?” The guard’s eyebrows rose as she picked up the phone and tapped an extension. “That is one fine-looking man. I’m happily married and all, but it’s hard not to notice.”

  The guard had a brief discussion on the phone and said Seth would be down shortly.

  “Sorry I can’t let you go up,” said the security guard, a tall woman in her forties. “There used to be a viewing platform, but it closed a long time ago.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said, thinking that the least the skyscraper’s owners could do would be to allow folks upstairs to see the view. I’d always wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building; I wondered if there were any gargoyles on it. That reminded me . . . “There aren’t any secret gargoyles on this building, are there?”

  The guard looked amused. “Secret gargoyles?”

  “I just wondered. Sometimes they pop up where one least expects.”

  “I don’t think the early ’70s were a big era for gargoyles,” the woman said. “But it’s a nice thought. You know, they coulda hid one, like the Bay Bridge Troll. There’s a live feed of the view over there, in the visitor’s center, if you’re interested.”

  I watched the screen for a few minutes, checking out the Oakland skyline and the traffic on the Bay Bridge, until Seth arrived.

  “Well, hello there!” Seth was immaculately dressed in a bespoke Kingsman double-breasted suit. Once again he struck me more as a model than an executive assistant, but I supposed there was no reason he couldn’t be both.

  “Such a pleasant surprise! How nice to see you again, Lily.”

  “I’m sorry to make you come downstairs,” I said. “I would have come up, but apparently it’s not allowed. Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”

  As he glanced at the expensive-looking platinum timepiece on his wrist, a discrete diamond ring on one slender hand sparkled.

  Kyle Cheney must pay extremely well, I thought.

  “Sure,” Seth said. “I don’t have to be anywhere for an hour. And it’s no bother at all, honestly. I’ve been here since dawn; it would do me good to get out of the building for a few minutes and get some fresh air. There’s a café on the next block, why don’t we go there?”

  We walked out into a cool gray morning. The streets of the city’s busy financial district were hopping, pedestrians crowding the sidewalks and cars, lined up bumper-to-bumper, honking.

  “Did you notice the plaque?” Seth asked, gesturing to a bronze marker in the small redwood grove next to the Transamerica building. “It’s dedicated to Bummer and Lazarus, two stray dogs from the 1860s, back when Emperor Norton roamed these streets.”

  According to the plaque, the dogs “belonged to no one person. They belonged to San Francisco. . . . Two dogs with but a single bark, two tails that wagged as one.”

  “You have to love a city that would commemorate two stray dogs that lived more than a century ago,” I said. “And who’s Emperor Norton?”

  “A very eccentric—some say crazy—man from the city’s wild and woolly days, who claimed he was emperor of San Francisco. He even had his own money printed up, and local shopkeepers accepted it as currency. San Francisco’s always been full of interesting characters.”

  “So I’ve been learning.”

  “Here’s another interesting factoid,” Seth said. “Remnants of an old gold rush–era ship were found when excavating for the foundation of the Transamerica building. Once upon a time, this whole area was waterfront, until landfill
gradually expanded the city further into the bay.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “San Francisco isn’t a very old city, but it has a marvelous history.” He paused and flashed a brilliant white smile. “I guess I’m becoming a bit of a history buff. Kyle must be rubbing off on me. Almost there,” Seth said as we passed several nationally known coffee chains. The Transamerica Pyramid sat at the edge of Chinatown and North Beach and the Financial District. We passed Chinese and Italian eateries and finally stopped in at a small café where Seth was greeted by name.

  “I try to avoid the chains,” he said. “These little holes-in-the-wall are what makes the city special, don’t you think?”

  We ordered our coffees and took a seat at a small table.

  “How’s the planning for the Festival of Felons going?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell you what, this little shindig of Kyle’s is keeping me up to my ears in work. We’ve been planning it for months, obviously, but now we’re dealing with all the last-minute details.”

  “So it’s still happening as scheduled? I mean, considering everything going on . . . ?”

  “Oh, yes. Hard to stop a speeding train, you know. Besides, Kyle said you found the missing woman in the dungeon yesterday, is that true?” He lifted his shoulders and shivered. “That must have been quite an ordeal. I’m so glad she’s all right.”

  I nodded. I still hadn’t quite processed everything that had happened.

  “Seth, I was looking at the list of festival sponsors—”

  “Happy to add your name to our website!” he said. “I’m sorry we haven’t done it yet; I’ll get right on it.”

  “Thank you, but I was wondering: I noticed Renee Baker, the cupcake lady, was listed as one of the sponsors.”

  “Yes, she’s been quite generous and has offered to donate ten dozen cupcakes and meat pies to the event. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.”

  “How did she come to be involved with the festival, do you know?”

  “Kyle’s one of her investors.”

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Kyle invested in her cupcake business. Renee Baker wanted to expand into an empty shopfront next to her existing store but needed capital. Kyle makes a point of helping small companies, especially those owned by women and minorities. Feels it’s part of his civic duty.”

  “That’s admirable,” I said.

  Kyle shrugged. “It’s good karma, and good business. If the investment takes off, he makes money. If it doesn’t, he has a tax write-off. He wins, the small business owner wins, the city wins, everybody wins. Are you looking for investors to expand your own business?”

  “Oh, I . . . I don’t think so, thanks. I like things the way they are. So, Seth, you mentioned you had a relative who was a guard on Alcatraz.”

  “My great-uncle,” he said with a nod. “I never knew him, but his daughter used to tell us stories about it. She lived out there as a little girl, though she was an old woman when I knew her.”

  “Did he have a Polish last name, by any chance?” No, that wouldn’t make sense, I told myself as soon as I asked it. Ned Przybyszewski, the former owner of Emmy Lou’s house, didn’t have any children.

  “No. He was a Krewson. George Krewson.”

  A pair of customers gave Seth the once-over, and I wasn’t surprised. He was a pleasure to look at, with blue eyes that reminded me of a deep pool of cool water.

  “He died long before I was born, but his daughter was still alive when I was a kid. At family gatherings she would tell stories about growing up on the island.”

  “What kind of stories?”

  “How she and the other children had to get up early to catch a boat to school in the city. She said she hated that part, because it was always so cold and damp in the early morning. The boat ride home, though, she said was lots of fun. Also, she remembered how the families would gather in the prison chapel on family movie night. At Christmas the warden arranged for a Christmas tree and held a party, where trustees—prisoners whom the warden trusted—served cookies and punch. In some ways life was very unusual; for example, the prisoners did the laundry for the guards and their families, except for their underwear, and the children weren’t allowed to wear shorts or anything too revealing. But in other ways it was surprisingly normal. Kids played ball, ran around, and jumped rope, fished. Even went bowling.”

  “I noticed a photo of that in the museum.”

  Seth nodded. “The facility had a small bowling alley in the old officers’ quarters, as well as a soda fountain and a store, for the guards and their families.”

  “Did they have any interaction with the prisoners?”

  He shook his head. “They weren’t supposed to talk with the prisoners, under any circumstances. In fact the prisoners weren’t allowed to talk to each other, either. They lived under the rule of silence.”

  I thought about the ghostly whispers that had reverberated through the halls and tunnels of Alcatraz.

  “Some got around it by emptying the water from the toilets in their cells and communicating via the pipes. Hard to imagine that would work, but apparently it did. Human ingenuity is really something, right?”

  “So true.”

  “Like I said, I wish now that I had paid more attention to my cousin’s stories. I remember her saying that most of the prisoners weren’t as scary as everyone made them out to be, and that her dad actually became friends with a few.”

  “Friends?”

  “Well, friendly. There was one guard for every three prisoners at Alcatraz, so I guess they got to know each other pretty well.”

  “Did she ever mention any of the prisoners by name?”

  “I don’t think so. Or maybe she did but I wasn’t paying that much attention. You could probably ask one of the park rangers about all this, I’m sure they’d know better than I do.”

  I stared into my cappuccino, at a loss.

  “What is it, Lily?”

  I looked up to see sympathy and concern in his eyes. He put out one hand and laid it on my arm.

  “It must have been very traumatic for you, finding Elena like that. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  His vibrations were open and friendly, which explained his easy charm. But they were also guarded. I wondered if he had experienced abuse in his past, had endured something that made him compassionate to others, while maintaining his guard. One never knew what others had suffered, no matter how beautiful or serene their external persona.

  “A friend of mine mentioned that Mr. Cheney had hired some of his friends as security guards. Is that another good cause your boss believes in?”

  He gave me a crooked grin. “He’s got something of an employment agency going, it’s true. Kyle wanted to add extra security for the party, but it’s tricky because it’s a national park, so it’s a federal case—literally. But yeah, Kyle’s got an army of helpers.”

  “Conrad said it was called Co-Opp Industries? What does that refer to? It’s not a cooperative, is it?”

  He shook his head. “No, to tell you the truth I’m not sure where the name comes from. Kyle has dozens of smaller concerns and investments under his umbrella company. But I do know he employs a lot of people and often tries to give folks a second chance.”

  The barista came out from behind the counter to ask if Seth wanted anything else.

  “No, but thank you for asking,” Seth said, holding her gaze. “That’s so kind.”

  “No problem,” she said. She looked at me like an afterthought: “You?”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” I said.

  She left, and Seth gave me a smile and a slight shrug.

  “Anyway, I wish I could tell you more about my great-uncle. The only thing that really sticks with me is that early in his career there was an escape while he was on duty. He was written up for t
hat because he was friendly with one of the escapees; it was the first attempt where the prisoners actually made it into the water. But there was no sign they survived. They were probably swept out to sea.”

  “Was one of the men Ray Perry, by any chance?”

  “Sorry, I don’t remember the names. I mostly remember the bowling alley. And I remember thinking it would be cool to take a boat to school.”

  “When did he work at Alcatraz?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly, but I know they lived out there from the opening of the prison up until World War Two.”

  Ray Perry escaped in 1937.

  “Like I said, you’d probably find out more from the curators on the island. Some of those oldsters were guards themselves, or knew someone firsthand.”

  That was a good idea, but the thought of going back to that island was not exactly enticing. Maybe I could spend some time on the phone. Ralph Gordon appeared eager to talk.

  “My great-uncle always wanted to write a book about his experiences, but never got around to it. He must have been something of an intellectual, though. According to his daughter, he spoke Latin and some other languages, and knew a lot of history. But he didn’t live that long, actually . . . they say he got sick and wasted away, right after he left the island.”

  I searched my mind for what else to ask Seth, but couldn’t think of anything in particular. I didn’t know what I was hoping to learn.

  Seth glanced down at his watch.

  “I should let you go,” I said. “I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”

  “Anytime. Like I was saying, this city certainly does have an interesting history.”

  Not to mention, an interesting present day.

  Chapter 17

  Next on this morning’s list of errands was the one I was least looking forward to: the San Francisco School of Fine Arts. As I approached my car, I spied the distinctive silhouette of batlike ears in the rear window.