Joe Gores: Hammett

‘I was just going to call you about that.’

‘What did they want?’

‘Names. Figures…’

‘Just what I thought.’ There were vicious undertones in the nasal voice. ‘I’ve been sitting here thinking, what if Molly decides to spill her guts to these birds? What if they promise she can cop a plea or get immunity if she does? What if-’

‘Don’t lean on me, Boydie-babyl’ she snapped. ‘I’ve had Chicago amnesia in the past, and will again if it comes to that. But don’t lean on me.’

‘Aw, look, sweetheart, I didn’t mean it that way. I tell you what, tomorrow morning you go see Brass Mouth Epstein. Tell him we’re picking up his fee and that we don’t want you to be tried for Contributing. How he gets you off is his concern.’

‘What if he says disappear?’

‘Then disappear — only make sure we know where you are. And I’ll tell you what: If you have to dump that thousand bucks bail you put up Friday night, we’ll swallow it.’

She found warmth for her voice. ‘What can I say except thanks?’

‘As long as that’s all you say, sweetheart.’ He gave his nasal chuckle. ‘You let me know what Epstein says tomorrow, okay? I’ll be at the shop.’

After she’d hung up, Molly sat staring at the thick Oriental carpet. Why was Mulligan paying for Phineas Epstein as her attorney? He would cost plenty and was dead straight besides. He was at no man’s command. That meant DA Matt Brady did plan to forget his friends and go for Contributing. Fifteen goddamn years, maybe — while on the strength of it Brady leapfrogged into the mayor’s seat.

Crystal came into the room lugging her cardboard suitcase. It looked heavy. She had on street clothes and a coat.

‘Hey! Where the hell are you-’

‘I must leave now, Miss Farr.’

‘Those detectives? They can’t-’

‘Not them.’ Despair glinted in the tilted eyes. ‘Just…’

‘For God’s sake, kid, what is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I have seen my death.’ She moved a hand to indicate her newspaper, crumpled open to the news page.

‘Is it the trouble from back east?’

‘Yes.’

Molly wished she knew what the trouble back east really was. ‘Here? In San Francisco?’

The girl did not respond.

‘Okay, kid,’ said Molly, ‘tomorrow you go see Brass Mouth Epstein with me. If he tells you to disappear, we’ll drop out of sight together where nobody’ll find us. Now, you go in and pack Molly’s things like a good girl, just in case.’

Crystal hesitated, then disappeared to the rear of the apartment with her cheap cardboard suitcase and a fatalistic shrug.

Molly paced up and down. Hell, she was in as much trouble as her goddamn maid. She knew where the goddamn bodies were buried. If some of them were dug up because of her arrest, the Mulligans would want another in their place.

Hers.

Hammett entered his apartment carrying the Tuesday morning Chronicle, his meager mail, and a long loaf of French bread. At the far end of the hall he gave the loaf a left-handed toss around the doorframe into the tiny kitchen. He stopped dead at sight of the massive figure sprawled in the living room’s only upholstered chair.

‘You’ve got a lousy lock, Hammett.’ Atkinson made bluish swirls of smoke with his stogie. ‘Ought to get a rim latch with a dead bolt. I blew this one open with a breath.’

Hammett dropped his newspaper and mail on the unmade wall bed and sat down.

‘It’s not your breath, it’s those goddamn cigars.’

Atkinson lit another of the nickel monstrosities from the ruins of the old. ‘You thought over my proposition any more since we had all that good clean fun shoving Molly around the other day?’

‘Still not interested. How’d it go with the reform committee last night?’

‘I’m hired. Given the green light by His Honor personally.’

Hammett’s voice showed surprise. ‘Brendan Brian McKenna himself? What the hell was he doing there? Slumming?’

‘Acting as chairman. He showed up unexpectedly, and they-’

Hammett slapped his hands together and crowed, ‘They form a committee to clean up San Francisco, and as chairman they take the man who’s been running it as an open town for sixteen years.’ He lit a cigarette, and feathered smoke through distended nostrils. ‘He’ll hamstring you, son.’

‘Maybe. But I was damned careful to get that personal secretary of his, Owen Lynch, to spell out what I was being hired to do — which I’ll grant you ain’t exactly a moral crusade. Atkinson Investigations is to probe alleged graft within the police department. Period. But within that framework, no limitations. Lynch is damned enthusiastic.’

Hammett was thoughtful. ‘Your charter makes sense.’

‘Yeah. And McKenna suggested my closing report go to the grand jury, not just the committee. In case there might be criminal indictments.’

Hammett paced the narrow littered room with quick, light strides as if it were a cage. When he wasn’t drinking, like now, he found the litter distasteful.

‘Too damned much sense to be coming from McKenna.’

‘You don’t really think he’s behind the police department corruption, do you, Dash?’

‘“Plain Bren McKenna from the Mission,”’ mused Hammett. ‘That’s what he called himself when he ran against “Pinhead” McCarthy in 1913. He makes five hundred a month as mayor, and must spend twice that a month on hootch and harlots in that Caucasian geisha house he maintains for visiting politicos out on Sanchez and Twentieth. I guess it’s worth it to him to wear Eskimo parkas and Indian feather bonnets and motormen’s caps. Corrupt?’ He shook his head. ‘But when it comes to actually running this burg — to handling or delegating power — he can’t find his backside with both hands. If you want to know who’s behind police corruption in San Francisco, just look a block out Kearny Street from the Hall of Justice.’

‘Mulligan Bros Bailbonds. But how the hell do you prove it?’

Hammett chuckled. ‘I met old Farrell Mulligan a couple of times before he died.’ His voice took on a nasal quality and a brogue. ‘“Son, when they crap in this town, they wipe with Mulligan paper.” Which isn’t much in the way of proof. When he went, his kid brother Griff took over. Now I hear that Griff just counts the take while Farrell’s pup Boyd does the heavy work.’

‘Well, I ain’t got a mandate to go after the Mulligans. Vice, gambling, and the rackets only as they relate to police department graft. All I gotta do is find somebody who’ll sing. Somebody like Molly who-’

‘Yeah, look how she cooperated.’

Atkinson grinned sourly. ‘Preacher Laverty and Lynch believe the committee’s already put the fear of God into the mayor and the DA and the police. Molly may not be singing yet, but they sure closed her up

…’

‘Vic, the only reason there was a raid at all is that three high school kids went there to celebrate somebody’s sixteenth birthday. If the ma of one of them hadn’t heard them setting it up by phone, and if her husband hadn’t happened to know the DA personally, Brady wouldn’t have pushed the cops into making a raid.’

‘This ain’t ever gonna make the papers, but the mother who overheard the kids on the phone was Evelyn Brewster.’

‘The shipping Brewsters?’

‘That’s her. And she’s the prime mover on the reform committee.’

Hammett sat down on the bed again, chuckling. ‘No wonder McKenna showed up at that meeting last night. I’ll bet old lady Brewster’s the one who pushed Brady into arraigning Molly and all her girls — even that Chinese maid — in municipal court yesterday.’