Joe Gores - Spade & Archer

“Mama, she ask, ‘Why Sam never come see us no more since we open up our new place here?’ ”

“Got a living to make, Romeo,” said Spade. “It looks like you’re doing well up here above Chinatown.”

“Wait till you taste the food,” boasted Romeo.

Dinner was forty-five cents. It was good and there was plenty of it. Spade made up for his missed lunch with a salad; an antipasto platter of salami, celery, olives, carrots, and peppers; ravioli; tripe with sausage and beans. He drank red wine served in a coffee cup, as was usual at the North Beach family-owned Italian cafés, to disguise that the cup held vino, not coffee.

People ate, laughed, talked loudly, smoked until the air was heavy with fumes. Spade contributed his share, finished with genuine coffee and homemade cookies. Twice Romeo came by to chat; the second time he sat down.

“I never got no chance to thank you, Mr. Spade.”

“Thank me for what?”

“For what you done for my oldest boy, Gino. Since he got out he’s going straight.” Romeo clapped Spade on the back. “Best thing ever happened to him, you sending him away for those two years on that warehouse break-in. Now he’s got a real job, night-time security at a bank.”

“That’s good news, Romeo.” Spade seemed struck by a sudden thought. “You know, if you tell Gino to come by my office, I might have a little day work for him as well. He can make a buck or two.” He winked. “An honest buck or two.”

“Ei, Sam, gli piacerebbe! “ Romeo gave a great laugh. “Scusi, sometimes I forgetta you no Italian. Gino, I tell him to come by your office.”

Soon after, Spade retrieved hat and newspapers. He got off the Stockton car at Sutter, rode the trolley out to Hyde, walked down the steep incline to 891 Post. The clanking, groaning elevator deposited him at the fourth floor. Spade went around the corner and down the hall.

In the corner apartment he had rented the year before, Spade hung his hat and topcoat on hooks behind the door, went down a short hall that right-angled into the living room, switched on the white bowl light hanging from three gilded chains in the center of the ceiling. He tossed his newspapers on the sofa under the Post Street window.

From the kitchen he got a wine glass and a bottle of Bacardi. He set them on the floor beside a padded rocker angled in the corner, sat down, poured, sipped, rolled a cigarette. Only then did he start going through his sheaf of newspapers.

The battered alarm clock on the table in the far corner of the room read 1:22 when Spade tossed the last of the papers aside. The clock rested on Criminal Investigation: A Practical Handbook by the Austrian criminal investigator Hans Gross, published in English in London the year before.

Spade stood up, stretched, yawned, and groaned.

“Waste of time,” he muttered to himself.

He got green-and-white pajamas from the closet, went into the bathroom for his ablutions, came out wearing the pajamas, and lowered the wall bed. He turned out the overhead light, wound the alarm clock, and threw open both windows. Shocking gusts of cold fog-laden air swept in, bringing with it the mournful bellow of the Alcatraz foghorn. He was soon asleep.

When Spade came into his office the next morning Miles Archer had a hip hooked over the corner of Effie Perine’s desk, was leaning his jovial red face down close to hers, chuckling at something he was telling her.

“So the girl says to him, ‘I don’t drink anything but champagne, and he says—’ ”

“ ‘Lo, Miles,” said Spade. “When did you hit town?” Archer quickly straightened up like an errant schoolboy, paused, extended his hand. Behind his back Effie Perine was making exaggerated faces of relief. Spade and Archer shook.

“Two days ago. Iva’s with me. We came down to see my brother Phil over in the East Bay.”

“I see you’ve met my secretary, Effie Perine.” Archer looked over appreciatively at her. “Sure did.” He invested his comment with more meaning than his words carried. He turned back. “Ah... Iva asked could we buy you dinner tonight?”

Spade shrugged. “Sure. I’ll pick the spot.”

They talked for another minute as Spade walked him to the door. They shook hands again, then he was gone.

“How do you know him?” Effie Perine asked in a neutral voice.

“He’s with Burns up in Seattle. He’s good at taking down Commies on the docks. You want to come with us tonight—”

“I’ve got a date to go dancing,” she said too quickly.

Spade chuckled and went into his private office.

Gino Mechetti was in his mid-twenties, olive skinned with high cheekbones, black snapping eyes, and a mop of raven-black curls. He wore a cheap, flashy tie and a bright polo sweater under his suit coat. He turned to appreciate Effie Perine leaving Spade’s office, then turned back to the desk.

“My old man tells me you might have daytime work for me.”

“Nights at California-Citizens Bank, did your father say?”

“That’s it.” He waggled black level eyebrows, showed gleaming teeth in a broad grin. “Lotsa pretty Italian girls working there at the bank, you get my drift?” A hard light entered his eyes. “Mr. Spade, you wouldn’t never of tagged me with that right hand two years ago if my foot hadn’t of slipped.”

Spade nodded in solemn agreement. “Dark in that warehouse, that’s for sure. And like you said, your foot slipped.”

Seeing Spade roll a cigarette, Gino lit a cheap cigar with the desk lighter. Spade nodded as if to himself.

“Anyway, Gino, I got a tip that a mob of bank busters might hit Cal-Cit because security is lax since Eberhard drowned.”

Gino tipped back his head and blew out a plume of smoke.

“That’s a load of bunk! Me an’ another guy was hired right after he died. We trade off, night for night. They didn’t have no nighttime security before then.”

“Nothing to it, then,” said Spade. “But even so, for my report, I need your take on the bank’s security setup.”

Gino chuckled. “The bank itself is tough, but it shares a side wall with a Chinese social club that closes up around ten at night. In the alley next to it, Pratt Place, there’s a fire escape goes to the roof. It’s a three-foot drop from there to the bank’s roof and the service shed for the elevator shaft.”

Spade stubbed out his cigarette, grinned.

“I knew I was asking the right man.”

The handsome Italian youth chuckled. “I figure it’s part of my job to look around just so I know what’s what. That way, anyone tryin’ to crush into the bank, I’d pop ’em for sure.”

“Isn’t the elevator shed always locked?”

“Sure, but there’s locks and there’s locks.” Gino leaned forward to stub out his smelly cigar. “Nobody’s bustin’ in there, not after hours. Not with me on the job.”

Spade came around the desk to shake Gino’s hand warmly. Gino looked at the bill Spade had palmed off with the handshake.

“Hey, thanks, Mr. Spade!”

From his office door Spade watched Mechetti exit, went back inside. Effie Perine followed with her notebook and sat down in the armchair across from his swivel chair. He gave her the fixings to roll him a cigarette.

“He’s certainly a good-looking man,” she said primly.

“Yeah. I put him away for a couple of years on a warehouse job. He’s got the worm for sure.”

“The worm?”

“Wormy. Like a bad apple. Most ex-cons are. He’s got a larcenous mind, that boy, but now he’s night watchman at Eberhard’s bank. The bank’s being very snotty about anyone getting a look at Eberhard’s records, and I need to see them.”