Joe Gores - Spade & Archer

“Yes. She showed up at my birthday party on Saturday. She looked terrible, haunted, like she wanted to look over her shoulder all the time. I got her alone and finally got her to admit that a sinister Turk has been following her.”

“A Turk.” Spade said it flatly.

“In Greece, Dad and Penny’s father had opposed the Turks, like everyone else. But her father was a true revolutionary; he fought as an andarte. They’re sort of bandits. After the war ended he went back to fight them again, and regularly sent money to her mother until he was killed, at Smyrna in nineteen twenty-two. I think it was stolen Turkish money, so it stopped and she had to take in boarders to make ends meet. That’s when Penny moved out so there’d be another room to rent, and found a job. Something secretarial, she said. We always knew she was all right because she makes those regular deposits into her mother’s account. But nobody knows where she lives or works, and I hadn’t seen her since — until the party on Saturday.”

“She told you about this Turk and you believe her.”

Effie Perine raised a defiant chin. “Of course I believe her. She doesn’t so much see him as feel him behind her in the street. And she can’t tell me where she’s working or living, not now. It wouldn’t be safe for her or for me if I knew.”

“Everybody lies, darling. You just have to keep chipping away at them until they wear down and finally get so tired that they end up telling you the truth.”

“She’s not lying. She’s truly frightened.”

“How do we get from there to her hiding in my office?”

She met his yellowish eyes with her clear brown ones and said in a sudden defiant rush of words, “Not hiding. I told her you could help her, and she showed up after you went out and I was afraid she might not come back later, so I told her to wait in there, out of sight.” Effie Perine impulsively reached a hand toward his arm, withdrew it. “Just help her, Sam. Please.”

“If she’ll tell me enough of the truth so I know what’s going on.” He checked his watch. “Go on home, sweetheart. I’ll talk to your Penny. Just don’t come around bellyaching if things go bad later on.”

Penny Chiotras started up from the client’s chair beside Spade’s desk, embarrassment giving added color to her cheeks. She was quick of movement, with huge brown eyes and long, utterly black hair. Her face was strong boned yet softly feminine. She wore a stylish brown and tan satin frock with embroidery and an antique-looking Greek coin as a buckle ornament.

“Effie told me it was all right to wait in here for you.” Her voice was low, throaty, well modulated. “But I’m afraid that I’m imposing dreadfully on you, Mr. Spade.”

Spade, at his most bland, bowed slightly to her as he took the hand she held out to him. Her palm was dry, her grip strong. The little finger of her left hand had been broken and set badly. He went around his desk to his swivel chair, waved her back into the oaken armchair from which she had risen.

“No imposition, Miss Chiotras, you being Effie’s best friend and all.” His words seemed utterly sincere, but his eyes were assessing. “She said you were being followed by a sinister man.”

Even white teeth glinted between full parted lips.

“Hearing you say it makes it sound very melodramatic.”

Spade smiled pleasantly, making all of the V’s in his long face longer. He put his elbows on the desk blotter, tented his fingers in front of his chin, and was silent. The silence became demanding.

“I–I think I am being followed after work by a man who looks... foreign to me. I almost see him out of the corner of my eye just disappearing around a corner, if that makes any sense.”

“Sure it does. Effie said you think he’s a Turk.”

“He’s not wearing a red fez and slippers with curled-up toes and a scimitar in a sash at his waist, if that’s what you mean. But, yes, a man with black hair and a swarthy face and glittery eyes.”

“Why a Turk? Why not a Russian or Syrian or Montenegrin?”

“You’re laughing at me,” she said.

Spade’s smile again lengthened the V’s in his face. “Not even if I felt like it.” Then he repeated, “Why a Turk?”

“Because of the chest of Bergina. It’s spelled B-e-r-g-i-n-a, but b in Greek is spoken as v, so it’s pronounced Vergina. It’s supposed to be a gold-bound metal box.”

Spade picked up a pencil, drew a pad toward himself. “The chest of Bergina.” His eyes had gotten very attentive, but his voice was flat, without nuance. “What’s supposed to be in it?”

“No one knows. It was made by Greek artisans as a gift for Bergina, the sister of Alexander the Great.” She said almost defensively, “Everyone thought the sacking of Troy by the Greeks was just a legend until Heinrich Schliemann excavated the ruins. I have a letter from my father.”

She delved into a black French-tailored calfskin handbag, removed a letter that was written in Greek.

“It is dated 1920, but a man came to my mother’s house and gave it to her only a month ago.”

“This man with the letter was a Turk?”

“A Greek. He told my mother that he was a brigand in my father’s band of andartes and was with him at the end. He said he didn’t know what was in the letter, but it had been steamed open and clumsily glued shut again. He said he needed money.”

“Your mother give him any?”

“A little. She didn’t believe his story, but the letter is in my father’s handwriting. She gave me the letter on Saturday. On Monday the man started following me.” She opened the letter. “My father writes that he is in a little nameless town in the Balkans somewhere north of Greece. He says he knows where the chest of Bergina is hidden and that no one else does. He says it is his legacy to my mother and me.” She looked up. “If it’s real, wouldn’t the chest have immense monetary and historic value?”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t explain why a Turk would be tailing you around San Francisco five years later.”

“He writes that he is enclosing detailed directions to its hiding place. But there is nothing else, no directions, just the letter. But if the man following me thinks there were and finds out where I live, mightn’t he...” Her hands crumpled the letter. “I need to know I’m safe.”

Spade stood. “Where are you working?”

“I’m a secretary for Hartford and Cole. They’re in—”

“The Russ Building. Stocks and bonds. Go back to work, Miss Chiotras, leave at the usual time, go someplace you might go after work. You won’t see me, but I’ll be there.”

“I sometimes eat at the Gypsy Tea Shop in Grant Avenue.”

“Good. Afterward, walk up to Sutter. Window-shop. Go along Powell, walk through Union Square to Stockton. Take at least a half hour, then go to a movie at the Cameo, on Market between Fifth and Sixth. Then go home. If anyone’s following you he’ll have to show himself during that time.”

Spade frankly appraised her, her face, her body. A possessive gleam came into his eyes.

“But I’ll have to know where you live.”

“No!” She cried. She looked very young, very vulnerable.

“You have to promise that you won’t try to follow me home.” Spade shrugged, said blandly, “OK. No reason to do so.”

“I–I trust you, but if he should follow you and...” Spade tossed his pencil into the air, let it fall on the desk.

“Nobody can follow me without me seeing him. Come to the office tomorrow morning on your way to work. I’ll know more then.”

The Gypsy Tea Shop in Grant, half a block above O’Farrell, was tricked out to look like a fortune-teller’s duikerrin room, where palms are read and psychic readings given. The crystal shades of the hanging lamps tinkled whenever the door was opened. On the side walls were framed Greek icons of the Virgin Mary, Saint Nicholas, and Saint Constantine. Pinned to the back wall was a diaphanous red, yellow, and purple skirt spread wide to add color to the room. On a corner table was a crystal ball made pastel by the votive candles glowing behind it.