Joe Gores - Spade & Archer

San Francisco’s summer fog was in. Sam Spade’s Wilton was pulled low over his eyes, his hands were jammed deep in his topcoat pockets. He walked past the United States Mint on Fifth, turned right past the secondhand store on the corner. Remedial Loans, at 932 Mission Street, had venetian blinds on the ground floor, a high arched window above them, and an elaborate second-story facade with incised decorative heraldic designs.

The wind had crumpled the front section of that morning’s Call against the recessed street door of the shabby office building beyond Remedial. Spade’s left hand scooped up the newspaper while his right hand opened the door. He climbed a narrow flight of stairs, turned left, started down the second-floor hall. The boards creaked under his steps.

The door of the second office down popped open. A dark dapper thirtyish man in a brown suit that matched his eyes stuck out his head. He brought the smell of cigar smoke with him. His tired oval face, olive skinned, was dominated by a big nose. A gold watch chain glinted across his vest. Dandruff speckled his already thinning hair and the shoulders of his suit coat. His voice was high-pitched, almost shrill.

“I’m Sid Wise. You the new tenant?”

“Yep. Sam Spade. You got a wastebasket?” Spade thrust the crumpled-up Call into Wise’s hands. “Thanks.”

He went on to the next office. A man in a white smock was blocking out letters on the opaque glass of the propped-open door. The letters, when filled in, would spell out SAMUEL SPADE, ESQ.

“Two more hours, Mr. Spade.”

“That’s the stuff,” said Spade.

A shadow moved across the floor of his outer office. He stopped short, jerked his head slightly sideways.

“A girl,” said the sign painter. “I had the door open, she went right in. I thought she was your new secretary. When three more women showed up she told them the position was filled.”

Spade squeezed his shoulder, went by him. The office was a ten-by-twelve uncarpeted cube without a window. An open door in the far wall led to an inner office. On the plain golden-gloss oaken desk were a telephone, a steno pad, and a Remington Standard typewriter, nothing else. An office chair was behind the desk, another against the wall beside the door. Beside it was an end table with a single magazine on it. Nobody was in the room.

Spade hung his overcoat and hat over a double hook on the coatrack beside the door. He was wearing the same suit he had worn in Spokane. A girl came from the inner office with a water glass full of fresh daisies. She was so shocked at the sight of Spade she almost dropped the flowers.

“Oh! I — you startled...”

Spade beckoned, went by her through the connecting door to the inner office. The girl put the flowers on the desk and followed, hesitantly. The inner room was larger than the other; it had a window looking out over busy Mission Street, open far enough to stir the curtains. In one corner were a sink and a towel rack. The inside of the sink was wet.

Spade sat down in the swivel armchair behind the desk. It was a larger version of that in the outer office, with a deep drawer on the left side for the upright filing of long ledger books and letter files. It bore a blotter, a pen set, an ashtray. No framed photographs. No papers. No files.

The girl sat down hesitantly on the very front edge of the oaken armchair across from him. She was ten years younger than Spade, with an open, almost boyish face and direct brown eyes that didn’t meet his frankly appraising yellowish ones. She was wearing a woolen skirt and a tailored jacket and a spotless white blouse with frilled cuffs. A bejeweled locket on a thin gold chain glinted on her shirtfront. Her right hand played with it.

She said nervously, “Your ad in the Chronicle didn’t specify what sort of business you’re in, but it was for a part-time receptionist-typist to answer your phone and keep your files in order. My shorthand is still pretty slow, but filing and typing I can do. And I’m a quick learner.”

From his vest pocket Spade took a packet of brown papers and a thin white cloth sack of Bull Durham with a drawstring on top. He sifted tan flakes onto the paper, spread them evenly with a slight depression in the middle, rolled the paper’s inner edge down and then up under the outer edge, and licked the flap, using his right forefinger and thumb to smooth the damp seam, twisting that end and lifting the other end to his lips.

He lit the cigarette with a pigskin and nickel lighter, drew deeply, spoke to the girl through drifting smoke.

“Private investigations.”

Her face lit up. “Like in Black Mask?”

Spade said to the universe at large, “Sweet Jesus, she reads the pulps!”

He leaned forward to tap ash into a nickel-plated tray on the desk. Beside it was a glass cigarette holder with a brass top, empty, and an attached matchbox holder.

“No, not like Black Mask. Jewel thefts and bank robberies and handling security at racetracks are jobs for the big agencies. For the one-man shop it’s searching records, catching cashiers stealing from their employers, finding people who have disappeared, guarding the gifts at fancy weddings. Sitting around and waiting for a client and smoking too many cigarettes.” He put both hands flat on the blotter. “The sign painter said three other women showed up in answer to my ad.”

“They... left.” She raised her chin almost defiantly. “I told them the position had been filled.”

“Why the flowers?”

“I–I bought them for my mother. She loves daisies. But this place looked so drab I thought— Oh! I don’t mean...” She colored. “I can come in after school for the next month, until I graduate from the St. Francis Technical School for Girls. Then I can be full-time.”

He said in a sort of singsong, “Shorthand, typing, filing, and comportment for young ladies in an office environment. Right now I only need part-time. How old are you? Seventeen?”

She tried to prepare a lie, but her face couldn’t bring it off. In one breathless burst of words, again with that chin raised, she said, “Yes, seventeen, but I’m very mature for my age and I’m a quick learner and—”

“Ten dollars a week,” said Spade. “If you make it through the first month maybe you’ll get a pay raise. If you earn it.”

She said in an astounded voice, “You mean that I—”

“If you know how to roll a cigarette.”

“I’ll learn.”

Spade stood to come around the desk, saying, “I’ll just bet you will, sister,” and stuck out a thick-fingered hand. He said, almost formally, “Samuel Spade.”

She pushed her chair back and stood to take the proffered hand with a formality matching his own.

“Effie Perine. I think you should leave the ‘Esq.’ off your door. “Just Samuel Spade is more elegant.”

“Comportment for young detectives? OK, scoot out there and tell the sign painter to leave it off. He’s still blocking in the letters; it should be easy for him to do.”

She bobbed her head, turned to leave.

“Then bring in that steno pad from your desk. If I’m going to be paying you all that money, we’ve got to get out a stack of client solicitation letters.”

Effie Perine stood aside so the stocky, redheaded man with the squirrel-cheeked florid face could get by her, then went in to Spade’s inner office. Spade was behind his desk getting out his Bull Durham and his papers. She stopped in front of him, eyes bright.

“So, did he hire us?”

“I shooed him away. I forgot to tell you, sweetheart, your Sammy doesn’t do domestic. Find out before you send them in.” As she hooked a hip over the corner of his desk, took papers and tobacco from him, and began expertly rolling his cigarette, a sardonic light, quickly quelled, came and went in Spade’s eyes. “He’s on the road a lot, his wife gets lonely.”