Joe Gores - Spade & Archer

“The running and hiding and lying are all finished,” said Spade. “You’re going to tell me all about it — all about it — and then I’ll fix whatever is broken.”

“Is that a promise?” She had a sort of hope in her voice.

“Guaranteed.”

She took another slug of her drink. He darkened it with more bourbon. She started talking, her voice getting stronger.

“You had almost all of it right last night, Sam. I was working at Hartford and Cole as a secretary and they let me start handling little jobs a broker would usually do. Collin was one of their main clients. Almost immediately he started taking me out on the sly and wining and dining me. He was twenty years older than I, I knew he was married, but he didn’t seem to care about it so I didn’t either. Pretty soon he took me to bed.”

“And made sure you handled more of his business?”

“Yes. And set me up in an apartment at eleven fifty-five Leavenworth.”

“Hmm. Three-story brownstone at the corner of Sacramento?”

“Yes. I — it meant I could send more money to my mother. Last night you made it sound like it was cold and calculating and commercial. It wasn’t like that. Not for either one of us.”

“I said that to try and shake the truth out of you.”

“I guess you’ve succeeded,” she said with a wan smile. “Collin took me places on the weekends. Sonoma. Carmel. I was handling most of his gold-mining stocks by then. A few months ago he changed. He was wrestling with a decision. At first I didn’t know if it was about me or the bank, but then he started to talk about his worries and a man named Devlin St. James.”

Spade hiked his chair a little closer. His eyes had taken on a yellow glow. “When was the first time you saw St. James?”

“I never did. Not while Collin was alive. At the time Collin told me that St. James had come to him four years ago with a lot of illegal money. He needed someone to front it for him, turn it legitimate. Collin was desperate, he and the bank were floundering, that cash would save them.”

Spade made a cigarette, poured bourbon from his flask.

“Collin said yes to St. James. He even came up with a plan. He set up a gold-mining syndicate that existed only on paper so they could run the money through the syndicate’s accounts at the bank.”

“What did he mean by a lot of money?”

“Seventy-five thousand.”

Spade’s eyes narrowed. “Where did the money come from?”

“A bootlegging syndicate in Half Moon Bay. There were no mines, there never had been any mines. Collin said the bootleggers brought the liquor down from Canada and offloaded it into small boats outside the eleven mile limit. Some got caught, but nobody could betray the syndicate because none of the men knew who they really were working for.”

“A sweet setup,” mused Spade. “You run illicit profits from bootlegging through a tame bank as if they are legitimate profits from a gold-mining enterprise. Nothing can go wrong — unless your tame banker gets cold feet.”

She made a small distressed sound in her throat.

“I hate to think of Collin that way but, yes, he was the tame banker, and I suppose you could say he got cold feet. He told me that St. James was also violent and unpredictable and liked to brag of killing people who got in his way.”

Spade’s frown put deep creases between his eyebrows, as if he were chasing elusive memories. “Bootlegging syndicate... seventy-five thousand.” He stopped, shrugged, nodded. “Go on.”

“Collin finally decided to have it out with St. James at home, with his wife in the next room. That way, he said, St. James couldn’t do anything violent and unpredictable.”

“But a week or so later Eberhard was dead.”

“Collin was usually waiting for me at the apartment when I got home from work, but on that day this slender insignificant-looking man I had never seen before was sitting in the living room. He just said that Collin was dead, nothing more. I sort of collapsed into a chair, I was so shocked and so... devastated. It was only later that I realized this was less than an hour after Collin had died.”

“St. James must have gone straight to your apartment from the Neptune Bath House.” Spade’s frown had deepened. “But Eberhard was alive when St. James left the bathhouse.”

“He took my hand like he was going to — to comfort me and then...” She held out her left hand with its badly set little finger. “He twisted my finger and broke it. He laughed and said if I ever told anyone about him he would kill my mother, and then Effie, and then me.”

She stopped there, drained her glass, set it aside.

“I panicked. I jerked free and ran down the stairs and jumped aboard an outbound streetcar. I got off in Jordan Heights and got my finger set at the Nurses’ Training School there.”

“Set badly.”

“I didn’t care. That night I got a room at the Y.W.C.A. boarding home in O’Farrell Street. At six the next morning I hid in the Russ Building ladies’ room until Hartford and Cole opened. I went in, told them my lies, and got my last paycheck and left. I hated it, they had been so good to me, but I needed that money and I knew I had to get it right away. I knew St. James would come looking for me there.”

“You’re a survivor, sweetheart,” said Spade admiringly.

“Barely.” She tried another weak smile. “I chose the apartment on Severn Place because I thought he’d never find me out there in Noe Valley. Which meant more lies.”

“Why didn’t you go to the East Bay or down the peninsula?”

“I would have had to have gone to a stage terminal or a ferry terminal. I’d be in the open. Exposed. So I hid in my apartment. But a month went by and I was running out of money. So I went to Effie’s on her birthday and she told me about working for you and that you were looking into Collin’s death. So I–I told you that tale about my father finding the chest of Bergina and that a mysterious Turk was after me. The chest is real, I believe, but my father never wrote me about it. I just wanted you to keep me and my mother and Effie safe.”

“Well, they’re safe in their homes and you’re safe here. Take all your meals in your room. Don’t talk to anyone.”

“Can’t — can’t you stay?” There was panic in her voice. “I–I saw him, Sam! He saw me! He chased me. With murder in his face...”

He put his arms around her to comfort her. “You poor kid.”

She pressed herself tight against him, her arms went around the back of his neck. His arms came up, went around her body. She clung to him. What was simple comfort seemed suddenly to be something more for both of them, surprising both of them, but then seemed inevitable.

His hands moved over her like electricity. She kissed him, openmouthed. He lifted her effortlessly off her feet and carried her to the bed. His eyes burned. When he spoke his voice was thick with a passion that seemed to go beyond protecting her, beyond wanting her, to something deeper.

“I won’t let him hurt you ever again, Penny,” Sam Spade said. “Not now. Not ever.”

Spade entered his office at 10 a.m. His eyes were clear; he was freshly bathed and shaved. His blue broadcloth dress shirt had a new soft white collar, his gray silk tie a conservative pattern. As usual, his gray woolen worsted suit, though expensive, fit him indifferently. He carried a briefcase.

Effie Perine was on her feet as he came through the door.

“How is she? Is she OK? Is she safe?”

“Yes on all counts. She’s in room three three three at the Monroe Hotel as Mary Kutina.” He set down his briefcase. “Roll me a cigarette, that’s a darling.”