Joe Gores - Spade & Archer

“But she isn’t here!”

In two quick strides he had Effie Perine by her upper arms, was almost shaking her. “Not here?”

“After we ate she decided to go get her things from her apartment out in Noe Valley. She said she wanted to close that chapter of her life for good.” Effie Perine rubbed her arms through her sweater. “What — what’s wrong, Sam?”

“St. James is still on the loose. The cops missed him. How long ago did she leave?”

“Two hours. Should I—”

“If she calls from the Donants’ across the hall tell her to stay there with them with the door locked till I get there.”

Spade ran up the five worn steps and through the unlatched front door, took the interior stairs two at a time. Thin glass sharded under his feet: the third-floor hallway light had been broken. He followed his torch: the Donants’ door was locked. Penny’s door drifted open to his touch. He turned off his torch.

Vague light from the street showed him the easy chair and the magazine stand beside it. Undisturbed, as was the kitchen behind its counter. The bedroom’s three-wing screen was closed.

Spade folded back one wing to blackness, went in with no more noise than a cat crossing a carpet. Here was the coppery smell of blood. He lit his torch. Its light found the chest of drawers. The battered wardrobe. The cheap suitcase between the side wall and the narrow single bed.

Penny was on the bed, naked, violated. Her head was strained back into the blood-soaked pillow. Her throat was slit. Her face was distorted. Her lip rouge was smeared grotesquely around her mouth. Spade pulled the blanket up over her, stood beside her, head lowered, breathing hard.

The creak of the apartment door gave him animation once more. He killed the torch, in darkness and silence went past the screen, past the kitchen counter, death in his movements.

But it was Effie Perine who stood in the middle of the front room, hands clenched into fists on drawn-back wrists. She gave a little startled cry when she saw Spade, then started toward him.

“Sam! I got a cab, I had to come, I couldn’t stand not knowing. Where is she? Is she...”

The muscles stood out like marbles along his jaw. His eyes glittered redly in the dim light. He jerked his head toward the bedroom.

“She’s in there.”

She tried to dart past him. He grabbed her by the upper arms, spun her around against the magazine stand.

“She’s dead.” He paused, said again, “She is dead.” Effie Perine gave a little cry, again tried to get past him. He held her effortlessly, as if she were a rag doll. “You don’t want to go in there. You don’t want to see it. He forced her back on the bed. He put his hands on her. Then he slit her throat.”

Spade flung himself away from her, stood in the middle of the room with his back to her, legs wide, head drawn down between thick shoulders, hands clenched at his sides.

“Don’t trust me, Effie. I don’t want anyone to trust me. Not now. Not ever.”

Finally he turned to face her. She was standing beside the chair, hands hanging laxly at her sides, tears pouring down her cheeks. She made no attempt to stop them, as if she did not know that she was crying.

Spade said softly, “I’ll take you home. Dundy would hound you forever if he knew you’d been here, so you never were.”

She finally wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “I was never here,” she repeated in a soft, obedient voice.

Spade was in his armchair, a glass of Bacardi on the floor beside him. He was freshly bathed, cleanly shaven, wearing slacks and a gray plaid flannel shirt open at the throat. His lion-yellow eyes were dead, without animation.

The street doorbell rang. His head came up. He stood, tossing The Great Gatsby that he wasn’t reading onto the sofa. He crossed the room to the telephone box beside the bathroom door that connected to the downstairs door.

“Who is it?”

“Tom Polhaus.”

“Is Dundy with you?”

“No.”

Spade pressed the button that released the street-door lock, went into the kitchen, and poured a second glass of Bacardi. He set it on the table beside the lowered made-up wall bed.

When he heard the elevator door rattling open and closed down the hall, he stood framed in his open apartment doorway, almost at attention, as if to make sure that Dundy was not sneaking down the hall behind Polhaus.

“He ain’t with me Sam,” said Tom bluntly.

“He send you?”

“Yeah. You ain’t been to your office for ten days.”

Spade stood aside, let Tom enter past him. He gestured at the drink on the table beside the bed, returned to his easy chair. The bedsprings squeaked under Tom’s weight. They faced each other across the breadth of the room like adversaries taking each other’s measure.

Tom picked up his drink. They toasted silently, drank. Polhaus looked exhausted and bulky in his topcoat and the hat he had not yet removed. With an abrupt movement, he took it off and dropped it on the bed beside him.

“You’re gonna have to talk to Dundy sometime, Sam. We need your statement signed.”

“I’ll talk to you. I won’t talk to Dundy.”

“You will if you expect to keep operating in this town.”

“Not now. Not yet.” Spade drank, added without emphasis or emotion, “If I saw him now I’d kill him.”

Polhaus leaned back, opening his arms so abruptly some of his drink slopped over his knuckles.

“For hell’s sake, Sam! It would of happened anyway. Spaulding says he didn’t know nothing about the Eberhard murder, and I believe him. He went along with the forged will because St. James offered him a lot of money, pure and simple.”

Spade sprang to his feet to point hotly at Polhaus across the room. “Penny’d still be alive if Dundy’d done his job!”

Tom was on his feet also. He drained his glass, set it on the table. “There’s no talking to you. If you’d of told us where she was we’d of had her safely in custody...”

The look on Spade’s face, the tension in his body, stopped the policeman cold. But it was Spade who looked away.

“You know he wouldn’t have moved on it. Not Dundy, not for me. And Penny wasn’t at Effie’s, where she was supposed to be.”

“If you’d of called us when you knew she’d gone to the Severn Place apartment—”

“She was dead an hour before I knew where she was.”

Polhaus started to speak, stopped. Spade sat, started rolling a cigarette. He said evenly, “Any word on St. James?”

Polhaus looked embarrassed. “When we, ah, finally got moving on it we found an eyewitness saw him on a ferry to Oakland. Dead end. But first thing Mrs. Eberhard did when she took over at the bank, she hired Continental to find the murderer of her husband. She’s spending a lot of money on it.”

“Is it doing any good?”

Polhaus leaned forward, suddenly intent, his coat opening so the gun holstered under his left arm could be seen. “St. James bought a train ticket to New York. By the time Continental got that the train was already past Salt Lake City. They had agents waiting in Denver. He wasn’t on it. He could of got off anywhere, Sacramento, Reno, Salt Lake City — if he got on at Oakland in the first place. So they’ve lost him, for now.”

“Good,” said Spade.

“Good? I’d of thought you’d want to see him—”

“I want him for myself,” said Spade gutturally

Tom seemed to be waiting for him to say more. He didn’t. Polhaus shrugged, stood, jammed his hat back on his head.

“I’ll see you at the hall in the morning, right? We gotta get that statement signed.” Spade was silent. “Right, Sam? I’ll make sure Dundy ain’t around.”