Joe Gores - Spade & Archer

Effie Perine held the rolled cigarette out to him, end up.

“And he thinks she’s cheating on him.”

“He’s right.”

“I graduate tomorrow, Sam. Will you come?”

“I’ll try to make it if you’ll keep your mother away from me.”

“Samuel Spade, I never once said Ma—” Seeing the smug look on his face, she stopped, almost giggled. “Greek women are great at business. Of course she wants to size you up.”

“I’ve got a maybe client named Ericksen coming in at noon. Get him to sign a standard contract. I’ll show up tomorrow, just to convince your mother that I don’t keep a tommy gun in my desk and that I can’t pay you more than ten bucks a week.”

She said in a soft voice, “Thanks, Sam.”

At 8 a.m. a week later Spade trotted up the stairs carrying that morning’s newspaper. The doors of both his and Sid Wise’s offices were standing open. Wise’s office was one room only, unoccupied. The desk had no typewriter on it. As Spade cat-footed past, his big shoulders hunched under his blue topcoat and a perhaps-delighted light came into his eyes.

He stopped short of his own office so his shadow would not be cast inside by the hallway light. Overriding Effie Perine’s expert typing was Sid Wise’s voice, less shrill than usual, more resonant than might have been expected from such a slight man.

“We hereby submit the moving papers, already examined by the respondent. The moving papers consist of the accusation, the statement to the respondent sent by certified mail, a signed copy of the notice of defense, a notice of hearing—”

Sam Spade spun around the doorframe and into the office. Sid Wise was in the middle of the room, a declaiming finger pointed at the ceiling.

“What a God-damned lawyer trick, using my secretary on the sly because you’re too tight to hire your own girl.”

Wise’s finger dropped very quickly to his side. “Don’t blame Effie. I talked her into it.”

“You’ve been out of the office all week on the Ericksen case, Sam.” Effie Perine’s voice was small. She was sitting up very straight, red with embarrassment. “You didn’t leave me any work to do and I wanted to practice my skills.”

“You defend him sneaking in here like some midnighter to steal the silverware?” Spade clapped his hands together, gave a sharp bark of laughter. “My work comes first and as of last Monday, Sid, you’re paying Effie five bucks a week.”

“You’re a son of a gun, Sammy,” said a shamefaced Wise.

Spade was sitting behind his desk smoking a cigarette when Effie Perine came in with a pen and steno pad, all efficiency.

“Were — were you really mad, Sam?”

“Hell no, sweetheart. I’ve known you’ve been doing his work this past week; I just wanted to catch him at it. I’m going to start needing a good lawyer one of these days.” He pointed at a folder on his desk. “Close and bill on Ericksen.”

For the next twenty minutes Spade talked in even, well-formed sentences as Effie Perine’s pencil covered page after page of her shorthand pad with his closing report. He never stumbled, never went back to correct some fact.

Sven Ericksen and his partner, Paul Lembach, had the Ericksen-Lembach Complete Home Furnishers at Seventeenth and Mission.

“Strictly a working-class neighborhood,” said Spade. “Credit up to fifty dollars, nothing down, a dollar a week.”

Ericksen was a widower with two small children, so Lembach stayed late most nights to count the cash, make out a deposit slip, and put the money in the Bank of Italy’s all-night depository at Mission and Twenty-third.

“Sales are level, but their gross has been slipping for the past six months. Ericksen took Lembach on right out of business school, taught him the trade, made him a partner. He can’t admit to anyone, especially himself, that the man’s a thief.”

“So you concentrated on Lembach without telling him?”

“Mmm-hmm. About six months ago Lembach started betting heavily on the ponies, and losing even more heavily. For five nights, through a hole in the wall of the storeroom next to the office, I watched him count the cash. He coffee-canned ten, fifteen, twenty, and forty bucks and gimmicked the bank deposit slips to correspond to the cash he was depositing. The third day his horse came in, so he didn’t steal anything.”

Effie looked up from her pad, excitement in her face and voice. “Did you confront him with it?”

“He’d just deny it and our client would side with him. So last evening just after closing I secretly counted the cash. This morning I gave my total to Ericksen.”

“Which he’ll check against Lembach’s deposit slip total and find a” — Effie Perine looked down at her pad — “a forty-dollar discrepancy for last night.”

The corners of Spade’s mouth drew up in a grin. “You’ll make a detective yet, sweetheart. I’ll advise Ericksen to dissolve the partnership and demand restitution over a six-month period for Lembach’s defalcations. He won’t be sore at me and he’ll pay our invoice without a squawk.”

“Ericksen will need a lawyer for that, won’t he, Sam?”

“Yeah.” Spade grinned sardonically. “And yeah, I’ll recommend Sid Wise for the job. Then Sid’ll really owe us.”

Golden Gate Trust was located between Bush and Pine in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district. Three of its plate glass windows looked out on Seaman’s Bank across Montgomery; in the fourth was a massive vault with a gleaming brass locking mechanism as big as the steering wheel of a Duesenberg.

Sam Spade approached a bank official whose desk was angled so he could watch the tellers at work even while serving a customer. His desk plaque read TOBIAS KRIEGER.

“Samuel Spade to see Charles Barber.”

Krieger wore a high starched collar and gray spats over shiny black oxford dress shoes. He had the wispiest of pencil mustaches over a pink upper lip. He led Spade through a maze of hallways to a door of solid teak that bore the legend

Krieger knocked, opened the door, and stood aside while announcing, “Mr. Samuel Spade.”

The banker stood up behind a ten-foot-long teakwood desk that had stacks of files on each end and three telephones and an ashtray and a leather-edged blotter with a pen set. The two framed portraits on the desk faced Barber.

“That will be all, Krieger.”

Barber was a vigorous sixty, white-haired, with dark, piercing eyes. He was as tall as Spade, heavier, thicker in the middle, with the muttonchop sideburns and walrus mustache favored by those in the San Francisco power structure. He did not offer to shake hands. His voice was brusque.

“Sit down, Spade. Do you know why you’re here?”

“Sid Wise said, ‘a confidential matter.’ ”

“Can you keep it confidential?”

“Keep what confidential?”

Barber reared back in his swivel chair, eyes snapping, then gave a bark of laughter and came forward again.

“Hah. I think you’ll do. Wise and Merican is the law firm on retainer by the bank, but I can’t use them for this. Old man Wise wanted young Sid to join the firm, but Sid’s out to prove he can make it on his own. He’s hungry, he’s close-mouthed, and he’s a Jew. Jews are shrewd. I need a shrewd man on this.”

Barber turned one of the framed portraits on his desk to show Spade a striking blond woman of about forty with an oval face and warm eyes.

“My wife. My second wife. She has a position in the community so she abhors publicity.”

Spade was frowning. “Sid said this was not domestic.”