Joe Gores - Spade & Archer

“Anyway, I climbed up on the loading dock. I could hear voices, like maybe Brix was reporting to someone, but I couldn’t make out any words for sure. Then four men came out so quick I just had time to jump off the side of the dock without them seeing me. One gave money to Brix before they all went off together. Too risky to tail ’em. So I snuck a gander in a window. Place was crammed to the rafters with goods — just the sort of stuff’s been disappearing from the docks.”

“Could you identify the men if you saw ’em again?”

“Sure, all of ’em.”

“That’s great work, Miles. Think you should drop Brix for now? He knows you. He sees you, your cover’s gone. We’ll know where to find him if we need him. Instead, try to spot any of the others tonight, especially the one who paid Brix the money.”

“That works.” Archer stood, stretched, yawned. “All I wanna do is go home and make the little lady glad to see me.”

After Miles Archer had departed, Spade rolled and smoked three more cigarettes. The phone rang twice while he did. He ignored it. Finally, he took a clipboard from the deep drawer of his desk, carried it into the outer office.

Effie Perine was opening the morning’s mail with an ornate bronze Greek dagger. The porcelain designs on the metal scabbard included a two-headed green eagle and a peacock of many colors, both outlined in thin curved metal strips.

“Be careful you don’t stick yourself with that thing.”

She showed him the blade. “It’s dull as a spoon. But it makes a good letter opener.”

“Easy enough to sharpen it up. From a secret admirer?”

“From Penny. Years ago. I found it in a drawer at home the other day and...” Her voice faltered. “I just...”

“Yeah.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. His eyes were bleak. He gestured at the opened mail. “Anything interesting?”

“Not in the mail.” She set aside the dagger, recovered. “But there were two calls. Richardson wanting a progress report and a woman who sounded Chinese wanting an appointment.”

“She leave a name?”

“No. But her voice... Remember three years ago, the student who said her name was Mai-lin Choi?”

“I never laid eyes on her, but yeah, I remember. If she calls again let’s have her in to take a look at her. And tell Richardson the thief is his stepson, and does he want us to pursue it any further. We can get the goods on the kid right enough, but it’ll be hard to keep the law out of it.”

Effie Perine made a note on her shorthand pad.

Spade said, “Miles makes it sound like he’s close to breaking the theft ring.”

“That was quick.” She sounded slightly disbelieving.

“Yeah, too quick. Too easy.” He took his hat and topcoat off the rack. “I’m going to go snoop around, see if what he told me makes sense. Oh, and call Ray Kentzler at Bankers’ Life, ask can he get a line on who owns a two-story red brick warehouse on the Green Street stub between Sansome and Telegraph Hill.”

The morning fog was still seething over the bay, kept in motion by a biting wind through the Gate. The warehouse, built against the vertical slate face of Telegraph Hill, was locked up tight. The side windows were ten feet off the ground and covered with butcher paper on the inside. The double overhead door on the concrete loading dock had a huge new padlock that nothing short of a hardened-steel long-handled chain cutter could touch. It had no window. The access door beside it had an inset Yale lock and its window was reinforced with crisscrossed wires.

Spade found multiple fresh truck-tire tracks in the dust-covered street in front of the building. He clambered up on the dock, cupped his hands on the window of the access door, but its glass also was covered with butcher paper on the inside.

“Hey, what d’ya think you’re doing? Get away from there.”

A beefy red-faced Irish cop was puffing up Green Street toward him, nightstick in hand. Spade waved his clipboard, dropped nimbly down off the chest-high loading dock. He put the clipboard under one arm to dust off his hands, offered one of them to the cop.

“Ray Kentzler, Bankers’ Life. We carry the fire insurance on this building.”

“Fire insurance? The place’s been empty for months.”

“Still an asset.” Spade said nothing of the recent tire tracks in the dust. “We got a report of some kids trying to get inside. I had to make sure the building was secure.”

The cop shook his head. “Kids,” he said.

They walked side by side back toward the Embarcadero. Spade turned north, walking, pausing thoughtfully. He walked. Stopped, frowning. Caught a bus down the Embarcadero to the Ferry Building, where he had lunch, then went to his office. Effie Perine was out for her own lunch; as usual, she had left half a dozen message slips on his desk.

Three caught Spade’s eye: Ray Kentzler had called back to say that tracking the warehouse owner would take a day or two. Richardson said to suspend the investigation into the activities of his stepson. And the Chinese-sounding woman maybe named Mai-lin Choi had called back for an appointment with Spade at 9 the next morning.

Effie Perine came in and shut the door, leaned back against it. Spade looked up from the papers on his desk.

“Any word from Ray Kentzler on that warehouse ownership?”

“Nothing. But your nine o’clock appointment is here.”

Interest sparked Spade’s eyes. He stubbed out his latest cigarette. “By all means, sweetheart, send her in.”

She went back out, there was a murmur of voices, then she opened the door again and stepped aside.

“Miss Mai-lin Choi.”

She was perhaps twenty-two, tall and full-bosomed for a Chinese woman, Western in bearing. Her hair, of indeterminate length, was jet-black, worked into a large bun at the back of her head. She wore an untrimmed felt hat, a tan tailored frock with a contrasting pongee collar and a matching silk ribbon tie. Her shoes were the latest flat-heeled style.

Spade stood, gestured at the client chair.

“Please, Miss Choi, sit down.”

Instead, she remained standing for several moments, frankly judging him with black barely slanted eyes. Only then did she sit, turning her legs to one side so her feet were not flat on the floor. It was a graceful pose.

“You were recommended to me three years ago,” she said. Her voice was strong but smooth, her English impeccable, with only the slightest singsong rhythm to suggest her heritage. Her nose was quite aquiline, her cheekbones exquisite, her skin a pale gold. “Now you have been recommended again.”

Spade moved his head in a small bow, smiling slightly.

“Three years ago it was my pastor in Hawaii. Here, now, it is the Reverend Sabbath Zhu Pomeroy of St. John’s Methodist Church in Chinatown. He has become my spiritual adviser.”

“I will look forward to meeting him. Now, my secretary said you have a problem I might be able to help you with.”

“You are a strong man? A steadfast man?”

Spade came forward in his chair, put his elbows on the desk with his hard, bony chin between his fists. He looked at her keenly, appraising her as she had him moments previously.

“You mean as a detective?”

“And as a man. Reverend Zhu states that you have the reputation of being devious and often untruthful, but that you protect your clients’ interests at all costs. He said he could not be sure if you are also honorable.”

“Honorable. Not a word gets used very often in my profession.” He sobered abruptly. “OK, I know what Reverend Zhu has to say. What do you have to say?”

“I was a student three years ago, now I am not. Because the Chinese Exclusion Act some forty-odd years ago barred all Chinese except teachers and students and diplomats and the clergy, this time I am in this country illegally. You have heard the term paper daughter?”