Joe Gores - Spade & Archer

Spade and Archer met outside Marquand’s Restaurant below the Geary Theatre. Above them was a sign, CABARET AND DANCING, but at a little before noon patrons were going in only for food, not entertainment. The two detectives shook hands as if casual acquaintances, took a corner booth, where there was little chance of being overheard. Archer leaned in and talked quietly, intensely, while seeming to study his menu.

“I think I’ve got a line on the ringleader of the group, Sam. The one who paid Robbie Brix for information. They did it again last night. Again, inside. But I was at the window watching when he gave Brix some more cash. I keep snooping around, but he only ever shows up at the warehouse so I can’t point him out to anybody.”

“You try tailing him?”

“Too risky. He’s a little guy, wary as a fox.”

Their meat loaf came. They started eating.

“So he’s probably blacklisted for union activity. You think it’s lefty union guys trying to bring down the system who’re behind the pilfering, Miles?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” said Archer judiciously.

“They don’t seem in any hurry to move the stolen goods out of that warehouse, do they? The paymaster has an Aussie accent.”

“Aussie accent? Little guy, you said? How old?”

“Twenty-nine, thirty. Wiry. Lean face. Bloodhound eyes.”

“Good work, Miles.” Spade smiled with the lower part of his face. “Keep it up.”

“I just had lunch with Miles. Anything from anybody?”

Effie Perine followed him into his office, open notebook in hand. He sat down in his swivel chair and tossed tobacco sack and papers on his desk. She sat down, started making his cigarette, talking as she did.

“Charles Barber isn’t having any luck at all in finding Boothe, the retired banker.”

“I should have put young Henny on him. The beautiful Mai-lin Choi would appeal to his romantic nature.”

“I’d think running California-Citizens Bank for the Widow Eberhard would leave him no time for romance or derring-do.” She handed him the cigarette. “How did the services go?”

“Mickey Linehan will run Fritz Lea through the files at Continental. The game was to welcome Rusty McCoy, a new op who used to be with Jack Manion’s Chinatown squad. I went to the game to ask him if he’d ever heard of Reverend Sabbath Zhu. He hadn’t.” He paused, lighter in hand. “Rusty said maybe he’s from Watsonville or Fresno or Sacramento, but...”

“You make him sound more mysterious than Mai-lin herself.”

“Maybe he is. Manion’s squad knows most things going on in Chinatown.” He gestured with the lighter. “Anything else?”

“Ray Kentzler called to say that you owe him a lunch. The warehouse at the foot of Green Street is owned by the Shipowners’ and Merchants’ Tugboat Company.”

Spade stopped, lighter halfway to his cigarette.

“Hmph. Charles Barber’s on the board of directors at the Tugboat Company. Be an angel, call him back and ask him if they’re leasing the warehouse out to anyone.”

She wrote in her notebook. “Is something the matter, Sam?”

“Yeah, I think maybe there is, but let’s find out for sure about that warehouse first.” He stood, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray before realizing he hadn’t lit it yet. “If I’m not back by closing time leave any messages on my desk.”

He paused in the hallway outside the office for a moment, staring at the new gold leaf lettering that had just replaced Samuel Spade on the glass panel of the door:

Spade stood at his ease, watching and smoking a cigarette while a crane lifted a load of netted cargo from one of the holds of the Admiral Line’s steamship Admiral Peoples. Stevedores were on the dock to transfer the goods to an airless-tire Kleiber truck, built locally in San Francisco.

The craggy-faced foreman, named Stan Delaney, came limping over. Sharp wind off the bay stirred Delaney’s thick white hair. They shook hands.

Spade said, “I’m looking for Harry Brisbane. I owe him some money from a poker game, and I thought he said he was working here.”

“Yeah, for California Stevedore and Ballast, but he hasn’t been to work for a week, ten days.” He yelled at a longshoreman steering a platform truck with a pallet of wooden crates to the waiting Kleiber. “ Johnny! Where’s Harry living these days?”

It was a narrow two-story building in the 500 block of Harrison. Apartment 1B had a penciled BRISBANE stuck in the name slot on a torn piece of paper. Spade’s knuckles tattooed the door.

“Yeah, yeah, for Chrissake, gimme a chance, will ya?”

After a few moments the door was opened and Harry Brisbane peered out. He was standing on one foot. The other foot had a cast on it. His eyes lit up.

“Hey, Sam! C’mon in.”

He backed awkwardly away so Spade could go in past him. Harry hopped around him one-footed to flop back into a broken-down easy chair in one corner of the living room. The flat smelled of cooked food and enforced confinement.

“I heard you were home, but I didn’t know you were laid up.” Spade brought a hand holding a pint of liquor out of his topcoat pocket. “But I came prepared, just in case.”

“Bless you, mate.” Harry jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “There’s ice and glasses, water in the tap, and ginger ale in the icebox if you’re a sissy about your drinks.”

Ten minutes later they were tinking glasses and tossing off bootleg whiskey.

“I haven’t seen you since you were lookin’ for that rich guy’s kid. What’s that been? Six years?”

“Seven,” said Spade. “I’m working for the Industrial Association, and some thin, wiry guy named Harry with an Aussie accent came up during the investigation.”

The pleasure went out of Harry’s bloodhound eyes, replaced by something like disappointment. “You gunning for me, Sam?”

“If I was, I wouldn’t have told you my client’s name.” He gestured at the cast. “What happened?”

“Broke my foot two weeks ago. I was working in the hold of an Admiral freighter, standing on a pile of cases while we sent a load out. Two cases slid, my foot got jammed between ’em. I couldn’t afford to lay off so I stuck it out for two days, but I couldn’t work in the hold no more. Stan Delaney put me up on deck, but I couldn’t even stand that. So I finally went to the sawbones and filed a claim.”

“I hear the company union doesn’t like injury claims.”

“Yeah, but my foot had gotten swollen up so bad I just couldn’t limp around anymore.” Harry spread his arms wide. “So now I’m getting twenty-five bucks a week under workmen’s compensation. That’s more than I can make most weeks working on the docks.”

“What happens when the compensation runs out?”

“I’ll probably go on the Blue Book’s blacklist again.”

Spade went out to the kitchen for ice. He made new drinks, said, “I thought you were already blacklisted.”

“Not blacklisted. Just not ever able to get work. Closed shop, they called it. Couple a months after you was lookin’ for that rich guy’s kid they got bighearted and let me back in. But in nineteen twenty-four we tried to set up the I.L.A. union again. We had maybe four hundred members but no contracts.”

Spade lit a cigarette. “Why did they care? Without contracts you weren’t going to take any business away from them.”

“ ‘Cause we marched in the Labor Day parade that year, I guess. The company and union officials was standing along the parade route on Market between the Ferry Building and City Hall writing down names. Anyway, they got mine. But the union reps was so busy playing cards and chasing women and making money they couldn’t bother with small fry like me. So I finally got back in, started getting regular work with California Stevedore and Ballast.” He gestured at the cast. “Then this.” He brightened. “At least my rent here is only fifteen bucks a month.”