Joe Gores - Spade & Archer

Spade finished his drink, checked his watch.

“You know a Wobblie from Seattle named Robbie Brix?”

Harry shook his head. “And if he was down here on the docks, I’d know about him, Sam.”

“What I thought. I’ve been investigating the dock pilfering, and that’s where your description came up.” He grinned crookedly. “I can believe a lot of things about you, Harry, but being a thief isn’t one of them.” He finally stood up. “But you can see why I had to talk to you.”

“Wouldn’t be doin’ your job if you didn’t. But I haven’t been out and around for ten days, not with this cast.”

It was after dark when Spade trudged up Hyde Street from a westbound Geary streetcar. Miles Archer’s dark sedan was parked squarely in front of 891 Post. Iva Archer’s head was silhouetted behind the wheel by the midblock streetlight. By the time he got to the auto and had opened her door, his lips had turned up into a smile.

“Hello, precious,” he said.

“I’ve been waiting for over an hour for you to get home.”

“I thought you’d be resting up.” Spade smiled again, insincerely. “Miles always seems in a hurry to get home.”

She swung her legs out and put both feet on the pavement. This maneuver rode her skirt up well above her silk-clad knees.

“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. Since Miles became your partner, I haven’t seen much of you.”

“Because he’s my partner.”

“Men!” she snorted. “They have such silly ideas.” There was lingering asperity in her voice, but her blue eyes had softened. “Can I come up?”

“Sure,” he said, “you look like you could use a drink.”

He escorted her across the sidewalk to the street door, keys in hand. They rode the elevator in silence, went down the hall to his apartment without touching.

But inside the apartment, with the door closed, Iva was suddenly in his arms, pressed against him, mouth open and hungry for his. When they finally parted, Spade turned on the lights.

“Now I think we both need that drink.”

When they were seated on the sofa, drinks in hand, she complained, “Sam, he’s doing just what he used to do to me up in Spokane. He’s been out four nights in a row, this is the fifth. He doesn’t come home until dawn, and he won’t tell me what he’s doing or where he is. When I ask he just laughs and says maybe he’s partying with some new girlfriend. I know that isn’t true, at least I think it isn’t, but it just drives me crazy.”

Spade put his arm across the back of the sofa behind her, squeezed her far shoulder. She leaned her head against him.

“We’ve got a big new client. Miles is working undercover, nights, trying to get a line on things.”

She laughed and made a dismissive gesture. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

She slid out from under his arm, stood, put her drink on the arm of the sofa. Spade stood also.

“Leaving so soon, Iva?” he asked politely.

Instead of answering, she crossed the room, opened the closet door, and swung the wall bed out and down. She let herself fall back on it, chuckled deep in her strong, rounded throat.

“I just wanted to be sure Miles wouldn’t be home tonight.” She sat up. “Come and undress me, lover. I can’t wait.”

Spade moved toward her, turning off the white overhead bowl light as he did.

Henny Barber was out of the swivel chair in his modest office on the ground floor of California-Citizens Bank. He wrung Spade’s hand with enthusiasm, hiked himself up to sit on the edge of his desk, careless of the crease in his conservative banker’s dark blue woolen worsted suit.

“Your father tells me you’re running the place these days.”

“Don’t you believe it, Mr. Spade! Pater likes to brag about me, but it’s Aunt Ev’s show. She’s grabbed Uncle Collin’s office and comes in once or twice a week for a couple of hours. I keep things going day to day, but she’s in control.”

“She always struck me as a woman who likes to make sure she knows what’s going on with her money,” said Spade.

“Is she!” exclaimed Henny. “Want a cigar?”

Spade shook his head, getting out tobacco and papers while Henny clipped and lit his cigar.

“Can you get me into the Bohemian Club library?” Spade asked. “I want to do a little reading up on Chinese history.”

“Pater can.”

“OK, set it up.” Spade lit up. “The bank making money?”

“Tons of it. If you have the routine down and don’t make any crazy investments or shaky loans, it’s all so darned easy.”

“Ever dream of the exotic South Seas anymore?”

“The South Seas!” Henny threw his arms wide. “All the time. Maybe I could open a Cal-Cit Bank branch in Tahiti!”

“Bored, huh?” Spade blew smoke toward the ceiling. “I’m going to change all that. I want you to find a retired New York banker named Charles Boothe, last seen in San Francisco in nineteen ten.”

Henny’s face fell. “A retired banker? That’s no challenge. A couple of phone calls and—”

“Your old man couldn’t find him.”

Interest came back to Henny’s face.

“Boothe was last seen in the company of a Fritz Lea and an unnamed Chinese gentleman. My client is named Mai-lin Choi, a couple of years younger than you are. She’s the Chinese gent’s beautiful, mysterious, unacknowledged illegitimate daughter. She’s counting on me to find Boothe and Lea for her. I’m counting on you to find Boothe for me.”

Henny was off the desk and on his feet, eyes alight.

“I’m your man, Mr. Spade!” Then he added craftily, “But only if I get an introduction to the mysterious Mai-lin Choi.”

Spade leaned over the plump redheaded girl at the switchboard while he put his hand on her shoulder.

“Think you can get my office on that dingus, Mabel?”

“For you, anything, Mr. Spade.”

“Better not let Sid hear you talking that way.”

She giggled and flicked a toggle on the switchboard, got central. She pointed at one of the phones on her desk, said, “It’s ringing, Mr. Spade.”

Spade picked up the phone with his right hand, put the receiver to his ear with his left hand in time to hear Effie Perine’s invariable “Spade and Archer Investigations.”

“It’s me, sweetheart,” he told the mouthpiece. “I’m at Sid Wise’s office now. Before I go in, have we heard anything more from Charles Barber on that warehouse?”

“Nobody is leasing it from the Tugboat Company. They’ve had it standing empty for months.”

Spade nodded, hung up the receiver, and left Mabel giggling again as he went down the inner corridor to the frosted-glass door at the far end. Sid Wise was behind his immense paper-and-file covered desk, moodily smoking a cigar. He was in shirt and vest, his suit coat draped over the back of his swivel chair. He waved a hand at the files.

“I hope you won’t be long, Sam,” he said rudely. “I’m up to my ears in work.”

Spade sat down. “I’ve got things to tell you.”

Sid Wise groaned audibly, then tented his fingers in front of his chin. Spade outlined Miles Archer’s reported work on their case for the Industrial Association, ending with the lunch at Marquand’s. Wise looked puzzled.

“Where’s the problem? I think we’ve misjudged our man.”

“Except that most of it is a passel of lies,” said Spade.

A sudden, attentive frown appeared on Wise’s tired olive-hued face. He hitched his chair around to better face Spade. His high, sometimes almost shrill voice had dropped almost an octave.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Like I told you, Miles said he spotted a Commie from Seattle named Robbie Brix getting hired at a Blue Book shape-up. Night work under the lights. When his shift ended, Miles followed him for two blocks, dropped him so he wouldn’t get wise. Two more blocks the second night. Third night he tracked Brix all the way to the warehouse at the foot of Green Street.”