Joe Gores - Spade & Archer

“Then kill him, like you did the doctor in Sacramento.”

That seemed to shake him slightly. “You’ve been busy.”

“Yeah. Chapter and verse.” Spade added without apparent emotion, “Back in nineteen twenty-one St. Clair McPhee masterminded the San Anselmo gold-bullion robbery and disappeared with seventy-five thousand dollars in British pounds after murdering four men in Sausalito. In nineteen twenty-five Devlin St. James murdered Collin Eberhard and Penny Chiotras and went on the run. He disappeared from an eastbound train from Oakland. One of the stops was Sacramento, and St. James had run his scam on Cal-Cit Bank from Sacramento. When I started to suspect that Sabbath Zhu was also St. Clair McPhee and Devlin St. James I sent my partner to Sacramento to snoop around.”

“You are quick, aren’t you?” Zhu said with admiration.

“Not quick enough.” Spade’s voice was rueful. “Always some religious connection. St. Clair. St. James. Sabbath Zhu.”

“My old man was a tent-show minister in the Midwest. Guy C. Menafee, rector, di rector, and pro tector.” Sudden hatred flooded his voice. “The sanctimonious bastard.”

Spade ignored this. “When I found the map in Treasure Island, I knew the reporter who interviewed Boothe after Sun’s death in nineteen twenty-five had to be you. I figure that’s where you first sniffed out that quarter million. When I found out about the dead doctor in Sacramento, I wanted to take you apart, see what made you tick.” Bitterness entered his voice. “I didn’t know Mai-lin was going to spill her guts to you.”

“You should have.” He gave a short laugh. “Her spiritual adviser, remember? Why do you think I recommended you to Mai-lin in the first place? Because I knew if any man could find out where Lea and Boothe had hidden Sun Yat-sen’s money, it would be you. Now, at long last, I get to take you apart and see what makes you tick.” He made an abrupt gesture with the pistol. “Pick up your shovel. I’ll follow with the lantern.”

The tunnel was hewn through the rock, twisting and turning, going up and then down, following the vein of manganese deep into Red Rock’s belly. It was wide enough and deep enough so they could move through it upright. The walls dripped with moisture. The light drove black clouds of chittering bats out of the tunnel past them.

Beyond an abrupt right-angle turn, the lamp showed a very slight dip in the tunnel floor, as if someone had dug there not too many years before.

Zhu exclaimed from behind Spade, “Stop here!”

Spade stuck his shovel upright in the depression. Zhu placed the lamp on a convenient knob of rock, staying far enough back so he could not be hit with the shovel, could not have a shovelful of earth thrown into his face.

“What are you waiting for?” he demanded hoarsely. “Dig!”

Spade was staring at him keenly. “You’ve got it,” he said. “Gold fever. Greed. And more. The killing lust. I saw a lot of it in the war. Men who like to kill. What if the map’s a phony, Zhu? What if there is no treasure?”

“Then you’ll just be digging your own grave.”

“Won’t I be doing that anyway?”

His thin lips curled. “Of course. To repay me for seven long years of frustration caused by your meddling.”

“Dig your own hole,” Spade said.

Zhu brought up his .45. “Don’t they say that where there’s life, there’s hope?”

Spade dug. The dirt was moist, loose, easily shoveled. What rocks there were came free easily, to be tossed on the growing pile to one side of the hole.

Once Zhu said, “Be sure to dig it wide enough and long enough for a grave.”

“Go to hell,” said Spade.

But he dug on, chest deep in the hole. Even in shirtsleeves, he was caked with dirt, and sweat ran down his face in rivulets, gleaming in the light of the lantern that would stay alive on one charge of carbide for four hours. They had been on the island for less than three.

Spade drove his shovel down again — to the clank of metal on metal. With a surprised exclamation, he dug feverishly, throwing dirt in every direction. Then he dropped to his knees, almost out of Zhu’s sight, digging like a dog with his hands.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed. “It’s a chest! It’s got to be the quarter million dollars!” His arms were buried almost to the elbows in the dirt. He panted, “I... never actually thought...”

Zhu set the lamp on the pile of dirt, dropped to his knees to stare down at Spade.

“Let me see it. Let me see the money!”

Spade leaned back. The lamp threw his shadow huge and black and cruel against the side of the hole. The chest could be seen, half uncovered, but its tipped-back lid kept Zhu from seeing what was within. Spade’s hands reached down into it.

“Here’s your treasure,” said Spade.

He sprang erect, driving with both feet against the bottom of the hole, his right arm slamming hard against Zhu’s lower belly what he had buried in the chest two nights before. The arm ripped upward in a disemboweling thrust. Before any blood could get through Zhu’s thick clothing, Spade had stepped aside so the stricken man’s body could roll in on top of the chest.

Zhu ended up on his back, his terrified eyes staring up at Spade through the gloom of the grave.

“For Penny,” said Spade. “And for all the others.”

Zhu’s mouth worked as if he had something vital to say. But life left his body before he could speak.

Spade filled in the hole, tromped down the earth over it. Then he burned the map.

“So you’re saying there was no treasure,” said Sid Wise.

Spade, Mai-lin, and Henny were grouped around the lawyer’s big desk. Crystal-clear winter sunlight through the windows laid a white-gold oblong across the stacked files on the blotter. Henny was sitting very close to Mai-lin, their hands touching. Spade, lounged back in his chair, was placidly smoking a cigarette. He shrugged, then jabbed the cigarette toward them.

“I don’t know. But I warned you. I told you I thought there was no buried money, that there never had been.”

Henny grunted. “Even so, that was a crummy trick you played on us, stranding us on the boat that way.”

“Benny said he entertained you with bootleg stories.” Spade reached inside his breast pocket, took out a folded sheet of old, crisp paper. He held it out. “Here’s Boothe’s map, Mai-lin. You can keep it as a souvenir.” To Henny he added, “Of your great adventure. Or you can go back to Red Rock with it.”

Mai-lin picked up the map, stared at it, then went to tear it in half. But Henny took it from her hands.

“If there is a treasure out there you should have it.”

Mai-lin shrugged, then said to Spade contritely, “I’m sorry I told Sabbath Zhu about Red Rock, even though I knew he had no intention of going there. I know it made you very angry.”

“I was counting on it,” said Spade obscurely.

“How do you really feel about there being no money, Miss Choi?”

She smiled at Sid Wise.

“When I realized it had all been a — a sort of dream, I felt only relief. My father repudiated me, never gave me anything. I thought finding the money would...” She shook her head. “But I’ve realized that I don’t need anything from him.”

“But if it’s there we’ll find it,” insisted Henny. “And if it isn’t” — he almost preened — “you’ll always have me.”

“Who supported you down through the years?” asked Wise.

“My father’s brother. Not through any affection — he hardly knew me. He financed most of my father’s ventures too, during the early years. Then my father’s son from his first marriage took over. Again, I was a family duty for a Chinese Christian.”