The Hammett Hex

by Victoria Abbott

  Farley’s Finest was literally a hidden treasure. At the end of the alley around another corner, there it was. A small sandwich board announced my arrival. The parameters of the space were difficult to comprehend, and merchandise had obviously spilled out of the closet-like shop into the alley, adding to the whole magical quality. Maybe six feet wide and five feet deep, the place was stacked with books to the ceiling. Two teetering curio cases flanked the door inside. They were jammed with twinkling vintage jewelry, collectibles and what appeared to be a pair of stuffed peacocks crowned this display. My eyes couldn’t take it all in. I could see dozens of things I wanted. I would have stepped back for a better view, but there was nowhere to step to, only another brick wall painted in years of old graffiti. There was no one in the shop. There was no room for anyone to actually be in the shop.

  A velvety “Jordan” at my back scared me right out of my boots. I pirouetted to see the shop’s namesake. He was not much taller than me, but his shoulders were broad and straight. A little shock of silver through his dark, thick hair was “silver fox” sexy. He wasn’t imposing, though, and sparkly black eyes peered over chiseled brown cheekbones at me. I recognized that twinkle of mischief from my own uncles’ gazes and felt instantly at ease. Mischief makers in mysterious shops down dark alleys? These are my people. I extended my hand from under the many layers of scarf.

  “Farley Tso.”

  “Jordan Bingham.”

  “Ah yes. I’ve been expecting you for a while, Jordan. So, Bingham. Not Kelly?”

  Waiting for me?

  “Um, well, no. The Kellys are on my mother’s side. As you know, Uncle Mick sent me and there’s Lucky and Kev—”

  “And Seamus?”

  “Oh yes. Seamus.” I was surprised he knew about Seamus.

  He looked at me long enough that we could have boiled an egg. Finally having sized up the situation, he nodded. “Bingham. Okay.” He gestured toward his inventory so I could continue to browse. Just trying to keep focus in this dizzying array of items was hard. There were books stacked on a steamer trunk that varied in subject matter from The Far Side to The Cold War. Sitting atop that stack was a precariously balanced mini-Eames Rocker in all its bright yellow, molded fiberglass glory. I wanted it, for no other reason than it existed. Much like the turquoise “squash blossom” necklace that looked very authentic to my eye. I dabbed the drool from the corner of my mouth.

  As I sniffed about the goodies, Farley pulled a brown bag from under the smallest curio cabinet. It smelled of cigars and leather. Inside was a Guy Noir Bobblehead, in its original packaging.

  “And don’t you worry about that Red Harvest, I’ve got one for you, it’s just going to take a day or two to be delivered.” Farley’s eyes shone with pride, seeing my obvious excitement. I wasn’t even trying to hide, knowing that Mick, his name and reputation would have already secured me the best price.

  “Half now, half on delivery?”

  “That will be six hundred dollars then, Miss, um, Bingham, plus the bobblehead.” I paid for Smiley’s gift and then fished half of Vera’s cash out of my trusty orange satchel, and pressed the bills into his leathery hand. We shook again and smiled.

  “Are you sure I can’t interest you in the necklace?” Farley teased, with a strange undertone in his comment.

  “Oh, I’m interested! But I hardly have the money for that.” Even with my basic knowledge of authentic Southwest turquoise, I knew that piece had to be worth at least two grand. “But I might have to take home that antique French handkerchief box.” Again, Farley looked at me for a really long time. I started to twitch under his gaze. He picked up the six-by-six-inch flat wooden box, with the faded early-twentieth-century embellishments and turned away. I heard the crinkling of tissue paper.

  “Please.” He said, pressing another small bag into my hand, “It is a gift.” Farley’s deep brown eyes fixed on mine. I could not say no.

  “I will be sure to tell Uncle Mick how helpful and kind you were. Thank you so much, Mr. Tso.”

  “Please give my best to them all, Mick, Lucky, Kev, and of course, Seamus,” he said as I turned to leave. I did jump a little when he mentioned Seamus’s name again. I guess because we really didn’t speak about my uncle often in recent years. He was merely the stuff of whispers and legends from my childhood.

  I bundled my purchases and gift into my bag and strode back down the alley toward the busy street. The older gentlemen had taken their coffees and gone inside, maybe because of the two tall burly men flanking the mouth of the alley when I got there. I wondered if they were some kind of “store security.” Something in my lizard brain told me not to strike up a conversation with these guys. Maybe it was the long black leather coats or perhaps the cold dead eyes. Minutes later as I flagged a cab from the street, I turned back to get a better look but they had evaporated into the crowd.

  * * *

  I WENT OFF to meet Tyler for the next phrase of our adventure. San Francisco and cable cars: what a magic combination. Tyler and I agreed on that much when we finally connected. Not quite right for a heart-to-heart about the grandmother, but what a way to see the city, with the thrill of steep hills up and stomach-dropping descents. We couldn’t wait. Soon I was squished into a cable car, hurtling down a steep hill, clinging to a rail with the wind rushing in my ears amid the clang and clatter of metal and the shrieks of fellow passengers. We were loving this adventure, smiling at the others, including a few familiar faces from our hotel and not smiling at a very large, sweaty man standing too close and a bullet-headed guy who seemed not only too familiar but too pushy as he wedged his way into the car. Minutes later I was lying on the sidewalk, wondering who had given me the hard push that sent me flying through the air and cost me my dignity and my new fedora. Such a weird accident. But then, why didn’t it feel accidental?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Put your feet up whenever you can.

  —The Kelly Rules

  SMILEY WAS STILL fussing over me an hour later. We’d made a quick return to the hotel to clean up and assess the damage. Tyler had insisted.

  “I told you I’m okay. What will it take to convince you?” I said.

  “Confirmation from a doctor.”

  “No way am I sitting in an emergency room because I have bruised knees yet again and my palms are scratched.”

  He got his cop face on. That always makes me resist more.

  “If you find a doctor who can replace my lost fedora, then we might have a deal,” I said.

  “Never mind the stupid hat. What about your head?”

  “What about my stupid head?”

  “I did not say ‘your stupid head.’”

  “But did you think it?”

  “I thought that if you hit your head, you could have been seriously injured. You could have a concussion or a brain bleed.”

  “Charming. But by some miracle I didn’t hit my head. I only scratched the palms of my hands and lost my beautiful hat. My knees were already beat up from last night and the Attack of the Midnight Prius.”

  “Hmm.”

  “If you want to worry about something and it appears that you do, how about the fact that I think someone may have actually pushed me deliberately.”

  He patted me on the back, in the patronizing way people do when they think you’re being an idiot.

  “Don’t do that,” I said. “Someone pushed me, from behind obviously, and that bothers me. I’ve already said that.”

  “I didn’t see anyone push you.”

  “Just because you didn’t see something happen doesn’t mean it didn’t. As a police officer, you should be well aware of that. While you were pointing out sights, someone gave me a very hard, sharp shove. I think whoever did that meant business.”

  His forehead furrowed. “But what business?”

  “No idea. I still think it was weird.”

 
“More than just weird. We’re going to the police.”

  “We are not going to the police and we are not going to the hospital. We are going to continue on our vacation and we are going to have a good time. Don’t bother arguing. You know the police won’t do anything about that. This is a huge city and that was only one possible assault.”

  “Why don’t you think about it?”

  “For the same reason you didn’t think about it last night on our way home from dinner.”

  “That was different. We’d had a few drinks and it was a Prius.”

  “Right. They might have laughed.”

  “Could have been worse. Could have been a bicycle. That would be more humiliating.” He checked out my scraped palms. “But you’ve really scratched up your hands, Jordan.”

  “Yep. They sting like crazy. And I broke a nail too.”

  “Again, who would want to push you?”

  “Nobody has any reason to hurt me or us. And as I wasn’t killed or badly hurt, I’m not going to let it bring me down.”

  “The main thing is to be very careful from now on.”

  “No. The main thing is that I didn’t ruin another good outfit and I don’t have a concussion.”

  “Um, that’s two main things.”

  “True. Three if you count that I’ll definitely have to shop.”

  “Maybe later. My grandmother is really keen to meet you.”

  “When?”

  “Today. Remember?”

  “Right. So now I’m going to get changed. I want to look good when I meet your grandmother. So glad I don’t have a concussion for the occasion.”

  * * *

  SMILEY HADN’T BEEN kidding about walking off our meals. On our way to his grandmother’s place, we took in a lot of this city. Apparently, Smiley’s grandmother lived at the edge of Pacific Heights, a ritzy part of town at the top of a serious set of hills.

  We combined seeing the city—walking and cable cars (keeping our backs covered and our eyes opened)—and we got to see a lot of the vibrant bustling city that was well outside of the tourist area. We rattled down California Street on a cable car as cars whizzed by and buildings towered.

  Every now and then we’d get off and walk to get a sense of the area.

  Have I mentioned there were hills?

  The hills of San Francisco made me appreciate the steep flights of stairs to my attic apartment in Van Alst House. If I hadn’t gone racing up and down those three flights of wooden steps at least a dozen times a day (frequently dodging Bad Cat’s good aim with claws), I might have collapsed in a heap as we climbed toward our destination.

  I wasn’t alone in this.

  “Good thing I’ve been going to the gym,” Smiley said. He looked like he might have been ready to huff and puff anyway. We both knew he could have gone to the gym a bit more often. I had my own exercise program (aside from the stairs) although lately it seemed to consist of running for my life and dodging the police, too often including the man at my side.

  I said, “You couldn’t help but be fit if you lived here.”

  “I am fit,” he snapped.

  “I mean a person couldn’t help but be fit, not you in particular.” I hadn’t realized that was a sore spot. Live and learn, as Uncle Mick used to say after a close call with a cop. “Take a look.”

  The look registered plenty of pedestrians, mothers with strollers, dozens of cyclists and more than a few skateboarders. I didn’t envy the cyclists or the skateboarders on those hills.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Hey, not everything is about you,” I said, giving him an affectionate poke in the ribs.

  “Maybe it is.” He grinned.

  With the mood lightened, we kept walking.

  “Not far now,” he promised.

  “Great area,” I puffed. “You’ve got a bit of everything here from Victorian to mid-century modern to contemporary. I love it. You never mentioned that your grandmother was rolling in money.”

  “She’s not. Now.”

  “Don’t be mysterious,” I said, trying to keep up.

  “Her second husband, William Huddy, made a lot of money on some kind of invention that improved the performance of plastics. They used it to modify the design of plastic extruders and—”

  I held up my hand. “More than I need to know.”

  “Me too. When Gram and this new husband came out here, he was trying to sell this process he’d invented. The people who bought out his patent went on to become billionaires, according to Gram, and then William invested the bulk of his share in some tech stock that sank like a stone.”

  “So she was left with nothing?”

  “Not at all. They had a nice house, in her name, and William had paid Gram back for everything she had invested plus a share of the sale of the patent. She had that. He died not long afterwards. She was devastated, but not penniless. She still has the house and I guess enough income to support her in comfort. She has live-in help.”

  “Nice.”

  “Maybe ‘nice’ isn’t the word. She’s alone and has some mobility issues. And that so-called help of hers takes a bit of getting used to. But you’ll see.”

  “Okay. Well, I really love this neighborhood. I’m sure I’ll like your grandmother too and I’m prepared to keep an open mind about the help. Keep in mind that I’m the help when I’m at home.”

  He stopped and threw back his head and laughed. “Not how I think of you. And I’ll remind you of that remark later. We’re not that far away.”

  “Good.” It’s a bad habit, I know, but everywhere I go, I find myself wondering what it would be like to live there and comparing an imaginary new life to my tranquil existence of books, food, vintage clothes and cuddly critters (including Smiley) back home. I was spoiled, no question. But San Francisco had a magic quality. My vintage look fit in, although maybe not with the yummy mummies in their high-end active wear, and so far the food had been excellent. I saw no shortage of pampered pooches and I assumed there would be equally pampered cats lurking somewhere. As for books, well, we’d already found one strange source and there had to be others. The only fly in this pot of ointment was real estate, although I thought of it as Unreal Estate.

  “What do you think these places would go for?” I asked Smiley. As a cop, he likes facts. I might moon over the pictures in, say, Architectural Digest, whereas he would get the price, square footage, tax rate, cost of utilities and a report on possible exposure to radon before he gave anything a second look.

  “There are all kinds of different places, some rentals, but they’d be scarce. There are condos and co-ops and massive old houses. You might get a one-bedroom condo unit for eight hundred thousand, but then again, maybe not.”

  “Huh.” Next to my free accommodation, that was as likely as landing on Jupiter. Smiley had bought his fixer-upper, fixed ’er up and sold the tiny immaculate brick house and made a profit. He’d bought a small two-story Cape Cod for one hundred and twenty-four thousand and was slowly whipping it into shape, all for a fraction of the cost of this alleged one-bedroom condo. “You know, if you can just flip another fifty houses, you might be able to get one of those.”

  He snorted. “Don’t exaggerate. It wouldn’t take more than ten.”

  “I don’t know. There are the condo fees too.”

  “Might not be a lot of cops living around here.”

  “Even fewer book researchers.”

  “That’s a safe bet.”

  “So, that’s us out of the market. We’re either living in splendor sponging off elderly eccentrics or sleeping in our cars.”

  “Your car is very uncomfortable.”

  “Don’t knock my Saab. It’s practically an antique.”

  We deked to the left to dodge a couple with a velvety gray Weimaraner and a stroller built for two. They required a sidewalk t
o themselves. On this outing we’d dodge a number of baby strollers and toddlers. They were everywhere. The parents all appeared to be puffed with pride. I glanced at Smiley and found he was staring with interest at another couple in their late thirties with a fat, pink baby in some kind of carrier on Dad’s chest and a curly-haired toddler being herded by Mom. They seemed to have a mountain of gear. I didn’t understand any of it and was just about to whisper that to Tyler when I caught a new expression. Interest had upgraded to fascination. I hoped it was the gear, but I feared it was the children.

  Weird. He’d never shown an interest in kids. I hoped he wasn’t going to get all domestic on me. First you find your grandmother and then you want a houseful of kids. Was that a thing? If so, it was way too early.

  I said, “I guess the people who live around here must have made a bundle in the tech sector to live in this neighborhood and bring up a family.”

  He blinked.

  I said, “It’s just that I read somewhere that on average it costs nearly a quarter of a million dollars to raise a child. And that’s if they don’t decide to go to some Ivy League college.”

  Smiley’s blink had turned to a stare.

  “Have I just grown horns on my forehead?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Spinach in my teeth?”

  “No.”

  “Revealed myself as an alien?”

  “What are you talking about? Why would you even—”

  “Just the look on your face.”

  “Okay, it’s just that I think kids are about more than money. People love them. For themselves.”