by Brian Lawson
Danny suspected the 1941 movie’s dialogue right out of 1929 might have sounded leaden at any period, and had looked in vain for rental copies of the 1931 version with Ricardo Cortez as a reputedly more sinister and libidinous Spade and the ill-advised ’36 remake as “Satan Met a Lady.” Taken together the celluloid versions would all be hard pressed to upstage the book’s overwhelming virtue, the way Hammett limned the City, capturing the fog shrouded menace and dark scabby corners, turning the City itself into the unindicted coconspirator in the brooding evil and violence. Hammett had made the city itself the major player in his convoluted novel but the movie could not help but turn on the visceral powers of Bogart and the aberrant menagerie that nipped at his heels.
And he was alone again in the shabby motel room at the edge of the Tenderloin with the mystery that mattered only to him. He could reread the book, trying again to parse a mystery out of Hammett’s terse prose. He turned to the first page to once again read Hammett’s description of Spade as a “blond Satan.”
CHAPTER FIVE:
Monday in Spade Country
He woke up bleary and scratchy, mouth full of cotton and back aching from the overly soft mattress, the insistent nasty note of the telephone demanding he open his gummy eyes and move. He fumbled for the receiver, listened to the voice tell him it was Monday morning, seven thirty and leaned back with a groan.
Most of the search materials were scattered on the tables and the floor around them plus around the bed where he must have kicked them off during the night; the book was wedged under the spongy pillow. After hanging up with Ben he’d finished off the beer and must have then fallen asleep with the steady roar of the City in his ears.
The hotel room air was thick with stale night air and he wandered over to the window and looked out on the gray air shaft, craned his neck for a view of the gray sky; a foggy day in San Francisco. He tugged at the window; sealed, no outside air to upset the delicate temperature controls.
He shuffled into the bathroom The light in the bathroom was enough to shatter glass. He did his business and then stared at his reflection above the old fashioned pedestal sink. Half the silvering on the mirror had turned to aged black splotches that looked like some cancer was slowly working its way out to daylight. He saw what he expected, what he always saw: thin face oddly going to puffiness around the jaw, pale blue eyes a gift from the Irish father under a constantly unruly mop of black curly hair and thick, drooping brows. At least that from mother’s side of the family, all the men took their thick, black Romanian peasant hair to the grave with them. Looks like an Irishman got over this Romanian fence, sure enough. He turned on the shower and eased in; the water was a tonic, endlessly hot. He breathed in the steam, scrubbing and humming and mumbling snatches from half a dozen songs.
He didn’t bother wiping the mirror, just hand combed his wet thick hair back and fumbled around in his shaving kit; he slathered on shaving gel and scraped by touch and hope, twitched as the after shave hit the half dozen small nicks on his neck and chin, brushed his teeth and was ready.
He pulled on clean underwear and socks, a fresh shirt and the same jeans and sport coat; packed the fanny pack after loading fresh batteries in the recorder and headed out. In the lobby the rat faced Vietnamese in the crisp white shirt and dark tie lisped yes, sir, the fog was supposed to burn off early, a nice day, very nice. Yes sir, there were several excellent places for breakfast, yes sir. Famous old, famous old places, sir, in downtown for breakfast? Many people speak well of Sears on Powell near Sutter, yes sir they speak well of it and can I get you a cab?
He walked into the fog morning, the damp air seeping through his jacket and pressing cold denim against his legs. San Francisco had a grumpy urgency to it he; it was in the faces of the people who jostled by him; it was in the noisy bustle to the traffic that was careening along bumper to bumper with cabs darting in and out of traffic looking for that one mystical clear spot that would let them slide all the way to the Bay and all sorts of trucks and vans and carryalls rumbling along, stopping, starting, lumbering around each other and jockeying for that special double parked space in front of this restaurant or that hotel. The edginess of the morning rush hour, the quick decisive movements of the cars and trucks and furtive pedestrian scuttling along the sidewalk and through traffic to get to this side or the other of Post, left him feeling like he was at the start of some giant important event, an event everyone wanted to be on time for and hold the best seat to see.
In front of Spade’s apartment he hung around at the bus stop with sullen eyed denizens who were making ready to head downtown. Johnny Larkin was nowhere to be seen. He leaned against the brick wall next to the entrance, one eye on the door, hoping somebody would exit 891 Post in a rush to get to work, not notice him ducking in through the security gate and heading upstairs for a quick look around the third floor.
One creaking articulated Muni bus passed by, then another stopped and eight or nine people at the bus stop shouldered their way onto the cars stuffed with standees and strap hangers and seated pale faces peering out of the greasy bus windows like craters on the suddenly exposed dark side of the moon. Still he waited, feeling the damp brick cold soak through his jacket and shirt.
He felt rather than heard the inside door open, a sudden inhalation as though the old building was taking its first creaky, asthmatic breath of the new day. A pale woman with black eye shadow to match the funeral dress and tights maneuvered a ten-speed bicycle across the tiled foyer and tried to get herself and bike out the iron bar door that was trapping her with its inward swing. Danny stepped in, smiling his best collegiate smile and held the barred door, the cold metal like something oily, damp in his hand; she brushed by him, manhandling the bike down the stairs with only a quick, neutral glance; she was gone in a flash of white athletic shoes, beefy calves pumping up the Post Street slope, black clad fanny like a sack of old coal rolling up and off the seat with the effort. He was in and through the unlocked interior door in a flash.
The coffin sized elevator door slid open and he pushed the button for three; he clicked on the recorder:
“Kinda hoped somebody would be coming out and I could sneak in the lobby......third floor, nothing, empty...maybe this is the way mausoleums look when they forget to tell people to lie down...thin blade of a hallway carpet worn beyond all pattern and texture under dim overhead unshaded light bulbs...battered walls... the place smells, not bad just old and tired, musty maybe like some slow rot, like mold in the dark secret places...if a building could smell like stale sweat, this would be it...
“...and nothing, again...what do I do, knock on the door, say hey, brother, why not let me in to check out the place...you know Sam did Brigid right here in this room, and slapped faggy little Joel Cairo and ran shit on the Fat Man, right here man, cool, very cool. Right here, right behind you tired old brown door with the chips and cuts and painted over tired dirt, right here... or maybe down there at the other wooden face.”
Back outside he felt hungry and empty for something other than breakfast; he wanted to talk to Ben and tell him what it was like up there, what two minutes in the past felt like. It felt like he needed a shower. As he wedged his way onto the crowded bus and it began pulling away he caught a glimpse between the swaying shoulders of two other strap hangers of someone standing in front of Monza motors. Maybe it was Larkin, maybe not, watching, waiting.
* * *
Danny wondered if the hotel deskman got a commission; maybe he just got a cheap thrill out of sending yokels to the place. Famed for its pancakes and what the menu proudly boasted was “world famous French toast,” Sears Fine Foods on Powell was a battered, tired overheated restaurant with faded pink tablecloths covered by yellowing plastic and almost torturously uncomfortable chairs.
The waitress who took his order was a thin, pale blond young woman who looked hardly old enough to be out of high school despite the rough knuckled hands and bony elbows that belonged to somebody twice her age. She moved around be
hind the counter with a kind of nervous efficiency, seemingly going in different directions than the starched pink uniform that tented around her.
Danny smiled, turning his coffee cup up and she grabbed a pot, leaned forward on one hand and pouring the obligatory coffee. She smelled like baby powder and cheap shampoo; her thin, almost lank hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, with thin hard cheekbones and small, tight mouth, delicate on the way to being old and brittle before her time. But it was all saved by luminous blue eyes that seemed constantly at the edge of childlike surprise. She was probably the same age as most of his students, perhaps one or two years older, but a world apart from the poses of his students and their tired, world-weary eyes; he was caught off guard and missed the question.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Her voice was thin and soft, full of soft sibilant sounds that seemed half way between Midwestern and Southern, but it somehow carried over, or under, the background restaurant noise. “I said, what do you want. For breakfast?”
“Oh, sure. Sorry. What’s good?”
“It’s all good,” she said, sliding the coffeepot back onto some hidden burner under the counter.
“Really? All of it?”
She shrugged and finally switched on a warm, gentle smile that fitted with the eyes. “Well, not everything, maybe. People seem to like the French toast. It’s not as good as my granny’s, but it’s okay.”
“Sold, Doris,” he said, looking at her name tag. “Thanks for the help.”
“My pleasure. Anything else?” but she was still smiling and it warmed the impersonal room and the stranger’s place at the scarred counter.
He filled in the order with orange juice and a glass of skim milk; she jotted it down and walked away to place the order. Danny pulled out the recorder and started making notes, capturing his impressions of his first San Francisco restaurant.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, just making some notes,” he said, sliding the recorder back into his jacket pocket.
“Y’all a reporter or something?” she said, carefully centering the orange juice on a small paper lace round. Her eyes were round with question and he felt somehow disarmed and unable to brush off her gentle good will and ingenuous question.
He shook his head; he needed something for what was obviously going to be a recurring question. “I’m doing some research.”
“What’s that for? You’re not a reporter. You’re a scientist, right?”
“Well, no, sorry, nothing that glamorous. I teach college and I’m researching a paper I want to write on the history of San Francisco.”
“Well gosh, that’s great. I mean, isn’t that something. My first writer and a college professor too,” she said, but there was no edge to it, no trace of sarcasm. She seemed truly pleased. “I always wanted to go to college but, you know, got to make a living. What’s it about?”
“What?”
“Your paper or whatever, silly,” she said, swiping gently at his left hand with her order pad. She looked quickly down the counter, checking for customers in early stages of starvation, then leaned forward on her elbows, hands folded under her chin. It was a posture so full of youth and curiosity he felt himself grinning back.
“Are you always this curious about your customers?”
“Only the nice ones,” she said, without a trace of the flirt.
“Well, thank you, Doris. It’s really about detective novels that are set in San Francisco. You know, like The Maltese Falcon?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know that one. But I remember seeing “The Streets of San Francisco’ reruns on TV, back in Wheeling? It was on the Fox station, I think, and it really got me thinking about coming out here.”
A customer’s insistent request for coffee drifted into their conversation, and she stood up and said, “Sure thing, I’m coming,” and reached for the pot. “Y’all just stay right here. I want to hear all about this.”
And she did. Somehow in quick stops to deliver his breakfast, refill his coffee, drop off the menu again, fill his water glass she heard his increasingly complex, and contrived, tale of scholastic research in the big city. While she was bathing him in smiles and gentle questions, he began to fashion her story; when she disappeared into the kitchen again he pulled out the recorder to lock in his impressions of Doris:
Still, he dawdled through breakfast, not usually his favorite meal, delighting in the fresh squeezed orange juice and fresh, scalding hot coffee. The French toast were slabs of greasy French bread, the storied “home made preserves” a thin gruel of frozen strawberries served in small pewter cups stickier on the outside than in.
“It wasn’t really very good, was it?”
He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t.”
“It depends a lot on the cook? We have some real good boys back there, but some really don’t care a damn about what they’re doing and they should just find another field to plow, if you know what I mean,” she said, clattering the dishes and cutlery into a hidden counter bin. “More coffee?”
“Thanks. I should probably get off the stool and let some other people get a shot,” he said. The lines sounded leaden and seemed to drop into a small greasy spot on the counter. She paused and looked at him and for the first time her eyes were older, wiser. He pushed on, “So, Doris. Where do you eat?”
It was so obviously a line that she just grinned and gave a little giggle. “Why Mr. Boyle. Are you flirting with me?”
He felt the flush moving up in his cheeks and before he could stammer out any response she reached over the counter and gave his hand a quick, warm squeeze. “Aren’t you just the thing?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean....”
“...shush. It’s flattering,” she said and whipped out her order pad and pencil, scribbled something, and slid it over the counter. “Us transplants got to stick together. You call me and we’ll find some place that doesn’t cost the price of a small truck and tastes like somebody cares about it. Y’all call me, now.”
And she was off on another run into the kitchen; he turned the slip over: Doris Jackson, 667-4418.
Outside on Powell it was cool after the superheated restaurant although the Monday morning sun was already full on the front of the restaurant. He cut across Powell in front of the sluggish cable car heading up the hill toward its crossing with the California cable car line. The cable car conductor clanged the bell at him and shook his head, tourists sat inside the antiquated wooden cage and stared through the crystal clean glass while a couple of hardy souls were even hanging on the outside, leaning out to look up, tempting the fates as quick yellow cabs brushed past. He rounded Saks and headed diagonally across Post, dodging the thick flow of cars heading east deeper into the financial district and getting the finger for his pains and closely brushed by a Lexus with its sullen-eyed driver talking on a cell phone. He had skirted Union Square on Sunday on his way up Geary, and now he wanted to walk through what seemed to be the heart of downtown San Francisco.
He was aiming for the forty-foot pillar topped with Winged Victory in the middle of Union Square he’d read was dedicated to Admiral Dewey after the Battle of Manila and the St. Francis across Powell. He clicked on the recorder: ... is this like Hammett’s day I bet there wasn’t a Victoria’s Secret taking up the sidewalk windows... .the elegant wrought iron light standards outside are incongruous with fiberglass inserts in place of glass meant to look like glass, another post-modern symbol of form without substance... and I bet the valet would have taken a gratuity and discreetly folded it into his palm or dropped it in a pocket instead of standing in the open counting a fist full of bills like a carney barker, face as insistent as a tip jar on a pizza parlor counter...
“the lobby’s another time warp...you can feel the weight of the years, the polished brass, the green and black marble, the mosaic marble floor all feels like looking at the floor and hand painted ceiling at Hunter-Dulin, it’s something from another time, a conspiracy of retained
elegance, whatever the hell that means...”
He wandered out of the hotel, down to Geary and headed west; somewhere, was Joel Cairo’s “Hotel Belvedere.”
He threaded his way slowly through the Geary foot traffic while reading Chuck’s ledger t item 23 : #23, Belvedere (Bellvue)”:12/19/50...lobby the same, no House Dick now, see p. 114-116...nothing on room 635... see p.58, check SP baggage-check...who’s in it, Luke, Wilmer, SS and the pudgy man and thin legged blond girl.
Pushing his way west on Geary he paid little attention to the Pinecrest Restaurant on the corner of Mason where Sam dined twice when it was the Marquand, or to the former Geary Theater now the A.C.T. a few doors up Geary. He wanted to see the Clift, the other possible site for Caspar Guttman’s elusive 12-C suite, then track down Joel Cairo’s more elusive “Hotel Belvedere.”
Stopping at the corner of Taylor and Geary, a small island that the city walkers simply eddied around without notice, he pulled out the recorder:
“Southeast corner Geary & Taylor... a real strong sense standing at this one corner looking up Geary, still some trace of Sam Spade’s country is anchored here, on this street... it feels more like San Francisco here for some reason than any place I’ve been... but what did
did Chuck see, what made him go through this...if he was here, looking now back at the Clift, guessing it was Guttman’s hotel, what did he think, what did he want to find here...hell, maybe it’s not even the right hotel, maybe it’s the Drake, or some place else...
“walking now back down the hill and into the Clift… ask the doorman where the Bellvue is or used to be, and he nodded across the street., there, across Taylor...