Chasing Sam Spade

by Brian Lawson

  “Don’t worry,” he snapped, feeling the sweat running down his sides under the shirt and his hands grow slippery on the leather chair back.

  “Good. As I understand you, Dashiell Hammett investigated this unfortunate incident from 1927, and unable to prove anything he most cleverly hid a series of clues to the crime in his novel?”

  “And the criminals.”

  “Of course, the criminals as well. Now the link to my father is that he was in the District Attorney’s office at the time and was quoted in this,” Skelley said, pushing the newspaper story copy across the desk with the tips of his fingers.

  “So far you’ve got it right.”

  “And from that you conclude my father, a man of impeccable reputation was somehow involved in, what, a cover-up of the crime? And all this is supposedly buried deep in the intricacies of this mystery novel?”

  “Right again.”

  “Sir, you have no crime, no motive, not one scintilla of evidence, yet you are prepared to defame my father,” he said, resting his hands flat on the desk top in front of him as though he were about to do some strange chair-bound pushup. “I can’t imagine why you’re doing this, why you would care. So, I don’t know whether to laugh or simply throw you out of my office. No, I do. You, sir, are deranged. This interview is over. Get out.”

  Danny walked back to the door and turned, facing the man. “You know, I don’t need proof to make this stick. You know how things are these days. Gossip is king. One story in the local paper and you’re going to be ass deep in reporters and TV cameras. And you’re going to have to answer some real tough questions. Why not just talk to me now?”

  Skelley again waved his limp wristed dismissive wave. “Don’t be silly. Nobody would publish garbage like that. Please go away.”

  “Maybe not. But you’re being a lawyer when you should be thinking like the housewife standing in the supermarket checkout line. This’ll play in the tabloids.”

  “Who cares about that drivel, nobody believes those things.”

  “Yeah, but they read them. Think about it. The grand old man of one of San Francisco’s oldest and most illustrious families got his start covering up rape, kidnapping and drugs. What’d you say, your family’s been circumspect? Yeah, well that’s over. You’re going to be news and you’re not going to like it. And all because your old man wanted to do somebody a favor, bury this one little case. Not for money, nothing so sordid as that. A good old boy favor, a big favor.”

  “Your logic eludes me. You insist on leaping from this preposterous set of assumptions to an even more ludicrous conclusion. This is so odd I think maybe I should call somebody. You need help.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, how does a shanty Mick from Protrero Hill end up quitting the DA’s office, go into private practice during the Depression no less, and end up counsel for the Democratic Party, plus representing some very, very important people? He’s a nobody, what you call a minion, and all of a sudden he’s a mover and a shaker. Doesn’t that strike you as just a little odd?”

  “What strikes me is your arrogance. That you would come into my office and impugn the integrity, no, slander the good name of my father and our family. This is the last time I’m going to say this,” he said, reaching very deliberately for the phone. “Get out. Now, or I call the police.”

  “I’m going.” Danny opened the door into the darkened outer office but stood in the doorway, sweating onto the brass doorknob. “You know I never answered your question. You know, why do I care? I care because of what happened to Chuck Boyle. I care because I want forty years back.”

  “Who’s Chuck Boyle?”

  “My father. The guy who found Hammett’s notes, who tried to track all this down in 1958. And you people did something to him for it. I want to know everything, then we’ll figure out what those forty years are worth.”

  “Or?”

  “Or I write the story as I know it, maybe filling in a few gaps, expanding a bit on a theme here and there,” and he could feel the air growing stale in his chest, pounding in his temples. This was it, make it stick. “But that’s not it. Not all of it.”

  “Oh dear God, this may never end,” Skelley said. “Then tell me, please, and leave.”

  “My dad’s dead. His neck’s broken.”

  “That is not my concern.”

  “And four of his friends from those days, the guys who were in on all this are dead. All of them in the last couple of months. Accidents, strange accidents all of them.”

  Skelley seemed frozen in the moment, ice pick blue eyes glittering behind those lenses. His voice was back to the very calm, cool place he started the conversation from.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying somebody wants this, what’d you call it, this preposterous set of assumptions, kept quiet. Yeah, that’s it. This assumption is enough to get five old men killed. Why now, I don’t know. But there’s a reason and I’m betting you know what it is.”

  There, out there. Now run with that you sonofabitch. Say something now. But Skelley sat and looked at him, holding him with that brittle gaze. “Be warned, absent fact and truth, you are moving toward libel. This meeting alone demonstrates malice and you have no defense in truth. You are skirting dangerously close to blackmail as well as libel.”

  “Legal bullshit. I don’t have to go to court, I don’t have to prove anything. Maybe I won’t even go to the tabloids. Maybe I only have to get it on the Internet and get the local papers to notice it. That’s all it’ll take. After that, let’s see what happens,” he said, back to the door now, hand on the cold brass, turning it, heading out.

  “Mister Boyle, I don’t want to ever see you again. If I do see you again, or hear from you again, well, let’s just say you should seriously consider other options because I certainly will,” Skelley said, thin smile back on his face, then turned away, the large black back of the leather chair a wall to him and the rest of the office.

  So Danny left. He had tried to bluff, hoped like some cheap gumshoe the bad guy would cave in when faced with truth and the implacable will of the good guy. He tried and Skelley didn’t bluff, didn’t budge and he managed to tell Skelley more than he told him in the bargain. All and all, a third rate effort.

  * * *

  Danny Boyle sloshed his drink, watching the brown swirl. He lifted the glass and drained the last of the Glenlivet, the warmth spreading down through him. He must have looked pleased; the bartender leaned on the bar and smiled at him.

  “There’s a man who likes his single malt. Again?” He was cheerful in the anonymous way of bartenders the world over. Danny nodded, yeah, again; he watched the bartender gather in the glass with one hand and replace it with another in one smooth rolling motion, drop in the ice cube, dip the bottle and measure out a healthy shot; you had to admire a pro, no matter what they were pouring. Danny pulled a five out of the spread of bills on the bar and slid it over.

  “Keep it,” he said. The bartender gave him another weary smile, tapped a red knuckled tap on the bar top and strolled down the length of the bar, making slow swirls with the bar towel on the greasy surface before stopping to continue his conversation with the two guys at the far end of the bar.

  He liked neighborhood bars, cool dark drinking bars where regulars carried on conversations in reasonable tones, where the TV was no more than a gentle background noise and moving color in the bar back mirror. He looked at his watch, hoping John would show up before he could finish his third single malt since leaving Skelley’s office. He cupped the glass in both hands, savoring the cool touch of the glass as much as the drink itself, staring at his reflection blurred by the fading silvering of the barback mirror.

  “You look like you got your fanny whipped,” the familiar voice growled in his ear as John slid onto the neighboring stool. “You buying?”

  “Sure, call it,” he said, smiling at John’s reflection in the mirror and feeling a little thick around the mouth.

  “All righty, then,” he said, no
dding at the bartender who was already flowing back down the bar. “Son, a beer and a double shot.”

  One raised eyebrow, one quick smile, and again the slow motion dance that wiped the bar, tapped a beer and poured a shot without a wasted motion. He slid then in front of John who wiped his hands on his trousers, then ran his left hand quickly across his lips and reached for the beer.

  “Careful pop, don’t waste it,” the bartender said, giving Danny a quick, conspiratorial wink. Danny shoved another bill at the man who walked it over to the register, rang it up and slid some paper and coins back before moving back to the waiting conversation.

  John took a deep swig of beer, sighed and threw back half the shot so fast Danny was afraid he’d choke, then took another, slower sip of beer. The thin, sour smell of the draft carried to Danny, mixing with the house pour whiskey and the bar smell of bleach and booze and stale smoke; he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, smiling for the first time in the past hour.

  “John, I got my ass kicked,” he said.

  “Looks it. How many am I behind?”

  He lifted the glass, smiled and tossed back the rest of the shot, gasping as the scotch hit the back of his throat. He cleared his throat, waiting for the warmth to spread. “You’re two behind but gaining ground.”

  “All righty, then, what happened?” he asked.

  “Well, he didn’t buy the story about writing a book. In fact, he told me to my face, gave me what I guess you’d call a stern talking to, then kicked me out of his office,” he said, then downed the rest of the scotch. “Arrogant little shit can’t be all of five five or something. But he just kicked my ass, no question. I even made the link between Chuck and the murders and the Hammett thing, but he just laughed at me”

  “I don’t know. So what’s his game, why bother, though? Why bother seeing you? Then, why bother chewing your ass. It’d be easier to just ignore the whole thing, don’t talk, nothing,” he said.

  He shook his head. He didn’t know. “I don’t get it. It’s like he’s nuts somewhere, deep inside where it don’t show often, just enough. Just when it’s something like this,” and the words were starting to slow down, growing thick in his mouth.”

  “Or maybe it’s just what you said a minute ago.”

  “Said what?”

  “Arrogant. Maybe he’s been sitting in the catbird seat so long he thinks he can say anything, do anything. If he’s anything like his father, maybe that’s why. He isn’t crazy, he just doesn’t care and doesn’t think anything you do matters.”

  Danny shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. Still and all, it just doesn’t make any sense, you see, none at all. I can see him not wanting me messing around in his family stuff, but killing people over it? That just doesn’t fit and he knows it. Maybe I’m off base on this thing. Maybe it’s all coincidence after all.”

  “So why’d you say it, then?”

  He shrugged, swirling the thin brown booze in the glass. “I just got pissed off. He just kept smiling and talking. Like it was a joke or something. I’m telling him his father’s a crook, that he ruined people’s lives of some bullshit thing in a novel. Who the fuck goes around killing people over something nobody can prove happened, what, seventy years ago? Christ all mighty, that’s just nuts. And I’m nuts for even thinking it.”

  John turned on his stool, staring at Danny until Danny was forced to stare back and the old man said, “Okay, maybe you’re nuts. Maybe not, but what now?”

  “You tell me,” he said, but before Larkin could answer, Danny suddenly felt the craziness of the day breaking free and he grinned at the old man.

  “You know, Johnny, methinks he doth protest too much,” he said, suddenly giggling and trying to hold it in. “Boy, that’s tough to say after a couple of drinks, methinks he doth protest that his shit don’t stink, and methinks it doth.”

  He could feel laughter starting to build and he knew he was grinning from ear to ear with the coming explosion. John shook his head and grabbed his upper arm in a tight, strong grip; Danny winced and tried to pull away. “Ouch, that hurts, knock it off.”

  “Just stay with me a minute, sonny. Listen to what you’re saying. Some rich lawyer, old enough to be smarter than that, gives you an interview for no reason, gets the lay of the land, worms out of you what you’re after, then threatens you,” he snarled, face close to Danny until they were breathing each other’s breath of beer and whiskey and scotch mingled in their small, closely held cloud. “Listen to yourself. The bugger’s hiding something, all righty, but you gave away the farm to find that out. Now he knows who you are and what you’re really after. You better get smarter than that.”

  Danny shook his head, no. Then he stopped and shrugged, yeah, maybe. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. No, let’s be honest in our cups. In vino veritas, right? I fucked up. What’d you say, I gave away the farm? Yeah, all of that. But there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  “Well, buy me another drink and we’ll see if we can figure out a way to get the rest of this thing sorted out,” John said, easing his grip and sitting back on his stool. He waved the bartender over. “Hit me again son. And this time? No wisecracks, huh?”

  John said, “All righty, this is what we do. After you called and said to meet you here, I went up to see Dugan again. Said, who can we talk to about this guy, this Skelley, shake him up. He said, ‘Art Smith.” So I said, who’s Art Smith, he said, ‘oldest damn living newspaperman in town. Knows everybody, and everything.’ So that’s what we do next, we see this Smith guy down at the Bulletin.”

  “Why didn’t you say this from the get go? You just stringing me along to get drinks? You that kind of boy, or what?”

  “What, and spoil your fun? It does a man’s heart good to see somebody else crying in their beer. Makes you feel things ain’t so bad for you,” he said, chuckling. “And I didn’t know what we’d say to him. Now I do.”

  “What?”

  “Shush, son, keep it down. This is a respectable bar,” he said. “Well, now we ask him what the hell’s up with Skelley. What’s he hiding?”

  “Who said he’s hiding anything?”

  “Nobody, but if we say it to a newspaper man, it should give him a boner like you can’t believe.”

  “That still an issue at your age? Boners?”

  “Son, it’s always an issue just not always a fact,” he said. “Now listen. One more drink, then we get you home and some sleep. Tomorrow we go down and see this Art what’s his name and see if we can smoke somebody out of the woodpile. All righty”

  “All righty. How about another drink? Bartender, I think my partner and me, or I, or whatever, needs another drink, por favor, thank you,” he said, feeling the room tilt quickly then right itself before he could even adjust himself on the stool. “Tomorrow and tomorrow, my friend, onward into the valley of death rode the two, or something like that.”

  CHAPTER NINE:

  A Newsman’s Thursday Lament

  The tall, bald man’s voice boomed at them, bouncing off the walls of the eight by ten room like some mad surround-sound system.

  By any definition, Art Smith was quite a character. Fully six and a half feet tall, rail thin and bald as a cue ball; he wore red suspenders over a navy shirt and yellow bow tie, all of it topping a pair of battered chinos and tire-tread sandals over heavy red wool socks. Plus, he kept tapping at a pair of old fashioned behind-the-ear hearing aides that appeared to be held together with scotch tape. Smith didn’t talk, he declaimed; he didn’t speak, he yelled, all the while tilted so far back in the chair Danny thought he’d go sandaled feet over bald dome any second. He leaned back, looking at the ceiling, then swiveled his eyes down to look at Danny over the top of reading half-glasses, then back at the ceiling all the time bellowing questions and answers at his wincing audience.

  Crammed along with Art into a windowless basement room that was not much larger than a closet was furniture Danny guessed were remnants of some long past Bulletin city room house cleaning: a
battered oak desk and chair that produced a bone aching screech every time Smith rocked forward, a battered folding chair, a Royal manual typewriter on a separate typewriter stand and more books than Danny had seen at the Main Library. The office looked more like a library store room with books heaped, piled, stacked and wedged into every nook, cranny and corner, books piled five layers high atop book cases that literally bulged with books: shelves sagged, floor creaked.

  “Stay away from John Skelley. This isn’t your town and you don’t know what you’re talking about. You got no business coming here and messing around with him and his family,” he yelled. Danny had given Smith a sanitized version of his search when they first arrived while showing him the 1927 news clip, plus gave him a detailed account of the meeting with Skelley the evening before and his theory that somehow Skelley was linked to the recent deaths. Now only a few minutes into the meeting, the old newspaperman seemed unswayed by the story, or by either Danny or John.

  “What do you mean?” Danny said, mouthing the words more than speaking and shrugging, arms up in the universal what did I do posture that he wasn’t sure he felt.

  Facing Smith’s long and loud protests, Danny was beginning to wonder if his instincts were right, if the tenuous route he had taken to Skelley, and the even more tenuous connection between Skelley and Chuck’s hidden crime, that had made sense drinking with John Wednesday night, wasn’t as far fetched as Smith seemed to think. The logic had held up most morning as he sat around nursing a hangover and waiting for a callback from Smith to set the appointment that finally came for 11:30. It was as good a way to spend a dreary morning that dawned wetly and was punctuated with fitful rain squalls; he wouldn’t have wanted to spend a wet Thursday slogging around the dark, gloomy Tenderloin, dancing around oil slicked puddles and avoiding making eye contact with damp street people. Instead he had admittedly brooded, watched TV, read and surfed the net; by the time he had showered, shaved and headed down to the lobby to meet Larkin he felt on edge; on top of the frustration of not having anything solid to go on except the Skelley lead, he was worried about finances. He’d planned for three, maybe four days, as a tourist; he’d expected to be back in Seattle by yesterday and now it was Thursday and he was on some open-ended wild goose chase that threatened to wear out his bank book even faster than his endurance.