Chasing Sam Spade

by Brian Lawson

  Now he was as far away from the Tenderloin as he could imagine, snug in what he guessed was one small section of an older Victorian three story Mission District home cut up into subsistence apartments. Off to the right was a kitchen alcove that was little more than a sink and two-burner cooktop and half refrigerator wedged into what must have originally been a closet. A hide-a-bed probably lived in the drab dark green sofa fronted by a Crate and Barrel knockoff seaman’s chest sitting on small casters and probably doing double duty as a coffee table and bedding storage. Both sat on a knobby white cotton throw run. A small round table draped with a wonderful silk scarf riotous with flowers and butterflies, along with two straight back cane seated chairs, was wedged into the space between the couch and one tall slumping window. The only other furniture was an incongruous, beautifully maintained, red velvet Queen Anne ottoman that he guessed served as an occasional chair and a tall brass apothecary lamp next to the couch.

  The western bay window caught the last of the late afternoon sun and the room was full of filtered light, gone golden in the afternoon through the split bamboo roll shade that covered the top half.

  “Well, sit on down and let me get you something warm to drink. You look like somebody who needs a friend and a soft place to land if I ever did see one,” she said, smiling.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said, forcing a smile.

  “Mister Boyle, you look about stove in. Or should I just call you Professor Boyle?” but her voice was full of soft mischief that Danny couldn’t miss.

  “Please call me Danny,” he said, smiling back, realizing suddenly he had been standing, appraising the small apartment the way an animal probably sniffed out a strange cave.

  “Well, Danny, or whatever, y’all sit down before you fall down,” she said, steering him toward the couch and heading toward the kitchenette. “I’ll make some coffee and y’all can tell me what kind of trouble you got yourself into. What would you like in it?”

  “Bourbon.”

  She turned from fussing at the small sink and smiled. “Son, you’ve come to the right place. No good Southern hostess would think of keeping a larder that didn’t have a bottle of something t’other. So, what happened to you?”

  “What part of the South are you from?” Suddenly he wanted to stay away from the lie he’d told her on the phone of the anonymous stranger. Easing into the surprisingly comfortable couch, his stiffening joints slowly relaxed with subtle twinges and creaks. The pain in his side had settled into a steady, dull throbbing and his head ached. The aspirins were wearing off and the whole body ached and the flu-like feeling was taking hold more strongly.

  “Well, my Daddy’s folks were from outside Wheeling. West Virginia? But Mama’s folks come from some no-name flyspeck down in South Carolina. I spent most of my time just moving around with them, following Daddy’s work and generally trying to stay out of the way. Seems like a lot of years doing that, before I came West on my own.”

  “You talk like a world traveler, Doris. You’re about the same age as my students,” he said.

  She turned and stared at him, mug in her hand. The gentle smile was gone and in its place, the same flash of cool appraisal he’d come to recognize. Finally she smiled, “I suspect I am just about old enough to recognize a man who needs a friend. Of just about any age.”

  “Doris, sorry, didn’t mean to pry. I’m so used to talking to students I forget age means different things in different contexts.”

  “If by that y’all mean that a 27 year old waitress is not quite the same bit of country as a college girl student sitting in back of your classroom and chewing bubble gum, you’ve got that just about right.”

  He nodded, wearily, and he could feel the warm, quiet room catching up with him. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “So, what happened to y’all?” She turned and busied herself with the coffee, reaching behind a box of Sugar Puffs to snag an amber bottle. “Now don’t be thinking up a lie or nothing, just tell your story and let me figure out what’s true.”

  He nodded, then realized she couldn’t see the nod with her back turned. It seemed almost too great an effort to raise his voice. “Yeah. I guess I should have thought about that. I said I was working on a book? Well, some of it takes place around there and I wanted to get right into the feel of the place.”

  “You certainly did that.”

  “I guess so. I was just walking up Larkin, minding my own business, and this guy jumped me. Knocked me down, grabbed a bag I was carrying, and ran. But not before giving me a few kicks, just for fun I guess”

  He stopped, and she turned and looked at him, face open, waiting, a coffee mug in her hand. Suddenly the lie of it felt heavier than he could carry in that warm, safe apartment under that friendly, hopeful gaze. “Hell, Doris, that’s not it, not by half.”

  “Oh? You sort of shading the truth a bit there, professor Boyle?” she said, smiling. It was enough. He hadn’t planned to tell her any more than he needed to get her on his side; the street mugging story would have been enough, some other time, but not now. The words started coming out, tumbling over themselves, everything he could think of from the moment he got the phone call, talking to Ben and his mother, seeing Lt. Guthrie, hiking the city looking for ghosts. It came out in one long, almost breathless disgorging. When he finally stopped she was still standing at the kitchenette counter, arms crossed, leaning against the sink, listening.

  “And that’s how I ended up here. In San Francisco I mean.”

  “Boy, that’s some story. That really happened, with the old man, that bum and everything up there? Maybe it was a sign to get you down here.”

  “Yeah, it happened but I don’t know if it was a sign or not.”

  “But you do believe your Daddy was murdered?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Not really, I guess, or not until today.”

  “Getting beaten kind up cleared up your thinking?”

  “It certainly focused it. Hard to imagine that happening, that way, unless there’s something going on.”

  “Well, I would have to say that’s on the mark, alright. This is really weird. Maybe you should write a book.”

  He shrugged, maybe yes, maybe no. “I don’t know, something anyway.”

  “Well, I’d read it, sure enough.”

  “Maybe you’ll be in it.”

  “Don’t know about that, but let’s let sleeping dogs lie for the time being,” she said. “So, here you are, in the big, bad city, looking for your Daddy.”

  He stopped and looked at her. She wasn’t smiling, there was no hint of sarcasm in her voice. “Why’d you say that?”

  “Well, just the way it seems to me. Don’t take no offense.”

  “None taken. I’m just curious what you meant, that’s all.”

  “Well, it just seems, you know, like you miss your daddy, been missing him since you were a little boy and now he’s gone. This is your way of doing something for him. Or maybe with him in a funny sort of way.”

  He shrugged. It shouldn’t be news; it felt like something he had heard before.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, don’t fret about it. I just shoot off my mouth and say what feels right and sometimes I put my foot in it.”

  “You could be right, you know? I’m not all that clear about it myself.”

  “Well then, whatever you’re doing you think this, what’s his name, Skelley, had something to do with you getting mugged?”

  He nodded, yeah, he did. “I don’t know for sure. I’d never be able to prove it.”

  “You’re really on a bit of a midnight coon hunt without a dog, aren’t you?”

  “I think so, if I understand the metaphor.”

  “Don’t know about metaphors, but I do know when somebody is working against the odds,” she laughed. “We are a pair. It’s like we’re talking two different languages all together. Let’s try just simple English. Tell me the truth here, why did you call me up to come over?”

&nb
sp; “I liked you. I didn’t know where else to go,” he said, shrugging.

  “Well, that’s simple enough. You’re an honest man, Danny Boyle, and that’s enough for right now,” she nodded and smiled. “Well, just look at what I’ve done, I let the coffee get cold. I’ll just heat it up and you tell me how you eluded those bad boys and ended up on my front porch.”

  She turned and made soft kitchen noises and he told her:

  “After Larkin left, I pulled out a map I’d picked up somewhere, a new one, not Chuck’s map. That and the phone book and finally I found what I needed. I stuffed the damp pants and shirt into a plastic laundry bag and squashed it into the overnight bag along with my clean clothing, then carefully packed the laptop and what I’d to come think of the as “Chuck file” stuffed with the book, ledger, map and notes into the other side of the bad.

  “I left the key in the room; it was paid through Friday. Nobody would care what I did, or where I was, until then. I cut through the lobby quickly, hoping the deskman wouldn’t notice the bag, and was out on the street and into a passing cab in under a minute….

  “I told him to take me to the Hilton, down O’Farrell, then let me out on the Mason side,” he said, and he could still see the look on the cabbie’s thin, middle eastern face starring at him for a moment in the rear view mirror, rheumy eyes wet and curious, then he had shrugged at the directions, or maybe just the idea of somebody taking a seven block cab ride, and lumbered out into afternoon traffic.

  “Why in the world?”

  “Looking at the map, with O’Farrell heading downtown one-way, and traffic and one-way streets all around the Hilton, anybody following would have had to circle the entire block in the heavy stop and go traffic and get trapped on the one-way streets,” he said. “I didn’t think anybody could follow by car. Maybe on foot through the lobby, but I hung around just inside the double glass doors for a moment, watching for anybody who looked as out of place and when it felt safe, I cut across O’Farrell and into the Budget Car Rental. Fifteen minutes later I was wheeling out of the garage and on my way here.”

  “You are a pretty clever fella. But did you really think somebody was following you?”

  “Oh hell, Doris, I don’t know. I’m getting paranoid behind all this stuff. It just seemed prudent.”

  She turned and came to the sofa carrying two steaming mugs that gave of the delicious combined smell of fresh hot coffee and whiskey. She pushed aside the stacks of magazines and butterflied books strewn across the top of the chest and set the mugs down carefully before gracefully folding down onto the ottoman facing him and tucking her legs under her.

  “What’d he get, this guy who may have just been working for your mister Skelley?”

  “Tape recorder, some odds and ends. Nothing much.”

  “And you got what?”

  “Feels like a broken rib, some bruises and this cut,” he said, gently fingering the paper tape plastered on his eyebrow, “I guess I could have been worse.” Shrugging and leaning forward to reach the mug, he must have looked like he was struggling because she leaned forward and reached the mug to him.

  “My, my. You thinking of calling the police?” she said, her voice oddly flat and neutral.

  He shrugged and shook his head. He’d thought about calling Lt. Guthrie. “What for? They didn’t care about Chuck’s letter. They’re just going to think I was some crazy tourist walking in the Tenderloin and got mugged. No description, really, just wham, bam and he’s got my stuff and I’m on my ass. I’d probably get a lecture about being in places I have just no business in.”

  “Well, they don’t do much of anything, that’s a fact, and I can’t think they’ll say anything except what you just said. So what you going to do now?”

  He nodded, and took a sip of the scalding hot coffee. The warmth seemed to carry the whiskey straight through him, as though he were drinking it in through his pores and he felt suddenly very relaxed and safe in the small, sunlight Mission District room.

  “Well, I have a couple more days work then I guess I’ll head back to Seattle,” and he smiled at her. “It’s just I couldn’t face sitting in that room tonight licking my wounds, you know.”

  She nodded and again that quick, cool look of appraisal flashed in her eyes before the lit up with the gentle humor. “Well, if you wanted, you can stay to supper.”

  “I don’t want to impose.”

  “You ain’t. You’re just a nice guy who looks a bit like a drowned dog. You need some sleep and some good, simple home cooking to fix you up just fine. You just kick off your shoes and take a nap on ol’ green there. Don’t you mind, I’ve got some reading to do and if you want to doze off, just go right ahead.”

  “Old green?” he said, taking a long swallow of the bourbon spiked coffee. It was an odd blending of flavors, but warming and he could feel the small bruised places relaxing.

  She was saying, “I call my stuff by names. It makes me feel like this a bit more than just a little bit of a studio apartment. This big old green couch, I call it Ol’ Green. This ottoman, I call it Queenie because it’s from a Queen Anne parlor set I just fell in love with. I couldn’t afford the chair, but I spent every dime I had saved to get this ottoman. Queenie. And such like.”

  “Do you always open the door to strangers?”

  “Only the ones I know,” she said, smiling broadly now. “And they got to be college professors, or I just don’t even talk to ‘em. And, by the way, you mind cats?”

  “Not at all,” he said, feeling his eyes slowly closing.

  “That’s good.”

  * * *

  It was dark when he finally woke up and tried to sit up, too quickly, only to be knocked back by the shooting pain in his ribs. He let out a grunt, gasping for air, and the light switched on, dazzling.

  “Ya’ll okay there, Professor?” she said from the shadows beside the lamp.

  “Fine, just fine. Just Danny, please,” he grunted, pushing himself against the yielding pillow until he managed to ratchet himself upright. The pain subsided to a dull, thudding ache under his arm. “I must have dozed off. What time is it?”

  “Well, just Danny, I would say so, it’s a quarter to nine,” she said, leaning forward into the pool of light, smiling at him. “Slept right through dinner and the chores, as my Daddy would say. You hungry?”

  He realized he was hungry. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I lost most of that. Sorry.”

  She waved his apology away and got up, going into the kitchen. The light was a bright explosion and he winced.

  “You have any aspirins?”

  “Over there, in the end table there beside you?”

  He fumbled in the drawer, pawing through an accumulation of match books, nail files and various shapes and shade of nail polish bits and pieces of paper that people shove into drawers meaning to do something with, some time, and forget. He found a small bottle of Bayer and dry swallowed three.

  “Don’t you need water or something,” she said, walking in carrying a small bright glass. He chased the aspirin with the water and waited for something to cut the throbbing counterpoint between his head and ribs. She was back in the kitchenette making cooking noises, moving around effortlessly in a space smaller than most hall closets, pans materializing out of nowhere, eggs and lettuce and various bottles and boxes showing up as if by magic. It sounded domestic, secure.

  “I don’t usually fall asleep on the first date,” he said, smiling into the kitchenette light.

  She turned, a backlit silhouette in lumpy sweats and a fine nimbus of flyaway hair at the temples like lace against the light. “Well, you don’t usually get yourself torn up in a street fight neither, so it’s quite a day for you,” she said over her shoulder, heading back to the kitchenette. “You like eggs, scrambled? Little salad on the side?”

  “Sounds great.” It didn’t. What sounded best was a Big Mac, a couple orders of fries and a beer. The aspirins were kicking in; the sick, whole body sick feeling that had s
ettled in after the beating had stopped with the sleep and now the hunger was starting to ache more than his ribs.

  “Well that’s sweet of you to say, but I ‘spect you’d like a slab of steak and a brew, but this is what I’ve got, so this is what you get,” shadow Doris said.

  “No, really, it sounds great. I can run out and get some wine,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t take him up on the offer and send him into the strange night neighborhood.

  She chuckled and kept working over the small two-burner cooktop beating eggs into a small, cobalt blue bowl, then pouring them into a sizzling pan. While the eggs cooked she ran lettuce under the faucet, tore it into down home chunks and began thin slicing a tomato onto the plates. She said, “I don’t see you doing any running for a while. Besides, we’re a few blocks from the nearest bottle of wine and a couple hours past when it’s safe to be out looking for it. Y’all just sit there and relax, supper’s almost ready. And if you’re nice, I’ll let you have a glass of milk.”

  No, that would be fine, just fine. He eased back against the couch cushions, watching her busy kitchen work, listening to the muted sounds of the city street and the kitchen sounds. It was comfortable, warm and safe, and his stomach rumbled as the first smells of butter and eggs in the pan, the cool, green smell of the wet lettuce drifted into the front room.

  * * *

  The clock was the only light in the room; it said 3:18.

  He untangled himself from the steady weight of Doris’s arm. She made a soft, sleeping sound and rolled away, the sofa sleeper springs making a quick, thin wire stretching noise before settling. He reached over and found her hip in the dark, running his hand up to her back, gently fitting the soft down comforter around her bare cool shoulders; she snuggled down into the warmth with a mewling sound and began snoring softly.

  Now that the gas wall heater was turned off and the day’s stored head was leaking out through the cracks and joints in the converted Victorian walls, under the door and through the paper thin single pane windows, he could feel the famous San Francisco dampness gathering on his shoulders and neck.