Chasing Sam Spade

by Brian Lawson

  Patrick was wedged against the opposite door, head back, a thin trail of silvery spit running out of the corner of his mouth. For a moment Danny felt his skin tighten on the back of his neck, then Patrick opened his puffy, bloodshot eyes.

  “No, I won’t, you can’t make me,” he croaked.

  Danny felt the anger like a flash of heat run over him, then it was gone. “Come on Skelley, get out. You stink.”

  “Why? What are you going to do?” Danny suddenly realized that in the gnawing fear that he might still be shot Patrick was about to go into some new level of panic, curled into a ball knees up to his chest, whimpering and blubbering oily tears. He also realized that if the old man knew Danny had lost the endgame, Patrick didn’t have anything close to the same insight; he was scared beyond all reason, trapped in pants crapping, drooling fear.

  “Don’t hurt me.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you, yet, ” he said. “I’m going to untie you. Now, listen to me, shut up and stop blubbering, will you? You’re making me crazy. Okay, I’m going to untie you on one condition.”

  “What, anything, please, anything,” he blubbered, pushing himself away from the other side of the door, leaning toward Danny.

  Danny grabbed him under one arm, dragging him, Patrick’s feet churning, working, pushing him until they staggered back. Patrick landed on his knees, his numbed legs giving out on him, oblivious now to the tear in the Armani knee. Trying to jerk himself upright, he fell again, then managed to get to his feet, turning, pushing his duct taped hands back toward Danny.

  “Please, please,” he mumbled. “Anything. I’ll do anything. Please.”

  Danny grabbed him and spun him around. He stepped back, feeling the man’s need and fear like a palpable thing around him. “Okay, here’s the deal. First, you tell me everything you know.”

  “I don’t know anything,” he whimpered and started to cry, tears welling up and running down his suet cheeks. “I don’t, honest. Please.”

  “Bullshit. You keep lying to me and it’s over. Do you understand what I’m saying?” and he waited while the man nodded, sure, yes, anything. “Okay, you tell me what you know, everything.

  “Then, if I think you’ve told me the truth, we call your old man one last time,” he said, trying to sound ominous. He put his hand back in his coat pocket, miming the gun that had forced Patrick into the car hour’s earlier, hoping the fear still held the man on the far side of reason. It did; Patrick flinched and took first one, then another step back.

  “Oh, no, please, I....”

  “Shut up,” he snapped. “You’ll call and say exactly what I tell you. Or, we end it right here, right now.”

  Danny felt the words floating in the air, waiting. He felt a smile building somewhere deep inside and he held himself, waiting.

  “Sure, anything. What do I say?” he said, nodding, head bobbing frantically on his thick, wet neck. “Just untie me. You aren’t going to hurt me, are you, please?”

  “First, you call, and then....” and he pulled out the cell phone, hit redial, and listened to it ring.

  “What do I say?”

  “Tell him what’s going on. But make it convincing. ” He said, pushing the phone against the man’s face while he slipped his free hand back into his jacket pocket. “Just talk to him. Remember I can still lock you in the trunk and walk away. You might not die, but....”

  He felt the greasy stubble of the man’s jowl scrape against his hand and he nodded, yes, anything, please, and up close he smelled the stink of him. Finally the old man must have answered because Patrick started blubbering.

  “Oh Jesus, please help me...no, oh God no, he’s going to kill me, please sir, do what he wants...oh no, sir, don’t, he’ll kill me, he will, honest to God, please, Dad...no, you aren’t listening, he will...fuck no, no, no, you don’t understand, no... I’ll tell him, everything, I swear to fucking Christ I’ll tell him...no, don’t say that, no, please....”

  He was pressing into the phone, trying to will his father to feel the terror that was crawling through him. Danny could almost feel the other man’s cold, thin voice like ice water in his hand; it must have sounded like the brittle hinges of hell squeaking closed because Patrick suddenly sagged and dropped heavily onto his ass, sobbing hysterically, rocking from side to side, tears streaming down his face. Danny put the phone to his ear but the old man had hung up.

  “What did he say? Patrick, stop crying, what did he say?” he yelled, squatting down beside the man, grabbing him by the shoulder, shaking him, trying to shut him up, bring him back from the terrible place his father must have consigned him. “What’re you going to tell me, Patrick? What’s everything? Come on man, talk to me, talk.”

  Head down, he rocked back and forth like a child, sobbing. Then a black stain spread out between his legs, soaking into the dirty gray concrete like blood. The harsh, ammonia stink hit Danny and he jumped up.

  “Oh Christ, man, get up,” he snarled. Suddenly the price he was exacting on that pitiful, weak, scared man was too much for Danny. He walked a few more feet away, watching the abject man blubbering like a child, sitting in his own urine and filth, broken in a few moments by a father stronger than both of them, harder than Patrick could ever be. He stepped further away, turning and squeezing his eyes shut, blocking it out. He turned at a heavy, wet thud; Patrick had fallen over on his side, head tucked in and curled up in a fetal position in his urine, retching, thinly.

  “Oh Christ.” He walked over and leaned down, hooking him under his arm, tugging the unresisting mass upright. Patrick’s eyes were squeezed shut into tight, hard lines, shutting him away from it all. Danny got behind him and began stripping off the tape, ripping at it, unwrapping the several layers; Patrick didn’t respond as the tape ripped the hair off his wrists or even move. Danny stood up, dropping the cold, sticky tape like some flayed skin by his feet. He waited, but Patrick didn’t move, didn’t move his arms, hands still clasped tightly behind him.

  “Get up, man, it’s over,” he said, turning and walking towards the car. He’d be okay, somebody would find him, he’d get over it and walk down the ramp and the attendant would call a cop, an ambulance. He wasn’t hurt, he’d be okay. Danny didn’t want to be around either when the shame and anger came together to overcome the fear. He didn’t know what the old man had said to him, but he guessed the old man wouldn’t want to be around when Patrick climbed out of the pit old man’s Skelley’s pride had pushed Patrick into. Danny opened the door and slid in behind the wheel.

  The scream was a nightmare sound. A sound torn out of a man’s guts and pain. It made Danny jerk with its power, it animal rage and the skin crawled on his arms and neck. He swiveled around, fumbling with the key, trying to start the motor, expecting to see Patrick up and charging at him, suddenly afraid. Instead, Patrick was standing there, hands at his side now, head tilted back, screaming at the gray fog sky, one ripping, tearing sound after another.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry, man, I’m sorry,” he mumbled and wheeled the car around in a wide circle away from Patrick, heading for the ramp. Then Patrick started moving, arms hanging loosely at his side, lumbering forward, stumbling toward the car. Danny swerved away and around him, tires squealing on the concrete; he could see him in the mirror, like some heavy, half dead animal on its last charge, arms flopping at his side, head bobbing as he ran, now faster, coming after him, chasing him, screaming words now that Danny couldn’t make out, that he was ashamed to hear. He rolled up the window and accelerated, sliding down the ramp and around the first hard left corkscrew turn down, turning sharply on the fifth floor; glancing in the mirror he felt the car slide sideways and the wheel jerk in his hand, then he slammed into the wall in a tearing shriek of metal. Stunned for a moment, he sat in the car, the motor popping, as Patrick rounded the ramp down and slammed into the car. He began pounding on the window, spraying spittle onto he glass, screaming for him to open the door. Danny waved him back and when Patrick took two, then another two steps
, he opened the door and stood up.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said, looking at the crumpled right front fender. “Son of a bitch.”

  Patrick was bowed over, hands on his knees, gasping for air.

  Danny realized he was embarrassed for the man. He had seen into him, seen something so raw and hurt he felt ashamed for both of them. He said, “Hey, man, look I’m sorry about all this. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I’ll do something, pay for the tux, I don’t know, something. I just didn’t know what else to do.”

  Without lifting his head he waved the apology away. He grunted, “It doesn’t matter. You don’t matter. I don’t matter. The fucking Armani doesn’t matter. Just him. I gotta get him. I gotta make him pay.”

  “What?” He expected Patrick to charge the car and having to fight for his life against the man’s rage and shame. Instead, somehow the fire within the man was turned away from Danny and now shone in full heat and fury on his father. “What the hell are you talking about? He didn’t do anything.”

  He was nodding his head, mumbling ohyeahohyeahohyeah toward his feet until Danny had to bark, “Snap out of it man.”

  He managed to unbend, wiping at his face with one filthy silk shirt cuff and looking at Danny. He was a mess: covered with his own vomit, both knees out on his urine soaked pants, jacket ripped at the shoulder; the Armani was ruined, tie long gone and one elegant looking stud left on the shirt front. Worse was his face, a flaccid, gray thing with huge, bloodshot eyes like some trapped animal. Despite all of it, he seemed suddenly calm, as though the scream at the heavens had released something. Then he began to grin. Danny’s scalp tightened and he took a step back at the sight of that ravaged face suddenly grinning like he had just heard the best joke in the world.

  “Look, why don’t we just forget it, huh? I don’t get this. It’s between you and your dad, or something. Work it out. I am sorry, you know, I mean, putting you through this but....”

  “...drop it,” he cut in, waving it away and tugging at the hem of his jacket holding it out like some strange supplicant. “This shit doesn’t matter, nothing matters. You’re in it. You started it. I told you it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now. Just getting him. That’s all. All of it, him, always him.”

  “I don’t understand,” Danny said, feeling the words thick, heavy, like he couldn’t spit them out. “He called my bluff. I can’t do anything. I let you go, he wins. I lose.

  “No, no, you don’t get it, do you,” he said smiling, dropping his hem and holding up two plump, dirty palms in some call of spiritual alms that made Danny’s skin crawl. “We’re going to get him. I know enough. I’m going to make him pay. I help you and you help me get him.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t worry, I got the stuff. I’ll get your guy back and give you everything you wanted to know about your old man. And you figure out some way to get even with him. I’ll help but that’s the deal. You’re right you know, all along, just not right enough,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “That thing run?”

  Danny nodded, yeah, sure.

  “Okay, let’s go get a drink,” he said, brushing past Danny and sliding behind the wheel. “I’ll drive.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN:

  Danny Gets Patrick’s Story

  Fitzgerald was right; the rich are different. And maybe even Hemingway was right in his posturing response that, yeah, they had more money. It didn’t matter as Danny sipped the Skelley brandy and watched the first few sailboats tacking in the distance through the thin fog out into the middle of San Francisco Bay.

  After a night of moving around town, Danny had navigated up the narrow, claustrophobic sunrise streets that cross hatch Telegraph Hill, finally pulling into a steep, tunnel like driveway that dove into the base of a four story square- fronted white building.

  Skelley punched a code into the keypad next to the garage door; the door rolled up and they went in, squeezing his black Porsche past and the usual assortment of boxes and garage odds and ends. It seemed a typical garage until they got to a door where Skelley tapped in a code on another keypad and the door opened into an elevator instead of a stairwell.

  The elevator had sighed to a stop and Skelley opened the door directly into a spacious front room dotted with low leather furniture, earth-tone lamps with linen shades and large, oddly jarring bright-colored abstract oils on three walls. The fourth wall was windows and a double slider opening onto a redwood deck.

  The apartment squatted on the east side of Telegraph Hill, backed up against the trees, all jutting angles and tenuous bracing against the bony rib of rock, hanging in casual disregard over the rooftops below: the Bay seen dimly over the wonderfully rich confusion of million dollar rooftops that tumbled down the hill to the Embarcadero; Bay Bridge to the south a dim silver line through the thinning fog; all seen through protective glass walls six feet high lining the deck on two sides and warmed by outdoor gas heaters nestled under the eaves. Danny couldn’t even imagine what it cost for a two-story apartment on Telegraph Hill with its own private elevator but it smelled rich and had a million-dollar view. Danny must have looked like a tourist.

  “Nice huh? Family’s had it for forty years of something, I lease it,” he said, waving in the general direction at the bar nestled in one corner of the wall and window. “Get a drink or coffee. It turns on in the morning, under the bar. The girl sets it up, I’m going to grab a shower.”

  “Don’t try and get away, I still have this,” Danny said, miming the gun in his pocket.

  “I want a shower, that’s all,” Patrick said, heading for the door. “Besides, we got a deal, right?”

  Yeah, right. Danny stood in the middle of the room for a minute; everywhere were the clear statements that this was a rich guy’s place, a rich single guy: a tooled leather and brass humidor with half a dozen true Cubans; the antique brass telescope on a mahogany tripod that looked old, rare and probably worth more than Danny’s car; the stereo that discreetly proclaimed names Danny didn’t even recognize and the matched sets of JBL Reference speakers he recognized but had never considered buying, the butter soft matched couches and chairs in subtle shades of brown and green he guessed were custom. Even the understated pewter carpet was deep and richly soft underfoot. He poked around, found the coffee and poured a thick crystal mug full, adding a solid shot of brandy just in case. He slid the door open and walked out onto the deck. Still early, the first pale warmth of the sun was burning the fog out of the cypress below; he breathed deeply, taking in the fresh, cool air. He sat on a thickly padded chaise lounge, feet up, braced by the hot strong coffee and brandy and warmed by the nearby space heater that must have kicked on through come complex circuitry when the door opened and the temperature was low enough. Rich guys. He let the morning move slowly in front of him, relaxing for the first time in days.

  This was Skelley’s place, the place that the years of back room dealing and God knew else had bought for the kid. And it mattered; Skelley had changed the minute he let them into the apartment, relaxing, voice deeper, easier, step firmer, slouch gone as he headed up the stairs for a shower. At home with the million dollar view and ten thousand dollar leather couches and fifty dollar scotches, Danny guessed he was going to see someone a lot more like the blustering Patrick from the ocean side meeting two days earlier then the puking child sobbing on the garage rooftop a few hours earlier. He felt himself sliding toward apology for forcing a man so far from his usual station. The feeling evaporated with the guttural, “Let’s get down to business.”

  Skelley had cleaned up okay, shaved, hair still wet, dressed in a soft dark red pullover that looked like cashmere and black slacks, bare feet in a pair of soft black Gucci loafers.

  “Two things. One, you tell me the story, everything. Two, you help me get Johnny Larkin back. Do that, and I’ll figure out a way to get back at your old man. Your story, man, you talk and I’ll listen,” he said, easing back into the chaise, feet up, waiting.

  “A drink,” he said, holding up
what looked like a double shot of scotch in one of the heavy crystal glasses. He eased into the captain’s chair on the other side of the large glass patio table and took a long, slow drink. “Shit, that’s good.”

  “You pour good booze, Skelley.”

  “Yeah. You know, you scared the crap out of the old man. Out of nowhere you show up with this wild ass story and the one righteous newspaper clip in the whole world that would make him jump. I tell you.”

  “The story about the girl, in the Park? 1927?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not all of it. I’m guessing about some things, but you pretty much had it nailed. The way the old man tells it, grandpa got really deep into that, you know?”

  “No, I don’t know. Tell me, everything.”

  Skelley shrugged, easing his feet up onto another chair and taking a deep swallow of scotch. “Well, I think it goes this way. His old man...”

  “David Skelley, right?”

  “Right. Grandpa David was a district attorney or something when this sex slave thing happened. He must have been a shrewd old mick because he put two and two together quick and still had the presence of mind to keep it under his hat. Must have had some help from the SFPD I’d guess, but I don’t know that,” he said, taking a quick drink, then licking his lips with a thick, pink tongue. “All right, so he finds out there’s a bunch of pervs they used to find these girls, dope ‘em up on opium or something and do it to them, if you know what I mean.”

  He did. The euphemism seemed sad and unpleasant in the man’s soft, insinuating tone. It struck him it had a kid’s tone, a kid trying to sound older and tougher than he was. “Then what?”

  “Well, I guess they played around for a few weeks with ‘em then ran ‘em out of town. They had the money and the juice. Serious guys, guys with connections.”

  “But why?”

  Skelley gave him a funny grin and shrugged. “Because they could. Why not? My old man says there must have been lots of stuff running around, looking for work. Or action. Booze, broads, even some dope. Who knows, I guess they just liked young stuff. They’d find one, keep her around then get rid of her. Maybe drop a few bucks, buy her a bus ticket and get rid of her. Neat and tidy.”