by Peter Corris
‘I wanna see the bird,’ he said.
Swan looked embarrassed. He wiped his face which was flushed now and not just from the heat.’ I haven’t got it today,’ he said. ‘Too hot.’
That seemed fair enough to me. I was carrying a tourist guide too thick to go in my jeans pocket, and it felt too hot to carry that. Still, the promotion photo for the tour showed Swan sneaking down a street with a bundle wrapped in frayed newspaper under his arm, and if that was one of the things you wanted…
‘This is a gyp,’ the fat man grumbled. He took the steps back down to Larkin Street two at a time, and a fat woman, also in Bermuda shorts, followed him. After a pause, a thin, nervous looking woman in a print frock went down the steps and moved off in the other direction from the fat pair.
‘Anyone else?’ Swan was aggressive now, not bothering to exert charm. ‘All right. I’ll take the money-four dollars a head, two fifty for senior citizens.’
We all pressed forward with our money, serious takers. Swan collected his hundred dollars or so and told us a little more about Hammett and Spade.
‘… the same skyline, post-earthquake, Spade would have seen. Let’s take a look.’ He almost sprinted down the steps from the Public Library and across the street, timing the lights just exactly right.
We skipped and lumbered and strode after him and got Dan’s spiel about Spade defying the DA and then we headed off along the streets the Continental Op and the Whoosis Kid and Spade had haunted. The sun was high and Swan’s fedora must have been welcome. He got more cheerful and answered some of the ignorant questions amiably as we went along. I caught him up at the corner of Geary and Leavenworth.
‘What’s the bird weigh?’ I said innocently.
He gave me a sharp look. ‘Where you from?’
‘Australia, you know, where Hammett nearly went.’
‘Yeah,’ He grinned. ‘It was a tough break.’
I stuck out my hand. ‘Cliff Hardy. I’m in this line of work at home.’
We shook. ‘Tours?’ he said.
‘No, detective work.’
He seemed a bit pre-occupied for the next hour while we traced Spade and Cairo and the others through the streets. He took us to a lane where you could see the faded name of a restaurant where Spade had eaten a steak. The building now housed a computer games outfit. Swan drew me aside.
‘Bird weighs next to nothing,’ he said. ‘Couple of pounds.’
‘Pretty light.’
‘Yeah, aluminum. I haven’t got it because it was stolen.’
Before I could say anything, a plastic bag filled with water came sailing down and burst on the sidewalk in the middle of the group. The water sprayed, picked up dust, and dirtied the clothes of a couple of women. Strong men swore. Then some garbage came down plus a couple of cans and those with combat experience ducked for cover. I saw a flash of face and the arc of an arm on top of the computer games building. I pointed up there to Swan.
He nodded tiredly. ‘Not the first time.’
A couple of people started to walk away.
‘You can have your money back!’ Swan yelled.
One of the men bent, picked up a can and threw it at Swan. It was a light toss, but Swan wasn’t prepared. I was, I stepped forward and caught the can. I thought of throwing it back but remembered that I was a stranger in a strange land. I threw the can into a trash bin.
‘Thanks,’ Swan said. ‘This goes on, and I’m out of business.’
He rushed through the rest of the tour and wasn’t helped by the inattention of the clients who looked up every time we stopped. He signed off on Market Street, and signalled me to wait while he autographed a few copies of his tour booklet for the faithful.
‘Drink?’ he said when he was through.
We had been out on the hot streets for almost four hours, a drink didn’t seem like too much of an indulgence. Swan led the way to a quiet bar and ordered two beers without consulting me.
‘All Aussies drink beer,’ he said when the waiter arrived with two big bottles of Budweiser, glasses and peanuts.
‘Some drink absinthe,’ I said.
‘No kidding?’
Budweiser is good beer and so is Coors and Schlitz and every other one I’d tasted in California. We drank some of it and I waited for him to say whatever it was the beer had been bought for.
‘Ah… this is kinda embarrassing. You know, I’m supposed to be well up on all this detective stuff.’
‘But you’re not. And somebody stole your bird?’
‘Right. And there’s more. The shop’s in trouble- that’s the Bay Mystery Bookstore on O’Farrell Street, you know it?’
I shook my head.
‘Well, I run it and it’s done okay until lately. Then the bird goes missing, plus we get that crap from the roof. I feel like a target. I feel like somebody’s out to get me.’
‘Who would be?’
He scratched his heavily stubbled chin and pulled out a packet of cigarillos. ‘You smoke, Hardy?’
‘I quit’
‘Stay with it.’ He lit up and took a pull of beer. ‘I suppose there could be someone wanting to muscle in on this tour racket. I was the first to do it, but anyone could who had the knowledge and that’s in the books.’
‘How much d’you make at it?’
‘In a big week, three or four tours, I might make four hundred bucks. Wouldn’t average nearly that, though.’
I considered it. ‘It’s not a lot to break the law for. Besides, you’ve got the book published, it’s your baby. What else-the shop, women, drugs?’
He shook his head. ‘Store does okay like I said, nothing spectacular. I’m between women just now, leastways I hope I am. Nothing there.’ He swished beer in his glass and puffed smoke. ‘These are the only drugs I use.’
‘Why did you say you were embarrassed?’
‘I need help. I’d get laughed away if I went to any of the investigators in this city. Straight to the press. Somebody stole my Maltese Falcon-shit!’
‘The police?’
‘What crime? Fuckin’ bird’s worth maybe fifty dollars. Harassment? I’m not sure there is such a crime. Cops’ve got work to do, rackets to run, you know.’
‘Yeah. Politics?’
He fiddled with the fedora on the table; the band had a tiny feather in it and I was reminded of the hat my father always wore out of doors, hail, rain or shine. ‘I used to think Tom Hayden was a good guy,’ Swan said, ‘now I hear he’s spending a million bucks to prove he’s not a radical. That’s politics.’
I nodded. ‘I was going home but I guess I can stay awhile. You’re hiring me are you?’
He pulled his tour money out of the trench coat. What’re your rates?’
‘I get one hundred and twenty-five a day and expenses back home.’
He put the crumpled notes down in front of me. ‘Be more than that here. Let’s make it that per die m.’
I took the money. ‘I’ll look into it, give it a day or two. It’s not my territory, I don’t want to rip you off.’
He imitated my accent. ‘Fair enough.’
‘At least you didn’t call me digger.’ I forked out a ten. ‘Let’s do some more drinking.’
Swan had told me that he had two people working in his bookstore: a young woman named Maggie Bolton who worked part-time, and one Roger Milton-Smith who acted as manager when Swan was doing other things. I’m a nasty, suspicious character, if someone in trouble tells me his only associate is his mother I’ll take a look at Mom.
According to Swan, Bolton would be in the shop that afternoon, Sunday being quiet, and she would knock off at 8 p.m. It was after six when we finished drinking and I told him I’d go back to my hotel for a shower and start work at eight.
‘Doing what?’ He drained his glass and the waiter came to take away his fourth bottle of Bud.
‘Following Bolton,’ I said.
I was staying in a cheap hotel on Sutter Street because I figured that all I needed was the room. I h
ad a small transistor radio, I could watch the fights on the TV in the lounge and I’ve never minded walking a few metres to the bathroom. I had a big jug of Taylor’s burgundy for companionship and I felt I was nicely set up for the few days I intended to spend in San Francisco seeing the sights.
It was a comfortable bed too, and I spent longer on it than I intended, so I was late getting to O’Farrell Street. I located the bookstore. Almost immediately its lights went off and a slim, redheaded woman stepped out. She gave the door a slam and a shake and set off down the street.
I followed her down Stockton and Fourth to the SPT Company depot. She was young and fit and she walked fast, passing a big bargain basement bookstore without a glance. Her mind wasn’t on books. Innocently, I stood behind her while she bought a ticket to Burlingame and I did the same.
The train ride was all right, as train rides go in the dark. I wished I’d brought The Hotel New Hampshire with me from my room. Maggie Bolton read, or looked at, a fashion magazine with pictures of hollow-cheeked models on the back and front covers. She was pretty hollow-cheeked herself come to think of it, with a long, lean shape. She looked at the magazine as if she was making comparisons between the models and herself. Fair enough. I wondered why she hadn’t taken a bus, which would have given me more to look at, and I found out why in Burlingame.
We got off the train, went through the gate and Bolton waited while a north-bound train pulled in. A tall blonde woman in a stylish pants suit got down and trotted forward on high heels. She and Bolton embraced on the sidewalk. They kissed and hung on for a bit and then started to walk arm in arm north along Rawlins road, talking animatedly. They stopped at a corner market and bought a jug of red wine and some french bread. I bought some bread too and some bananas and Sports Illustrated. Just short of the San Francisco city limits, the two women went into a modern apartment block. I looked up and saw a light go on three floors up that was probably theirs.
There was a pocket handkerchief sized park across from the apartments and I sat on a bench and ate half of the loaf and two bananas and read about John Elway of Stanford’s tough decision whether to play pro football or baseball. I had to squint to read, but I could see the lights in the apartment go out in one room, go on in another, dim there for a while and then go on as before.
The first visitor arrived a little after ten in a taxi. A small Latin went into the building and there was a little action with the lights up on the third. He came out about twenty minutes later. Then a Ford Bronco with all the trimmings parked just around the corner and two bulky middle-aged men went in. Two dim lights for almost an hour. I read a piece about Jim Thorpe. Traffic was light on the street, but when I saw a police car cruising up I sauntered over to a bin to drop the magazine. The cops went past and when I got back to my bench a black man in a white suit was sitting on it. The jacket of the suit was double-breasted and so was the vest. He had a pencil line moustache and very neat, short hair.
‘Nice night,’ he said. He pushed my paper bag so that half a loaf of french bread and two bananas fell on the ground.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It sure is.’
He grinned and made an ear trumpet with one hand. ‘What do I hear? This the kinda food you eat over in England?’
‘Yes. It sure is.’
‘My. And I thought it was fish an’ chee-ips.’
‘That’s the south.’
‘Why’re you watchin’ number twelve, man?’
I sketched something Beardsleyesque in the air. ‘Well, you know. Just trying to decide.’
He stood up. It struck me that he looked very like Sugar Ray Robinson in his prime. ‘Fish or cut bait.’ he said.
I cut bait, but I picked up my bread and bananas first.
Back at the hotel I finished the bread and the Irving book and had some burgundy to wash them down. Maggie Bolton was in love, gainfully employed and her Pimp’s suit cost ten times the value of the Maltese Falcon. It was hard to see either of them bothering.
In the morning I called Swan and gave him the news.
‘A whore?’, he said, ‘Maggie?’
‘If she’s a tall red head with legs.’
‘She is. I don’t know what to say.’
‘Can I come over and look around-where you kept the bird and all?’
‘Sure. Store’s not open till twelve.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Market research. People don’t buy mysteries in the morning. You can come up to my place, though. I live here. There’s a door in the alley.’
‘Milton-Smith around yet?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
The bookshop went in for Bogartiana, Christieana, Stoutiana and all the rest of it. The front window had a first edition of The Maltese Falcon in a glass case, surrounded by Hammett, Chandler and Mac-Donald paperbacks. Maybe 20 per cent of the window display was given over to science fiction books. I averted my eyes from them and went down the alley.
I knocked on a faded wooden door and heard fast steps clattering on wood inside. Swan opened the door with a beer can in his hand.
‘Ascend,’ he said.
The door led into a sort of storeroom at the back of the shop; it was full of cartons and discarded wrapping and packing paper lay around knee deep. Steep steps not much wider than a ladder led up to a loft above the shop. The one room contained a double mattress, table, sink, TV set, some cupboards and a refrigerator, but was basically given over to books. They covered most of the available wall space and lay in piles on the floor.
‘Stock or personal?’ I said.
He shrugged and made a half-and-half gesture. He tilted his can. ‘Beer?’
‘No thanks. Where’d you keep it?’
A heap of books had collapsed just near the top of the steps. He nudged them with his foot.
‘Right here.’
I went down the steps and came up. I could reach the spot by leaning forward, not getting closer than a body length to the room. I jigged-no creaking.
‘I thought at least it’d have to be lassoed through a window.’
He grinned. ‘Shit, it’s insured. It’s the aggravation I’m worried about. You don’t figure Maggie huh?’
I shook my head and prowled around the loft. The bed was neatly made, a few dishes were stacked by the sink. The windows were clean and overlooked O’Farrell Street. The sky was blue but there was some grey cloud out over the Bay. Swan pointed at it.
‘Rain. And I’ve got a tour today. All I need is rain.’
I went over everything I could think of with him-the lease on the building, competitors in the Hammett and book business, friends with senses of humour-nothing. Just before noon I had a beer, and as some noises began to drift up from below, a ray of sunshine cut through the window.
‘Maybe it won’t rain,’ Swan said shrugging into his trench coat. ‘Store’s open, want me to introduce you to Milt?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll just drift in like a customer.’
‘Okay. Jesus, I feel naked without the bird.’
We went out to the alley and he headed off to the Town Hall to pick up his tourists. I walked around to the front of the shop and pushed open the door which had the famous thin man photograph of Hammett, blown up to poster size, stuck to the inside.
The bookstore was like a cross between a junkyard and a library. The walls had books floor to ceiling with sliding ladders attached to the shelves. There were books on tables and in free-standing bookshelves. There were books and comics and magazines in bins and boxes. It was disorderly, paperbacks mixed with hardcovers and leaves were as likely to be facing outwards as spines.
But one corner of the big room was tidy. It had the best light through a high window and was handy to the clerk’s desk and the cash register. It had a big, neatly
printed sign hanging over a geometrically arranged table of glossy hardcovers- SCIENCE FICTION amp; FANTASY.
I drifted around checking this and that and resisting the impulse to straighten th
ings up a little. In the Sci-Fi section a man was doing just that. He was small and pot-bellied with thin, sandy hair brushed across a pink, mottled skull. He moved books from a table to the floor, expanding the section. He dealt enthusiastically with customers for the fantasy corner, less so with others.
Maybe it was just that he was busy with the little green men, maybe he wasn’t really there at all, but he didn’t seem to notice the shoplifter who carried out an armful of books with a technique that could only be called brazen.
I selected a Robert B. Parker paperback and went up to the register.
‘I’ll take this, please.’
He grunted.
‘He’s good isn’t he, Parker?’
Another grunt. He rang it up and gave me change out of five.
‘Have you got A Canticle for Leibowitz?’
He brightened visibly. His pudgy hands clasped in a fleeting attitude of reverence. ‘No, we’re out of it right now, but I could get it in for you. If you’d like to leave your name and number?’ He pounced on a scribbling pad and pen, whipped them down in front of me. I wrote John Watson and my Sydney telephone number and left after thanking him.
It didn’t rain. I hung around looking in windows and watching the store. I bought a take-out coffee and drank it sitting on the bus stop seat opposite the store. When I dropped the container into a rubbish bin I looked inside for no good reason. I don’t think much of John D. MacDonald but I didn’t see why a brand new copy of his latest book should be sitting in the bottom of a rubbish bin. Along with it was a book about Agatha Christie by Robert Barnard, a Lew Archer omnibus and a fat biography of James M. Cain. I retrieved the books and went off to catch up with Swan on Market Street.
‘Any garbage today?’ I asked him.
‘Sure, same place. Came pelting down.’
I showed him the books and told him about how his 2IC ran the depot.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘Milt’s hot for all that shit. He persuaded me to include a section and it’s done okay.’
‘I’m not surprised, he runs it like Tiffany’s.’
Swan hefted the books in his hands. ‘This is bad, maybe Milt’s eyesight is shot.’
‘He doesn’t wear glasses. He could tell an Asimov from a Zelazney at a hundred metres. Could he be trying to take you over and open the Six Rings of Uranus bookstore and brainwash?’
