Spade & Archer: the prequel to Dashiell Hammett's The maltese falcon

by Joe Gores

  Spade's face was expressionless. He asked: "You believe her?"

  "Don't you?" Wise replied.

  "How do I know? How do I know it isn't something you fixed up between you to tell me?"

  Wise smiled. "You don't cash many checks for strangers, do your Sammy?"

  "Not basketfuls. Well, what then? Miles wasn't home. It was at least two o'clock by then--must've been--and he was dead."

  "Miles wasn't home," Wise said. "That seems to have made her mad again--his not being home first to be made mad by her not being home. So she took the car out of the garage again and went back to your place."

  "And I wasn't home. I was down looking at Miles's corpse. Jesus, what a swell lot of merry-go-round riding. Then what?"

  "She went home, and her husband still wasn't there, and while she was undressing your messenger came with the news of his death."

  Spade didn't speak until he had with great care rolled and lighted another cigarette. Then he said: "I think that's an all right spread. It seems to click with most of the known facts. It ought to hold."

  Wise's fingers, running through his hair again, combed more dandruff down on his shoulders. He studied Spade's face with curious eyes and asked: "But you don't believe it?"

  Spade plucked his cigarette from between his lips. "I don't believe it or disbelieve it, Sid. I don't know a damned thing about it."

  A wry smile twisted the lawyer's mouth. He moved his shoulders wearily and said: "That's right--I'm selling you out. Why don't you get an honest lawyer--one you can trust?"

  "That fellow's dead." Spade stood up. He sneered at Wise. "Getting touchy, huh? I haven't got enough to think about: now I've got to remember to be polite to you. What did I do? Forget to genuflect when I came in?"

  Sid Wise smiled sheepishly. "You're a son of a gun, Sammy," he said.

  Effie Perine was standing in the center of Spade's outer office when he entered. She looked at him with worried brown eyes and asked: "What happened?"

  Spade's face grew stiff. "What happened where?" he demanded.

  "Why didn't she come?"

  Spade took two long steps and caught Effie Perine by the shoulders. "She didn't get there?" he bawled into her frightened face.

  She shook her head violently from side to side. "I waited and waited and she didn't come, and I couldn't get you on the phone, so I came down."

  Spade jerked his hands away from her shoulders, thrust them far down in his trousers-pockets, said, "Another merry-go-round," in a loud enraged voice, and strode into his private office. He came out again. "Phone your mother," he commanded. "See if she's come yet."

  He walked up and down the office while the girl used the telephone. "No," she said when she had finished. "Did--did you send her out in a taxi?"

  His grunt probably meant yes.

  "Are you sure she-- Somebody must have followed her!"

  Spade stopped pacing the floor. He put his hands on his hips and glared at the girl. He addressed her in a loud savage voice: "Nobody followed her. Do you think I'm a God-damned schoolboy? I made sure of it before I put her in the cab, I rode a dozen blocks with her to be more sure, and I checked her another half-dozen blocks after I got out."

  "Well, but--"

  "But she didn't get there. You've told me that. I believe it. Do you think I think she did get there?"

  Effie Perine sniffed. "You certainly act like a God-damned schoolboy," she said.

  Spade made a harsh noise in his throat and went to the corridor-door. "I'm going out and find her if I have to dig up sewers," he said. "Stay here till I'm back or you hear from me. For Christ's sake let's do something right."

  He went out, walked half the distance to the elevators, and retraced his steps. Effie Perine was sitting at her desk when he opened the door. He said: "You ought to know better than to pay any attention to me when I talk like that."

  "If you think I pay any attention to you you're crazy," she replied, "only"--she crossed her arms and felt her shoulders, and her mouth twitched uncertainly--"I won't be able to wear an evening gown for two weeks, you big brute."

  He grinned humbly, said, "I'm no damned good, darling," made an exaggerated bow, and went out again.

  Two yellow taxicabs were at the corner-stand to which Spade went. Their chauffeurs were standing together talking. Spade asked: "Where's the red-faced blond driver that was here at noon?"

  "Got a load," one of the chauffeurs said.

  "Will he be back here?"

  "I guess so."

  The other chauffeur ducked his head to the east. "Here he comes now."

  Spade walked down to the corner and stood by the curb until the red-faced blond chauffeur had parked his cab and got out. Then Spade went up to him and said: "I got into your cab with a lady at noontime. We went out Stockton Street and up Sacramento to Jones, where I got out."

  "Sure," the red-faced man said, "I remember that."

  "I told you to take her to a Ninth-Avenue-number. You didn't take her there. Where did you take her?"

  The chauffeur rubbed his cheek with a grimy hand and looked doubtfully at Spade. "I don't know about this."

  "It's all right," Spade assured him, giving him one of his cards. "If you want to play safe, though, we can ride up to your office and get your superintendent's OK."

  "I guess it's all right. I took her to the Ferry Building."

  "By herself?"

  "Yeah. Sure."

  "Didn't take her anywhere else first?"

  "No. It was like this: after we dropped you I went on out Sacramento, and when we got to Polk she rapped on the glass and said she wanted to get a newspaper, so I stopped at the corner and whistled for a kid, and she got her paper."

  "Which paper?"

  "The Call. Then I went on out Sacramento some more, and just after we'd crossed Van Ness she knocked on the glass again and said take her to the Ferry Building."

  "Was she excited or anything?"

  "Not so's I noticed."

  "And when you got to the Ferry Building?"

  "She paid me off, and that was all."

  "Anybody waiting for her there?"

  "I didn't see them if they was."

  "Which way did she go?"

  "At the Ferry? I don't know. Maybe upstairs, or towards the stairs."

  "Take the newspaper with her?"

  "Yeah, she had it tucked under her arm when she paid me."

  "With the pink sheet outside, or one of the white?"

  "Hell, Cap, I don't remember that."

  Spade thanked the chauffeur, said, "Get yourself a smoke," and gave him a silver dollar.

  Spade bought a copy of the Call and carried it into an office-buildingvestibule to examine it out of the wind.

  His eyes ran swiftly over the front-page-headlines and over those on the second and third pages. They paused for a moment under SUSPECT ARRESTEn A5 COUNTERFEITER on the fourth page, and again on page five under BAY YOUTH SEEKS DEATH WITH BULLET. Pages six and seven held nothing to interest him. On eight 3 Boys ARRESTEn AS S. F. BURGLARS AFTER SHOOTING held his attention for a moment, and after that nothing until he reached the thirty-fifth page, which held new-s of the weather, shipping, produce, finance, divorce, births, marriages, and deaths. He read the list of dead, passed over pages thirty-six and thirty-seven--financial news--found nothing to stop his eyes on the thirty-eighth and last page, sighed, folded the newspaper, put it in his coat-pocket, and rolled a cigarette.

  For five minutes he stood there in the office-building-vestibule smoking and staring sulkily at nothing. Then he walked up to Stockton Street, hailed a taxicab, and had himself driven to the Coronet.

  He let himself into the building and into Brigid O'Shaughnessy's apartment with the key she had given him. The blue gown she had worn the previous night was hanging across the foot of her bed. FIer blue stockings and slippers w-ere on the bedroom floor. The polvehrome box that had held jewelry in her dressing-table-draw-er now stood empty on the dressingtable-top. Spade frowned at it, ran his
tongue across his lips, strolled through the rooms, looking around but not touching anything, then left the Coronet and went downtown again.

  In the doorway of Spade's office-building he came face to face with the boy he had left at Gutman's. The boy put himself in Spade's path, blocking the entrance, and said: "Come on. He wants to see you."

  The boy's hands were in his overcoat-pockets. His pockets bulged more than his hands need have made them bulge.

  Spade grinned and said mockingly: "I didn't expect you till fivetwenty-five. I hope I haven't kept you waiting."

  The boy raised his eyes to Spade's mouth and spoke in the strained voice of one in physical pain: "Keep on riding me and you're going to be picking iron out of your navel."

  Spade chuckled. "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter," he said cheerfully. "Well, let's go."

  They walked up Sutter Street side by side. The boy kept his hands in his overcoat-pockets. They walked a little more than a block in silence. Then Spade asked pleasantly: "How long have you been off the gooseberry lay, son?"

  The boy did not show that he had heard the question.

  "Did you ever--?" Spade began, and stopped. A soft light began to glow in his yellowish eyes. He did not address the boy again.

  They went into the Alexandria, rode up to the twelfth floor, and walked down the corridor towards Gutman's suite. Nobody else was in the corridor.

  Spade lagged a little, so that, when they were within fifteen feet of Gutman's door, he was perhaps a foot and a half behind the boy. He leaned sidewise suddenly and grasped the boy from behind by both arms, just beneath the boy's elbows. He forced the boy's arms forward so that the boy's hands, in his overcoat-pockets, lifted the overcoat up before him. The boy struggled and squirmed, but he was impotent in the big man's grip. The boy kicked back, but his feet went between Spade's spread legs.

  Spade lifted the boy straight up from the floor and brought him down hard on his feet again. The impact made little noise on the thick carpet. At the moment of impact Spade's hands slid down and got a fresh grip on the boy's wrists. The boy, teeth set hard together, did not stop straining against the man's big hands, but he could not tear himself loose, could not keep the man's hands from crawling down over his own hands. The boy's teeth ground together audibly, making a noise that mingled with the noise of Spade's breathing as Spade crushed the boy's hands.

  They were tense and motionless for a long moment. Then the boy's arms became limp. Spade released the boy and stepped back. In each of Spade's hands, when they came out of the boy's overcoat-pockets, there was a heavy automatic pistol.

  The boy turned and faced Spade. The boy's face was a ghastly white blank. He kept his hands in his overcoat-pockets. He looked at Spade's chest and did not say anything.

  Spade put the pistols in his own pockets and grinned derisively. "Come on." he said. "This will put you in solid with your boss."

  They went to Gutman's door and Spade knocked.

  XIII.

  The Emperor's Gift

  Gutman opened the door. A glad smile lighted his fat face. He held out a hand and said: "Ah, come in, sir! Thank you for coming. Come in."

  Spade shook the hand and entered. The boy went in behind him. The fat man shut the door. Spade took the boy's pistols from his pockets and held them out to Gutman. "Here. You shouldn't let him run around with these. He'll get himself hurt."

  The fat man laughed merrily and took the pistols. "Well, well," he said, "what's this?" He looked from Spade to the boy.

  Spade said: "A crippled newsie took them away from him, but I made him give them back."

  The white-faced boy took the pistols out of Gutman's hands and pocketed them. The boy did not speak.

  Gutman laughed again. "By Gad, sir," he told Spade, "you're a chap worth knowing, an amazing character. Come in. Sit down. Give me your hat."

  The boy left the room by the door to the right of the entrance.

  The fat man installed Spade in a green plush chair by the table, pressed a cigar upon him, held a light to it, mixed whiskey and carbonated water, put one glass in Spade's hand, and, holding the other, sat down facing Spade.

  "Now, sir," he said, "I hope you'll let me apologize for--"

  "Never mind that," Spade said. "Let's talk about the black bird."

  The fat man cocked his head to the left and regarded Spade with fond eyes. "All right, sir," he agreed. "Let's." He took a sip from the glass in his hand. "This is going to be the most astounding thing you've ever heard of, sir, and I say that knowing that a man of your caliber in your profession must have known some astounding things in his time."

  Spade nodded politely.

  The fat man screwed up his eves and asked: "What do you know, sir, about the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, later called the Knights of Rhodes and other things?"

  Spade waved his cigar. "Not much--only what I remember from history in school--Crusaders or something."

  "Very good. Now you don't remember that Suleiman the Magnificent chased them out of Rhodes in 1523?"

  "No."

  "Well, sir, he did, and they settled in Crete. And they stayed there for seven years, until r 530 when they persuaded the Emperor Charles V to give them"--Gutman held up three puffy fingers and counted them-- "Malta, Gozo, and Tripoli."

  "Yes?"

  "Yes, sir, but with these conditions: they were to pay the Emperor each year the tribute of one"--he held up a finger--"faleon in acknowledgment that Malta was still under Spain, and if they ever left the island it was to revert to Spain. Understand? He was giving it to them, but not unless they used it, and they couldn't give or sell it to anybody else."

  "Yes."

  The fat man looked over his shoulders at the three closed doors, hunched his chair a few inches nearer Spade's, and reduced his voice to a husky whisper: "Have you any conception of the extreme, the immeasurable, wealth of the Order at that time?"

  "If I remember," Spade said, "they were pretty well fixed."

  Gutman smiled indulgently. "Pretty well, sir, is putting it mildly." His whisper became lower and more purring. "They were rolling in wealth, sir. You've no idea. None of us has any idea. For years they had preyed on the Saraeens, had taken nobody knows what spoils of gems, precious metals, silks, ivories--the cream of the cream of the East. That is history, sir. We all know that the Holy Wars to them, as to the Templars, were largely a matter of loot.

  "Well, now, the Emperor Charles has given them Malta, and all the rent he asks is one insignificant bird per annum, just as a matter of form. What could be more natural than for these immeasurably wealthy Knights to look around for some way of expressing their gratitude? Well, sir, that's exactly what they did, and they hit on the happy thought of sending Charles for the first year's tribute, not an insignificant live bird, but a glorious golden falcon encrusted from head to foot with the finest jewels in their coffers. And--remember, sir--they had fine ones, the finest out of Asia." Gutman stopped whispering. His sleek dark eyes examined Spade's face, which was placid. The fat man asked: "Well, sir, what do you think of that?"