THE telephone-bell was ringing when Spade returned to his office after
sending Brigid O’Shaughnessy off to Effie Perine’s house. He went to the
telephone.
“Hello. . . . Yes, this is Spade. . . . Yes, I got it. I’ve been waiting
to hear from you. . . . Who? . . . Mr. Gutman? Oh, yes, sure! . . .
Now—the sooner the better. . . . Twelve C. . . . Right. Say fifteen
minutes. . . . Right.”
Spade sat on the corner of his desk beside the telephone and rolled a
cigarette. His mouth was a hard complacent v. His eyes, watching his
fingers make the cigarette, smoldered over lower lids drawn up straight.
The door opened and Iva Archer came in.
Spade said, “Hello, honey,” in a voice as lightly amiable as his face
had suddenly become.
“Oh, Sam, forgive me! forgive me!” she cried in a choked voice. She
stood just inside the door, wadding a black-bordered handkerchief in her
small gloved hands, peering into his face with frightened red and
swollen eyes.
He did not get up from his seat on the desk-corner. He said: “Sure.
That’s all right. Forget it.”
“But, Sam,” she wailed, “I sent those policemen there. I was mad, crazy
with jealousy, and I phoned them that if they’d go there they’d learn
something about Miles’s murder.”
“What made you think that?”
“Oh, I didn’t! But I was mad, Sam, and I wanted to hurt you.”
“It made things damned awkward.” He put his arm around her and drew her
nearer. “But it’s all right now, only don’t get any more crazy notions
like that.”
“I won’t,” she promised, “ever. But you weren’t nice to me last night.
You were cold and distant and wanted to get rid of me, when I had come
down there and waited so long to warn you, and you—”
“Warn me about what?”
“About Phil. He’s found out about—about you being in love with me, and
Miles had told him about my wanting a divorce, though of course _he_
never knew what for, and now Phil thinks we—you killed his brother
because he wouldn’t give me the divorce so we could get married. He told
me he believed that, and yesterday he went and told the police.”
“That’s nice,” Spade said softly. “And you came to warn me, and because
I was busy you got up on your ear and helped this damned Phil Archer
stir things up.”
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, “I know you won’t forgive me. I—I’m sorry,
sorry, sorry.”
“You ought to be,” he agreed, “on your own account as well as mine. Has
Dundy been to see you since Phil did his talking? Or anybody from the
bureau?”
“No.” Alarm opened her eyes and mouth.
“They will,” he said, “and it’d be just as well to not let them find you
here. Did you tell them who you were when you phoned?”
“Oh, no! I simply told them that if they’d go to your apartment right
away they’d learn something about the murder and hung up.”
“Where’d you phone from?”
“The drug-store up above your place. Oh, Sam, dearest, I—”
He patted her shoulder and said pleasantly: “It was a dumb trick, all
right, but it’s done now. You’d better run along home and think up
things to tell the police. You’ll be hearing from them. Maybe it’d be
best to say ‘no’ right across the board.” He frowned at something
distant. “Or maybe you’d better see Sid Wise first.” He removed his arm
from around her, took a card out of his pocket, scribbled three lines on
its back, and gave it to her. “You can tell Sid everything.” He frowned.
“Or almost everything. Where were you the night Miles was shot?”
“Home,” she replied without hesitating.
He shook his head, grinning at her.
“I was,” she insisted.
“No,” he said, “but if that’s your story it’s all right with me. Go see
Sid. It’s up on the next corner, the pinkish building, room
eight-twenty-seven.”
Her blue eyes tried to probe his yellow-grey ones. “What makes you think
I wasn’t home?” she asked slowly.
“Nothing except that I know you weren’t.”
“But I was, I was.” Her lips twisted and anger darkened her eyes. “Effie
Perine told you that,” she said indignantly. “I saw her looking at my
clothes and snooping around. You know she doesn’t like me, Sam. Why do
you believe things she tells you when you know she’d do anything to make
trouble for me?”
“Jesus, you women,” Spade said mildly. He looked at the watch on his
wrist. “You’ll have to trot along, precious. I’m late for an appointment
now. You do what you want, but if I were you I’d tell Sid the truth or
nothing. I mean leave out the parts you don’t want to tell him, but
don’t make up anything to take its place.”
“I’m not lying to you, Sam,” she protested.
“Like hell you’re not,” he said and stood up.
She strained on tiptoe to hold her face nearer his. “You don’t believe
me?” she whispered.
“I don’t believe you.”
“And you won’t forgive me for—for what I did?”
“Sure I do.” He bent his head and kissed her mouth. “That’s all right.
Now run along.”
She put her arms around him. “Won’t you go with me to see Mr. Wise?”
“I can’t, and I’d only be in the way.” He patted her arms, took them
from around his body, and kissed her left wrist between glove and
sleeve. He put his hands on her shoulders, turned her to face the door,
and released her with a little push. “Beat it,” he ordered.
* * * * *
The mahogany door of suite 12–C at the Alexandria Hotel was opened by
the boy Spade had talked to in the Belvedere lobby. Spade said, “Hello,”
good-naturedly. The boy did not say anything. He stood aside holding the
door open.
Spade went in. A fat man came to meet him.
The fat man was flabbily fat with bulbous pink cheeks and lips and chins
and neck, with a great soft egg of a belly that was all his torso, and
pendant cones for arms and legs. As he advanced to meet Spade all his
bulbs rose and shook and fell separately with each step, in the manner
of clustered soap-bubbles not yet released from the pipe through which
they had been blown. His eyes, made small by fat puffs around them, were
dark and sleek. Dark ringlets thinly covered his broad scalp. He wore a
black cutaway coat, black vest, black satin Ascot tie holding a pinkish
pearl, striped grey worsted trousers, and patent-leather shoes.
His voice was a throaty purr. “Ah, Mr. Spade,” he said with enthusiasm
and held out a hand like a fat pink star.
Spade took the hand and smiled and said: “How do you do, Mr. Gutman?”
Holding Spade’s hand, the fat man turned beside him, put his other hand
to Spade’s elbow, and guided him across a green rug to a green plush
chair beside a table that held a siphon, some glasses, and a bottle of
Johnnie Walker whiskey on a tray, a box of cigars—Coronas del Ritz—two
newspapers, and a small and plain yellow soapstone box.
Spade sat in the green chair. The fat man began to fill two glasses from
bottle and siphon. The boy had disappeared. Doors set in three of the
room’s walls were shut. The fourth wall, behind Spade, was pierced by
two windows looking out over Geary Street.
“We begin well, sir,” the fat man purred, turning with a proffered glass
in his hand. “I distrust a man that says when. If he’s got to be careful
not to drink too much it’s because he’s not to be trusted when he does.”
Spade took the glass and, smiling, made the beginning of a bow over it.
The fat man raised his glass and held it against a window’s light. He
nodded approvingly at the bubbles running up in it. He said: “Well, sir,
here’s to plain speaking and clear understanding.”
They drank and lowered their glasses.
The fat man looked shrewdly at Spade and asked: “You’re a close-mouthed
man?”
Spade shook his head. “I like to talk.”
“Better and better!” the fat man exclaimed. “I distrust a close-mouthed
man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong
things. Talking’s something you can’t do judiciously unless you keep in
practice.” He beamed over his glass. “We’ll get along, sir, that we
will.” He set his glass on the table and held the box of Coronas del
Ritz out to Spade. “A cigar, sir.”
Spade took a cigar, trimmed the end of it, and lighted it. Meanwhile the
fat man pulled another green plush chair around to face Spade’s within
convenient distance and placed a smoking-stand within reach of both
chairs. Then he took his glass from the table, took a cigar from the
box, and lowered himself into his chair. His bulbs stopped jouncing and
settled into flabby rest. He sighed comfortably and said: “Now, sir,
we’ll talk if you like. And I’ll tell you right out that I’m a man who
likes talking to a man that likes to talk.”
“Swell. Will we talk about the black bird?”
The fat man laughed and his bulbs rode up and down on his laughter.
“Will we?” he asked and, “We will,” he replied. His pink face was shiny
with delight. “You’re the man for me, sir, a man cut along my own lines.
No beating about the bush, but right to the point. ‘Will we talk about
the black bird?’ We will. I like that, sir. I like that way of doing
business. Let us talk about the black bird by all means, but first, sir,
answer me a question, please, though maybe it’s an unnecessary one, so
we’ll understand each other from the beginning. You’re here as Miss
O’Shaughnessy’s representative?”
Spade blew smoke above the fat man’s head in a long slanting plume. He
frowned thoughtfully at the ash-tipped end of his cigar. He replied
deliberately: “I can’t say yes or no. There’s nothing certain about it
either way, yet.” He looked up at the fat man and stopped frowning. “It
depends.”
“It depends on—?”
Spade shook his head. “If I knew what it depends on I could say yes or
no.”
The fat man took a mouthful from his glass, swallowed it, and suggested:
“Maybe it depends on Joel Cairo?”
Spade’s prompt “Maybe” was noncommittal. He drank.
The fat man leaned forward until his belly stopped him. His smile was
ingratiating and so was his purring voice. “You could say, then, that
the question is which one of them you’ll represent?”
“You could put it that way.”
“It will be one or the other?”
“I didn’t say that.”
The fat man’s eyes glistened. His voice sank to a throaty whisper
asking: “Who else is there?”
Spade pointed his cigar at his own chest. “There’s me,” he said.
The fat man sank back in his chair and let his body go flaccid. He blew
his breath out in a long contented gust. “That’s wonderful, sir,” he
purred. “That’s wonderful. I do like a man that tells you right out he’s
looking out for himself. Don’t we all? I don’t trust a man that says
he’s not. And the man that’s telling the truth when he says he’s not I
distrust most of all, because he’s an ass and an ass that’s going
contrary to the laws of nature.”
Spade exhaled smoke. His face was politely attentive. He said: “Uh-huh.
Now let’s talk about the black bird.”
The fat man smiled benevolently. “Let’s,” he said. He squinted so that
fat puffs crowding together left nothing of his eyes but a dark gleam
visible. “Mr. Spade, have you any conception of how much money can be
made out of that black bird?”
“No.”
The fat man leaned forward again and put a bloated pink hand on the arm
of Spade’s chair. “Well, sir, if I told you—by Gad, if I told you
half!—you’d call me a liar.”
Spade smiled. “No,” he said, “not even if I thought it. But if you won’t
take the risk just tell me what it is and I’ll figure out the profits.”
The fat man laughed. “You couldn’t do it, sir. Nobody could do it that
hadn’t had a world of experience with things of that sort, and”—he
paused impressively—“there aren’t any other things of that sort.” His
bulbs jostled one another as he laughed again. He stopped laughing,
abruptly. His fleshy lips hung open as laughter had left them. He stared
at Spade with an intentness that suggested myopia. He asked: “You mean
you don’t know what it is?” Amazement took the throatiness out of his
voice.
Spade made a careless gesture with his cigar. “Oh, hell,” he said
lightly, “I know what it’s supposed to look like. I know the value in
life you people put on it. I don’t know what it is.”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“Miss O’Shaughnessy?”
“Yes. A lovely girl, sir.”
“Uh-huh. No.”
The fat man’s eyes were dark gleams in ambush behind pink puffs of
flesh. He said indistinctly, “She must know,” and then, “And Cairo
didn’t either?”
“Cairo is cagey. He’s willing to buy it, but he won’t risk telling me
anything I don’t know already.”
The fat man moistened his lips with his tongue. “How much is he willing
to buy it for?” he asked.
“Ten thousand dollars.”
The fat man laughed scornfully. “Ten thousand, and dollars, mind you,
not even pounds. That’s the Greek for you. Humph! And what did you say
to that?”
“I said if I turned it over to him I’d expect the ten thousand.”
“Ah, yes, _if_! Nicely put, sir.” The fat man’s forehead squirmed in a
flesh-blurred frown. “They must know,” he said only partly aloud, then:
“Do they? Do they know what the bird is, sir? What was your impression?”
“I can’t help you there,” Spade confessed. “There’s not much to go by.
Cairo didn’t say he did and he didn’t say he didn’t. She said she
didn’t, but I took it for granted that she was lying.”
“That was not an injudicious thing to do,” the fat man said, but his
mind was obviously not on his words. He scratched his head. He frowned
until his forehead was marked by raw red creases. He fidgeted in his
chair as much as his size and the size of the chair permitted fidgeting.
He shut his eyes, opened them suddenly—wide—and said to Spade: “Maybe
they don’t.” His bulbous pink face slowly lost its worried frown and
then, more quickly, took on an expression of ineffable happiness. “If
they don’t,” he cried, and again: “If they don’t I’m the only one in the
whole wide sweet world who does!”
Spade drew his lips back in a tight smile. “I’m glad I came to the right
place,” he said.
The fat man smiled too, but somewhat vaguely. Happiness had gone out of
his face, though he continued to smile, and caution had come into his
eyes. His face was a watchful-eyed smiling mask held up between his
thoughts and Spade. His eyes, avoiding Spade’s, shifted to the glass at
Spade’s elbow. His face brightened. “By Gad, sir,” he said, “your glass
is empty.” He got up and went to the table and clattered glasses and
siphon and bottle mixing two drinks.
Spade was immobile in his chair until the fat man, with a flourish and a
bow and a jocular “Ah, sir, this kind of medicine will never hurt you!”
had handed him his refilled glass. Then Spade rose and stood close to
the fat man, looking down at him, and Spade’s eyes were hard and bright.
He raised his glass. His voice was deliberate, challenging: “Here’s to
plain speaking and clear understanding.”
The fat man chuckled and they drank. The fat man sat down. He held his
glass against his belly with both hands and smiled up at Spade. He said:
“Well, sir, it’s surprising, but it well may be a fact that neither of
them does know exactly what that bird is, and that nobody in all this
whole wide sweet world knows what it is, saving and excepting only your
humble servant, Casper Gutman, Esquire.”
“Swell.” Spade stood with legs apart, one hand in his trousers-pocket,
the other holding his glass. “When you’ve told me there’ll only be two
of us who know.”
“Mathematically correct, sir”—the fat man’s eyes twinkled—“but”—his
smile spread—“I don’t know for certain that I’m going to tell you.”
“Don’t be a damned fool,” Spade said patiently. “You know what it is. I
know where it is. That’s why we’re here.”
“Well, sir, where is it?”
Spade ignored the question.
The fat man bunched his lips, raised his eyebrows, and cocked his head a
little to the left. “You see,” he said blandly, “I must tell you what I
know, but you will not tell me what you know. That is hardly equitable,
sir. No, no, I do not think we can do business along those lines.”
Spade’s face became pale and hard. He spoke rapidly in a low furious
voice: “Think again and think fast. I told that punk of yours that you’d
have to talk to me before you got through. I’ll tell you now that you’ll
do your talking today or you are through. What are you wasting my time
for? You and your lousy secret! Christ! I know exactly what that stuff
is that they keep in the sub-treasury vaults, but what good does that do
me? I can get along without you. God damn you! Maybe you could have got
along without me if you’d kept clear of me. You can’t now. Not in San
Francisco. You’ll come in or you’ll get out—and you’ll do it today.”
He turned and with angry heedlessness tossed his glass at the table. The
glass struck the wood, burst apart, and splashed its contents and
glittering fragments over table and floor. Spade, deaf and blind to the
crash, wheeled to confront the fat man again.
The fat man paid no more attention to the glass’s fate than Spade did:
lips pursed, eyebrows raised, head cocked a little to the left, he had
maintained his pink-faced blandness throughout Spade’s angry speech, and
he maintained it now.
Spade, still furious, said: “And another thing, I don’t want—”
The door to Spade’s left opened. The boy who had admitted Spade came in.
He shut the door, stood in front of it with his hands flat against his
flanks, and looked at Spade. The boy’s eyes were wide open and dark with
wide pupils. Their gaze ran over Spade’s body from shoulders to knees,
and up again to settle on the handkerchief whose maroon border peeped
from the breast-pocket of Spade’s brown coat.
“Another thing,” Spade repeated, glaring at the boy: “Keep that gunsel
away from me while you’re making up your mind. I’ll kill him. I don’t
like him. He makes me nervous. I’ll kill him the first time he gets in
my way. I won’t give him an even break. I won’t give him a chance. I’ll
kill him.”
The boy’s lips twitched in a shadowy smile. He neither raised his eyes
nor spoke.
The fat man said tolerantly: “Well, sir, I must say you have a most
violent temper.”
“Temper?” Spade laughed crazily. He crossed to the chair on which he had
dropped his hat, picked up the hat, and set it on his head. He held out
a long arm that ended in a thick forefinger pointing at the fat man’s
belly. His angry voice filled the room. “Think it over and think like
hell. You’ve got till five-thirty to do it in. Then you’re either in or
out, for keeps.” He let his arm drop, scowled at the bland fat man for a
moment, scowled at the boy, and went to the door through which he had
entered. When he opened the door he turned and said harshly:
“Five-thirty—then the curtain.”
The boy, staring at Spade’s chest, repeated the two words he had twice
spoken in the Belvedere lobby. His voice was not loud. It was bitter.
Spade went out and slammed the door.
12