Hammett (Crime Masterworks) (30 page)

Hammett cursed aloud. He’d treated Crystal as a literary creation rather than as a real person. He had
pretended
to be the Op, or Sam Spade, instead of being them. He’d become a writer playing at being a manhunter. A typing desk was safer than a street corner. The tiger in his mind had sheathed its claws. He’d become able to risk less. Death had stopped looking over his shoulder.

And so he had died.

The door across the room opened. Jimmy Wright strolled in, a Fatima in his mouth and a fedora on his head. For a terrible moment, Hammett thought he
had
died. Jimmy Wright had his hands in his overcoat pockets because each pocket contained a naked .45 with the safety off. So he could fire through the pocket without having to draw.

Because Jimmy Wright was a manhunter. The fat little op would never be anything else. Drunk or sober, nobody would ever get the drop on him the way that they’d gotten the drop on Hammett. The way the girl . . .

The girl! Crystal!

‘Jimmy, get to hell out of here! The house might go up any second—’

‘Been through the house, Dash.’ He stepped across Laverty’s body with the same casual disregard Crystal had shown. He crouched beside Hammett to unlock the cuffs. ‘Quite a dump. Fancy. Big for a guy living alone. Give you fantasies after a bit. This room’d give you nightmares. Somebody’s been busy down here.’

‘Laverty,’ said Hammett. He leaned weakly against the wall, waiting for the agony as the blood started getting back into his white, pudgy, useless hands. ‘He killed Lynch with his bare hands, and then shot himself.’

Wright grunted, standing in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, staring up at the mess drying on the ceiling.

‘Why?’

‘End of a dream. Christ that hurts!’ He had begun gingerly shaking his hands. But he loved the pain because it told him he really was alive, that Jimmy Wright was real, that Crystal . . . He said delicately, ‘Anyone else in the house?’

The op shook his head. ‘Cook’s day off, maybe. I’d better call O’Gar. We’ll need the meatwagon here.’

‘Sure. Listen, Jimmy, how did you . . .’ He waved an arm weakly.

‘Goodie was up packi . . . was still up, when you managed to thump her door as Laverty took you out. Figured out that Pop Daneri would know where to reach me. I went over to her apartment and sat around twiddling my thumbs until the call came.’

The call. A horrible suspicion dawned in Hammett’s mind. He sat down on the edge of the bed and began flopping his aching hands against his thighs to hurry the wake-up process.

‘Call?’

‘A woman. Called Goodie’s, asked for me, said you were shackled in the basement here with a couple of stiffs. Said the front door would be open and the keys to your handcuffs would be on the telephone stand in the front hall. What’s so funny?’

Because Hammett had begun to rock with helpless laughter. Tears streamed down his face.

. . .
you’ll enjoy yourself so much more, wondering . . . just how
evil
little Crystal can be
. . .

‘She sounded Oriental, must have been the maid or something.’

Or something. In this single contemptuous gesture she had
shown Hammett just how thoroughly he’d been beaten. Sam Spade? Even Sam couldn’t have done much with her.
No
manhunter, real or fictional, could.

Because Hammett couldn’t touch her. He knew all, could prove nothing. She was above it, beyond it, she’d won. She’d had them all killed, methodically and maliciously, but had killed none of them herself.

Anyone –
anyone
– who could prove anything against her was dead.

Hammett could tell his story until he was a little old man with a bent back and a long beard, and no DA in the land would take him seriously. A fifteen-year-old whorehouse maid did
what?

He stood up.

‘I’d better call Goodie. She’ll be worried.’

‘She’s gone,’ said the op. He didn’t try to soften it. ‘As soon as the call came that you were here safe . . .’ He shrugged. ‘She was already packed.’

Hammett rested his forearm against one of the bedposts and pressed his forehead against it. So. He’d driven her to it. Stupid drunken bastard. Once Biltmore possessed her, there’d be no turning back for her. No more small town and houseful of well-loved kids and . . .

‘Said to tell you she’d gone back to the porch-swing cowboys. Said you’d know what she meant.’

He felt a soaring of spirit. For every evil, a good. For every Crystal, a Goodie. He found he was grinning broadly.

Sure, goddammit, who ever said you were going to get it all? A piece of it was the best any self-respecting manhunter
ever
expected, anyway. And in the meantime . . .

Hell, in the meantime he was on salary.

He jabbed a finger into the op’s hard, ample gut.

‘Okay, Jimmy, use the phone upstairs to call the rest of the boys. Lynch was behind the Mulligans. It won’t get made public, but it’s going to come out where it counts, so I want a raid on the bailbond office right now. Legal. Court order.
Before Mulligan finds out his boss is dead and sends his tame cops in after the stuff. There’s enough dynamite in those files to blow up this goddamn town, and we’re going to light the fuse!’

I
t was Wednesday, August 29. Eighty-nine days since Molly Farr had jumped bail to start it all.

Hammett had spent the morning, as usual, passing details of the investigation to the grand jury in closed session. It wasn’t over yet, but it was drawing to a close.

The Mulligans already were under indictment on multiple felony counts of bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to commit extortion.

Gardner Shuman had resigned as police commissioner, and one of the city supervisors had committed suicide.

Fifty-seven policemen ranking from patrolman to captain had resigned quietly; fifteen more had been removed by dismissal and five had been indicted for perjury and extortion.

According to the tabloids, Laverty had killed himself while depressed over ill health, and Lynch had been murdered by an unknown assailant he had surprised rifling his home.

The probable hobo who had rolled and accidentally killed Victor Atkinson was still at large.

Famed ex-Pinkerton detective Jimmy Wright had been conducting a sweeping investigation of graft and corruption in San Francisco under the personal direction of Mayor Brendan Brian McKenna. The name of Dashiell Hammett had not appeared in the newspapers at all.

The bookies were still thriving. And the taxi houses. And the speakies. Rinaldo Pronzini had taken over his son’s club, which, thanks to its notoriety, was flourishing.

Hammett paused outside the hearing room to check his watch. Jimmy Wright, on his way in, stopped beside him. ‘Just had another photo-session with His Honor, Dash. Without his wife to point him in the right direction and tell him to smile . . .’

‘Yeah, but nobody’s going to stop him. He’s cleaning up San Francisco, he’s Irish, he’s handsome, he’s a hell of an orator, his wife has aged beautifully, and his best friend died defending the sanctity of the American home. Given all that, they’d make him governor if he was a hydrocephalic.’

‘Listen, Dash, I’ve closed the deal with Vic’s widow for the agency. That partnership offer is still . . .’

‘We can kick it around next week, Jimmy, okay?’

Ever since Jimmy Wright had walked into that basement charnel house to free him, Hammett had been immersed in the corruption that had spewed from the asbestos-lined filing cabinets hauled from Mulligan Bros Bailbonds. He was tired, worn out, sick of it. He was barely aware, as he went down the echoing marble-floored corridor, of the rushing attorneys, the nervous accused, the testifying cops and witnesses, the spectators and hangers-on congregated around the doorways of courts just convening for the afternoon sessions.

Then he passed a knot of reporters, and some of their remarks caught his ear.

‘. . . Brady promised the circus of the century, then he doesn’t even show up for the hearing . . .’

‘. . . veil, can’t even be sure it
is
Molly Farr . . .’

‘. . . Brass Mouth showed up . . .’

‘. . . anything for money . . .’

Molly Farr!
Brass Mouth Epstein! Of course. Today must be the eighty-ninth day since she had jumped bail. It would be forfeit today if she didn’t show up for arraignment. Brass Mouth had said he’d have her in court. And had bet Hammett five bucks he’d get her off.

Hammett caught a passing reporter’s arm.

‘Whose court?’

‘Judge Kelly.’

Hammett paused in front of Room 306. He looked in through the round glass window. Yep. There was Brass Mouth. Beside him a shapeless veiled female form; apparently Molly Farr come for her arraignment on three counts of Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor.

But no crowds. It should have been bedlam after all the newspaper space Molly’s flight had generated. No reporters.

No Evelyn Brewster and her husband, there to savor the supreme moment of triumph.

And the most amazing fact, no District Attorney Matt Brady. The people were represented by Assistant District Attorney Michael Bender, on his first court appearance. Why, for God’s sake, Hammett wondered, as he slipped inside to take a seat on a rear bench in the nearly deserted chamber. Brady, as soon as he convicted Molly, could just about walk into the mayor’s office and sit down behind the desk.

Brass Mouth Epstein was just sitting down. He was impossibly dandy in a dark-blue double-breasted suit with a viciously subdued silver silk stripe. At his breast burst a white display handkerchief, on his chest glittered gold studs, on his soft rolled cuffs, gold links.

Now Bender was on
his
feet: a slender Irish lad with mobile features and blue eyes and a shock of gleaming black hair. He gestured at the demurely triple-veiled woman Epstein was defending.

‘I agree that’s a human being sitting next to distinguished counsel, but how’s anyone supposed to know whether it’s Molly Farr or not?’

‘I
am
Molly Farr, you black Irish—’

Hammett recognized her voice even as Epstein cut her off. ‘You hired me to do the talking.’ To the bench, he said, ‘This is Molly Farr, Your Honor.’

‘I continue to oppose restoration of bail,’ said Bender.

Epstein was on his feet to yell, ‘In all my years practicing law,
this is the first time I’ve known the district attorney to oppose release of bail when the defendant has returned to surrender voluntarily. Why is he trying to crucify this unfortunate lady?’

‘Your Honor—’

But Epstein now was in full tongue. He shot his cuffs, he danced like a welterweight on the Friday night card at the Winterland Rink on Steiner Street.

‘I could stand on the steps of the Hall of Justice and throw a handful of buckshot, Your Honor, and hit so many houses of prostitution that the district attorney would be kept busy for a year. So why is he picking on Molly?’

‘I object!’ yelped Bender. ‘I object, I object, I obj—’

‘Objection sustained.’ Kelly said to Epstein, ‘Counselor, you are not giving your closing argument to a jury. I would like to get down to the matter before this court. How do you plead your client to the charges?’

‘We plead guilty to one misdemeanor count of Contributing, and not guilty to two felony counts of Contributing.’

The judge, shaken, looked from one attorney to the other. He said, ‘Misdemeanor?’ He fixed on Bender. ‘Mr District Attorney—’

‘So stipulated, Your Honor.’ Bender was nearly inaudible.

‘Counsel will approach the bench.’

Hammett swallowed the laughter that bubbled up inside him. Epstein had muzzled the wolves snapping at his client’s heels. Hammett owed him five bucks. With a single misdemeanor charge against her, Molly might get off with . . .

Epstein’s voice, still angry, rose. ‘. . . not acceptable to Your Honor, then I will plead my client innocent of all charges. It will not only cost this county a great deal of money, but certain people will be called upon to—’

‘No!’ cried Bender in alarm. ‘No, the misdemeanor charge is sufficient to establish . . .’

His voice became inaudible. The attorneys retreated from the bench. Molly was called forward. Was she willing to waive her right to plead innocent? Was she willing to accept the sentence
of the court to the single charge of misdemeanor Contributing? Epstein dug an elbow into her ribs.

‘I am, Your Honor.’

‘Then the court must agree, Mr Bender, with the defense contention that, although the defendant has pleaded guilty, she might very well have been acquitted of all charges in open court. Therefore, I find the defendant guilty of one count of misdemeanor Contributing, I assess defendant five hundred dollars, and I remand her to the women’s section of County Jail Number Two in San Mateo County for one year; the latter portion of this punishment to be suspended upon condition that the fine is paid and that the defendant discontinue her present occupation.’ He leaned forward to regard Molly from behind his massive hardwood desk. ‘Have you any other means of employment in mind, young lady?’