The Hammett Hex (3 page)

Only one more mountain to climb before it was time to pack.

Don't trust anyone except maybe family.

—The Kelly Rules

V
ERA WAS NOT
the only obstacle to a blissful vacation and not even the main one. You can quit your job, but it would be hard to quit your family. There was still Uncle Mick to contend with. Fortunately Uncle Lucky was still in New York City with Karen. At least I wasn't outnumbered.

“But to think what he does for a living!” Uncle Mick moaned as he put the finishing touches (mustard) on fried baloney sandwiches, a specialty of the Kelly kitchen. He wiped his hands on his Kiss the Blarney Stone apron with the downward-pointing arrow. His ginger hair seemed to grow redder and his ginger eyebrows wilder.

“He's a police officer.”

“Exactly, the police thing, and what does that tell you, my girl?”

“It tells me I'll be safe with him, among other things. Oh, and he probably won't take my wallet while I'm sleeping.”

Change of tactic from Uncle Mick. “What kind of family sends their boys to the police?”

“First of all, Tyler is not a boy, and second, the same kind
of family whose boys become . . .” In my family we call them independent business people or entrepreneurs.

No way was I telling Uncle Mick that Tyler “Smiley” Dekker was estranged from his parents over becoming a police officer. I didn't have the full story, but it seemed that being a cop was too big a step down the social ladder for them. Over time Uncle Mick might have been able to come to grips with the “police thing” but estranged from family? That would be a deal breaker.

I bent forward and let stars shine in my eyes. “San Francisco was Uncle Seamus's town. I've always wanted to visit.”

Mick leaned back and grinned happily. “Ah, our boy Seamus, now there was a lad.”

“I grew up on those stories! Remember?”

“How could I ever forget our Seamus and his shenanigans?”

“Remember when he ‘liberated' the emerald and diamond choker from the twenty-sixth floor of that five-star hotel and he scrambled all the way around the building from balcony to balcony?” As a girl, I had imagined Uncle Seamus to be like Spiderman only with red, fuzzy eyebrows and a gold chain in his ginger chest hair.

“And him afraid of heights! He was a scallywag!”

A fool more like it, but now I was on a roll. “And wasn't there some great story about a maid?”

“Indeed, all the ladies loved our Seamus. He was like catnip to a calico.”

“Was he?”

“He always got away right under the noses of the police.”

“How did he do that?” Of course, I could have told this and a dozen other Uncle Seamus stories myself without any prompting, but it was more fun this way.

“Talked the silly girl right out of her uniform, he did, and wheeled the cart down the hallway. The
po
-lice even checked in the cart to see if anything was hidden and they still didn't notice it was him pushing it.”

“They couldn't have been trying very hard if they didn't spot he was a man, Uncle Mick.”

“Indeed, our Seamus was always a bit delicate in appearance, had to be small and agile in his line of work. And anyway, he knew the cops wouldn't even give a second look to that poor girl. No one sees past a uniform. You should know that.”

“And I suppose he didn't have a five o'clock shadow.”

“Scrupulously groomed at all times was Seamus.” He paused, probably wondering if he should say, “Rest his soul.” We'd never been sure of what happened to Uncle Seamus in the aftermath of a heist that involved a diamond necklace belonging to the second girlfriend of a minor mobster named Les “the Bat” Blatt, known for his interrogation techniques with an aluminum baseball bat. We often say “rest his soul” in this family, but when it comes to Seamus, we go silent.

“And the maid, what do you think she did without her uniform?”

“What any sensible female would do! Took some clothing from the room she was cleaning and walked right outta there.”

Not everyone lived by the rules of the Kelly family. I hoped the chambermaid in the story wasn't made to pay for her mistake.

Uncle Mick was on a roll now.

“So you see,” I said, “this trip would be like a pilgrimage for me.”

Before I left, he had me doubled over retelling the famous story of Uncle Seamus, his pockets stuffed with cash, racing through a hotel kitchen, flinging pots of water behind him to slip up his pursuers. Being Seamus, he managed to score an excellent meal on his way to freedom. In some versions it was a plate of caviar, but in this one, it was a chateaubriand for two and a bottle of brandy.

I changed the topic briefly on my way out. “Vera needs me to get a copy of
Red Harvest
in San Francisco.”

“And that's a book?”

“Bingo. It's a book by Dashiell Hammett.”

“Why can't you get it here?”

“Well, it's an old book and she wants a first edition signed by the author. And she wants it from his old haunt of San Francisco. It's not my type of reading but she claims it was an important piece, the transition of a genre from pulp into mainstream and I quote, ‘
The absurd violence seems to captivate people of a lower distinction.
'”

Mick shook his lionlike mane. “You must admit that thing for these old books is awful weird, my girl.”

“It's the way I make my living, Uncle Mick. I can't bad-mouth her.”

“Good for you. No one else in Harrison Falls can stand the woman.”

And that wasn't entirely fair to Vera, the sins of the fathers and all that. “So I wonder if you have any connections in San Francisco that might help me to find a copy.”

“Through unorthodox channels, you mean?”

“No,” I said firmly. “Through regular legitimate business people only. I wondered if you knew someone who is familiar with the rare book community there. I'd be grateful if you had a lead.”

“Well, there might be someone. Leave it with me, my girl, and I'll keep you posted.”

Of course, I was capable of tracking down that copy, but now Uncle Mick's mind was off Tyler and his family for the time being. He had a project. And I was good to go.

*   *   *

SOMETIMES YOUR FRIENDS
can be tougher than your family. My two best friends, Tiffany Tibeaut, currently on a nursing gig in the nearby town of Grandville, and Lance DeWitt, reference librarian and heartthrob at the Harrison Falls Public Library, both felt entitled to opinions on this and, in fact, all aspects of my life.

Tiff's text kicked off with an emoji of an engagement ring and an instruction.
Don't get pressured into it. It's a huge step.

Really, Tiff? Pressured into it? Whatever you can say about Tyler Dekker, he had never pressured me. For sure, he'd hung around, causing great anxiety in the uncle sector, but he wasn't pushy except for that time he arrested me. He was relaxed, if you didn't count the occasions where he thought I was mixed up in something criminal. All misunderstandings, currently cleared up.

Tiff was not alone in her disapproval.

Lance was having none of it when I dropped by the Harrison Falls Library reference department to share my exciting plans. I waited in a lineup of Lance's octogenarian regulars to get my turn. As usual, he was drop-dead gorgeous and I was not the only person who thought that. As I waited patiently, I wondered what would have happened if my old buddy relationship with Lance had ever progressed past the crying on each other's shoulders to something more serious. I shook my head. Now Smiley was the man in my life, and Lance was one of my two best friends.

It started off well enough. “Hey, beautiful lady,” he said, smiling that ultra-white smile of his. Lance looks like a movie star and sounds like a matinee idol from the forties. I broke the news to him before Tiff did.

“San Francisco? With Dekker? Are you out of your mind? What do you really know about this guy, Jordan?”

“Be serious.”

“Excuse me, young woman, but other people need to talk to the librarian too, you know.”

I knew better than to argue with any of Lance's posse. Lance took me by the elbow and led me out of the reference room and along the hallway to the safety of the staff room.

“You've had some betrayals and a lot of serious and dangerous events in the last couple of years.”

“True, but—”

“Just sayin', take your time. Who knows what his motivations could be?”

My voice rose to an unappealing squeak. “Right. What motivations could he have for taking me to San Francisco, Lance? Couldn't he betray me in a less expensive way by staying home? It's a ridiculous allegation, which, by the way, is also light on detail.”

He shrugged. “Your family, maybe.”

“What do you mean?” I lowered my voice to a whisper as one of Lance's colleagues had come into the room.

“Sorry,” she said. “Didn't realize you were here.”

“No problem at all. I was just leaving.”

Back in the hallway, Lance caught up to me and put his arms around me. “Don't be mad. But
you
are a route into relatives and their secrets—not that I know anything about them and those secrets—and
he
is an ambitious police officer. Just be sure you know what you're getting into. I'm your friend, beautiful lady, and I don't say this lightly.”

“You say everything lightly.”

But although I laughed, Lance's words stayed with me, even when I reached San Francisco with Tyler.

*   *   *

DASHIELL HAMMETT WAS
known for a lot of things, relationship counseling not among them. Smiley and I had embarked on a cross-country trip with two flight changes and a three-hour time difference. We had never been anywhere together before, if you didn't count being trapped in a locked cellar in a burning building, facing down several killers or otherwise staring death in the face, but this isn't the time to talk about that. Sure, we knew all about stress, but we didn't know how to take a vacation as a couple.

One canceled flight had resulted in a trickle-down effect. Our thirteen-hour bargain trip ended up closer to twenty-four. In that time, we'd sprinted through JFK Airport,
missed one connection and wished we'd also missed two very rough landings. We'd been rerouted on an extra leg, lost half our luggage and more than one meal. We'd spent our time on the flights we did make with our knees near our noses. Did there always have to be someone who insisted on putting the seat back as far into our space as possible? And what was with the kid kicking our seats in the back? Since when did potato chips stand in for lunch? And how was it some passengers managed to eat them so loudly?

But none of it mattered because we were both in a mood for Dashiell Hammett and we were each reading different books. We each had our own favorite detective. I was getting to know the Continental Op for the first time. I was new to Hammett's world and characters. Smiley was revisiting his old hard-boiled hero, Sam Spade, in
The Maltese Falcon
. I supposed we could go for joint custody of Nick and Nora Charles when the time came. In the meantime, having a good book can make a trying time seem pleasant. Hammett had that right sense of suspense. As for me, I decided I liked the idea of the fat private eye. Hammett liked to borrow from real life, and when he was a Pinkerton operative, he'd worked the Virginia Rappe murder investigation and film star Fatty Arbuckle had been the prime suspect. It must have sparked a bit of an obsession as many of Hammett's characters were nameless fat guys. I admired his keen sense of observation but found his gloomy view of human nature a bit of a downer. I lived with Vera. I already got my daily dose of downers. I turned my book over and gave Smiley a hug. At least I could count on him to do the right thing.

*   *   *

THE GREAT THING
about travel is that, no matter how dragged out you are when you get to your destination, after a shower and a rest, you feel like a normal human being. I reveled in the excitement of being in this amazing city from
the moment we left the airport. Even the air was different in San Francisco. I loved the hills and the houses that seemed to be perched on them precariously. I enjoyed the rush and roar of the traffic. It felt like an exotic country and we hadn't even arrived in the city. I guess we made the right decision not to rent a car because I couldn't imagine driving here after sleepy little Harrison Falls. Smiley would have been okay, but we'd already decided to use our feet and transit in the city and maybe rent a car for a day if we wanted to visit wine country. We'd lost nearly a day of our planned visit because of the flight delays so we needed to pack stuff in.

I was glad all I had to do besides indulge on this vacation was to get that Hammett book for Vera.

Smiley had many plans, most of them also connected in some way to Dashiell Hammett. I had my own list of To Do's. Locating and purchasing
Red Harvest
was the easy one. But I wanted to get something special for my guy to compensate for the trip.