Shamus In The Green Room (3 page)

romantic.

Rafe checked his cell phone for messages.

“You still have those smog alerts there in Los Angeles? I

15

was visiting once in 1975, and we couldn’t even leave the

motel.”

“Smog gets such a bad rap,” I said to Rafe.

“Sorry, what were you saying?” he asked.

“If there was no smog, we wouldn’t have those beautiful

pink-and-orange sunsets. It has to do with the particulate mat-

ter in the sky.”

Rafe put his phone back in his pocket. “I thought it had to

do with auto emissions.”

The cabbie guffawed unbecomingly.

I missed Gambino already. But this was a job. And I needed

the money.

Last month, little Alexander’s mother, Roxana (a flake), had

split with her new husband, Dave (a Christian rocker), and ba-

sically abandoned Alexander to the care of his father (Vincent),

and Vincent’s wife (who would be my daughter, Annie). Rox-

ana was moving to Bali to study the ancient art of healing. No

comment. And Annie and Vincent, who hadn’t even been in-

formed of Alexander’s existence until he was close to two, were

convinced she was never coming back. Apparently, there was a

Balinese boyfriend, poor fool.

Anyway, while Annie and Vincent were thrilled by the

prospect of raising Alexander, whom they loved dearly, they

were worried about making ends meet. They were creative

types (Annie was a set decorator; Vincent, a comic-book artist)

and their resources were limited, which is why I needed the

money. Annie and Vincent didn’t know it, but my Rafe Simic

windfall was going directly to them. I’d already informed my

accountant, Mr. Keshigian, who was delighted I’d be receiving

the annual gift-tax exclusion, not to mention significantly re-

ducing my taxable income for the year.

16

“We’re here,” said Rafe, interrupting my thoughts. “Let’s

dump these bags and I’ll mike you.”

“Mike me?” I said, stepping out of the cab. I handed him

his keys, which dangled from a Playboy-bunny key ring. “You

left these on the seat, by the way.”

The valet looked like a bouncer at a nightclub. “Welcome

to the Clift, Mr. Simic.” He took the bags and handed Rafe a

claim check. “Good afternoon to you, too, miss. These will be

in your rooms when you’re ready.”

“Thank you.” I turned back to Rafe. “What did you mean,

‘mike me’?”

“Don’t worry. There’s a release form.”

“What are you talking about?”

There was a sudden ruckus across the street.

“Oh, shit,” Rafe said. “I was hoping we could avoid this.”

He yanked the cab door open. “Get back in. Now!”

We pulled away from the curb with a screeching of tires.

The cabbie put the meter back on with a flourish.

His head was whipping around now in full Exorcist mode.

And I had no Advil.

t

T

h e r e m a y h a v e b e e n m o r e l e i s u r e l y w a y s to see the sights of San Francisco. But given that we were being

chased by three photographers hanging out of a Lincoln Navi-

gator, speed was paramount.

“Try to lose them,” said Rafe. “There’s a hundred bucks in

it for you.”

Amazing he could say that with a straight face.

“Good car, the Navigator,” the cabbie said as we tore past a

17

fleet of tour buses parked along Union Square. “But nobody

can put pedal to the medal like I can! Name’s Declan Chan.”

He indicated his license. It was a flattering picture. “And yes,

I’m Irish.”

“But isn’t this Chinatown?” asked Rafe, as we sped up

Grant, through a pair of ornate red gates inscribed with the

word “Chinatown.”

“Sure is,” he replied. “Look down Ross Alley, folks. Every

day two little old ladies make twenty thousand fortune cookies

by hand down there. The conveyor belt looks like it’s made of

miniature waffle irons! Oops!”

He slammed on the brakes and I fell into Rafe’s lap.

“Would you turn around, please!” I yelled. “You should be

watching the road!”

“I’ve got eyes in the back of my head. Our pursuers are still

behind us, but I got plans.”

We zigzagged up and down the narrow streets, past street-

lights sculpted to look like golden dragons, cages filled with lit-

tle turtles and squawking chickens, and pseudo antiques shops

stuffed with pseudo antiques.

I thought of Hammett’s fat, bald detective, the Continental

Op. He said somewhere that if he never had to visit China-

town again, it would be soon enough.

“Look out!” cried Rafe, who was starting to enjoy himself.

We swerved to avoid a line of children following their

teacher, who was waving a tissue-paper phoenix mounted on a

tall stick.

“Just like the movies, folks. It’s always Chinese New Year!”

“Sorry,” Rafe said, leaning into me. “This kind of thing

happens to me a lot. You sort of get used to it after a while.

I hope you’re not too freaked out.”

18

“It’s pedal to the metal,” I said under my breath. “With a t.”

“Excuse me?” Declan Chan speaking.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“We’re going over to Lombard now,” he said, pulling a

quick right. “And I would say that’s gonna do it.”

We pulled to a stop at the top of a treacherous slope. Lom-

bard was famous for being the steepest, crookedest street in

the city.

“Why are we stopping?” I asked.

“Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. ‘We apprise the enemy of our

move so that he may more thoroughly fear us.’ ”

I wheeled around in my seat just in time to see the Naviga-

tor take off in the other direction. One look at the bumper-to-

bumper traffic going down the hill had done it. So the guy was

some sort of sage after all.

“Congratulations,” said Rafe, handing him a crisp one-

hundred-dollar bill.

“Thank you, sir. At this point, if I may be so bold, I’d sug-

gest you walk down to Leavenworth. It’ll be twenty minutes in

the cab otherwise, not that I’m not enjoying your company.”

“Leavenworth!” I exclaimed. “Hammett lived on Leaven-

worth!” Now it was my turn to get excited. “The San Loretto

Apartments. That’s where he finished writing The Maltese Fal-

con. Then he took off for New York with his girlfriend Nell

Martin. He dedicated The Maltese Falcon to his wife, Jose, but

The Glass Key went to Nell.”

“Stop right there,” Rafe said. He slipped something around

my neck as we got out of the cab. “You’re good for ninety min-

utes. Start over. I want to get every word.”

And thus, with a Sony mini-microphone, was I granted

immortality.

CHAPTER

THREE

It was alarming how easily I went into full-lecture mode. I

suppose that’s what comes of having lived with a professor.

My ex could pontificate on any subject, any time of day or

night, regardless of whether or not he knew a thing about it:

James Fenimore Cooper—that goes without saying; the chem-

ical properties of laundry detergent; the history of religious

cults; the origins of flypaper. We met when he was a grad stu-

dent at Princeton and I was a senior at Asbury Park High, wait-

ing tables at D’Amico’s Pizza, on the boardwalk. I dazzled him

with my black Spandex pants. He dazzled me with his knowl-

edge of pizza toppings around the globe. Which just goes to

show—well, I guess that’s pretty obvious.

In Australia, by the way, they prefer fried eggs to pepperoni.

Rafe and I spent the rest of the afternoon walking and talk-

ing. I started at the beginning, with Hammett’s childhood in

Baltimore, cut short when he left school in 1908, at fourteen,

20

to help his struggling father. He was never to return. For the

next six years, he held half a dozen odd jobs. He worked as a

stevedore, a messenger, a freight clerk. He operated a nail ma-

chine in a box factory. And he screwed up every time, which

was the part of the story Rafe seemed to relate to.

While we ate ham-and-cheese sandwiches on a bench out-

side the public library, he regaled me with his own tales of

youthful ineptitude.

There was his stint as a junior lifeguard, when a five-year-

old girl almost drowned on his watch; the time he worked as a

stock boy at a hardware store and was fired for roughhousing;

his experience working construction his junior year of high

school. Things were going well with the construction job until

he realized the foreman was a con artist in search of apprentices.

“Once he saw I was useless hauling bricks,” Rafe said be-

tween bites, “he kept me in the office with him, you know, fil-

ing stuff. But I screwed up with that, too. Finally, he tried me

on the phones and he liked my smooth manner, or something

like that.”

The first of many, I supposed.

“He taught me everything he knew,” Rafe continued. “One

of his favorite scams was account boosting. Ever heard of it?”

“No,” I replied.

“Federal Express introduced overnight delivery in 1981. It

was a red-letter day for crooks.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You get a credit card, charge up some stuff, then overpay

by overnight delivery with a stolen check. When the payment

exceeds the balance, you boost the credit line. Under federal

law, banks have to post card payments before checks clear and

so they have no choice but to credit your account. The next day

21

you go to a bank machine and withdraw the excess on the card.

Later, of course, the check bounces, but you’re out long before

that.” Rafe stopped to take a breath. His eyes were aglow.

“You played a con artist in one of your movies,” I said.

“Blue Sky in the Dark, right? I rented it. You were excellent. I

thought you were a good guy up to the very end.”

“You think I’m kidding,” he said with a grin. “I’m insulted.”

“Don’t be. I don’t take a lot of people seriously.”

We packed up our trash and tossed it in the can.

“You’re not getting off that easy,” he said. “My honor is at

stake. Follow me.”

He dragged me across the street to a tire store, stuck his

head into the office, then pulled me farther down the block.

“What exactly are we looking for?” I asked.

“This is it.”

We stopped outside a beat-up little storefront.

“I guarantee nobody’s gonna know me in here,” he said

gleefully.

“Why should that matter?” I asked, getting nervous.

The flickering neon sign in the window read: ike’s wines

and spirits, ca. 1941.

“The art of the short change,” Rafe announced as the bell

on the door chimed.

There was a large woman working the register, her head

buried in a book. It was the St. James Bible.

“Don’t do this, Rafe,” I whispered, tugging at his shirt.

“Look at what she’s reading.”

“I’ll take two Reese’s peanut butter cups,” he said, grabbing

a couple of Halloween-size candies from the jar beside her.

The woman looked up. Her head was ornamented with

half a dozen pink hair curlers. “Seventy-five cents, sir.”

22

Rafe handed her a ten.

I faked flipping through magazines while she rang it up.

Redbook. Self. Glamour. He wasn’t going to win a Golden

Globe, he was going to be making license plates.

“Twenty-five cents makes a dollar,” the woman began.

Rafe pocketed the quarter and turned to go.

“No, no!” she said, stopping him. “I’m not done here.”

Rafe walked back to the counter, where she started slapping

ones at him.

“That’s two, three, four, one is five, five is ten.”

“Thanks.” Rafe gave her one of his high-wattage smiles.

Oblivious, she went back to her reading.

“Are we done now?” I asked, relieved.

“You know what?” Rafe said, abruptly turning on his heel.

“I don’t really want all these dollars. Could I trouble you,

ma’am, for a ten for five and five ones?”

Shit.

He walked back to the register, keys jangling in his pocket.

The woman handed him a ten and he handed her the five and

the fistful of ones she’d just given him.

“Listen, can you count that, make sure I gave you the right

change?” He chuckled. “I’ve never been great with math.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure, I can do that. It’s not like I have

anything better to do.”

She counted the bills, then scratched her head, careful not

to disturb the curlers. “There’s only nine here. You owe me an-

other dollar.”

Shit, shit, shit.

Rafe looked at her from between narrowed lids. “You have

nine there, right?”

23

“Uh-huh.” Her lids, dusted with pale green eyeshadow,

narrowed, too.

“Tell you what, let me give you eleven more,” he said, dig-

ging into his pocket for another single, “and I’ll take a twenty.”

She took the bills he offered, then snatched a twenty from

the drawer and put it into the palm of his outstretched hand.

“Have a nice day,” she said with finality.

“You, too,” he replied.

Once we were outside, I turned on him. “What is wrong

with you, Rafe?”

“C’mon. It’s not like she was particularly nice.”