‘At Jack’s, I’m sure.’ Hammett felt a little stomach upset coming on. They never should have started that second bottle. Rather, he thought sagely, they shouldn’t have finished that second bottle.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she demanded stiffly.
‘Private rooms with beds upstairs above Jack’s.’
‘Sam, that’s a rotten thing to say!’
‘I feel rotten.’
The ferry lurched, then wallowed in a trough of wave. Goodie took his arm. Hammett’s stomach lurched.
‘Better let go of my arm, Goodie.’
‘Well!’ Goodie exclaimed. ‘I never…’
‘Something my sainted mother once told me. Never stand downwind of somebody who’s… about to be… sick…’
21
Brass Mouth Epstein, ferret-face mobile with delight, reached across the desk to shake the lean detective’s hand. Bright morning sunlight streaming through the blinds danced dust motes in the air and made the Persian carpet seem alive. He said maliciously, ‘Drop around to give me a message from Molly?’
‘She said you were a kike son of a bitch and a pickle-nose Jew bastard.’ Hammett’s hours in a Turkish bath had pushed color into his face.
Epstein chuckled. ‘You damn near convince me you did see her.’
Hammett leaned forward to drop his match onto the smoking stand ashtray.
‘Bingo sends his regards, too.’
The laughter faded from Epstein’s face. ‘Bingo who?’
‘Bingo Biltmore. Arf, arf.’ Hammett’s eyes sparkled; he was enjoying himself.
‘I’ll be a son of a bitch,’ said the dapper little attorney. ‘I’ll even be a kike son of a bitch.’ He got to his feet and began pacing the carpet between the desk and the window. ‘You mind telling me how you did it?’
His horse-faced secretary stuck her head in the door. ‘You’re due in Judge Conlan’s courtroom in half an hour.’
‘Thanks, Jenny.’
She withdrew. Hammett put his head back against the fine-grained Spanish leather and blew one of the few perfect smoke rings of his life. He brought his eyes down to Epstein’s.
‘I figured the odds for you using one of the Owl Drug phones to make the call at a probable four to seven. So I was having a cup of coffee at the counter when you came in.’
‘Set up!’ exclaimed Epstein to himself, sadly. He sat down and fixed his eyes on a pencil lying on the desk. ‘Molly tell you anything helpful?’
‘Even negatives are helpful. Who are you hiding her from? Brady? The Mulligans? Or both of them?’
‘The DA isn’t going to put Molly away for fifteen years,’ said Epstein obliquely.
‘Maybe not. But only because she’ll spill her guts once he starts squeezing her.’
‘Brady isn’t going to put any pressure on her.’
‘You don’t know Evelyn Brewster very well. Five bucks says she’ll push Brady into going all the way on Molly.’
Epstein checked his watch. He sighed and rose. ‘Conlan is a bastard about attorneys being late. I don’t think you know Mrs Brewster very well. And I doubt if you know me at all.’
Hammett got to his feet. ‘You figure to save Molly with your brilliant courtroom pyrotechnics?’ Epstein grunted wordlessly. ‘Or maybe Molly’s just not going to show up at all.’
‘In this state there’s ninety days before her bail will be declared forfeit. On the eighty-ninth day she’s going to show up in court — and I’m going to take your five dollars.’
‘Don’t count on the reform committee folding up or on my brilliant investigation uncovering all the corrupt policemen. Evelyn Brewster wants Molly’s hide nailed to her wall no matter what else happens.’ Hammett suddenly remembered his drunken promise to Molly. ‘By the way, Molly wants to know where you’ve hidden her maid.’
‘Crystal isn’t with her?’
‘She thinks you told Crystal to find her own hole.’
A frown creased Epstein’s brow. ‘But I’m not even Crystal’s attorney! I was very surprised when she didn’t show up for the arraignment.’
‘Didn’t she talk to you about some mysterious trouble she’d had back east? In Chicago? With some mobster or other?’
‘No, nothing, not a word.’
Hammett hurriedly dropped the subject before the little attorney got intrigued, and they parted with a handshake.
Hammett headed downhill for Market and a streetcar. Crystal Tam. Strictly speaking, not part of his investigation at all. But damned interesting. Maybe even germane. Vic killed in what could conceivably have been a mob killing. Crystal on the run from some mobster after seeing something about him — presumably — in the local newspaper.
Maybe, out of curiosity, somewhere along the line he’d drop by the Chronicle for a look at the front page for his birthday Sunday, the day before Crystal disappeared.
Jimmy Wright’s room at the Townsend was just a buck-and-a-quarter hotel room, anonymous as rolled oats. A room for a reasonable night’s sleep, for an hour of hired sex, for a poker game, for a suicide note and a straight razor slippery with arterial blood.
But this Monday it was a business conference. Hammett had looked over the four new men up from LA and liked what he saw. Unmemorable men, the first requisite for a good op.
He lounged against the dresser, ashtray at his elbow.
‘We’ve been hired to investigate corruption in the San Francisco police department, not merely to probe vice in the city. We’re not surveying conditions, we’re seeking punitive evidence. The cops know this, so we can expect damn-all in the way of cooperation from the department.’
‘How much authority do we have?’ asked a pockfaced man.
‘We’ve got the Chief of Inspectors on our side, and the mayor’s office is supposed to be behind us. We’ve got a reform committee that might or might not have some teeth in it, and we’ve got power to go to the grand jury.’
‘Sounds pretty good to me.’
‘That’s all just on paper.’
‘Somebody said something about phone taps,’ cut in a cheerfully round-faced operative sitting on the foot of the bed.
‘McKenna’s right bower, Owen Lynch, is giving us the mayor’s written authorization today.’
The round-faced man had a notebook open. ‘Names and numbers.’
‘Dr Gardner Shuman. General office number is WEst sixty-seven. Two phones at the drugstore downstairs, WEst six-four-six and six-four-seven. Home phone, WAlnut two-three-two. Two numbers at his office down on Post Street. DOuglas five-eight-eight-five…’
As Hammett continued to rattle off names and numbers without using any notes, Jimmy Wright fired up a Fatima. Hammett had chosen an excellent way to announce himself as a fellow pro.
‘Home phones on the Mulligans?’ asked the wireman without looking up from his flying pencil.
‘Griffith, no. He’s too smart to transact business from the house. Boyd, yes. He’s a dummy who likes to throw his weight around. You know the drill. Anything in or out that sounds interesting or suspicious.’
‘My meat,’ said the rotund man.
Hammett lit a cigarette of his own. ‘Jimmy, pick out the six top taxi-trade houses — on a par with Molly Farr’s — and tap ’em. Ditto on the six biggest speaks in town, and make sure Dom Pronzini’s is on the list.’
‘Got you,’ said Wright. ‘How about Brass Mouth Epstein’s office?’
‘I talked with Molly yesterday.’
‘Busy weekend,’ he said admiringly.
‘Yeah. Also the six top books in town. Concentrate on those who use wire services from back east.’
‘We’ll need a raft of stenos,’ warned Wright.
‘Hire ’em.’ He pointed at the swarthy pockmarked man. ‘Find an office where we can keep records, question witnesses, and record answers. Two telephones. Security. A back entrance that’d be tough for anyone else to keep tabs on.’ He swung back to Wright. ‘Jimmy. Make damn sure that nobody gets the phone company to tap our phones.’
‘How many men should Tommy use for interrogations?’
‘Two besides himself. Not you.’ He had turned to the final pair of men. One looked like a drinker, with sad bloodhound eyes, the other like a labor organizer in a loud check suit. Neither of them was either one. ‘I want you two on prowling assignments.’