Hammett realized he had never shut the door. As he did, someone knocked on it. He found a boy Crystal’s age who hadn’t yet outgrown his pimples and would never outgrow his freckles.
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m from the Crocker-Langley San Francisco Directory, sir. We’re gathering statistics for the 1929 directory. Your landlady said you had recently moved in…’
‘Hammett. First name, Dashiell.’
‘How do you spell those, sir?’
‘ H-A-M-M-E-T-T. D-A-S-H-I-E-L–L.’
The young census-taker, writing laboriously, left the second l off Dashiell, but Hammett didn’t bother to correct him. He wouldn’t be around San Francisco much longer. Write to his sister, Reba, suggest that they share an apartment in New York for a while. The ideas of somewhere else, and of family, seemed to appeal at the moment.
‘And could I have your occupation, sir?’
‘Writer.’ Then he added, ‘ W-R-I-T-E-R.’
He shut the door. He leaned against it for a moment, then burst out laughing and went back into the living room.
Writer. He’d snatched enough hours to finish the revision of The Dain Curse in the past couple of months, but The Maltese Falcon would have to wait for final revision until after the investigation was completed. Maybe even until after he’d left San Francisco.
But meanwhile he thought he had an idea for a new book. A corrupt city, unnamed — hell, not San Francisco, he’d had a bellyful of this burg for a while, but — why not Baltimore? The Baltimore of his childhood? Corruption and politics and murder and friendship and love. Not a detective novel. Hell no. He’d had a bellyful of that, too.
A political hanger-on. There’d be a girl, of course. Not a Crystal, not an Oriental — he’d never be able to write Crystal. But still, a woman who would use other people just as she pleased. Bent on vengeance, for some reason he could work out…
And in extracting her vengeance, use everybody. Except the hero. Nobody would be able to use… Ned? Sure. Ned. Base him physically on Fingers LeGrand. Maybe even his character a little bit, too.
But nobody could use him unless he wanted them to. Cynical, hard-drinking, always loyal, and never corruptible…
Sure, he thought, beginning to pace the length of the living room from window to door and back again, sure. That was going to work. That was going to work just swell.
But the vast majority of it is the result of remarkable original scholarship by Professor William Godshalk of the University of Cincinnati. He simply handed over to me all of his original Hammett research. This novel would not have its present depth of background without Professor Godshalk’s stunning generosity. He has in progress (to be published by Twayne Press) a critical biography of Hammett that should prove to be the major academic source for years to come.