Whitfield moved to Hollywood in the late 1930s, and after becoming an enormously rich man, he stopped writing altogether. Eventually his money ran out. When he contracted tuberculosis, his old friend Hammett had to lend him $500 to pay for his hospitalization. In January 1945, Raoul Whitfield died.
Despite his production of an abundance of low-quality work, Whitfield was without a doubt one of the founders of hard-boiled fiction. There were times when he created, seemingly without effort, a tough, cold-hearted, thin-lipped piece of fiction; and there were the even rarer occasions when he sat down and wrote a story like “Mistral,” which was first published in the December 15, 1931, issue of Adventure and may well be the best story he ever wrote.
J. A.
Mistral
(1931)
It was the way he ate spaghetti that first attracted my attention. I’d put Remmings on the Conte Grande, in a more or less sober condition, and the noon sailing vessel had got away from the Genoa docks. I’d been hungry, and I’d wandered along the dock section looking for a restaurant. The one I’d picked had fooled me; it smelled pretty badly and there were thousands of flies. They were persistent and buzzy and they seemed to like Italian food. But the spaghetti was good. As I wound it round my fork I looked around the small, dirty room and saw him. He was eating the stringy stuff, but he was cutting it with a knife. That seemed a bit stiff, in Genoa, and after I’d done two plates of it, smothered with a good Parmesan cheese, I looked him over just out of curiosity.
He was big and dark. He had black eyes and a lean face — very lean for his size. It was a hard face, yet there was softness in his eyes. I caught him once when he was inspecting fly specks on the ceiling, and noticed the scar under his chin. His skin was white and the scar stood out pretty clearly. I’d seen knife scars before, and this looked like one. It was long and slightly curved, and a nasty red color. I got the idea that it wasn’t a very old scar.
His suit was of gray material, a quiet cloth. It fit him very well. I decided that he wasn’t an Italian. He caught me looking at him, and it seemed to make him nervous. The next time I glanced in his direction I caught him watching me without appearing to do so. His hands were nervous and the muscles of his mouth twitched.
While I was drinking terrible coffee I heard him say—
“Damn flies!”
His voice was thick, but without accent. Two boats had come to Genoa that day from the States — a big one and a small one. I decided that he was an American and that he’d just arrived. He paid his check and went past me as I was trying to think in terms of the lira. I smiled a little, and he started to smile. But something changed his mind. He looked worried and frowned, turning his head away from me. He was better than six feet tall and had very broad shoulders, but his body hunched forward when he walked.
I thought about him several times as I drove toward the border town of Ventimiglia. At St. Remo I got my trunks from the rear of the car and had a swim in the Mediterranean. It was around three in the afternoon and the day was hot. I forgot about the scarred one until I’d driven across the border into France and had reached Monte Carlo. Before the Casino I stopped to light a cigaret, and a great yellow machine pulled up. It was of Italian make — a very expensive type of car. The chauffeur was an Italian. And from the rear of the machine my scarred friend descended. He spoke to the chauffeur and didn’t see me, and I turned my back as he went into the Casino. I was very curious about him. That fly filled, dock section eating place, the knifed spaghetti and this expensive machine — there was something strange in the combination.
I followed him into the Casino, and knew at once he had never been there before. He didn’t seem to know just what to do, and the ornate reception hall that lay ahead of him didn’t offer any solution. I felt that he’d expected to see the gambling tables immediately and he was confused. An attendant approached and spoke to him in French. He merely asked if he could be of service, but the scarred one did not understand.
I was very close to him and I acted on impulse. At his side I smiled.
“You buy an admission ticket in this room on your left,” I said, and gestured toward the room with the low counters and the cashiers behind them.
He stared at me with his dark eyes, and then they got very cold. The warmth went from them so suddenly that I started to turn away. But he said—
“Thanks, buddy.”
I nodded. Well, I was sure that he was an American and that he didn’t speak French and that he was afraid of something. And I was interested. But I knew that showing interest would be about the best way of learning nothing. So I sauntered into the room on my left and reached the billets de jour counter. I handed over my passport and ten francs and received the billet, after my name and number had been jotted down. It was all done pretty rapidly, and I was turning away when I heard the scarred one say—
“One admission—”
The Frenchman behind the counter smiled and asked for his passport. The scarred one didn’t understand, so I said, still helpfully butting in:
“He has to see your passport. Formality here.”
The dark eyes widened and his right hand went to the inside pocket of his gray coat. I caught the red color of the passport binding, but that was all. It slipped out of sight again and the scarred one swore.
“Must have left it — at home,” he muttered in his thickish voice.
That was a pretty bad one. He wasn’t giving me credit for having eyes or brains. But I smiled at him.
“You can still get inside,” I said. “Give him your name and the name of your villa or hotel. Tell him you’re very anxious to make a little play — you feel lucky. Smile at him.”
I expected him to say he couldn’t speak French, and to ask me if I would help. And I was prepared to tell him that the man behind the counter could speak five languages quite well, and English was one of them. But I was fooled. The scarred one smiled at the man behind the counter; he said that he’d left his passport in his hotel, and that he felt lucky and would like to try roulette.
The Casino employee smiled back, said that it was not good to leave one’s passport behind, and asked him his name. The scarred one said—
“Tom — Thomas Burke.”
I knew that he was lying. The man back of the counter continued to smile and asked the hotel and the town where Mr. Burke resided. The scarred one said—
“I stay at Cannes, at the Grand Hotel.”
The Grand Hotel was very safe. Practically every French and Italian Riviera town has a Grand Hotel, and I once knew a village that had two for a time. But it happened that the date was August the third, and the Grand Hotel in Cannes had only been opened three days. There were very few persons staying there; it did much better in the Winter season. The proprietor was a friend of mine; I had been at the hotel for a time the night previous and was quite sure no Thomas Burke was staying there.
The scarred one received his billet, which ticket entitled him to play roulette, but not baccarat. I went from the room ahead of him and into the large reception hall. The scarred one halted and lighted a cigaret very popular with Americans. I saw the color of the package reflected in the mirrors about the room. Then I passed into the salon and went to a table that was not too crowded.