“You sure you cut yourself shaving?”
“Out-of-towners? Local? Where are they staying?”
“No wants, Sam. They got patched up and walked away.”
“I’d get more from the newspapers,” said Spade irritably.
“Let’s talk about all the help you’re giving us.”
“I gave you Kest. What more do you want?”
“I want you to level with me about those three guys.”
Polhaus finished his sandwich, scraped his chin again, sighed. “Well, might could it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at Kest. That sidecar big enough to carry some of that missing gold?”
“Yeah, but it didn’t.”
“I wish I knew what you aren’t telling me, Sam.”
Spade put money down. “I might have something for you in a day or two. For you, Tom. Got it?”
“I got it,” said Polhaus almost glumly. Then he added unwillingly, “Those three guys, they’re Portagee fishermen out of Sausalito, maybe turned leggers. I ain’t got their names on me but we couldn’t hold ’em anyway. No wants or warrants on ’em.”
9
The Portagee
The Eureka, one of several side-wheelers that made the thirty-two-minute run to Marin County half a dozen times a day, slowed to a crawl to slide between the massive wooden pilings of the middle of Sausalito’s three ferry slips. The mooring lines were tossed out, and the gangplank was slid out and down. Spade followed the other passengers off, walked a hundred yards to a three-story pseudo-Mission-style hotel overlooking the meager downtown.
For now the hotel lobby was deserted. Dust motes danced in the air. The check-in counter was unmanned. From the room behind it came muted voices and the clink of chips.
Spade slapped the round metal bell on the counter several impatient times. A stooped man wearing a green eye-shade stuck his head through the doorway with a surprised look on his face.
“Yes, sir,” he piped. “Can I help you?”
“Benny Ruiz back there?”
“Benny.” He trailed off as if unsure of the name.
“Ruiz. Quit the clown act. Is the Portagee in the game?”
The face disappeared. Another took its place, square and meaty, wearing whiskers and a cigar. “Who’s askin’?”
“Spade.”
“Course it is. Long time no. Try the Lighthouse.”
Spade nodded. “You up or down, Duke?”
“Down twenty berries.”
“When you gonna learn not to draw to an inside straight?”
The head made a rude noise and disappeared. Spade went out into the street to walk north along the waterfront.
The Lighthouse looked like its name, a small white café with a fake octagonal wooden lighthouse on top. The windows were steamy. The clatter of cutlery, the jumble of voices, the smell of frying peppers and spicy Portuguese chorizo came out when Spade pulled the door open. A counter ran down the center of the room with stools in front and the grill behind. There were booths along the front and side walls. In four of them were lean, narrow men in rain slickers, some with missing fingers.
Three of the seven stools along the counter were taken, one by the Lighthouse’s lone woman. When Spade entered all conversation in American ceased. The sweating cook abandoned the hash browns and sausage and eggs he had sizzling on the flat steel grease-stained grill to look at Spade. His shirt was open to show the top of a red union suit.
“Yeah?”
Spade walked through the silence toward the only man at the counter who had not turned to look at him, a wide and thick man with meaty arms and shoulders under a black sweater. His round face was slightly concave, with receding black hair and round brown eyes under thick brows. His nose was broad, open pored, his lips thick. A black peacoat draped the stool beyond him.
Spade took the nearer red vinyl stool. The man turned to look at him. “Hell’s sake, Sam. What’s it been?”
“All of five years,” said Spade.
Conversation resumed. The cook slopped a mug of steaming coffee down in front of Spade. The Portagee had his elbows on the counter, was sucking heavily on a Fatima cigarette.
“New cook, new clientele. Place has changed, Benny.”
Benny Ruiz nodded. “Lots of us Portagees is leggers these days. We get nervous-like when strangers show up.”
“How about you, Benny? Dealing crab or liquor?”
“Both since Prohibition. Hell, Sam, bringing in booze beats working.”
Spade blew on his coffee, sipped it, made a face.
“Dregs of the pot,” said the cook without turning around.
Ruiz stubbed his cigarette out in the remains of his meal, picked up his peacoat, and dropped a quarter beside his plate.
“See you around,” he said.
Spade made and smoked a cigarette, sipped at the vile coffee. After all of ten minutes he tossed a dime on the counter and went outside. Ruiz fell into step beside him.
“Didn’t want to blow the gaff on you, Sam, if you was working a game on somebody for Continental.”
“I’m out on my own now, Benny. Three leggers, Portagees, jumped me in the city last night. They work out of Sausalito. I don’t have names. Maybe you could ask around, find out who’s carrying scars. Find out if one of them took a boat out — his own or somebody else’s — after midnight three nights ago and came back before first light with a load that wasn’t hooch.”
“I’ll be damned. The San Anselmo gold heist?”
“Maybe, maybe not. But there’s reward money out. Find out if he maybe met up with a man named St. Clair McPhee.”
Effie Perine was on her way down the stairs when Spade came in the street door. She stopped, said eagerly, “I can come back up if you need me.”
“Go on home, angel. I’ve been over in Sausalito.”
“Why Sausalito?” She sounded surprised.
“Because that’s where our three mug artists are from. And that’s where the bootleggers keep their boats.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Neither do I, sweetheart. See you tomorrow.”
“Sam, wait! A Phil Geaque — I think that’s how you pronounced it — called. I left his message on your desk.”
“You got it right. Gee-ack.”
“And Sid says his client is getting up on his hind legs. Three ships are slated to sail for Australia with ports of call in the South Seas during the next week and Henny could try to stow away on any of them. Does that still hold what you told me this morning, Sam? That you have Henny nailed down?”
“I’ll know where to find him when the time comes, if that’s what you mean.”
Effie Perine went down and out. Spade went up and in. By the illumination coming through the thin net window curtains he rolled a cigarette, picked up the phone, gave central Kearny 5330-1. He heard Geaque’s voice in his ear.
“Still there, Phil? Scraping the bottom of the barrel?”
“You know us, Sam. We never sleep. Bottom of the barrel is right. The police had to let those four seamen go.”
“There was never anything in that anyway.”
“We wired our Honolulu office to check whether the replacement lock and hasp for Captain Ogilvie were obtained there by the thieves. We haven’t gotten any word yet.”
“And won’t. The locks were changed in Sydney.”
“Locks? Only the captain’s was changed.”
Spade shook his head impatiently even though Geaque could not see him. “All of the locks. The San Anselmo was there eight days with the strong room open and empty and the locks hanging on their chains and their keys hanging on hooks in the ship’s officers’ quarters. Everybody ashore except a seaman or two on watch? Go on with you. New locks, new keys, to replace the old.”