“My old man tells me you might have daytime work for me.”
“Nights at California-Citizens Bank, did your father say?”
“That’s it.” He waggled black level eyebrows, showed gleaming teeth in a broad grin. “Lotsa pretty Italian girls working there at the bank, you get my drift?” A hard light entered his eyes. “Mr. Spade, you wouldn’t never of tagged me with that right hand two years ago if my foot hadn’t of slipped.”
Spade nodded in solemn agreement. “Dark in that warehouse, that’s for sure. And like you said, your foot slipped.”
Seeing Spade roll a cigarette, Gino lit a cheap cigar with the desk lighter. Spade nodded as if to himself.
“Anyway, Gino, I got a tip that a mob of bank busters might hit Cal-Cit because security is lax since Eberhard drowned.”
Gino tipped back his head and blew out a plume of smoke.
“That’s a load of bunk! Me an’ another guy was hired right after he died. We trade off, night for night. They didn’t have no nighttime security before then.”
“Nothing to it, then,” said Spade. “But even so, for my report, I need your take on the bank’s security setup.”
Gino chuckled. “The bank itself is tough, but it shares a side wall with a Chinese social club that closes up around ten at night. In the alley next to it, Pratt Place, there’s a fire escape goes to the roof. It’s a three-foot drop from there to the bank’s roof and the service shed for the elevator shaft.”
Spade stubbed out his cigarette, grinned.
“I knew I was asking the right man.”
The handsome Italian youth chuckled. “I figure it’s part of my job to look around just so I know what’s what. That way, anyone tryin’ to crush into the bank, I’d pop ’em for sure.”
“Isn’t the elevator shed always locked?”
“Sure, but there’s locks and there’s locks.” Gino leaned forward to stub out his smelly cigar. “Nobody’s bustin’ in there, not after hours. Not with me on the job.”
Spade came around the desk to shake Gino’s hand warmly. Gino looked at the bill Spade had palmed off with the handshake.
“Hey, thanks, Mr. Spade!”
From his office door Spade watched Mechetti exit, went back inside. Effie Perine followed with her notebook and sat down in the armchair across from his swivel chair. He gave her the fixings to roll him a cigarette.
“He’s certainly a good-looking man,” she said primly.
“Yeah. I put him away for a couple of years on a warehouse job. He’s got the worm for sure.”
“The worm?”
“Wormy. Like a bad apple. Most ex-cons are. He’s got a larcenous mind, that boy, but now he’s night watchman at Eberhard’s bank. The bank’s being very snotty about anyone getting a look at Eberhard’s records, and I need to see them.”
“Don’t take chances, Sam. District Attorney Bryan would just love to put you into prison yourself.”
“He’s not liable to get the chance.”
Spade recounted his previous day’s work. It took longer to finish with the widow than with anything else because Effie Perine wanted to know all about what Evelyn Eberhard looked like and what she was wearing and what she said.
“A mistress? A man with no name?”
“The mistress and Mr. Nameless are two things that keep me from accepting natural causes for the death and closing out the case. A third is that the bank hired Gino after Eberhard died. The kid’s carrying a two-year felony rap. No legitimate banker should let him within a mile of the place. Fourth, the bank’s refusing to let anyone see Eberhard’s financial stuff.”
“Not even the widow?”
“Well, she’s very far from the traditional grieving widow. Six months ago she wanted to hire me to find the mistress. She gave that up, but then Eberhard went broke maybe, and then he died, maybe natural, maybe on purpose, maybe helped along. Now she wants me to find the mistress to help negate the suicide theory. Or maybe to hang any funny business about Eberhard’s death on her. I offered the widow a deal. Get me into the bank’s records, I’ll find you your mistress. But she’s too afraid of losing the insurance money to back me up.”
“Nothing about this case makes a whole lot of sense.”
“Yeah. Call Sid Wise’s office, see if he’s in.”
As she waited for central to pick up she said, “I liked it a lot better when Sid was just next door.”
Spade entered the pinkish office building on Sutter and Kearny just shy of 2 o’clock. He took the elevator up, went to suite 827, entered without knocking. In passing, he bent down to kiss Wise’s receptionist on the top of her head.
She giggled. “Mr. Wise said to go right on in, Mr. Spade.”
Sid Wise’s big desk was loaded with papers and files, but he had his swivel chair turned so he could look out at the Sutter Hotel across the street. There were the usual flecks of dandruff on the shoulders of his suit coat. He was biting a fingernail.
“One of these days you’ll draw blood,” said Spade.
Wise spun his chair around. He started a hand gesture toward the chair across from him, but Spade had already dragged it to the side of the desk. Wise frowned. He fidgeted.
“Everyone in town says you’re asking questions about the Eberhard death. That one’s zipped up and folded away, Sam.”
“Let me guess. The Neptune Bath House—”
“Doesn’t want any more bad publicity. Cal-Cit’s attorney says that you threatened a V.P. with—”
“I wanted a reaction, Sid. I got one.”
“You sure did. You also said the widow was your client.”
“Implied.”
“Then Assistant Deputy Coroner Klinger is saying—”
“They’re on record that Eberhard died of natural causes.”
“Jovanen over at Bankers’ Life wants you to stop snooping around while they decide whether to pay off the widow.”
“Doesn’t all of this make you just a little bit curious?”
“Lawyers are never paid just to get curious.”
“I am.”
“You have a client? This isn’t just Sam Spade trying to drum up business?”
“I haven’t had to do that for three years.” Spade’s smile was sardonic. “Not since you moved away from Mission Street and I started upgrading my client list. Ray Kentzler at Bankers’ Life hired me. Under the table. That’s why Jovanen doesn’t know anything about it.”
A speculative look came into the attorney’s eyes.
“So Eberhard’s death isn’t cut-and-dried after all.”
“Don’t tell anybody,” said Spade. “It’s supposed to be a secret, but the fact is they won’t open those files to anyone. Not even the widow. Questions of confidentiality, propriety, that sort of thing.” He leaned toward Wise and lowered his voice too dramatically for it to be genuine. “Want to represent her in this matter, Sid?”
Wise leaned back and looked up at the ceiling and got his faraway look in his eyes. “Yes and no. I’d love to have a widow who’s probably going to be rich for a client. But what if Evelyn Eberhard did have a hand in her husband’s death? And I get a lot of work from the Bankers Association through Charles Barber at Golden Gate Trust and I’m just waiting for that shoe to drop.” He shrugged regretfully. “So I have to pass.”
“Same thing Evelyn said when I offered her your services,” said Spade cheerily. “You two were made for each other. A pair of old maids.” His brows drew down. “I’ll get into those files my own way.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Sid Wise gloomily.