When Sam Spade returned to the living room Iva Archer already was carefully removing her designer dress.
1928
III
Miles Archer
Hello, sucker!
30
Miles Archer
Mabel — Wise, Merican & Wise’s redheaded receptionist — opened the door of Sid Wise’s private office. Wise was behind his desk with his usual cigar; Spade sat beside the desk, his back toward the windowed side wall, smoking a cigarette.
“Mr. Archer is here,” Mabel said.
Miles Archer came in. She left, closing the door behind her. Archer removed his brown hat, ducked his head slightly in greeting. Spade, still seated, nodded. Wise stood up.
“Sid Wise. A pleasure, sir.” He held out his hand. They shook. Wise gestured Archer toward the straight-backed chair across the desk from him. “I hear that you and Sam may be going into business together.”
“No maybe about it,” said Archer in his coarse, heavy, confident voice.
He wore a brown vested cashmere-blend suit; his brown hair was now shot with gray. Spade gestured with his cigarette.
“Sit down, Miles. We’ve got papers to sign.”
The appraising look in Archer’s small brown eyes did not match the habitual joviality in his red heavy-jawed face. He finally put his hat on the edge of the desk and sat down, took a cigarette from a flat nickel and silver cigarette case. He tapped it against the case, put it between thick lips pulled taut.
Sid Wise leaned forward to squirt flame against the cigarette tip from his desktop lighter. He sat back again, took three sheets of legal paper from a folder. He handed both Spade and Archer one of the carbons, kept the original himself. He went down the document line by line, looking up at them often to make sure they were getting it.
“What we have here is a simple partnership agreement. No corporation is being formed, so it is not a complicated document. At the top, today’s date, October twelfth, nineteen twenty-eight. Below that—”
Spade gave a short laugh that again touched only his mouth, leaving the rest of his bony face nearly sullen. “Almost the anniversary of the arrival and docking of the San Anselmo seven years ago.”
Sid Wise jerked his head up sharply to look at Spade with speculation in his eyes. Miles Archer just dragged on his cigarette with a look between puzzlement and impatience. Wise lowered his gaze, continued with the articles of agreement.
“Article one lays out the understanding between the two parties: no salaries, just a fifty-fifty split right down the line. All net income and all expenses are shared equally.”
“We work our own cases, or we work together on cases as needed,” Spade told Archer. “Ten bucks comes in, you get five, I get five no matter who does the work or whose client it comes from.”
“Article two states that expenses consist of Effie Perine’s salary and rent of the Samuel Spade office, hereinafter to be referred to as the Spade and Archer office, in the Hunter-Dulin Building at one hundred eleven Sutter Street. The rent covers utilities — water, heat, and electricity. Incidental expenses will be paid out of petty cash.”
“What about field expenses?” Then Archer guffawed loudly, jarringly. “You know — booze, bribes, and biddies?”
“We get as much cash up front as we can, and treat taxis, ferries, rental cars, hotels, and informants as expenses coming on top of that. Booze and biddies, Miles — you’re on your own.”
“In the event of the death of one partner,” said Sid Wise, “the partnership is automatically dissolved.” He looked from one to the other. “Any other questions or comments?”
“Nope,” said Spade. Archer was silent.
Spade and Archer signed and dated all three copies, with Wise signing as witness. They all stood, they all shook hands. Spade and Archer left Wise’s office together. Spade’s hat remained behind on the floor beside his chair.
As they waited for the elevator outside the Wise, Merican & Wise office Spade said, “Better celebrate tonight. Because tomorrow night—”
“Yeah. I’ll be on the docks. Undercover.” Archer added the last word with relish, as if looking forward to it.
The elevator arrived, Spade shook his head in apparent chagrin.
“Left my hat in Sid’s office. Give Iva my regards, Miles.” Archer, grinning from ear to ear, said, “I’ll give Iva my own regards, Sam. She won’t know what fell on her tonight.”
“Of course she won’t.” Spade grinned wolfishly.
When Sam Spade reentered Sid Wise’s office, the diminutive attorney was abstractedly chewing on a fingernail while staring out the window at the Sutter Hotel across the street. Spade picked up his hat, put it on the corner of the desk.
Wise spoke tonelessly without turning. “The San An selmo. Still chasing ghosts, Sam?”
“St. Clair McPhee, Devlin St. James. Whatever name he uses he’s no ghost, Sid.”
“After all this time he might as well be.”
“We’ll see about that.” Then Spade drew a deep, dismissive breath, gestured at the office door through which Miles Archer had departed. “So what do you think of him, Sid?”
Only then did Wise swivel his chair around to face Spade.
“Same as you do, Sammy. He’s dumb as a post and greedy as a lawyer.”
“Here lies a lawyer, an honest man.”
“Why’d they bury them in the same grave? I’ve heard that one.” Wise retrieved his half-smoked cigar from the ashtray. He relit it, carefully turning it to get it burning evenly again. “I don’t trust him, Sam.”
“Nor do I, but he’s damned good at what he does. He turned up a lot of Commies for the Burns Agency in Seattle.”
“How many were Commies just because he said they were?”
Spade nodded to that thoughtfully. Wise blew out a cloud of fragrant cigar smoke.
“I hear he’s got a blond wife that’s a knockout.” He added deadpan, “Originally from Spokane.”
“Yeah, I knew her up there,” Spade said shortly.
“You don’t need him, Sam, but now you’re stuck with him for a year. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ve got an expensive suite of offices in the heart of the financial district, Sid. Half the politicians and the big rich in this town would like to see me in jail, but every once in a while they need me because I’m the only one they can trust to sweep up the breakage and keep my mouth shut.”
“If you’d had too much work for one man you could have just hired extra ops from Continental. You didn’t have to take in Archer as a partner. Three years ago when he hinted around at it you turned him down flat. Now...”
Spade leaned back in his chair, feathered smoke through his nostrils, said, “The Blue Book union. The boys who got control of the docks and crushed the trade unions after the war.”
“They hate your guts, you hate their guts. You’re trying to tell me that they want to hire you?”
“Not directly. But last week I was summoned by Ralph Toomey at Matson Shipping. He was speaking for the Industrial Association, the bankers and industrialists and oilcompany and shipping-company executives who really run this burg and who set up the Blue Book union in the first place.”
“Nobody’s going to be able to take them down, Sam. They belong to the exclusive clubs, they helped found the opera, the symphony, they fund the Community Chest and Stanford and the Boy Scouts and the Y.M.C.A. and the California Historical Society.”