“Damned nail!” But he held up his list in triumph. “Every one of them, Sam. It’ll be all over the papers. Spade and Archer bust dockside theft ring led by lefty union agitator.”
“I’m not sure our clients want publicity. And I’m not sure union agitators are behind it.”
“Our clients’d be fools not to, it’s what they hired us for. And I saw the Aussie guy paying off Brix myself. Twice.”
“So you say, Miles. So you say.”
By 7:30 in the morning the rain had blown by, taking the fog with it and leaving choppy water and blue skies and bright sunlight behind. Spade pushed open the heavy warped hardwood door of the cavernous concrete-block building on Pier 19 that housed the so-called Blue Book union.
Inside were half a dozen desks messy with paperwork, dirt-grimed windows that looked dimly out across the bay toward the army garrison on Alcatraz. Heavy-bodied men in rough clothes crowded the room, all talking and laughing at once. Others, in suits and ties, tried to work at the desks despite the din of the longshoremen’s voices. The air was heavy with cigar smoke and the faint but harsh smell of cheap booze.
Spade leaned over a littered desk where a hulk-shouldered man in a woolen tweed suit was counting money into a green tin box.
“Stan Hagar around?”
The money counter looked up. His nose had been bent to one side by a board or a brick. His face was heavy and needed a shave. It would always need a shave. His eyes were brown, dead.
“Who’s askin’?”
“Sam Spade. I want to see him on business.”
The union man tossed the last of the money into the box, closed the lid. Picked up a half-smoked cigar smoldering in a brass bowl he was using as an ashtray. He stuck the stogie between thick lips that wore a permanent sneer.
“What kinda business?”
Spade leaned close to him. “My own.”
The cigar chomper shrugged. “In back. Corner office.”
Most of the offices were little more than cubicles with interior windows and glass panels in the doors. Spade could see Hagar alone in a large corner office that actually had a window, talking on the phone. He went in without knocking, shut the door behind him. Hagar looked up in surprise mixed with annoyance.
“What the hell do you think you’re... Oh. You. Spade.”
As the detective sat down in the room’s spare chair, Hagar said into the telephone, “I’ll call you back,” and hung up.
Hagar had worked the docks and showed it in a knuckle-scarred face, scarred-knuckled hands, and a heavy body running to fat now that he was behind a desk. But there was slyness there.
“What’re ya doin’ here, Spade?”
“I’m working for you, remember? I’m here to report.”
“I deal with Miles Archer. He should be here, not you.”
“That would be clever since he’s undercover on the docks.” Spade leaned across the desk. “Last night we confirmed where the stolen goods are being warehoused.”
“Good! We told Miles what we wanted done and he’s done it. A damned good man. He gets his bonus when he puts the finger on Harry Brisbane as the man behind the thefts.”
“Yes, the bonus,” said Spade thoughtfully. He stood. “I wouldn’t move too quick on this, Hagar. Miles might report to you, but I report to the Industrial Association.”
Ralph Toomey stood up behind his big rolltop desk.
“My secretary tells me you have something to report.”
Spade’s face was flat, his eyes hooded. “You hired me to find out who was stealing on the docks and to put a stop to it. Without publicity, you said. I’m doing it — my own way.”
Toomey sat back down, abstractedly waving him to the leather armchair across the desk from his own.
“I know you’re an independent son of a bitch, Spade. But the Industrial Association is footing the bills for Spade and Archer.” He frowned, twiddled a pencil between his fingers. “That list of goods I gave you help?”
“Broke the case. Last night Miles and I went into a warehouse on Green Street. The goods are there. They checked against the list.”
Toomey leaned forward, suddenly smiling. “That’s good work, Spade. I like it.”
“So Miles gets his bonus.”
“What bonus?” demanded Toomey. “For what?”
“Stan Hagar said something about it, that’s all.”
“You talked with Hagar?” demanded Toomey. “Is that wise? You’re supposed to be undercover.”
Spade shrugged.
“The case is finished, Toomey. Hagar says he has verbal descriptions that match Harry, right down to the Aussie accent, of him paying money to a known Communist agitator and being at the warehouse on at least two occasions in the past week.”
Toomey said, “I wouldn’t have thought that Harry would—”
“Nor would he. He’s been laid up at home for three weeks with a broken foot. The warehouse is owned by the Shipowners’ and Merchants’ Tugboat Company. I’m assuming that you don’t know Hagar set up the dock-pilferage thing to frame Harry Brisbane to take the fall as the ringleader of the thieves.”
“I sure as hell didn’t until you walked in, and I’m not sure I know it now.” Toomey was starting to get red in the face. His big hands twitched into loose fists. “And I don’t know what the hell you think you’re getting at, Spade. Shipowners’ and Merchants’ are members of our Industrial Association. They would not store stolen goods in their warehouse—”
“I checked with Charles Barber, who’s on their board of directors. The warehouse had been standing empty for months. But before he went with the Blue Book, Hagar was Shipowners’ and Merchants’ office manager. My take is that he lined up some Blue Book longshoremen he trusted to start organized pilfering on the docks after hours and had them store the goods in the Green Street warehouse without the Shipowners’ and Merchants’ Tugboat people knowing about it. Then he came to the Industrial Association with a sad tale of massive thievery on the docks.”
Spade paused to start rolling a cigarette. Toomey stared at him, then lit a cigar, laid it smoldering on his ashtray, and crossed to the green secrétaire in the corner. He returned with two snifters of cognac.
“Success to crime,” said Spade. They toasted, drank. Reawakened anger made Toomey slam a fist on the desk.
“Came to me, Spade! Asked me to hire private detectives to look into it since we didn’t want any publicity. And then recommended Miles Archer as a good man to go undercover. So Archer was in on it from the start.”
“No.” Spade told his lie with a face totally devoid of animation. “Miles is a good detective but he hates Commies, so Hagar was able to lead him around by the nose.”
Toomey drained his snifter. “Well, by God, I’m going to blow ’em out of the water!”
“What about the publicity?”
Toomey slumped back in his big leather swivel, looking deflated. For the first time he used Spade’s first name.
“What do I do, Sam? If this should get to the newspapers, the Industrial Association will be torn apart.”
“You pay Spade and Archer for our investigative work. I keep my mouth shut; I make sure Miles keeps his mouth shut. You have Stan Hagar in and tell him he shuts down his bogus theft ring just as quietly as he set it up and gets the stolen goods back to their owners the same way. Quietly. Once the newspapers forget about thievery on the docks, you get Hagar fired.”
When Spade got back to his office, Effie Perine told him, “Henny Barber called. He thinks he’s located Charles Boothe.”