The Stuff Dreams Were Made Of-With The Late Sam Spade In Mind

By permission of Bart Webber

“Hey, sailor buy me a drink I am feeling a little blue today because I just read in the Times that my old boss Sam Spade what did he call it, oh yeah, cashed his check, has gone to the pearly gates or wherever ex-private dicks go to,” Effie Perrine was loudly calling to a guy in a three piece suit a few bar stools down who certainly was not a sailor. Not a sailor, or if so was totally lost in the Garden Bar of the Grand Hotel in New York City. The guy who seemed sober enough slid down beside her and offered her that drink. Scotch, neat so you knew, if you knew Effie as she had advanced in years, nice way to put it, was definitely feeling blue as the bartender brought her a drink and a whiskey sour for the three-piece suit. When Effie asked his name he gave it as War Bond and had started to give his line when she stopped him cold asking if he remembered the name. Barton answered that if that was Sam Spade of the Samuel Spade Investigation Agency which had after the war given the Pinkerton organization a run for its money then he had heard of the organization but had not known that the founder was still alive.

Effie used that acknowledgement as her entre into telling her new friend why she was feeling blue this day. “Back in the day, back before the World War, back in the late 1930s Sam Spade was the last of the tough guy private investigators, the last of the guys who could take a punch, give a couple back, take a slug and throw back some too, get some flame in the sack and have time for lunch all in a day’s work. Not like the no-name private dicks today excuse me with no balls and no way to get them watching too much television with their pansy detectives like that Nick Charles everybody is raving about. Punk, nothing but punk,” Effie effused as she eyed her empty glass and point to Barton. As the bartender went to fill the order Effie said the following, “Do you remember the black bird case that was in all the papers back then, the case that made Sam’s career?” Ward gave a look of bewilderment and said “No.” Effie retorted, “If you don’t interrupt a girl and let me tell the story then for kicks you can take me upstairs to my room and we can see what we shall see.” Ward perked up to that offer, said the unnecessary yes and gave Effie the floor.                   

“I met Sam back then out in San Francisco when I first hit town after blowing dust off my shoes from nowhere dust bowl Nebraska at the height of the Depression. Actually I met his partner Miles, Miles Archer, when they were partners before Miles was killed on a case. I had met him in the Farrell Hotel on Post Street when I was doing the best I could working the bar for drinks and for tumbles to keep my head from wasting away on some park bench. This Miles was nothing but a lady’s man, nothing but soft-touch jobs and I knew I could handle him. Had handled guys tougher than him when I was nothing but a teenager in Omaha. He had this wife whom he didn’t like, and she didn’t like him either. During the time Miles and I ran together Sam was boffing Miles’ wife, Iva, I think her name so there were no problems. Miles, like guys like Miles always do, got tired of me and was ready to leave me high and dry until I put the bug in his ear that if he didn’t watch out his every loving wife might be getting a little call from me. The way things worked out though was that Miles brought me into the office to be the office secretary and that is where I met Sam.               

“I was immediately attracted to Sam and after that barely talked to Miles except on office business. I, once I honed in on him, grabbed Sam for a while, lived with him even, but I knew that I was just a plaything for him and so when Harry came along I latched onto him. But being in the office, working with Sam when he was in his prime, when he was the real deal detective was how I was up to my skinny ankles in the black bird case.[Ward looked down with an approving look, a look complete with lips smacking.] 

“You know this was the heart of the Depression so after sleeping my way into a job and after the communal lusts wore off I proved to be a very competent office manager which is really what I was. Sam would depend on my judgement a lot, would ask me to evaluate a client if for no other reason than would the party pay up for services rendered. That’s how I got involved with this Wonderly, LeBlanc, O’Shea whatever her real name was, I’ll call her Bridget, which to this day I am not sure what it was since we never wound up billing her. Sam maybe got a few hundred dollars out of her in cash and that was all we ever got. She had come walking into the front office where I worked (and screened the clients) all boas, feathers, and the scent of jasmine looking for some detective help. Told me that a guy named Dashiell Hammett, who I had never heard of although Sam told me later he knew the name, had recommended Archer& Spade to help with her secret problem. I personally although I let her into Sam’s office thought when all the dust settled and Sam and I were laughing about the roller coaster ride we had just been on that she had just grabbed the first name in the telephone book and would have worked her way down until she got her claws into somebody who would do her bidding after a whiff of that jasmine.      

“The story that she gave Sam, the story that got poor Miles Archer an early grave, was she was looking for a sister who was running around with some hardnosed gangster and she needed some heft to face the guy and whatever his demands were down. Her hundred dollar bills (Sam told me Miles had seen her wallet and they had plenty of brothers) a couple Sam said for the record got the services of Archer& Spade. Miles licking his chops all the while volunteered to meet this bad guy, this Thursday, Thursby something like that I have trouble with names of late later that night at the Majestic Hotel.

“The next thing I know is l got a call in the middle of the night from Sam saying Miles had taken the big send-off, had cashed his check and could I break the news to this Iva whom Sam went back to fucking, excuse my English which would not have been sued then but now we can say whatever we want. I did but what a bitch to settle down. He also asked me to call Bridget and was pissed off at me when I told him she had flown the coop. The situation got worse when some coppers came to his door to shake him down not only about Miles and what he was working on but that this guy Thursby whom Miles was to meet had been blasted to kingdom come later in the evening. Sam kept saying that he could feel the noose tightening around his neck and I could see it in his eyes.       

“You never know about men though, especially tough guys like Sam, guys who are tough and good in bed which Sam was and not all tough guys are-some believe me are pansies no doubt. Bridget wound up calling him saying she was in fear of her life and could he please, pretty please stand by her. She probably spread her legs, spread then wide or gave him a quick blow job but an hour later he called me and told me that Bridget had laid five hundred bucks on him to stay on the case. He was in, all in come hell or high water.

“The next I heard from Sam he had just finished blowing smoke at the cops investigating the cases of Archer and Thursby when Bridget and this fag who had come to the office looking for Bridget, looking for what he said was the black bird she knew about had tangled. The cops bought whatever he was selling but it was a close call. That mention of the bird and what it was worth in human life and death was what the whole thing would turn out to be about. Who had it, who thought they had it, and who was willing to pay cold hard cash to get it.

“That is when the Fat Man, a guy named something Street got on his high horse with Sam and tried to get him to betray Bridget. Sam wasn’t buying that line just then but he definitely saw that whatever sexual promises laid ahead with Bridget he was going to have the cash nexus in mind as well. Was going to get out from under the cheapjack back office in some failed office building with losers and fakers and go uptown. Said he would take me there with him. I was in, all in too.     

“The deal on the black bird was that it was supposed to have been loaded with jewels as tribute by some monks or knights back in the dark ages to the Spanish king. The thing never got to him so the damn thing was whoever had control of the item who would profit from the possession. The Fat Man, a clever guy from the one time I saw him tried to cut corners on Sam since he knew, or thought he knew it was. Put the bang-bang on Sam. Did the Fat Man no good because this guy, this ship captain that Bridget had conned into working with her when she was working in some Hong Kong whorehouse from what Sam told me later wound up in our office with the bird. Wound up dead too from the Fat Man’s hired gun. But we had the bird although seeing that guy die right before my eyes was one of the worse things that I have ever seen in my life.         

“We had the advantage now since Sam had put the bird in storage somewhere and mailed the ticket to me for safekeeping. Sam was off to deal with the Fat Man, with Bridget or whoever had dough to win the bird. That was his story anyway.  He negotiated, negotiated up front for Bridget but I think really for himself, with the Fat Man at his apartment. He was to get ten thousand up-front for delivery of the bird to the big man. That is where I came in. I was to pick up the bird from storage since I had the ticket and bring it to the Fat Man’s apartment. I brought it and then left.      

“Sam told me later that all hell brought out when the Fat Man and his associates found out that the bird the Captain had delivered to us was a fake, worthless. He left with his confederates after flashing some guns. Leaving Sam and Bridget to face the coppers. That is where Sam went into his magic act, where he sent Bridget over. See she had killed Miles for her own reasons, probably had killed Thursby too. Sam was not taking the fall for her, no way. She was going to the big-step off, and while he would not forget her he had to take her down, let her take the fall for his profession, for Miles whether he liked him or not. Bad for business letting civilians run amok over the dead bodies of private investigators.

“Here’s the part that never got in the newspapers which was just what the cops gave the newspapers. Bridget and the Fat Man were not the only one’s smitten by the idea of the stuff of dreams. Sam saw this bird as his way out of cheap street. That fake bird was not the bird the Captain had delivered to the office. The one I had innocently delivered to the Fat Man’s apartment. Sam had squirreled it away in another storage box. Later after cashing in on the jewels he gave me more than enough to set me up here. And that is the real story of how the Sam Spade Investigation Agency got its start. The real story of the days when guys did private investigation for keeps. Sam Spade RIP. Now you can take me upstairs and see what is what.”