On One Nick Charles (Okay, Nora Too), Private Eye- The (Real) Thin Man Case 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman –with kudos to Dashiell Hammett    

 

Don’t believe everything you hear or read in the damn newspapers about how Nick Charles (born Nicolas Charlopoulas, a Greek guy from the old neighborhood who could hardly wait to Anglicize his name like half the other immigrants who stepped off the boat from Ellis Island back in the day in order to move in with the uptown crowd, the WASPs, when they, he, came of age ) solved what all the newspapers and radio reports called, for lack of a better moniker,  the Thin Man case, the case of the murder of Lawrence Winot the big inventor/ industrialist, right under noses of New York’s finest, including me. Yeah, me, Detective Lieutenant Tom Mallory is here to tell exactly what did and did not happen in that case because the papers, radio too since the just cribbed the AP-UPI ticker,  got it all balled up. Especially the guy from the Gazette , Dashiell Hammett, who was mainly the flak-catcher on the case, the only guy there who could walk on two feet over there I guess, case trying to make a big name for himself, move up in the business, and win a by-line over the dead body of Winot.

 

The guy, Hammett not Winot carried a lot of water in this town whatever little quirks he might have exhibited, was nothing but a two-bit cub reporter. Christ, writing an advice or how to column or something like that, you know “Should I wear brown shoes with a grey suit-coat?” that kind of stuff, lightweight stuff, for the Gazette newspaper before the police beat reporter, old reliable Glenn Hubbard, passed away and they needed somebody to  cover the spot until they got a real beat reporter. This Hammett was nothing but a bother, soaking up other guys’ material, real reporters, and just re-writing the stuff in that awful hard-boiled cop manner that he thought was the real thing, thought was the way cops, victim, or witnesses talked, gruff talk. You know, highlighting some cop, some cop he slipped a fiver to telling the reading public about how he saved somebody’s bacon, or gunning down some desperado with no thought to his own safety. Not worrying about truth or anything like that. The situation was awful until we threw him out of the reporters’ pit down at Precinct. But he started making stuff up out of whole cloth as he went along grabbling stuff for the police channel and embellishing it. He was the guy who coined it the Thin Man case since when we found Winot’s body it turned out that he was a tall thin guy. Jesus, see what I mean.

 

So you know Hammett was nothing but putty in a smoothie like Nick Charles’ hands.  Nick wouldn’t even have to work up a sweat just throwing out whatever “evidence” came into that alcohol-addled head. And Hammett lapped it up, all of it just like a dog. And printing whatever his wife, Nora, had to say for that matter who I guess had nothing better to do that clipping stock dividend coupons and decided that wouldn’t it be lovely to be crime-busters for a while, until the social season started anyway. So Nick Charles, or wife Nora, or the both of them gave him all the information they wanted planted (and drinks at their favorite afternoon watering hole over at the Alhambra too). Hammett never checked any of it out and wound up with egg on his face when Nick, drunk probably, swore he had dinner with Winot one afternoon. It must have been a very quiet dinner since according to the coroner’s report Winot had been dead a couple of weeks by that time. Of course once we, I, solved the case all of that was water under the bridge and Nick came up like some Mayfair swell smelling of roses. So if you want the real story, the unvarnished story, follow me on this as I give you the skinny.

 

This Nick Charles like I said was a Greek kid from my old neighborhood, from the only Greek family in our Irish neighborhood, his father ran the corner market is why. I ran with his older brother Samos stealing hubcaps, batteries from cars and stuff, doing five-finger discounts of almost anything with some value from stores for a while before I got on the force. (Truth: I, we, got nabbed a couple of times but my father, a twenty- year cop himself got it squashed, squashed real good.) Nick later got on the force too through my father who liked the kid, and he was likable in an Irish sort of way for a guy who wasn’t Irish but pure Greek. He left the force after a few years because he didn’t like the red tape and the paper work or something, didn’t get the big cases but was walking some beat out in Five Points before that place got too rough for cops to walk around in. (I heard the real reason he left was he was not getting what he thought was his proper cut of the graft from the bookies, tavern owners, an dope-peddlers and made a stink about it but let’s leave it at the reason he gave Hammett since that is what everybody will believe of Saint Nick now anyway.

 

After a couple of years of bumming around, riding the rails (to get a feel for the country according to Hammett like running from railroad bulls with blackjacks and eating “jungle” stew was some kind of lark to see how the other half lived) Nick went private. Yeah, became a private key-hole peeper, a shamus, a gumshoe and every other put down name you can think of that real cops call home-wreckers, divorce work guys mainly, or just plain leeches. Hell all you needed was a cheapjack license from the real cops (my father in his case) and five bucks and you were ready to go so don’t make more out it than that like you had to grind away at some four- year college to get going.

 

I worked a couple of cases with Nick when he was around New York,  nothing big, some stolen jewelry from a department store (I used my old time expertise as a five-finger discounter to wrap that one up for him. Hell, he wanted to fingerprint every kid under twenty who came the store for any reason, Jesus.). Another time a guy who skipped out of his wife and who we were interested in on a Bunco charge, nothing stuff. I forget whether we ever nabbed that guy, maybe not. Then I didn’t hear about him for a while until I ran into Samos one day back in the old neighborhood where I went to visit my mother. I stepped into the market that Samos had taken over from his father when he got too old to do it.  By the way, I also stepped by in order to collect some protection money since Sammy was running a betting parlor out of the back of the store. If you want to do such an illegal activity you best pay some protection money to the men in blue or you will find out fast that such activity is against the law. Sammy was wise to that and paid up, paid up regularly and on time, no problem. Samos said Nick had gone to the West Coast to try his luck there after he heard about a guy named Philip Marlowe, nothing but a private dick but with some street smarts. Marlowe was making a bundle solving cases, especially one big Hollywood case where he saved some producer’s  bacon after a busted kidnap ransom on his daughter went sour, and was getting some silky sheets action from the starlets (courtesy of that grateful producer) down in Los Angeles. Los Angeles before the war, before everything went crazy out there, before everybody and their brother and sister was crazy to go to Babylon.

 

So Nick tried his luck up north in Frisco. I didn’t see his name or photograph in the papers here like you would about every other week with Marlowe escorting some starlet at an opening night so I figured he busted. Later I heard he had given up the private dick game and had gotten married to some frill with dough out there that he had met on some case. I found out later (from Nora’s maid, maids always a good source for information) that he had actually dropped the ball on the case, an embezzlement of one of her father’s companies by a trusted employee, who got away to some Pacific island and was never caught. The father had subsequently had a heart attack and Nick was there to hold the daughter’s, Nora’s, hand before he passed on.  

 

So I guess it was true about that private eye silky sheets stuff but it never came my way on the force, not that I would look for it since I am happily married and have three fine kids to show for it. Like I said for a while I didn’t hear the name Nick Charles then one night I was working the Club Soto, looking for a couple of guys, wise guys that I had questions to ask about a certain robbery at Kay’s Jewelry Store over on 42^nd Street, when I spied Nick and his wife, Nora, a looker. They had come to town for some stockholders’ meeting or something and were enjoying the night life while they were here. He had been drinking heavily and maybe she had too although she carried it better. We greeted, he introduced me to Nora, cut up a few old torches and parted. That was the last I heard of them until the Thin Man case broke a couple of months later, around Christmas. The Chief told me, no ordered me, to bring Nick (and as it turned out this Nora who was the one with the real pull, with the dough to do the pulling) into the case since he, they, had bought a whole block of tickets to the upcoming Policemen’s Ball. So that was that. But already, and I haven’t even told you thing one about the case, you can see where bringing in Mayfair swells, even if one of them is busted-down gumshoe who got lucky, would ball the whole thing up. Would make more work for us before he, they, were through.   

 

I might as well tell you about the case now so you can see who, or who did not have the investigative smarts to round the killer up. This thin man, this  Lawrence Winot, who I mentioned before and who I am sure you have heard of, or somebody you know has heard of, was a giant in the invention game, mostly about making automobiles faster and safer, and then producing the cars at one of his plants. Naturally a guy who can make cars safer and faster in this car-crazy world would have nothing but money hanging off of him. And he did, except that was not what pulled his chain. Thinking up new inventions was what made him tick. His family, his wife, really ex-wife and three young marriage- eligible daughters though were another matter, they wanted dough and plenty. But him, people would see him around town and kind of laugh at him, privately laugh averting his face since you don’t laugh out loud when that much money is walking down the street and someday you might need a job, or a favor. The reason that they laughed though was that this Winot, about sixty years old was gangling, was a tall skinny guy who always looked a little disheveled, a little too long- haired and a bleary-eyed look like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days.

 

But the biggest laugh was that he was kind of an absent-minded professor-type. You know head down and bumping into people or tripping and falling off a curbstone. That is why nobody, nobody meaning the family since his companies were managed by professionals who kept him away from production and company finances leaving him a toy- box laboratory to fiddle around in in one of the downtown buildings off of Seventh Avenue where could be found at all hours, was nervous when he didn’t show up for a couple of weeks.

 

Oh yeah, we found out once NYPD was on the case, although it was like pulling teeth to get the family to provide that information, that like a lot of guys with money and some old time reversion to a young man’s sexual dreams he was keeping company with his secretary. This secretary, this Janet, was a looker although I don’t know how she was at dictation or whether it mattered to Winot but she was all blonde and curves.  I had her down as nothing but a gold-digger or high ticket call girl but that was not important. What was important was everybody, family, company executives, his lawyer, thought he was either with Janet under the silky sheets somewhere or out in some desolate, isolated spot inventing something on the QT. When Janet showed up one day at the office after coming back from vacation and said she hadn’t seen Winot for a couple of weeks and nobody could figure out from any evidence his whereabouts then the family, really Winot’s oldest daughter, Dorothy, filed a missing person’s report and that was how we lammed onto the case.

 

Now this Winot family was buggy, buggy as Winot himself. Seems that Winot divorced his wife, Ida, in order to play with Janet. Such things happen all the time in and around our town but she had remarried on the rebound to some gigolo, a guy named Roman Griffin who we had a book on for pandering and some Bunco activities. Nothing big but enough to figure he was working some scam and for a while we had he set in stone for the big step-off. Ida, Mrs. Winot, ah, Mrs. Griffin thought Roman had dough, dough being very necessary to her up-town lifestyle which was threatened since Janet made sure that Winot cut Ida off after the alimony settlement. Griffin like I said was nothing but a gold-digger, male version. This Dorothy thought Roman had something to do with her father’s disappearance (as I said so did we once we had a look at his rap sheet) and convinced her two younger sisters to go along with her on the story.

 

Jesus those two were nuts, nuts plain and simple, a couple of wayward nubiles with time on their hands while waiting for some guy to spring a wedding ring on them They, night and day, began spying on Roman, sending goofy notes, and threatening murder and mayhem if he did not confess to kidnapping their father. And that is where this Hammett guy, this cub reporter came into the picture. They, the sisters egged on by Dorothy who hunted down some information about Griffin and his previous shady life, had called him and as much as said Roman was the one. Hammett printed their sad-ass story and the whole town was ready to lynch Roman. But see Roman was known to us, very well-known and so after a little friendly third –degree grilling we put him on ice as a material witness like we do all the time when we are not sure who did what and to whom. Just so you aren’t in suspense and get an example of how I was in charge right from the beginning this Roman was cleared early, was nothing but a pretty boy con man, and in my long experience con men don’t go in for murder, no way.

 

In all the uproar it turned out that Nick Charles, once he got sober enough to read, or have the newspaper read to him from what I heard about the wild parties at his place over at The Duchess Hotel where they were staying for their over-extended visit to our fair city, had been on a case for Winot back when he worked the New York City shamus streets. An industrial espionage case where Winot suspected an ex-partner, a guy named Livermore, of selling his plans to General Motors that Nick could never solve, but which gave him entrée with the Winot family. So between that big block of Ball tickets and his knowing the family Nick wormed his way into the case. (Apparently the Winot sisters were not the only ones with time on their hands or were looking for an off-handed thrill since Nora, charming, good-looking Nora, egged Nick on to take the case so they would have something to tell people at their next party, or something like that.)

 

I tell you thought I kept Nick at arm’s length most of the time, and he kept himself supplied with enough liquor to waltz through the thing. And I mean waltzed. It was this flak-catcher Hammett and his daily bull that got all the attention while we were hunkered down doing the real work. Every day page one in the Gazette Nick Charles this, Nora Charles that. Nick suspected some gangster one day or some ex-lover, or Janet the next while they were really either throwing some party for half of Nick’s old crumb bum friends from the old days or were out on the town drinking from slippers or something.

 

Truth, he, they, never were a factor in the case at all until that last night when I, me, Tom Malloy, had all the suspects up to their place for a final grilling. See Winot had not disappeared, at least not on his own disappeared to silky sheets or to inventive isolation. One day we got a warrant and searched Winot’s lab looking for evidence that might help us find him if he was out inventing something once the silky sheets with Janet angle blew up after she surfaced at the office one day. In one corner of the lab, a wall really, we “found” Winot, found his bones anyway, found him very dead, okay. So that was when I came up with the idea of using a party at Nick’s place to nail the killer since I had a pretty good idea what happened at the lab, and who did the nasty deed. The way Hammett reported it after the dust settled was based on the idea that because it was Nick’s party where the killer was apprehended then it was Nick’s collar. Hammett was clueless that the “party” was a trap, had been set up that way not that somehow between martinis, dry, that Nick out of the blue exposed the killer and he crumbled before the great man’s deductive reasoning. I was steaming for a month over that one.

 

 

Oh yeah how did we find that killer. Simple police work, simple tax-payer public police work. Like I said we figured foul play from the time Janet surfaced without Winot after a couple of weeks. We followed her, followed her for a couple of weeks until one afternoon she met at the Automat with a guy, a guy who we later identified as James Livermore, a competitor and ex-partner when they both were starting out after studying at MIT and a man with a grudge since he believed that Winot had stolen some patent, some patent for automobile transmissions and which made Winot a bundle like I said before. This Livermore got nothing, nothing except for living out in the open air bumming and thumbing most of his life. This Janet was his daughter whom he had convinced to seduce Winot and then after he was perfume-crazed grab his dough while doing her job in the office.

 

That strategy proved too slow though, and Winot was kind of crafty and a cheapskate always hovering around when it came down to it, so they hatched the kidnap-ransom gag that has been used since about Adam and Eve, maybe before. The problem was that Winot recognized Livermore’s voice during the abduction at the lab and so old Winot’s days were numbered. Very numbered. We checked every place Livermore or Janet might have been where Winot might have been also, checked carefully and we hit pay-dirt when we checked Winot’s workshop area and noticed that what looked like a fresh digging in one corner of the shop. We had that section of the wall dug up and there we found the remains of a man, a tall, skinny man.

 

It is one thing to suspect a guy of a crime, even murder, it is another to have a case against him, although a few times we have had to frame a guy just to close a case. But not this one, not with the Chief over my shoulder, not with Nick snooping around when he was dead drunk, and not with Hammett printing every fool theory that Charles threw his way. That is when I decided to spring my trap at Nick’s house while everybody of interest was at his dinner party. I had arranged the guest list to include the Winot family in toto, Julia, Winot’s lawyer, a few yeggs, and of course the Charles pair and their lapdog Hammett. Of course we had a few coppers acting as waiters and doormen to keep order and prevent our guy getting away. And the guest of honor although he didn’t know it? One James Livermore whom we were able to get there using the ruse that Winot’s lawyer had information about settling up with him through his will.

 

When we had everybody gathered and a couple of courses served I played a little game. I asked Nick to eliminate anybody that he was sure was not involved in Winot’s disappearance and for a dipso he did pretty good, getting it down to Janet Livermore and an old yegg, John “Studs” Murphy. At that point James flipped out, flipped out badly yelling that Janet had nothing to do with Winot’s disappearance. He drew a gun and naturally I had to put two slugs into him.

 

As for Janet, well we left Janet alone although we could have charged her with kidnapping pure and simple. The last I heard she was married to some big money stockbroker who likes blondes with curves and maybe have murder in their hearts. As for Nick and Nora Charles they took the fastest train out of town that night, after the gun play started. The Red-Eye Special that left around midnight and the last I heard of them was they were back clipping stock coupons out in Frisco while using the lounge at the Drake Hotel as their favorite watering hole. Hammett, well, Hammett gave up the newspaper dodge and the last I heard he was writing detective novels based on Nick and Nora’s exploits in that Thin Man case. What a laugh,