***Out In The Noir Night - The Stuff Of Dream, Part One

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin

 

I remember I was at a party once, maybe a year or so ago, a party of political people, well maybe not so much political people although the event was being held to raise money for a political cause as aware of what was going on in the world. Oh, maybe I better say literary people and be done with the description. In any case the crowd was always up for some arch conversation about any subject that might hit the floor. That night a guy, a well-known local writer, was bemoaning the fact that “they don’t make detectives, private detectives in books, movies and such like they used to.” Of course he meant going back to the classic age of the detective, the hard-boiled detectives one read about in old magazines like Black Mask, blood and guts guys with a finely-defined code of honor and enough savvy to get into, or out of, a jam without winding up face down in some arroyo somewhere. Sure he was talking about guys like Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and Dashiell Hammett’s Spade in the book world, and guys like Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum in the celluloid world. He was particularly fascinated by Hammett’s Sam Spade from the book (and film) The Maltese Falcon and the combination of honor, greed, chasing after windmills, toughness under pressure and about six other attributes that made Spade the epitome of the old-time private detective. He then regaled us with about a half hours’ worth of how he would play a variation on the story line in that classic.

See, he said in the book you get the story strictly from Sam’s side -the seeker after some kind of rough justice in this wicked old world. He thought that it might be interesting to look at it from Brigit’s side, the femme fatale foil for Sam. And maybe mix it up little with a look from lavender Joel’s, the Fat Man’s and her something erstwhile crony, and maybe the cops, one of the cops, Sergeant Bond, friendly to Sam anyway, since they were clueless until Sam wrapped up the case with a bow for them. He then began to chirp in about how you could look at it from Miles Archer’s point too but I chimed in that that idea would require too many moving parts, would take the guts out of the thing, take that code thing Sam had and tear it all to hell. He backed off a little at that but in later conversation tried to spin the idea giving more details about how he would shake things up for the modern audience.  Here is his spin on the story as best I remember.            

… she, let’s see what name should she use on this caper, oh, maybe Mae Kiley, she hadn’t used that one in a while and nobody, no cops, were looking for her under that name, had it all figured out even before the secretary, Gladys she had called herself when she answered the telephone so Mae could set up an appointment, gave her professional glad tidings, offer of a seat, and “wait a minute I’ll see if they are in” spiel as she entered the foyer to the office.  Gladys by the way as Mae observed the scene and made mental notes, all blonde, busty and polished was obviously somebody in the office’s good- time girl or mistress, maybe both since she did not appear to have ever worn her fingers to a frazzle over some lousy steno pool typewriter. Gladys after making an appearance of checking over the intercom, opened the door to their office and made introductions. (Mae also made a mental note to compare notes with Gladys once she figured out whose honey she was in order to find out what made him tick. She figured a matter of professional courtesy one girl trying to make it in a wicked old world to another doing the best they could Gladys would oblige her once she knew Mae’s score.)The office of a couple of gumshoes, shamuses, private dicks, Marty Ash and Steve Shaw, that she fully intended to have run interference for her on her road to easy street, her golden egg road. When she saw the pair she knew she had made the right decision-like shooting fish in a barrel.  

Getting back to business though Mae had two thoughts as she sat down in an offered chair, a chipped chair that needed some repair and so had seen better days. Looking around at the not busy desks, the dusty file cabinets and the empty hat-rack told her automatically-cheap street. She knew she was in the right precinct for her proposition. One thought was maybe superficial, maybe a bit a catty, since it would not be the first or even close to the first time in her shorty twenty-two year old life that she used a guy and then tossed him over when the next best thing came along, but she could hardly suppress a certain smirk smile about it once she surveyed the terrain, these guys would be easy, would be putty in her hands once she laid her story out for them. The other, the real driving force behind her returning to Frisco just ahead of the law and of some vague cartel looking for the same thing she was looking for, was that no way, no way in hell was she going back to that Hong Kong whorehouse world (and before that a couple of years trick walking these very lonely and unsavory Frisco streets for nickels and dimes really). So they had to fall for her plan, or else.

Yah, Mae had prepped herself well about how she was in dire, but she would make clear with a sigh not desperate, need of help, a little manly protection, keeping it vague but alluring, to retrieve an item, a valuable item, from a tough customer, Fritz Lager, a former lover who she, putting on her best all frilly, silly and defenseless manner, was afraid to confront alone. Just a couple of minutes work, no rough stuff if they were smart, and then home for supper or whatever (silently she thought maybe a rendezvous with that blonde out front although she still couldn’t figure which guy was bonking her). Keep the story breezy and simple, but above all vague enough to seem harmless but alluring enough for them, or one of them, to take a chance. And throw in enough dough, say a couple of hundred bucks, maybe three, to set the trap. No more than three though because just then she was a little light and needed to keep some aside for the room rent. Wickedly she entertained thoughts of some kind of barter, you know for services rendered, saving some dough but she was right then trying to play the virginal damsel in distress so she thought better of it. Maybe later when she had the hooks in, had gotten under one of these guys’ skin. Hah, by then they would be slipping her dough. 

As Mae surveyed the two gumshoes sitting kind of forlorn and from hunger she almost licked her lips knowing that she had selected just the right pair (as they were busy licking their lips over her making her think that maybe that blonde number out front was just trimming and had a walking daddy somewhere else who was keeping her out of trouble, and his hair, with this pair while he dealt with his wife or some other girlfriend). She would tell them a cover story about how she had just plucked their names out of the San Francisco telephone book and they, or rather the secretary had answered the phone and made the appointment for her (she wondered again now that she saw the set-up a little closer which one that tramp was sleeping with, probably from the ring on his finger the very married-looking Ash).

Mae smiled to herself when she thought about the previous two days preparations making sure of her marks, checking out the low- rent office building filled with failed dentists, repo men, magic elixir pushers, chiropractors, and other grafters all with big- lettered signs on their doors advertising their essential services and not much traffic at their doors. Cheap Street, a couple of hundred dollars, not three would work magic. Moreover these two guys had bungled a couple of cases according to the newspapers and were not on good term with the coppers as a result. One headline had read that Marty had held out on the cops when some married dame in hock to Eddie Mars, the big-time ship casino owner out in the bay, had conned him into letting her go after she took old Eddie face down with a couple of slugs in him after he tried to shake down her husband. Funny too after the dame had offered to pay back Eddie in trade but he was lovesick over some silver-haired wife who had taken off for parts unknown and so no go). Another story had Steve almost losing his license when he slammed some rogue cop down and tried to bring him in when the cop shot his ex-wife and the Department was furious since it still took care of its own, still hushed up that stuff, and no two-bit shamus was going to ruin that deal. Yah, forlorn and from hunger.

Mae wasn’t going to leave it strictly to from hunger though, not with men. She had learned a trick or two about men when she had done a trick or two out on these very streets over around Post. Or maybe she just always knew about men from that first time when Timmy Shea conned her out of her virginity telling her she was still a good Catholic schoolgirl virgin until she had done it ten times, ten times with him. Little did he know he would not have had to ask the second time as she was ready to go whatever number of times he wanted once she got that first awkward one under her belt and knew she had to do it more to get looser down there and to get better at it . But she liked that he gave she a present, some bauble, after each tryst so maybe she had a little whore in her even back then. It wasn’t that she hated men, no, she liked her sex, liked it a lot going back to Timmy days, especially after that tenth time when she wasn’t sore afterward, but she hated the idea of being thought a brainless whore. And after this caper she would prove it.

Just then she remembered something that she had learned from Mr. Fats (that is what everybody including his boyfriend called him) owner of that damn Hong Kong whorehouse she slaved in-“every man, woman and child is a whore, it is just the way you carry yourself that makes a difference.” And so this day she put a little extra lilac perfume behind her ear just before she entered the outer office (that would be enough, more than enough for Ash as he was already licking his chops a second time, Shaw looked like he would need more coaxing , just a little more.) Of course Mr. Fats and his appetites, his desires and his vices would play out here in Frisco as well since she knew that once she parted company with him and his cronies getting out of Hong Kong just in time that they would appear in this old town before long. She could practically hear the Fat Man’s horrible laugh, practically smell Joey the Turk’s own lilac perfume in the room, practically hear the Fat Man’s young daughter, Rhonda, carping about something and ominously practically smell the gunpowder from Wino’s, the hired gun, doings from the Fat Man. With that in mind she figured that she had better close the deal now.

So she presented her story, kept it vague and alluring about a box, a box that had some sentimental as well as real value, that her ex-lover, that Fritz Lager mentioned previously, had taken from her in Hong Kong, had set sail on a tramp steamer for Macao, and whom she had traced back to the states. When she found him over on Mission Street he said he wanted some dough for his troubles, some serious dough which she did not have on her but which she agreed to pay the next night, that night at 8 o’clock, at a neutral spot in front of the Empire Hotel on Post Street. Ash, now Marty to her, lust in his eyes, and expecting maybe a little more reward that money for playing the gallant, put up both hands to volunteer. The whole thing seemed easy, and those two one hundred dollar bills talked, although Steve seemed less convinced than Marty. Had arched his right eyebrow when he quizzed Mae about why she needed some armed protection for a simple exchange. Mae told the story of how Fritz had played the gallant for her in some mix-up with some Chinese merchants (failing to tell just then that the merchants were opium-dealers wondering, wondering out loud what had happened to a shipment that they had entrusted to her) and they had become lovers before some ill-defined falling out. This was the stopper-it seems that Fritz always slept in rooms with about six or seven mirrors so that he could see anybody coming in the room. Nice guy thought Steve (hence that raised eyebrow) but the rent was due on the office and so in for a dime, in for a dollar. He would question her more later, as she gave him a wicked smile to seal the deal. Still Shaw, now Steve to her, a little more cautious, a little more cautious around a woman whose story was full of holes, and who was showing just a little too much silk stocking than was necessary to make her point, gladly seconded his partner’s bravado. And that money, that money was just enough, to put icing on the cake at a time when the landlord had been dunning the boys for a few months back rent. Good luck Marty he chuckled.  

And that night at that fateful meeting with her old lover all hell broke loose and now it would be necessary for Steve to change the signs on the doors and windows to Steve Shaw, private investigator, poor Marty had gone down in a blaze of gunfire, poor Marty had cashed his check. And in the aftermath she had seemingly flown the coop with no explanation and no alibi. Marty and he had not made much money, and what they did make was too often spend on wine, women, and song (she was wrong Marty had not been very married but very divorced), separately as they shared differences in women and hang-out spots. They had not been particularly friendly terms throughout their stormy partnership especially after Marty, they, let the ball drop on that Claremont case, the big construction pay-off case, and a couple of cops got caught up in the crossfire and wounded, severely wounded and a police and a public works commissioner both got lots of egg on their faces. But, like a lot of things in life, you can’t let something like your partner being gunned down like a dog in some back alley (according to the police reports which he confidentially received from a guy on the force) just roll off your back. Bad, bad for the profession, bad all the way around. And so he put his snooping nose to the grindstone and found out a ton of stuff, and in the process got dinged up a little.

She, all fresh flowers smells, long legs and show (a show and smell that had dazzled him more than a little but we will let that pass as he is the hero here and as victor gets to write the history of this little nefarious episode his way), had been Fritz ‘s lover all right, except not ex-lover. Well not ex-lover in the way that normal people would think of it. She had blasted old Fritz rooty-toot-toot one night in Hong Kong when he was drunk not for being mean to her, or after giving her one too many once over slaps, guys didn’t do that to her, no way, but just to get his stash-the two kilos of pure heroin he was holding for Mr. Fats. See Fritz was a drug runner, what they call a “mule,” for the old boy and Mr. Fats had him keep the stuff in his place just in case the coppers, the paid off coppers got uppity and decided to go retail.

She, of course, wanted out, wanted out of that sister whore life bad, wanted out of Asia bad, wanted back to Frisco bad. So she shot Fritz, fled with the suit-cased golden brick, grabbed the fastest tramp steamer she could find and would up in Frisco just as planned. Well as she planned. Of course Mr. Fats might object to such a course, might not think much of the plan, and he didn’t. He sent an, uh, emissary to retrieve his goods. It was the emissary, Joe the Turk, Joey Lilac she called him, a rough customer despite, or maybe because of the name, that she was to meet at the hotel who killed Marty after figuring out she was not alone. And in the melee she off-handedly shot Joe, shot him good and dead. And that was that.

Not quite, Mr. Fats was in town a few days after finding out about Joe Lilac’s demise by hands unknown, although he suspected he knew who did the deed. And that hard fact was why she had come up from underground and was sitting in Steve Shaw’s office all no-holds-barred- gardenia-smelling wearing a very short shirt. She confessed to Steve a little of her dilemma. He didn’t buy it at first but don’t forget those legs and that scent, and that first day’s licking of the chops, and don’t forget she worked on him hard, real hard so he decided to play out the hand. She made it easier for him, hell, made him ready to jump through hoops when she locked the office inner office door and came over and sat on his lap.

After they finished their lap business (come on, you can figure it out, can’t you) when she had sealed the deal the best way she knew how they worked on a new plan. Steve was to be the emissary to Mr. Fats where he would make a deal that the big man would agree to. Steve balked at first, a little Then she went into her frilly manner act, she was frightened of Mr. Fats after the Fritz a and Joe net losses, so Steve needed to pull the deal off and get her money and they would forthwith go off some sunny place and be happy. Later, after the smoke had cleared, it came to light she had a one-way ticket to Rio in her pocketbook. Although she never would get to use it.

See, Steve had set the deal to take place in the lobby of the American West Hotel but she had crossed him up by being there, under cover, when she blasted Mr. Fats to the next world and grabbed the money before he got there. Later back at Steve’s office now with both the fat man’s money and that golden brick in her possession she tried to waste him. She missed. He clipped her with his own rod, clipped her back onto her seat. She tried one last come hither trick on him moving her slip up her thigh but to no avail. If he could have trusted her for one minute, one non- come hither minute he might have taken another tumble. No. He then called the coppers who took her and the brick into custody. She now awaits the big step-off. The money Steve kept, kept as payment, for Marty, for justice, hell for himself. Ah, the stuff of dreams.