Hammett (Crime Masterworks) Read Free Page B

fairgrounds casino or something, out on the edge of town. Now, how to make the Op the catalyst in it . . .
    Hammett paused in his pacing to look at his strap watch. Still time to get out to Steiner Street and catch the Friday night fight card at Winterland. Just opened, he hadn’t even seen the inside of the place yet. So why not? He’d be bound to get an idea or two he could work into
Red Harvest
during his stint at the typewriter that night.
    As Hammett emerged into Post Street he almost cannoned into Goodie Osborne, just coming home from work. He caught her by the shoulders.
    ‘Can you live without food for a few more hours?’
    ‘Of course, but what—’
    ‘C’mon.’ He guided her across Post Street without noticing the very big man who was supporting the corner building while relighting his cigar stub. ‘I’m on my way out to Winterland for the fights. Want to come along?’
    Goodie’s eyes were sparkling. ‘Try to stop me.’
    The big man straightened, tossed aside the newly lit stub, and crossed Post toward their apartment building. His name was Victor Atkinson, and he was a man not easily forgotten: six feet three, two hundred and fifteen pounds, huge restless hands, and a bony icebreaker jaw.
    With his work cords and heavy wool lumberjack, he looked like a logger down from Seattle – which is what he wanted to look like.
    Atkinson went down the narrow dim hallway beside the elevator to tattoo the manager’s door with heavy knuckles. The bleary-eyed woman who opened it and squinted up at him wore her hair in a wispy bun and had about half a bun on herself; he could smell the bathtub gin from three feet away.
    ‘Ain’t got no rooms.’ Her face brightened. She added with a simper, ‘Big boy.’
    ‘Yeah.’ He crowded her back into the littered, close-smelling apartment without seeming to. ‘I want a line on one of your tenants.’
    ‘That’s privi . . .’ She hiccuped. ‘Privileged infor—’
    ‘Hammett. Third floor front, far end. Was up there. Nobody home.’
    ‘I told you—’
    ‘Habits. Who he sees. What’s he do for a living. Things like that.’
    ‘I don’t—’
    ‘Ain’t got all night, lady.’ His heavily boned face was brutal in its lack of expression. The boredom in his voice somehow had a menace beyond mere bluster. ‘I gotta catch the fight card out to Winterland.’
    Hammett and Goodie paused in front of the row Victorians across Steiner from the huge amphitheater.
    ‘Quite a place,’ he commented.
    ‘And so many people.’ The blond girl was clinging to his arm with excitement.
    Winterland was a massive white stucco structure, four stories high, with spotlights to illuminate the American flags on the poles jutting up past the coping of the red-tiled roof. They let themselves be carried across the street to the open doors under the unadorned sidewalk-width marquee.
    ‘Who do you like in the main event, Mr Hammett?’
    The fresh-faced urchin in knickers, drab moleskin coat, and golfing cap was peddling newspapers and boxing magazines. Hammett bought a
Knockout
.
    ‘The Canadian in the fifth or sixth.’
    ‘I dunno,’ said the boy dubiously. ‘I seen Campbell in a couple a’ workouts and he looked awful strong to me.’
    ‘So’s a bull, but it can’t match a mastiff,’ said Hammett. ‘The Frenchie’ll cut him to pieces.’
    The ticket windows, flanked by ornamental green shutters,were set under little roofed cottagelike façades at either end of the foyer. Hammett got two in the third row ringside, which cleaned him out except for cigarette money.
    ‘Who was that boy, Sam?’
    ‘Just a kid hangs around on fight nights. He’s got an uncle makes book out of the candy store at Fillmore and McAllister.’
    ‘Sam, a
candy
store?’
    ‘Next best place to a smokeshop,’ he said piously.
    They surrendered their tickets and passed through a thick-walled archway beside the narrow balcony stairway. Open side doors, guarded by uniformed ticket-takers, let in the