The Hammett Hex Read Free Page B

the social ladder for them. Over time Uncle Mick might have been able to come to grips with the “police thing” but estranged from family? That would be a deal breaker.
    I bent forward and let stars shine in my eyes. “San Francisco was Uncle Seamus’s town. I’ve always wanted to visit.”
    Mick leaned back and grinned happily. “Ah, our boy Seamus, now there was a lad.”
    â€œI grew up on those stories! Remember?”
    â€œHow could I ever forget our Seamus and his shenanigans?”
    â€œRemember when he ‘liberated’ the emerald and diamond choker from the twenty-sixth floor of that five-star hotel and he scrambled all the way around the building from balcony to balcony?” As a girl, I had imagined Uncle Seamus to be like Spiderman only with red, fuzzy eyebrows and a gold chain in his ginger chest hair.
    â€œAnd him afraid of heights! He was a scallywag!”
    A fool more like it, but now I was on a roll. “And wasn’t there some great story about a maid?”
    â€œIndeed, all the ladies loved our Seamus. He was like catnip to a calico.”
    â€œWas he?”
    â€œHe always got away right under the noses of the police.”
    â€œHow did he do that?” Of course, I could have told this and a dozen other Uncle Seamus stories myself without any prompting, but it was more fun this way.
    â€œTalked the silly girl right out of her uniform, he did, and wheeled the cart down the hallway. The
po
-lice even checked in the cart to see if anything was hidden and they still didn’t notice it was him pushing it.”
    â€œThey couldn’t have been trying very hard if they didn’t spot he was a man, Uncle Mick.”
    â€œIndeed, our Seamus was always a bit delicate in appearance, had to be small and agile in his line of work. And anyway, he knew the cops wouldn’t even give a second look to that poor girl. No one sees past a uniform. You should know that.”
    â€œAnd I suppose he didn’t have a five o’clock shadow.”
    â€œScrupulously groomed at all times was Seamus.” He paused, probably wondering if he should say, “Rest his soul.” We’d never been sure of what happened to Uncle Seamus in the aftermath of a heist that involved a diamond necklace belonging to the second girlfriend of a minor mobster named Les “the Bat” Blatt, known for his interrogation techniques with an aluminum baseball bat. We often say “rest his soul” in this family, but when it comes to Seamus, we go silent.
    â€œAnd the maid, what do you think she did without her uniform?”
    â€œWhat any sensible female would do! Took some clothing from the room she was cleaning and walked right outta there.”
    Not everyone lived by the rules of the Kelly family. I hoped the chambermaid in the story wasn’t made to pay for her mistake.
    Uncle Mick was on a roll now.
    â€œSo you see,” I said, “this trip would be like a pilgrimage for me.”
    Before I left, he had me doubled over retelling the famous story of Uncle Seamus, his pockets stuffed with cash, racing through a hotel kitchen, flinging pots of water behind him to slip up his pursuers. Being Seamus, he managed to score an excellent meal on his way to freedom. In some versions it was a plate of caviar, but in this one, it was a chateaubriand for two and a bottle of brandy.
    I changed the topic briefly on my way out. “Vera needs me to get a copy of
Red Harvest
in San Francisco.”
    â€œAnd that’s a book?”
    â€œBingo. It’s a book by Dashiell Hammett.”
    â€œWhy can’t you get it here?”
    â€œWell, it’s an old book and she wants a first edition signed by the author. And she wants it from his old haunt of San Francisco. It’s not my type of reading but she claims it was an important piece, the transition of a genre from pulp into mainstream and I quote, ‘
The absurd violence seems to