The Marsh Madness

So far, it was looking good.

“Powell Street,” Smiley mouthed. He had a thing for Dashiell Hammett, and Powell Street was important to him too. He mentioned the name every few minutes. He had also mentioned something to do with Sam Spade every few minutes of our cable car ride. As far as I could see, he’d watched The Maltese Falcon once too often as a child. It seemed that his grandfather was to blame. I knew all about fascinations with fictional characters and settings. So I got that. But I had just discovered this classic noir detective and I was reserving judgment about Hammett and his gang.

Today, Smiley was also busy taking pictures. I was equally busy hanging on to my gray fedora because of the bouncy ride and the stiff breeze. That fedora had been the perfect vintage find and just right for San Francisco. It was sort of inspired by Sam Spade (see reserving judgement, above), but mainly I wore it because the foggy, damp air turned my midlength, dark hair into wild frizz. It was either the fedora or a brown paper bag.

It was our third trip on this particular line. We had three-day visitor passports and Smiley wanted us to get our twenty bucks’ worth on every form of transportation.

Most of the day’s itinerary focussed on exploring the haunts of Sam Spade. Smiley had a strong desire to visit Burrett Alley, off Stockton, where there was supposed to be a sign commemorating the shooting of Miles Archer in The Maltese Falcon. Pulp and noir were not my things and, to tell the truth, I’d been a bit surprised that Smiley was such an aficionado. I preferred the gentlemen of the Golden Age of Detection and, of course, anything with Archie Goodwin in it. But if he wanted to see that memorial to a fictional murder, I was fine with it as long as I could keep my hat on.

Smiley had managed to turn full circle as we proceeded down the next block. There couldn’t be a building he hadn’t captured for posterity. There were plenty of shots of me too. That was fine as my hair was covered and I had lots to smile about.

“Seafood tonight?” he shouted, suddenly serious.

Well, how about that? I had something else to smile about. “We’re in the right city for it.”

My response was lost in the racket.

We shuddered to a stop again and people pushed onto the cable car. I tried not to get separated from Smiley as people squeezed their way into the car and a short, bullet-shaped man with crisply gelled black hair attempted to shoulder his way between us. The cable car lurched forward. I steadied myself by grabbing Smiley’s belt with one hand. I held on to my hat with the other. “Sorry,” I said to the bullet-shaped man who seemed determined to take up more space.

I guess I’d been in the friendly, civil society of Harrison Falls, in upstate New York, for a bit too long. I wasn’t used to jockeying for position in confined spaces.

Bullet man flashed me a bleak look and eased behind me. Good. Let him experience the big stinky guy firsthand.

Smiley was pointing now, his enthusiastic words carried away on the wind. No question about it. He was adorable. And he wasn’t the first person to develop a fascination with Sam Spade or the Continental Op. I’d get my turn too. I couldn’t wait to get to Haight-Ashbury and its vintage stores.

As I reached for the airborne fedora, I felt something slam hard into my back, knocking the breath out of me. I lost hold of Smiley as I tumbled forward. When I managed to steady myself, a second sharp slam accelerated my fall. Panicked, I tried to grab at nearby passengers, but too little too late. With a roar of shouting voices behind me, I plunged, screaming wordlessly, from the lumbering cable car toward the pavement, my head set to meet Powell Street the hard way.

But I’m getting ahead of my story.

Let me start at the beginning.