A/N: This story takes place in the reality of the 1941 movie adaptation of "The Maltese Falcon." It works in a few elements from the novel, but ignores others.
Effie fumed as she paced the office.
Sam had left for the night, probably to drink himself into a stupor. She still couldn't believe he had sent that poor desperate woman, that knockout Brigid O'Shaughnessy, to the cooler.
"But she killed Miles, Effie..."
"Don't touch me!" she'd snapped, recoiling from her employer and old friend in disgust.
Now that she'd had time to cool her head, Effie found that she was still pretty steamed up. But she was starting to ask herself why she was so angry. By all accounts, Sam had done the only thing he could be expected to. Effie herself had even begun to suspect that O'Shaughnessy had killed either Miles or Thursby. She'd figured if that was so, then Brigid must've had some understandable reason—an accident, self-defense, revenge for some legitimate wrongdoing. The poor woman just didn't seem capable of true, cold-blooded murder.
It was Sam's apparent lack of compassion, that was the thing that upset her. It wasn't the fact he'd sent Brigid to prison, but the fact it looked like he hadn't hesitated. Effie had always liked to think her employer was only cold on the outside, that inside he had a heart. It was starting to look like she'd been wrong about him.
And that implied all kinds of things.
Effie had always interpreted Sam's indifference to her independence and other "peculiarities" as his subtle way of saying he accepted her, even respected her. She'd thought the same thing about the indifference he'd shown the flamboyantly queer Joel Cairo. She'd thought Sam Spade was secretly one step ahead of society in understanding, just as he was in vigilance
But turning the murderer into the police was the moral thing to do, Effie, her reasonable side told her. He knew her a lot better than you did. She probably wasn't what she seemed.
She responded to her logic as she often did in times of stress: Can it!
Sighing deeply, Effie buttoned up her coat and left the office. She'd spent far too long sorting through the ugly paperwork of the case. She'd had to go through the details of poor Brigid's arrest, and Spade's extensive notes on all of the thieves. All three men—Joel Cairo, Wilmer Cook, and Kasper Gutman—were marked as homosexuals, a crime that itself could get one a few years of prison time these days. Too bad people like them hadn't been born a generation earlier. But those three were lucky they were being tried here, and not in Europe. She had a good bet why Joel Cairo had left whatever part of Eastern Europe he had, knowing the stories of what the Nazis were doing over there.
Effie was so deep in thought she didn't even remember leaving the office building, and suddenly found herself crossing the street in the feint drizzling rain. She momentarily lost herself in the light spray, and the colorful reflections glistening on the empty road.
A car suddenly tore out from around the corner and screeched to a halt in front of her. Effie jumped back with a yelp. She was still swallowing her shock when the back door flew opened, and a small man seized her around the waist and pulled her into the car. This time, Effie didn't have time to scream. The car was screaming for her, tearing down the road with the door still opened. The man threw Effie across the back seat, and pressed a pistol under her chin.
"Don't move."
With his free hand he pulled the car door shut, keeping his gun trained on her.
Effie swallowed, fighting back tears. It seemed fairly obvious what was going to happen now.
"Keep yourself low Wilmer," a familiar silky voice suddenly emitted from the driver's seat. "Our faces are on every paper. Or will be shortly."
Effie's fear instantly gave way to confusion. She turned over awkwardly under Wilmer's gun, to get a look at the curly-haired driver. "Mr. Cairo?"
Joel Cairo's large baggy eyes met hers in the review mirror. She now noticed the familiar stench of Gardenia filling the car.
Effie looked again at the man holding her hostage, and let out a short laugh. "Well, at least I knowIwon't be ravished tonight."
The young gunman stared down at her with wide, unblinking eyes.
"You know us?" Cairo asked casually, squinting at the road as he picked up speed.
"I remember you, Joel." Effie glanced up at the young man leaning over her. "I'm guessing you're Wilmer Cook."
"Don't try my patience lady," Wilmer warned slowly. "I don't got the same weakness for women most men have."
"Sam mentioned." Effie began to sit up, but a quick jab from Wilmer's gun told her he was serious, and she sank back down against the seat.
"You'll have to forgive my friend," Cairo said. "He's not the sociable sort."
"Yeah," Effie's voice was quiet now. "Sam mentioned that too." She folded her arms over her chest, and stared up at the ceiling of the speeding car. "So what do you want with me? You're thinking a mildly well-off detective's secretary will make a nice ransom, or you need a hostage for some kind of escape plan, or you just thought you'd try something new?"
"Eh...something between the first two," Cairo's eyes remained on the road. "You see my friend and I, we don't wish to be extradited back to Europe. And it would be immensely helpful if your friend Mr. Spade would make a few alterations in his report in order to negate that unpleasant possibility."
"And you think that after Spade makes these changes and I'm set free, he's not gonna go straight to the coppers and tell them what really happened?"
"Oh we plan to be halfway across the globe by then."
Effie nodded. "Right...and you think Sam Spade'll do that, just because you say you'll shoot his secretary if he doesn't"
Wilmer reminded her quietly, "Spade knows I killed Captain Jacobi."
"And we know he has a soft spot for women," Cairo added.
The shock of poor Captain Jacobi's death flew back to her. How calm Sam had been, when the dying man stumbled into the office...calm when a man was dying in front of him, calm when his partner had been murdered, and Sam himself accused of doing it... calm when sending a woman he surely loved to prison...
"That's where you're wrong Cairo," Effie said. "Spade sent Miss O'Shaughnessy to the clink, right after you and the Fat Man left the apartment. Didn't even think twice about it."
Cairo's face changed.
"Sam's not the softie you or me or Brigid or anyone took him to be," Effie finished bitterly.
"He won't let an innocent girl die," Cairo argued, seemingly half to himself.
"He didn't seem too cut up when his own partner died," Effie mused darkly, remembering how Sam had almost with a laugh ordered his partner's name erased from his window.
How he'd spoken of his partner so soon after he'd died. Even with the poor man dead, Spade still loved to chastise Miles Archer for chasing skirts, while he himself had been playing patty cake with Archer's wife (and God knew how many other women). Where the hell Sam thought he got off, she never knew.
Effie suddenly realized it had been a mistake to tell her captors all this. Now they might decide she wasn't worth keeping alive. And yet she just wasn't feeling nearly as much fear as she ought. They just didn't seem like truly evil people. But then, neither had Brigid. And the young man holding her at gunpoint, hehadmurdered Jacobi. Effie stared up into the frantic eyes of the gunman, trying to read if he was someone who could really take a human life and not be haunted by it.
Methodically, Effie asked Wilmer, "Why did you murder that poor old man? Captain Jacobi?"
She saw his face twitch, seemingly fighting to keep his eyes dry. When Wilmer responded, his voice wavered, as he clearly worked to keep emotion out.
"I warned the old snoop to stay outta' my way. I told him he wasn't no 'civilian,' he was in a uniform. 'One of us goes down tonight Skipper, that's war.'"
"And what'd he say to that?"
Wilmer's lip curled. "He laughed at me!" His eyes stared past her. "He said something about going down with his ship. So I granted his wish."
To say that the following silence was uncomfortable would have been a bit of an understatement.
Changing the subject, Effie turned to Cairo and asked, "What were you gonna use that old paperweight for anyway?"
Eyes on the darkening road, Cairo replied coolly, "We had hoped to get rich by it."
"And then what?"
"And then live our lives as we please. Unbothered, un-hunted.
Effie laughed. "As thieves and murderers?"
"We're already criminals where we come from." Cairo's voice lowered. "What do you know about it anyway, you have no idea what it's like to be like us."
Effie stared at Cairo. "Maybe I do."
Both men did a double take.
Quietly Wilmer asked her, "You're queer?"
"I like a bit of peanut-butterandjelly." Effie shifted where she lay. "It's rotten the way they treat us. But I never saw how killing and stealing would make things any easier."
Cairo spat back, "You like your 'peanut-butter and jelly' here in America, where at worst you'd spend a few years in an ordinary jail. Do you know what it's like where we come from? What's happening in Europe?"
Quietly she said, "As a matter of fact I do. I know some people who came here to escape... It's part of why I was pressing for Sam to show a bit of compassion, with the whole lot of you. I don't know quite how you," she nodded to Wilmer, "or Miss O'Shaughnessy wound up in Europe, as you both sound pretty American to me, but however you got there, I figure any sane person'd want to get out."
"Wilmer's from America," Cairo said. "His story is long, and not particularly pleasant. Mine isn't either come to think of it."
Effie fought against her rising sympathy for the couple. "You're criminals, you'd say anything."
"Anddoanything," Wilmer warned, pressing the gun under her jaw. "So shut your yapping and sit still."
Rain pounded against the windows. Even lying down, Effie was able to recognize enough buildings to realize where they were going.
"You're taking us to the Bridge."
"Only for safe keeping," Cairo explained. "Spade is to meet us at a pay phone where he'll make reports of our innocence to the police. After we're convinced they're no longer after us we'll turn you over to him, and be on our way."
"And it'll be that easy. Suppose I have to use the john while we're waiting?"
"You'll do your business without one, like your pioneer women!" Cairo laughed.
Effie found herself laughing back, before catching herself.
Were these men truly just murderers who happened to have sob stories, like so many evil people did? Or were they acting out of desperation? Their coming from Hitler's Europe complicated things for her.
Before Effie could finish sorting her thoughts, Cairo was forced her out of the car, pinning her arms behind her. She wondered where exactly on the bridge they were going to keep her, then realized Wilmer was leading her towards one of the bridge's construction hatches. Wilmer and Cairo had somehow acquired a key to the bridge's off-limit construction areas. The pair being experienced jewel thieves, this was no surprise to Effie.
Wilmer pulled Effie into the dark unit, while Cairo stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the city lights and the river.
"You guard her Wilmer. I'll park the car and make a phone call to Mr. Spade."
"Hurry back," Wilmer said quietly.
The space was tight and narrow. She could feel herself being pressed against a thin, cold, metal ladder.
"This is a ladder well," she observed. Obviously. She could almost hear Spade sarcastically laughing at her, You'll make detective in no time Angel!
"Hold still," Wilmer said, "And remember this gun is trained on your head."
"I can feel it," she sighed, as he pressed the cold barrel against her forehead, and tried not to think about how easy it would be for his finger to slip across the trigger just on accident.
She gasped as he yanked at something on her waist. He pulled the fabric belt out of her coat, and used it to tie her wrists behind her, to one of the ladder rungs. Upon securing her, he brought the gun back up to her head, and they waited.
"So how long we gonna sit in this silence?" Effie finally dared.
"I got nothing against silence."
"Well for god's sake somebody's got to break the ice. I suppose it'll have to be me. Though I doubt my story's anywhere near as interesting as you and Joel's. How'd an American end up working with a—what's Joel's actual nationality again? He had a dozen false passports, Sam said, but—"
"Lady, you got two minutes to quit your yapping before I get jumpy with this trigger."
"And how would Joel like that? Come in here, find my brains splattered all over you and this ladder well. And right when you two were so close to escaping." Off-handedly she asked, "Where do you think you'll go?"'
Wilmer didn't bite. But he didn't shoot either.
Realizing her detective work wasn't getting her anywhere, she sighed. "Alright we'll talk about something else. I'll bet you're into cowboy pictures Wilmer. You listen to a lot of 'Lone Ranger?'"
After a moment, he said barely audibly, "When I was younger."
She shrugged. "Never could get much into Westerns myself. I always preferred the more fantastical pictures like 'Wizard of Oz' and 'Snow White.' There was a science fiction one I saw with my father as a child, a silent film from Germany. 'Metropolis.' It was all about a ruling class living in a shining city, held up by workers who were essentially invisible slaves. Sometimes that's how I feel, as a woman, as a—what's the official term for it? Attracted to both sexes—well you know what I mean."
"You don't know anything about misery, not out here," Wilmer said quietly. "Anyway you women can hide it. No one bats an eye and two female friends holding hands or kissing on the cheek. Try living in an asylum for a few years, or see if you can survive a concentration camp—"
"Aaaah. So, you busted out of an asylum in America and escaped to Europe, only to end up in a concentration camp. How in God's name did you get out ofthere?" When Wilmer didn't reply, Effie gave up and continued. "Well however you got out, you probably sought employment with the Fat Man, because where else could you go. And there you met Joel, who I suppose was in the exact same boat."
"Keep sticking your nose where it don't belong Sister, you'll get a pound of led in your head."
"All those years locked up and kept on the Fat Man's leash has stunted your maturity growth, hasn't it. Well maybe after you and Joel escape he can…I dunno, help you catch up to your age."
"I was older at age six than you'll be at sixty!" Wilmer snapped back. "You don't—"
They both jumped when the heavy door creaked back opened.
Joel Cairo stood before them, with a grim look on his face.
Wilmer's tough cover faltered. "Joel?"
For the first time since she'd met Wilmer, Effie was hearing raw, unfiltered emotion in his voice.
Cairo glanced to the side, as a massive shadow fell over him. The Fat Man appeared in the doorway, with a pistol trained on Cairo, grinning smugly at Effie and Wilmer.
"So Wilmer," Gutman growled, "You and Cairo thought you'd steal my car and I wouldn't be able to track you. I've come to reclaim what's mine; my money, my automobile, and my handsome little 'gunsel,' as Mr. Spade so eloquently put it."
Effie recoiled in disgust at the realization of what the old pervert had been doing to the poor confused young man. No wonder Wilmer was such a mess. She was now fully convinced that Wilmer would not have killed poor Captain Jacobi without this monster's influence.
"And what's this?" the Fat Man peered at Effie.
Gutman reached inside the tight ladder well and pulled a heavy lever. Lights flared on.
"I recognize you," Gutman laughed. "You're Mr. Spade's secretary, the one who delivered us the false Bird. Perhaps you can tell us where the real one is being hidden."
"And why on Earth would I know that?" Effie sighed.
"Come come Miss. You don't expect me to believe that little 'mix-up' with that block of lead was an accident on yours and Mr. Spade's part."
"It was the Russian who made the false," Cairo reminded him. "The real Bird is all the way back in Europe."
"A conclusion I drew all too hastily," Gutman's eyes were now wide with obsession. "Spade played us all like a fiddle. Now I want to know where the Bird is, or I'll begin breaking fingers. If you want the police to know precisely where you are, then by all means shoot me," the Fat Man taunted as Wilmer turned his gun towards him. "I have means of escaping this city before any police can catch up to me. But I doubt you and Cairo do."
For a moment Wilmer stood frozen. Effie's heart pounded, as she waited for Wilmer to choose his loyalties. The young man seemed mentally stuck.
Just barely loud enough for Wilmer to hear, Effie said into his ear, "You've come too far."
Wilmer suddenly cracked the back of his pistol into the Fat Man's forehead. Cairo quickly dashed for the gun in Gutman's hand, swiping it up in one smooth motion.
Effie, who had undone her bindings long before the Fat Man and Cairo had even arrived, brought her belt around and swung its buckle into Gutman's face. Roaring through her teeth she kicked and punched him a few times, until he went down groaning.
"Go up!" she yelled Cairo and Wilmer. "Go up, it's your only shot!"
They made the split-second decision to trust her, and went up the ladder, Wilmer first, followed by Cairo, then Effie. She gasped as a pudgy hand clasped over her ankle. She kicked at the Fat Man's face, finally worming out of her shoe, and continuing up the tiny ladder. The Fat Man began hauling his massive body up the ladder after them, his face mad and determined, wincing only when Effie's other shoe hit his face. But after only a few rungs he stopped dead, his eyes bulging in disbelief and fury. As Effie had predicted, he couldn't fit up the well.
As Gutman's threats and curse words echoed up the tower, Cairo let out a raspy giggle. "Brilliantly planned Miss—what's your name?"
"Perine. Effie Perine."
The trio continued onward until they reached an opening at the top one of the segments in the bridge's towers. The view of San Francisco was as breathtaking in its beauty as its terror. Effie had never particularly been afraid of heights, but being this high up made her almost physically nauseated.
"I can see my house from here," Effie observed. Turning back to Cairo she asked, "Did you ever make that phone call to Sam?"
"No, the Fat Man caught me before I reached the telephone booth. But there's still the letter I slipped under his door before Wilmer and I kidnapped you."
"Then I'll have to call him as soon as possible to tell him I'm alright. With Sam out looking for me that'll make hiding you two all the more difficult."
Cairo and Wilmer stared at her.
"Well Mom doesn't know much about our case," Effie went on. "But she does know I keep unusual friends. I'll tell here I'm putting you two up for the night because you're witnesses under me and Sam's protection. You two'll be gone by morning, of course."
Cairo made a face. "You're certainly more willing to trust us now then you were when we had a gun pointed to your head."
"Down there," Effie nodded down the well, "You needed to get away from the Fat Man and you couldn't use your guns, as he said. So why not just let him torture me, and high-tail it while he's distracted?"
Silence.
"Uh-huh. I don't think either of you likes this whole crime business as much as you wanted your boss to think you did. Anyway, I owe you two for that at least." She folded her arms, thinking out loud. "The way I figure it, if you don't change your ways after I turn you lose, you'll just get yourselves caught all over again, and I can at least say I've tried. Now," she looked around the daunting scene. "How the hell do we get down from this bridge without coming the way we came?"
"Eh don't worry about that Miss Effie," Cairo assured her. "Wilmer and I are professional burglars and escape artists. Aren't we Wilmer."
For the first time, Effie saw the corner of Wilmer's mouth turn up, almost in a smile.
Effie was washing the breakfast dishes when the doorbell rang.
Cairo and Wilmer were long gone, having departed before sunrise. Effie had called Sam the previous night to tell him she was alright, and told her elderly mother that Cairo and Wilmer were witnesses for her and Sam's current case. Her mom hadn't believed it for a moment, and muttered something like, "your decadent friends can sleep it off here whenever they like, as long as they're gone before the neighbors wake up." Cairo and Wilmer were all too glad to oblige.
For disguises, Effie gave Cairo and Wilmer some old clothes of her late father's, that she and Mom hadn't gotten around to selling yet. As an extra measure, Effie had insisted on trimming off Cairo's curls, much to his chagrin. Mom had scolded Effie about the noise when Cairo's raspy protests became too loud, as Wilmer held him down into a chair so Effie could sheer off his permed locks. The couple left by train before sunrise, and so far she had heard nothing about their capture on the morning radio.
Effie quickly finished drying her dish and went to answer the door. She wasn't surprised to see Sam Spade standing before her, but she was taken aback by the genuine concern on his face.
"Sam!" Catching herself, she lowered her voice and explained, "Mom's still asleep."
Sam nodded, and replied quietly. "I'm just stopping by to make sure you're alright, like I said I would."
Effie returned the nod. "It's very kind of you Sam. But I'm fine. I think that whole Bird adventure's finally behind us." After a moment, she admitted, "I'm sorry I was so cross with you about the O'Shaughnessy woman. You did the right thing, Sam."
"I didn't want to, Effie. It's still tearing me up inside. But I had to. She was counting on my uh, 'compassion.'"
Effie swallowed, and wondered for the first time since last night if she'd done the right thing by helping Cairo and Wilmer escape.
Meeting Sam's eyes again, Effie offered, "Would you like to come in, have a cup of coffee?"
"Sure."
They chatted and reminisced about the wild adventure over a steaming Columbian blend, and Sam went into more detail about the grueling decision to turn Brigid over to the police. Effie then provided a more detailed version of the lie she'd told Sam over the phone twelve hours earlier.
"…the last I saw, they were all three of 'em in a brawl. I think I saw Cairo get squished under the Fat Man, poor little guy. You know that Joel Cairo's lucky he never went into orbit around Gutman."
Spade nodded. "I just gotta' get this all straight for my report. So Cairo and the gunsel kidnapped you, thinking they'd persuade me into helping them evade the law. Then Gutman showed up wanting his gunsel back, and thinking we still had the real Falcon. He tried to break your fingers in the dark but somehow got Wilmer's instead, so the kid shot at him, only to find he was out of bullets."'
"That's how it was," she nodded. "Absurd as it sounds."
"And then they all started swinging at each other, giving you a chance to escape." He finished off his coffee. "Well I guess a story that absurd's gotta be true. I'm sure if you were lying for some reason or another, you'd come up with something more sensible." With a small, quick smile, Sam added, "You looked like you felt distinctly like an idiot repeating that story to me twice."
Effie's gut tightened. She had lied to Sam plenty of mornings over coffee as they sifted through files, usually about what she'd been doing with her female "friends" the night before. Sam had never once been fooled, but he'd also never once unmasked her.
"Well," Sam pushed himself up from his chair, "I should 'outta get back home. Those two coppers will probably want to stop by and pester me again, no point keeping them waiting."
"Have a good day Sam," Effie said. "Stay out of trouble."
"You two Sister." Throwing on his trench coat, Sam added, "Oh and uh, you might wanna open a few windows around here, let the fresh air in." He placed his fedora back on his head, and added, just before leaving, "It reeks of Gardenia in here."
A/N: Well, revisiting this old story was certainly a different experience, now that I have experienced being carjacked (back in 2021). Effie is much braver in this story than I probably would be in her place. But, I don't work for Sam Spade. I imagine Effie's used to a reasonable amount of trouble.