 On the filter and in the flesh. Any messages, phone calls, letters, telegrams? Just the usual. A bill for the landlord and a notice from the telephone company. Well, dispose of them as usual. You sound awfully chipper. Have you been on a case, Sam? Did you make some money? Yes, I've been on a case. No, I did not make any money. Oh, your client got murdered before he could pay you? Wrong again. My client was a woman. She did not get murdered, and she could pay me. Huh? And she did. But you just said she didn't. True, Fee, true. Things are not what they seem. I'm a little confused. And I meant every word of it. Stop registering bewilderment. All. All is paradox. So, uh, sharpen your pencils, straighten your seams, get out your notebook, and prepare to be confounded by the contradictions I shall contradictate to you during my report on the Honest Thief Caper. I'm not looking over for thee. Oh, Sam, hello. Ligalert girl, we have many things to do. Up, up. Yes. You say the strangest things on the phone. I don't believe I've quite understood what it was all about. Our national misunderstanding, I didn't understand it myself. Uh, date, uh, uh, Sergeant Frank Nilgus, robbery, detail, San Francisco police, uh, uh, you're fast today. Subject, uh, Ben Kamisky. Who? Ben Kamisky, C-O-M-I-S-K-I. Sam, I went to Albert High School with a boy named Ben Kamisky. Is he the same one? Very likely, yeah. Oh, Sam, tell me, did he turn out bad? Is he good? Did he get married? Down, Ethie. Sam, I knew you were a boy. I want to know. This is one mystery you're not going to solve by reading the last chapter first. Dear Frank, it was one of those days. The sky was black and it looked like rain. But when I put on my trench coat, the sun came out. At breakfast, it looked like I'd ordered fried eggs and I wound up with pancakes. Also, I discovered I was wearing one blue sock and one black one. After that, I gave a cab driver a five instead of a one and let him ride off with a change. And there was one other thing. Sam, bank just called. You're overdrawn. Then that's if I made a deposit two days ago. I checked, Sam. You didn't. Your nuts, too. I made out to slip myself in a... Oh. Give me, Sam. I'll take it right down. Yeah, better do that, Angel. Yes. Excuse me. Oh, oh. Can I help you, Miss? Is this Mr. Spade? Come right in, Miss. Sit down. Miss Perine, you may go and do that. Instruct them that if such a mistake occurs again, I shall take my account elsewhere. Yes, sir. Now, please sit down, Miss. My name's Louise Miller, Mr. Spade. I want to hire you. How much will it cost? Well, now, Miss Miller, let's talk about it a little first. I have much time, Mr. Spade. I have to be at the office in a half an hour and I have to cross town. You see, I... Well, Mama thinks I should forget all about him, but I can't, and I... Well, here, I've got $95. Will you please do something? Just something? Come on, now, come on. I'm sorry, I... It's all right, now, uh... Who is he? What's he done? And why does Mama want you to forget him? Ben. Ben Comiskey. He might... We were going to be married pretty soon. We even picked out our furniture. Come on, now. It's all right, now. Go on. What's he done? They say he held up a store two nights ago. They picked him up on the street today. He's in jail. Well, if he's innocent, I'm sure they'll find that out. He won't even see me, Mr. Spade. He won't see anyone. Ben's good and kind and sweet and... I love him and I want to marry him. I want you to find out why he... What it's all about. Look, Miss Miller, I... I think you should be in the office of a good lawyer. I'm sure... He doesn't want a lawyer. He won't even see the public defender. He doesn't want anything. Oh, please, please, Mr. Spade. I just want to die if Ben went to prison. I just want to die. I'm no sentimentalist, but faith is a thing we're a little short on these days, so we came to terms. It was a grade she could pay me after the job was done, if there was any job to do. She left for work and I phoned you, Sergeant Nilgers, and found out Ben Komisky had already been arraigned and was being held in the city jail. When I dropped in 20 minutes later, you walked me back to his cell. What's it all about, Sam? I don't know, just looking into it. He won't tell you anything. Kept his trap shut all the time he's been here. As far as we've been able to find out, no previous record, no background. Well, maybe it isn't so bad for him at that, huh? First degree, Sam. Liquor store proprietor, man named Potter, over on Army Street, identified him in the morning lineup. Just like that. Picked him out of a dozen guys we hauled in. Then what? We send a couple of the boys out to Komisky's room and find all the dough in the dresser drawer, 900 quads. I hate that. I can't get easy, Komisky. This is Sam Spade. He wants to talk to you. Ben Komisky was tall, dark complexioned, about 29 or 30 years old. His hair was black, straight, and closely cropped. His features were regular, not good, but not bad. I've seen plenty of hold up men and gun totes in my day, and he wouldn't have been cast in the part of my movie. I didn't know what I expected to say to him or what I expected him to say to me, but I didn't expect what I got. What are you trying to do? Get out of here. I just got here, Ben. Well, you can just leave. Hasn't the citizen gotten any rights? Even in jail? Well, they start to lose them when they use a gun to make a living. I don't want any lectures. I haven't got any to hand out. I'm a private detective. A friend of yours hired me. She thinks you're a pretty nice guy. Louise, huh? Why won't you see her? She's nuts. She ought to have a head felt. What's she worrying about anyway? I'd say she was worrying mostly about you. And I'd say it's the sick kind of worry that gets into a girl when she loves somebody. She shouldn't. She's nuts. You said that. Did you rob that store? The guy who runs it says I did. I suppose I did. Why? For laughs. The complaint says you make $65 a week in an architect's office. You can eat on that. Look, Spade, go back and tell her this. I didn't want furniture at $10 a month for the next 80 months. I didn't want a car the same way. I didn't want her working and me working and getting nothing but wrinkles. Tell her I got caught and to go and find a guy who can pay the way. Is that all? That's enough. You're charged with armed robbery in the first degree. That means not less than five years. I know it. Shut up about it. Why'd you turn down the lawyer? Haven't you heard, Spade? They're holding up my indictment. I'm a prize pigeon. They think maybe I knocked over 10 or 12 other places in town. They're just sure. Sure, but don't worry about me. And tell Louise not to worry about me. I've got a million bucks sorted away, and I'm going to buy my way out through the DA's office. OK. Have it your way, Ben. Later, I found myself strolling around Ben Komisky's old neighborhood. A man named Gabrini, who owned a grocery store, remembered him and liked him. A woman in a bakery shop told me how he'd gone into the army as a private and been discharged to First Lieutenant. A phone call to a Mr. Henderson, a lied architect, revealed that Ben Komisky was in line for a raise and promotion. All in all, I was getting a composite picture that didn't look quite right. I decided to try his mother's place. It was on Lombard Avenue, a street that starts on the waterfront. According to the penciled note above the doorbell, it was out of order. The slot in the mailbox read Mrs. Anastasia Komisky. Yes. What is it, please? Your Mrs. Komisky? I'm busy now. I fixed lunch for my son. He'll come back from Cincinnati. Please. Oh, well, Mrs. Komisky, I'm here to talk to you about Ben. He's your son, too, isn't he? Yes. Ben is my son. Well, I'm trying to help him, Mrs. Komisky. Why? He has no money. I have no money. A friend of his, Louise Miller hired me. Oh, Louise, she's a foolish girl, very foolish. Her heart should not be with Ben. I think he's a very lucky man to be loved by somebody like that. If not for her, Ben would not be in jail, in trouble. Oh, you don't want to help my son. She don't want to help him. She'll leave him alone if she want to help. Ben is bad, not good like my son, James. James is always good. Times he's away, he sends me money. From what I hear, Ben's always been pretty good, too. Always one good son, one bad son. What's going on, Ma? Oh. Who's this? He's come to ask questions about Ben. Oh? I'm Jim Komisky, Ben's brother. Where am I? You run on in, Mom. I'll talk to this gentleman. Look, I'm just trying to. If you've got any questions to ask about, Ben, go to the police. They can give you all the answers. And stop bothering my mother. She's been through enough in the last two days. If I catch you around her again, I'll break you in half. The man who slammed the door in my face had the same angry look and the same angry glare of Ben Komisky. The angry Komisky brothers definitely wanted nothing that looked remotely like health, it seemed, to this casual observer. I went back to my office to wait for six o'clock. That's when I intended to call my client, report my opinions, and drop the case. But at 5.30, she called me. Mr. Spade. Yeah? This is Louise Miller. Oh, yes. I was just going to call you. I'm afraid I haven't been able to do much. It looks like. I know, Mr. Spade. I just telephoned downtown. Ben pleaded. Ben pleaded guilty at the indictment this afternoon. He's going to be sentenced tomorrow. And that, to all appearances, Sergeant Milgus, was the crop. But two hours later, and for the second time in one day, I found myself doing what I didn't think I'd be doing, walking around a dull, gray, two-story apartment house on Adams Place. My ex-client's address, to be exact, I was wondering what a lonely, distraught girl would be thinking the night before a boyfriend would ship the way to prison. I found out. I got a whiff of it as I walked down the hall. It was coming out from under her door. And I had to use my shoulder. The room was accurate and stinging with gas fuels. And Louise Miller was stretched out on the floor in a six-foot kitchen. When I picked her up and carried her out, I wasn't sure whether she was dead or not. 10 seconds after I'd found Louise Miller, I'd called the police ambulance. And in a matter of minutes, an intern was working over with a pull motor. Her breathing became regular, and her pulse picked up. But she was still unconscious. Lieutenant Kelsey of Homicide showed up and said it was obviously a suicide attempt, which is his kind of ingenious thinking. I thought not. If she were going to commit suicide, she wouldn't have called first to pull me off the caver. She'd have led an insignificant detail like that, take care of itself. Now, she was too strong to pity herself and too sure of what her intuition told her to believe even Ben Komisky's confession. For that kind of faith, I owed her to it to poke around the ashes while they were still hot. I did, and turned up a live coal in a faded blue shirt and wrinkled brown pants. Bert singled me by name and by vocation manager of the Greystone Arms Apartments. What kind of a girl was she? Oh, nice, clean, sincere. The kind mothers always want their sons to marry. Boy, I wish I'd listened to mine. Yeah, uh, did you know her boyfriend, Ben Komisky? Oh, Salt Audurth. I can't understand him pulling a hold up like that. But then, you know, the war did strange things to me. Yes, I guess it did. I almost stayed in Europe and married myself up to a French doll myself. Yeah, I bet. But Sandra, that's my wife. She'd have hunted me down in Tibet. It was easier to come home facing music. Yeah, well, about Louise, uh, you know any reason why she might commit suicide? Frankly, no. I met her in the hallway tonight. And she said, Mr. Singlebay, she said, Ben didn't do that hold up, because I'm pretty sure I know who did. Well, I figure she's just keeping up a front. But if she did really know that Ben didn't do it, she wouldn't have turned on the gas now, would she? No, she wouldn't. Did she tell you who she thought did it? No, that's all she said. It's a quiet girl. Not like my wife. Now, Sandra. Yeah, did you see or hear anything that might have been suspicious or unusual around her apartment tonight? Look, I don't want to go around breaking up any homes and spreading dirty gossip around, unless it involves Sandra's relatives. Mr. Singlebay, I promise you, sir, that I'll treat any information you give me confidentially as long as I can. All right, now listen. Sandra told me not to say anything, because it's, you know, it's a lot easier to rent a suicide apartment than a murder apartment. You know that? Confidentially, I'm a humanitarian. But if you tell anybody I said this, I'll, well, I'll just lie about it. I'll never tell a soul. Well, we were out of butter, see, so I had to run down to the store. When I passed the mailboxes outside, a guy is standing there. He asked me which apartment Louis Miller was in, and I said 12B. What did he look like? Oh, see now, a 510, medium bill, tan suit, dark shirt, sort of a white brim hat, kind of flashy. Or three or four big rings, diamonds they looked like. Three or four big diamond rings on each hand. The Iceman. Why don't you tell all this to the police? What? That is why. Sandra always says, keep your mouth shut and you keep out of trouble. But me, I don't know, I just love her. Stop talking so much and close that door. Yes, Sandra dear, I'm closing it. The Iceman. I'd heard about him for years, a Chicago import, but I had never bumped into him before. He'd been headquartering at the Red Spot Cafe, the kind of a place that Skid Row whiners visit when they want to slum. It was dark inside, but I strode manfully to the bar. Something? The Iceman here? What do you want him for? He's a friend of mine. You're a friend of Hoes. What are you giving me? You got bull written all over you from the top of your stupid head to the bottom of your flat feet. The tan suit, the flashy rings, the dark shirt and a white brimmed hat. He stared at me with eyes that were icy and insolent. He rubbed the knuckles of one hand and the palm of the other as if he just ached for a chance to bruise them, which I was sure he did. Four guys sawn it over the lead on the piano and as ugly as they were, I knew it wasn't a barbershop quartet. Two more left the bar and stood behind him and a few others got up from nearby tables and joined the group. I should have brought my team, but I hadn't. You're a friend of mine, huh? Well, if it isn't Claude bettering the juvenile delinquent of 1940. Is that so? Now, you're a real brain. Who are you, Brainy? Sam Spade. Oh, no, ain't that a pretty name? You got something on your mind? I just wanted to talk with you about what you did to a girl named Louise Miller tonight. Never heard of it. Sounds cute, though. Girls are a lot easier to push around, aren't they, Claude? Call me Ice. Claude? Some guys are just as easy as some dames. Where have I been all night tonight, fellas? Here, Ice. You heard that Spade? I've been here all night. Any of you guys ever hear of Louise Miller? Sorry, nobody ever heard of her, see? Well, she has a lot of friends who have. The police, the people known at Mercy Hospital, and me. And none of us are going to forget her or what happened to her. And who did it? Got something you'd like to do right now, maybe? Yeah, but I'll pick my time. All right. Enough of this cheap chatter. I don't want to be seen talking with you too long. I've got my reputation to think about. Now blow before I take one hand out of my pocket and push your stinking face back through that door. You'll need both hands, Samson. Go on, you creep. Fellas. Through the door, Claude Bettering was standing, oily smile and all, polishing a couple of his oversized rings on his lapel. It was a picture I said I wouldn't forget and I didn't. I went and rented myself a car, parked it down the block from the Red Spot Cafe, and waited almost all night. I knew that Louise Miller was not the kind of a girl who would have anything to do with a guy like Bettering. And if he came to her apartment, this must have been for some unloving purpose, probably to keep her from telling who actually did the hold up Ben Kamisky had confessed to, if she found out the truth. Finally, a bunch of pelukas came out, Bettering included, climbed into a car and drove off, me after them. One by one, Bettering dropped his men off at their hotels and apartments until he was finally alone. He stopped at a brownstone on Hobart and I caught him, just as he opened the door of his apartment. You gonna find out? Don't think I'm easy. He wasn't easy. He was three inches shorter and 25 pounds lighter and wherever he had picked up his reputation for toughness, he earned it. But I never enjoyed a fight in my life any more than that one. I batted into his maze and out of the floor and he still wouldn't give up. You stinkin' creep. Why did you beat up Louise Miller? I didn't. Why? I didn't. Why? He's a liar. Who did you tell it for? Nobody. Who? Call the police and tell them to pick him up for attempted murder. Then with Dawn coming up and my energy going down, I went back to the city jail, got a pass and woke up Ben Kamisky. Why don't you stop messing around on my business speed? Did you ever really love that girl of yours? Get out, you sadistic jerk. Well, she's in Mercy Hospital now. You can send her a card. Write something nasty on it. So long. Spade. What do you care? Tell me, please. Somebody turned on the gas in her apartment and tried to kill her. It's nothing, really. Who did it? Who did it, Spade? I think it was a guy named Claude Bettering, they called him the Iceman in certain circles. But why? That's what I'd like to know. Who's Bettering? I don't know. Your girl believed you were innocent, Kamisky, but you said you weren't. My guess is that somebody figured she knew something and tried to shut her up. I think, uh, Bettering was hired by somebody. Spade, look, I don't have any dose, see? But I want to get out of here for one day. You know anybody who can raise the bail? I won't skip, and I'll pay back anything you want. Why? I got to see somebody. I don't think I can. Who do you want to see? My lousy, dirty, low, down, no good brother. He hired Bettering? Who else? He did everything. He's always done everything wrong. He held up that liquor store, but he's on parole. A two-time felony offender. One more rap and he'd go up for 20 years. I did this for him, yeah. Look at me. I did it for him, and he tries to kill my girl. Your mother said he was a good boy, hard-working, lived in Cincinnati. Me again. I told her all that. She believed it. I started a whole stupid lie and had to go through with it. I could explain two years, three years to her, but not 20. He promised he'd go straight. He promised. I see. I even said her money I earned and said it was from him. Oh, you never saw anybody like me before, did you? No, I haven't. Get me out. Get me out, Sermon, or drag him in by his back teeth. Thanks anyway, but I'll do it myself. Spade, let me do it. Let me do it, please. I went over to Mrs. Komiski's house and knocked on her door. She came out in a housecoat, hair, must, and sleep still in her eyes. Yes. I'm sorry to bother you at this hour, Mrs. Komiski, but is your son home, Jimmy? Jim, no, he went out last night. He didn't come back yet. I see. When do you expect him? Well, he didn't say. He didn't have to, because I saw a closet door move, and I was in and across the room. In a second, I pulled the door back, and Jim Komiski came out gun and all. Jim, Jim, Jim, don't. I hurried across the room, threw us off between Jimmy and me, and started wrestling the gun away from him. He put one hand flat on her face and knocked her halfway across the room. I went at him. He shot, but it went into the ceiling. I didn't give him a chance to do it again. Don't, don't. You held up a liquor sword, didn't you? Yeah. And hired Fettering to kill Louise Miller? Yeah. And you're going to take your own rap from now on? Yeah. Yes, I will. And a report. She lived in a dream world built by a son who had too much heart and not enough common sense. But Sam, that man in the liquor store identified then as a holed-up man. Well, when he saw the both brothers together, he realized he'd made a mistake. At night, with a hat pulled down and a collar up, anybody could have confused the Komiski brothers. Sam, why is the world so cruel? Because people live on it. Now go on and type it out, huh? I'm saying so. It's a lesson to everybody. If you say so, Anne. Oh, Sam, I'm just infuriated. No, no, don't go too far. This place loves devotion. It just isn't right. Hand me the glass. This kind of thing could be going on all over the world for people like you, who step in and take things in hand. Back to work! Magical feelings, too. Just kissed you.