The Malthus Falcon (Chapter 1)

June 28th, 2006 Jemmy Button Posted in Commentary |

IT WAS AN HOUR before lunch, but I didn’t have a client and there was nowhere to look for one. So I put my feet on my desk, pulled a bottle out of the bottom drawer and poured a slug of bourbon into my coffee cup. From the window, the Golden Gate was half-hidden in the dirty fog, the thin sunlight falling on my desk was sliced to ribbons by the Venetian blinds. I lit up a Camel, watched the smoke rise languidly until it hit the ceiling fan, then started to study the racing form. I was thinking about placing a punt on a filly in the 12:40 Santa Anita Handicap when the door opened.

She was blonde and slim and her legs held my eyes like two long strips of flypaper curling out from a little black cocktail dress they’d ban in Boston. This was a doll with the kind of looks to give you the KO punch in the first round.

Her voice was husky from cigarettes and scotch–good scotch. “Are you Sam Spade, Private Eye?”

“That’s what it says on the door.”

“I don’t believe everything I read, Mr. Spade.”

She glanced at a chair, but I stopped her. “There’re two things you should know before you sit down, Toots. One, I charge fifty per, plus expenses.”

She didn’t blink. “And what’s the second thing?”

I knocked back the rest of my bourbon. “That’s easy. A husband who’d cheat on a gorgeous doll-face like you is a queer, or crazy. Either way, don’t waste your dough tracking him, Mrs.–”

“Miss. Miss Coulter. This isn’t about husbands, Mr. Spade.”

She pulled the chair closer, sat down, and crossed her legs as if she wanted to let me know she was a natural blonde. It was like watching Fatal Attraction, but without a pause button to freeze the frame.

“So, Miss Coulter, what can I do for you?”

“I understand you are good at…finding things.”

“At fifty per, I’d better be.”

“Good.” She pulled a wad of dough out of her handbag and pushed it across the desk “Will this suffice, as a retainer?”

I didn’t need to count it: a cool grand if it was a sawbuck.

She pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes out of her handbag, tossed the pack on my desk and stroked it slightly with two fingers. “Cigarette me,” she ordered, through pouting lips.

I obliged, and struck a match. “Must be quite a thing you need me to find, Doll.”

“Not a thing, Mr. Spade.” She dragged heavily on her cigarette. “And not a person.”

“So–you want to play ‘animal, mineral, vegetable’? Or are you going to tell me if it’s bigger than a breadbox?”

“Bigger. Much, much bigger. Mr. Spade, I want you to find…my ego.”

This needed another bourbon. “Your ego, huh? Ain’t that one of those things some Viennese quack discovered?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, there isn’t room for it to be hiding in that dress. How do you go and lose a thing like an ego?”

She flicked her cigarette ash on the floor. “…I didn’t say I lost it, Mr. Spade.”

“Doll-Face, I don’t exactly get what your getting at here.”

“Mr. Spade, you have to understand that a young woman has certain needs.”

“Yeah, I heard about that.”

“No, I mean certain other needs. A woman needs attention. Lots of attention. Lots and lots and lots of attention.” Her lower lip was quivering now, her eyes suddenly scared. “And I used to get that attention!”

“You’re hard to ignore, Toots, and that’s a compliment.”

“You don’t understand!” she sobbed, a tear darting down her cheek. “It used to be so easy…with Bill and Hillary…such easy meat. Everyone thought I had something to say. Everyone thought I was smart! But now…with a Republican administration, a chance to do something constructive–oh, Mr. Spade!” And she turned on the full waterworks as she threw herself in my arms.

You can lose your PI licence for dallying with a client. So I pushed her away and slapped her across the puss.

“Pull yourself together, Toots, it can’t be that bad.”

She stepped to the window, looking out over the Bay. “…People started to see right through me, Mr. Spade. They thought I was a Queen when I was in opposition, but when our team got the throne–they made me the jester! So that’s when I realised, I had to get God.”

“God? But what’s any of this schtick got to do with The Big Cheese?”

She took the handkerchief I handed to her. “It was my last hope. There is no constituency less discerning, less analytical, less rational–nor more given to unthinking devotion–than hard-core Creationists. And I crave that kind of unthinking devotion. I need it! And I WILL HAVE IT.”

I was ready to slap her again to calm her down, but she took a deep breath on her own. “But to win them, to win their devotion, I need an endorsement. From the Big Cheese Himself.” And she placed her hand on my face. “I thought that would restore me as the Queen of Conservatism!”

“…I don’t know that the Big Cheese dishes out personal references like that, Toots.”

She turned on me, wild-eyed and pawing the air with her hands like Joe Lewis in the first Jersey Walcott bout. “Of course He does! Or He would –if he could. I think He’s been kidnapped, Mr. Spade. Help me find Him–and let me be a Queen again! I’m begging you! Help me become the centre of attention again! Help me stand in the limelight I deserve!”

I toyed with the bankroll still sitting on my desk, picked it up, bounced it on my palm a few times. “I don’t know, Lady. Who could kidnap God? I don’t even know where to start–”

“I do. Charles Darwin.”

“…So why don’t you just go to the cops, tell them to pick this Chuck Darwood up?”

“He’s dead, Mr. Spade.”

“…Did you…bump him off? Toots, I can’t help you if you’re on the lam–”

“No. But it doesn’t matter. His goons are the culprits.”

“What?”

“Darwin Central. The wealthiest, most powerful, and most malevolent conspiracy that has ever existed! They’re the ones responsible for every vile atheistical perversion known to man. Help me stop them, Mr. Spade–that’s how I can get my ego back.”

She walked to the door. She turned back one last time before leaving. “And then, Mr. Spade, you’ll see just how grateful I can be.”

[To be continued -- perhaps]