The Heirs Take The Airs-With “Godfather” Dashiell Hammett In Mind

The Heirs Take The Airs-With “Godfather” Dashiell Hammett In Mind 

By Zack James

All through the years that they had known each other Alex Slater would either meet Fred Sims at Dolly’s Diner or go up to his office on the fifth floor of the Tappan Building in downtown Riverdale and share Fred’s stashed whiskey bottle, Johnny Walker Red, and Fred would regale him with stories, real stories about being a private detective. That Dolly’s Diner habit had actually started when they both would take a coffee break around the same time. Fred from his Fred Sims Detective Agency (although all years that Alex had known Fred he had never seen any other operative working out of the office so he was befuddled by the agency designation but in order not to ruffle Fred’s feathers he never mentioned the question) and Alex from his Superior Printing, a full service print shop on the first floor of that building.

Alex had started the first conversation by expressing his concerns about how Travis Realty, the company that managed the historic Tappan Building (it had been until more recently when the Skyler Building went up on the edge of town the tallest building in town at eight stories), had let the place go to rot and ruin (not cleaning the lobby frequently enough, restrooms either, faulty elevators, worse broken windows not repaired and so on) unlike when the builder, Sam Stuart, ran the operation. Fred had replied that at least Travis Realty had kept the rent the same for a number of years, important to him when business the past several years had bene slow. Fred said his office was mainly to get out of the house, get away from some nagging girlfriend of the moment whom he living with and he didn’t give a fig about the appearance of the place since he was either called out on a job or if a new client came in his or her situation was desperate enough that the surrounding didn’t mean a thing. Alex had replied that since he was on the first floor and there was always foot traffic going through he needed to have a little front.

That riff finished Alex offered to buy Fred his coffee and crullers that day and Fred always a little low on dough said “sure thing” (as Alex would find out a very worn from use expression of Fred’s. And so that started what became a common meeting time and place (although Fred when in the chips would spring for the refreshments). Very occasionally they would have dinner there if they both were working late for some reason since both loved Dolly’s meat loaf special complete with soup appetizer and bread pudding for dessert.      

The “up in Fred’s office” part came later, and the bringing out of the Johnny Walker Red even later than that. After a couple of months of meeting at Dolly’s Alex had expressed his love of fictional private detective stories by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ellery Queen, Ross MacDonald, Jack Sommers, Sal Pollo, guys like that, hard-boiled no nonsense detectives who operated out of their own personal code of honor, didn’t mind tilting at windmills and liked a few skirts hanging on their arms and bottles of whiskey in their snarly low left-hand desk drawer. Fred laughed, laughed the knowing laugh of a real private dick, knowing that all of that except the convenient whiskey bottle was bullshit (another common Fred expression). So he invited Alex up for a shot (or two or more) and eventually some real stories about his life as a detective, a career that when Alex and Fred first met at Dolly’s had spanned twenty-one years, and counting.      

Most of Fred’s stories, the good ones, the ones Alex remembered were from the 1950s heyday of the “peeping Tom” work he did for husbands or wives trying to get the “skinny” on who their partner was screwing (since it usually was not them for one reason or another Fred would say usually a good reason) in some off-the-wall hotel, motel, no-tell. It was nasty but profitable work since he had connections with lots of hotel dicks and motel owners (who would tell him who was residing on the premises who did not look like they had tied the knot-for a price, a cut of his action). But that business, that part of the business had dried up when the damn no-fault divorce stuff came in and you could give any unverified reason including some vacuous “mental cruelty” charge and wrap it up in a couple of sessions before a judge. Damn “no fault.”

The repo jobs were boring as even Fred admitted, as were the skip traces, trying to get guys and dames who didn’t want to be found found for the client, usually a wife looking for dough for whatever reason. Once in a while though doing a missing person’s case had some style particularly if the deal involved finding a missing heir, somebody who was supposed to come into dough when somebody passed on. The Galton Case was like that, the style, or rather the off-the-wall way it turned out. Alex remembered that Fred told that one with a certain relish although he didn’t make a dime on the case in the end through his own fault.

Here’s the twist right away. Jack and Sean Galton had come into the office asking Fred if he could find their second-cousin Blaze Trumbo for them. At first they were cagey about what they wanted and Fred was about to turn it down when they told him they would make it worth his while to find that cousin since he was loaded, had made a ton of money in Arabian oil. What they had figured, or though they had figured out, was that since given the slim facts they had they were the only heirs, or rather had the best claim to be the only heirs of cousin Blaze. Fred, against his better judgment but seeing work in front of him after weeks of no work and a ten percent “finder’s fee” agreed to look into the matter, for a short while, very short while once they explained that they didn’t have much cash to pay him upfront. A few days’ work led him to a couple of leads that would lead to a couple more leads to Trumbo and so he was hooked. Saw money coming out of his ears.

Working the leads Fred was able to hone in on Trumbo at his upstate New York home. A place near Saratoga, up in Mayfair swells summer racing country. He was able to get in to see Trumbo by the guise of representing clients, Arab clients was the implication, who had money that was supposed to go to him but they did not want to go through the usual international banking connections because of some tax liability. Funny, Trumbo as rich as he was, and something Fred noticed the few other times he was involved with anything like real money, was all ears, was ready to move heaven and earth to get more filthy lucre. That’s how the rich stay rich he figured, be constantly greedy for the next dollar.

Once he got into the house though he told Blaze the real people he represented. He was surprised how poorly Trumbo looked, looked gaunt and not in good shape. Also how old he was considering that the Galton brothers were maybe forty tops. Strangely laying out the scenario for Blaze did not ruffle his feathers one bit. The old man said he would be pleased to see his long lost cousins, assuming they were actually his relatives.         

Well the long and short of it was that the brothers were able to establish their bone fides and Trumbo welcomed them into his house with open arms. Here’s the beauty of the story, beauty even though Fred never made a dollar on the case. The old man was busted, the house he was living in he was doing so as a caretaker for an old crony. What had happened that a few too wells went into the tank, went dry, that and the Arabs deciding that they wanted the oil profits strictly for themselves and would hire help  after they took over Trumbo’s’ operations. Needless to say he never said word one about this until it came out later when everything went hooey. What Blaze had done, had been doing all his life really was con the brothers out of all of their dough. He used every dodge in the book to get then to lend him what he called “temporary” funds since his money was tied up in foreign lands just then, not to worry. Said he needed dough to go on trips to get this or that deal finished up. They gave it without question until the end. They had laid out something like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars over about six months, maybe seven. Then word came that Blaze, who really was as sick as Fred had suspected, had passed away in Istanbul.

They brothers were beside themselves figuring that hundred thou or so would come back to them many times over. Then as they didn’t hear from any lawyers for a while, didn’t hear about funeral arrangements they brought Fred back into the case to find out what was what. What was what was that Blaze was buried in a potter’s field in Istanbul.  There was no will, no lawyer to contact, nothing. And Fred had all of nothing too.