By Dashiell Hammett, Jr., Professor of Criminology, San Francisco State University
September 1, 2013

“Look,” I said, ”I don’t do detective work.  I just teach a class about detectives.”

“So?” they said.

“So find yourself a real detective,” I said.

“We found you,” they said.

“I’m not for hire.”

“Too good for money?”

“No,” I admitted, “just too smart to get involved.”

“Ya don’t even know what we want.”

“I have a pretty good idea,” I said.

“Oh yeah?” they said.

“You want a certain type of detective, don’t you?”

“We want you.”

“A hard-boiled detective, maybe?”

“Hard, yeah,” they said.  “Boiled, we don’t know.”

I shrugged, palms up, Indicating I’d made my point.  But that didn’t seem to impress my visitors. “Listen,” they said, leaning in toward me, “we checked around.  You done this kind of thing before.”

“Hardly,” I said.

“You was a private dick before you become a whatchamacallit – a perfessor.”

“Who says?”

“Your ol’ lady.”

“Don’t drag her into this.”

“She pointed you out.”

“What?!” I said, both angry and confused at the same time.  “Why would she… she’s not – I mean, she wouldn’t, she’s…”  I didn’t know what to say.  I sat down.  They had me by the short ones.  Might as well have given in right then, but I stuck it out for a few more rounds.

“Listen,” they said again – only this time, I was listening.  “We know you did some gumshoe work before them books you wrote,” they continued, “and we know you was a Commie before you got straightened out, and we know your lady is footin’ your bills right now.  So you can use the work.”

“You’re confusing me with my father.  Happens all the time.”

“He still living?” they asked.

“No,” I said.

“Then we got the right guy.”

“I teach for a living,” I protested.

“Yeah?  How’s that going?”

“What you want…”

“You don’t know what we want.”

“Whatever you want, you can find someone better.”

“We want you.  Got it?”  They leaned in again, and this time I noticed they were packing.  Maybe it was their predatory smiles.  Maybe it was just the way they rested their hands on the butt of their pistols.  But I decided to play along.

“Okay,” I said, “you’re right, I can use the bread.  What’s the job?”

“Heard of Yuma?” they asked.

“Arizona?“

“No, Russia – whadda you think?  Go there.  Interview a guy, tell us what ya learn.”

“A Mafia guy?”

“No, smarty-pants, a baseball guy.  Father of a baseball guy.”

“They play baseball in Yuma?” I asked.

“No one’s too sure,” they said.  And then they laughed, both of them.  Like hyenas.  Like crazy chimpanzees.  Like twelve-year-old girls.  Their laughter took so long, I started to record this transcript of our conversation.

“Just go,” they said.  “Talk to the guy’s dad.  See if he knows where his son is.”

“The baseball player?”

“Quick,” they said.  “Got it all figured out, doncha?”

“Except the name of the ballplayer,” I said.  “I’ll need that.”

“David Goode.  With an ‘e’.“

“David Goode?” I said.

“Rhymes with ‘wood’,” they said, smirking.  “Not that a perfessor would know nothin’ ‘bout that.”

“David Goode,” I repeated.  “Yuma, Arizona.  Ask his dad.  Anything else?”

“We’ll be in touch,” they said.

And they were.