Jesse Franzenfrom Chapter 19: The Russian’s Hand, pg 200-202

Gutman rose smiling. “You don’t mind if I got to the door with you?” he asked.“O K,” Spade told him.Gutman followed him to the corridor-door. Spade opened it. Presently Effie Perine, carrying the

slightly torn and brown-wrapped parcel, came from the elevator. Her boyish face was gaunt and pale and she came sluggishly, almost creeping. She grimaced at Spade and gave him the parcel.

He took it saying: “Thanks a lot, lady. I’m sorry to spoil your day of rest and it looks like you needed it, but this – “

She interrupted with a grunt and went back to the elevator.Spade shut the door and carried the parcel into the living-room. Gutman’s face was red and his

cheeks quivered. Cairo and Brigid O’Shaughnessy came to the table as Spade put the parcel there. They were excited. The boy rose, pale and tense, but he remained by the sofa, staring under curling lashes at the others.

Spade stepped back from the table saying: “There you are.”Gutman’s fat fingers made short work of cord and paper and excelsior, and he had the black bird

in his hands. “Ah,” he said huskily, “now, after seventeen years!” His eyes were moist. Close to the bird, he breathed deeply. “Ah,” he said, “my treasure.”

Cairo licked his red lips and worked his hands together. The girl’s lower lip was between her teeth. She and Cairo, like Gutman, were breathing heavily and hovering over the bird. The air in the room was chilly and stale, thick with tobacco smoke and a new overtone of incense.

Spade found a corner, where he rolled a cigarette and watched the group and the bird.Gutman set the bird down on the table again and fumbled at a pocket. “It’s it,” he said, “but

we’ll make sure.” Sweat glistened on his round cheeks. He coughed. His fingers twitched as he took out a gold pocket-knife and opened it. He coughed again.

Cairo and the girl stood close to him, one on either side, still breathing heavily. Gutman coughed and hacked, and then inspecting the bird upside-down, he found a tiny crack

on the base of the bird. “What is this?” he asked. Cairo and girl began stifled coughs. They both looked closely at the base of the bird, while

Spade smoked in the shadows of the room. Then began the cacophony of coughs from Gutman, Cairo, and the girl. They sat down and placed the bird cock-eyed on the table.

Gutman’s breath rattled between his teeth. His face became turgid with hot blood. He twisted the bird around and hacked at its head with his knife. The crack split with the blows, amplifying the scent of incense. He let knife and bird bang down on the table where he wheeled to confront Spade. “It’s a fake,” He said hoarsely. He face had turned gaunt and purple.

Spade’s face had become somber. His nod was slow, but there was no slowness in his hands going out to catch Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s wrist. He pulled her to him and grasped her chin with his other hand, raising her face roughly. “Alright,” he growled into her face, “You’ve had your little joke. Now tell us about it.”

She coughed hard and then cried hoarsely: “No, Sam, no! That is the one I got from Kemidov. I swear –“

Joel Cairo thrust himself between Spade and Gutman and began to emit words in a shrill spluttering stream: “That’s it! That’s it! It was the Russian! I should have known! What a fool we thought him, and what fools he made of us!” Tears ran down the Levantine’s cheeks and he danced up and down.

“What do you mean, Cairo?” Spade growled.Cairo with tears streaming turned red and sobbed through torn coughs, “This is it. This is the

end. I didn’t think it would happen this way. I thought I could get it. I thought I’d be rich.”Spade dropped Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s wrist and dashed to The Levantine, pinning both his arms

to the wall. “Tell it straight,” he spat, “what’s with the bird?”Cairo didn’t seem to notice his head bouncing off the plaster wall and continued, “Gutman’s

deal was a guise. I work for the Russian OGPU. It doesn’t matter now. That’s why I can tell you. The falcon is cracked. This is the end.”

Spade furiously shook The Levantine and tossed him to the floor, which only made him cough like his lung was being evicted.

From a crumple on the floor, Cairo coarsely said, “It’s a weapon. The falcon carried a powder made by ancient Egyptians. At first it was a rumor, but history and the OGPU believed it to be true. They say it makes the dead live, but at the same time, the new walking-dead need living flesh to survive. The OGPU hired me to get it. I didn’t believe it to be true. They wanted the powder to create more. They were creating a biological weapon. I searched for years, and then this fat man brought it to me, hired me to steal it from a Russian. I knew what it was, and once I had it, I was going to sell it. It is worth so much more than any jeweled pigeon. The power within that lead bird was limitless.” Cairo coughed until blood dotted his sleeve, and continued, “The powder is no longer in the falcon. Only now do I believe the stories to be true.” Cairo stopped speaking and stared at Spade with hungry eyes.

Spade realized the gravity of the situation just as Gutman’s hands grabbed him on one shoulder. He quickly spun out of his grip, grabbing the brass table lamp and swinging it at Gutman’s head.

It shattered, sending the room into deep shadows.Gutman didn’t react, he sluggishly turned toward Spade and began walking toward him.The girl was on top of The Levantine who was crawling toward him salivating like a starved dog.

She straddled him and pulled his skull backward by his hair. The boy came screaming from the shadows and hit Brigid O’Shaughnessy across the face. She grabbed his arm and bit, tearing out a mouthful of flesh. The boy screamed at the same time as Cairo, because Brigid O’Shaughnessy began squeezing The Levantine’s head with an inhuman strength, cracking Cairo’s skull like a walnut, splattering the furniture and walls with blood and brains.

Spade with his handkerchief, wiped the white and red matter from his face. With the brass lamp base in hand, he pushed it into the belly of the fat man still creeping toward him. “Back up, Gutman,” he said.

The fat man kept pushing forward.Spade, out of character, warned a second time, “Back up, Gutman.”Gutman lurched closer. There was nothing human in his eyes, glazed and dead. His veins

turned bright purple and his flesh flushed of color.Spade let himself be pushed back. Now against the wall, Spade positioned the lamp like a spear.

Gutman didn’t stop. He groaned and snarled. The lamp pierced his stomach, pining Spade between the fat man and the wall. He didn’t notice the lathed lamp gutting him. Instead, fat man salivated heavily, reached for Spade head, and opened his mouth wide.

Spade, trapped, except for his hands, pulled Gutman’s revolver from his shoulder holster and shot upward through his belly into his heart.

He didn’t stop. At this point, Gutman had Spade’s head in his hands and was about to bite off a hunk like an apple. Spade put a half ounce of lead through his head, which dropped Gutman immediately to the floor.

Brigid O’Shaughnessy was gorging on Cairo’s corpse.The boy was crying in the corner holding his wound.Spade took the moment to smoke. The boy, pale-faced and hungry, lurched for him. Spade

with one hand lighting his cigarette shot the boy, ripping off his jaw. He stumbled for a moment, but came any way.

“What’s with these guys?” Spade asked of no one, and shot him in the temple.The girl, not noticing the affair, finished her white matter appetizer and then cocked her head at

Spade, pointing at him with blood stained hands. She half stood, groaned, and crept toward him.Spade said, “Sorry it has to be this way beautiful,” and promptly shot her between the eyes.

Spade’s thick fingers made a cigarette with deliberate care, sifting a measured quantity of tan flakes down into curved paper, spreading the flakes so that they lay equal as the ends with a slight depression in the middle, crimson stained thumbs rolling the paper’s inner edge down and up under the outer edge as forefingers pressed it over, thumbs and fingers sliding to the paper cylinder’s ends to hold it even while tongue licked the flap, left forefinger and thumb pinching their end while right forefinger and thumb smoothed the blood-damp seam, right forefinger and thumb twisting their end and lifting the other to Spade’s mouth.

He stood looking out over the city. Fog was rolling in from the sea and up the bay. A low horn was blowing in the distance. The city was a soft glow of electric light. He admired San Francisco at night. It is when he did his best business.

Across the street, coming out of the alley Spade watched a zombie stumble onto the sidewalk. He was in sailor’s rags, arms out, and carnage from his face to his belt. The late-night delivery boy didn’t know what bit him. His scream could be heard the three stories up, which too made the passing car stop. The driver jumped out and tried intercede, but all he got was a bite on his shoulder for being such a Samaritan.

Another do-gooder, tried to mediate, which also resulted in a bite.From the shadows of the alley came more zombies in sailor suits, like a Thanksgiving parade, but

these were only after one meal, that of human flesh. There at the rear of the pack of sea-fairing zombies was Effie Perrine.

Spade spat tobacco leaves and said to the corpses in the room, “I don’t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.”

Spade took the guns from the men in the room and making sure each was fully loaded. He tossed the glowing ember of his cigarette into the deepest shadow and walked down the stairs to the apocalypse.