Weekend Escape: San Francisco : Scene of the Crime : In the city’s shadows, on the trail of the Maltese Falcon and other Dashiell Hammett haunts

The weather looked promising as the plane descended into Oakland International Airport: low overcast, gusty, needle-cold, flat gray. Just the sort of gloom that would chase Sam Spade out into the alleys and shadows of the city, looking for trouble.

I wasn’t looking for trouble. I was looking for Spade. And his creator, writer Dashiell Hammett. And Don Herron, the cab driver/historian who’s been hiking around the streets of the city for nearly 20 years, taking Hammett fans on his Dashiell Hammett Tour, a four-hour visit, on foot, to the homes and haunts of Hammett, Spade and the mysterious, nameless gumshoe, the Continental Op.

But why should I stop there, I thought. Why not try to build an entire weekend around the ghosts of Hammett and Spade and Miles Archer and Brigid O’Shaughnessy and the Fat Man and Joel Cairo and the rest of the shady crowd? Go where they went, eat where they ate, shadow their shadows.

First, though, I had to get there, and the route via Oakland Airport turned out to be a bit uncomfortable. Sure, I wanted to melt into the crowds, but not while dragging a two-suiter around with me. And that’s what happened, because arriving in Oakland means you catch the AirBART shuttle bus to the Oakland Coliseum, where you then catch the BART into town. And while the BART let me off a block and a half from the Hotel Union Square, my destination, the airport shuttle bus from San Francisco International Airport would have let me off--more quickly and in greater nonstop comfort--at the St. Francis, also a block and a half away. By the time I reached the hotel, rattled and jostled, I regretted the decision to save a few bucks by flying LAX to Oakland.

The Hotel Union Square bills itself as “San Francisco’s original boutique hotel,” and it has a bit of the look. On the northwest corner of Powell and Ellis streets, it’s a restored, comfortable but few-frills operation. My room was small, cozy, bright and squeaky clean, with a frosted window in the door that recalled Spade’s office door. (Witty touch: The maid request sign on the doorknob pictures the Maltese Falcon and says “Clean the scene . . . and leave no clues. The Bird has flown the coop!” On the other side, it’s “Do not disturb the evidence! The Maltese Falcon may be within.”)

The hotel boasts a “Dashiell Hammett suite” in the penthouse for $300 a night, but Hammett never stayed in the hotel. His wife-to-be did when Hammett was living in an apartment (now a hotel) across the street. And the street could hardly have been more bustling in Hammett’s time.

It being Friday afternoon in downtown San Francisco, I put on a suit and went out in search of places Spade would have liked. First stop was just around the corner on Ellis: John’s Bar and Grill, where Spade stopped to eat in “The Maltese Falcon” and where it’s likely that Hammett also dined. It’s a real, honest, woody, old-style, urban, white-tablecloth grill, and the special, tortellini Bolognese, was wonderful. The “Bloody Brigid” cocktail, however, was bloody sweet. Not Hammett’s ideal at all. He drank double vodka martinis.

I prowled all over downtown as the clouds began to lift and made a find: the Occidental Grill at 453 Pine St. The name is old but the place--another brick-walled bar and grill setup--has been back in operation only two years. I approached the bartender and told him I’d heard that the place allowed cigar smoking. He smiled, produced a large humidor full of fine Davidoff cigars and said, “We encourage cigar smoking.”

I puffed away happily on a No.1 Grand Cru (a jolting $15) and was introduced to the finest margarita on Earth. Strained into an elegant martini glass, it’s face-puckering jolt comes from marinating the tequila in hot peppers. Merely magnificent.

The dinner choice was easy: the venerable Tadich Grill on lower California Street near the cable car turntable. “The Original Cold Day Restaurant” served me up perfect English sole at the counter as I chatted happily with a visitor from Wales.

Saturday morning began with breakfast under the stunning ornate glass canopy of the Garden Court of the Sheraton Palace Hotel, across the street from the House of Shields. Spade ate breakfast at the hotel in one of Hammett’s short stories, and he couldn’t have done better. I went for a smaller portion, but an immense buffet is available for about $18.

At noon, I arrived at the San Francisco main library at Civic Center--Larkin and McAllister streets--the designated time and starting spot for the Dashiell Hammett Tour. Don Herron was already there, dressed in snap-brim fedora and rumpled olive trench coat. Friendly, witty, articulate, theatrical and thoroughly immersed in Hammett arcana, he led me and five other folks in comfortable shoes around, up and down Tenderloin Heights, Nob Hill and part of downtown, pointing out all of Hammett’s known residences, as well as locations that Hammett wrote into various hard-boiled tales.

There was the apartment building at 580 McAllister St., where the Continental Op shot it out in the apartment of Ines Almad; Blanco’s in Olive Street (now the Great American Music Hall), where the Op ate a meal; 2101 California St., which was probably Spade’s office building; the tiny Dashiell Hammett Street itself, formerly Monroe Street, which runs between Pine and Bush streets, and the old office of Pinkerton’s Detective Agency across the street from my hotel, where Hammett once worked as an operative.

Then there was 891 Post St., where Hammett--and, through Hammett, Spade--lived. Hammett, Herron said, wrote the first draft of “The Maltese Falcon” here, and we were invited up to apartment 401 by Bill Arney, an architect and friend of Herron’s who became hooked on Hammett during one of Herron’s tours and is living in and restoring the apartment. The tour continued with stops at the infamous Stockton tunnel and adjacent Burritt Street, where a plaque set in the wall reads, “On approximately this spot, Miles Archer, partner of Sam Spade, was done in by Brigid O’Shaughnessy.” Herron gleefully emphasized the shooting by whipping a toy dart gun out of his trench coat at the appropriate moment in his narration and shooting one of our party with it.

The long (about three miles and four hours) walk ended at John’s, where we all had beers in the second-floor dining room, which is lined with framed stills from the film version of “The Maltese Falcon.”

I said goodby and impulsively caught the Powell and Hyde streets cable car to the Buena Vista Cafe. The sky was a cloudless, crisp, brilliant blue, without a wisp of fog in sight. I enjoyed my Irish coffee in spite of it.

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Budget for One

Air fare, LAX-Oakland: $119.00

Hotel Union Square, two nights: 227.75

Transportation to, from airport: 16.30

Dashiell Hammett Tour fee: 10.00

Dashiell Hammett Tour book: 10.00

Meals: 93.00

Cable car tickets: 8.00

FINAL TAB: $484.05

* Hotel Union Square, 114 Powell St., San Francisco, CA 94102; tel. (800) 553-1900. The Dashiell Hammett Tour is given each Saturday at noon from May through August. The cost is $10 and no reservations are necessary. Simply show up at the San Francisco main library at the corner of Larkin and McAllister streets.