Lunch With The Falcon

For some reason I had it in my head that Tadich Grill was the famous place Sam Spade eats in The Maltese Falcon, but in fact it’s John’s Grill on Ellis St. Established in 1906, John’s Grill has the feel of Old San Francisco in the modern day. Since I know everything, I know exactly what people visiting San Francisco think of as Old San Francisco, and John’s Grill is it. Though the table was a bit cramped, the food and service were very good. I recommend it if you find yourself in the City.

I found myself there this afternoon after a strange and fortuitous coincidence determined a connection with a former head of the homicide detail in the SFPD--just what this writer needed! A two and a half hour talk provided one of the most interesting discussions in recent memory and reminded me of just how little the public knows about what really goes on inside organizations that affect us as profoundly as the police. Lieutenant X answered many of the questions I had for him that related to my story, as well as volunteering some fascinating tales of his experiences during a long career inside the department.

The political situation as it changed over the decades was interesting, but not as much, to me at least, as the little details about the job that could be provided only by someone who has experienced that life. As any random flipping past TV channels or movie guides will make plain, people love stories about the police. But this afternoon’s interview made plain that in fiction we rarely, if ever, hear the real deal.

What we usually get are contrived situations set in a world that only those on the inside really know. The demands of storytelling say that only details germane to the story itself be included. Even if Lt. X were to write a crime novel, his editor would likely require that he take out most of the great details he provided included if they didn’t further the story. A non-fiction book by such a person would be fascinating, if the author were prepared to move to Tibet or somewhere equally remote upon publication.

So I’m left tonight with way more information than I can possible make work in a novel that isn’t a police procedural. But I’m much more confident that I can make the scenes that involve the police and their work sound more authentic.

A larger problem, however, is how much I should rework my novel to fit facts and how many ‘errors’ to leave in to further the story. This is an issue with setting a novel in a real city. People who know how things work there (such as how a suspect injured before being taken into custody is processed after his wounds are treated, for example) will find mistakes that grate on their nerves, even if the story benefits from those un-factual elements. So for each detail I now know to be wrong, I must decide if correcting it is better for the story than leaving a known mistake in place.

Or course, I could just change the setting of the story to a fictional city. That would solve A LOT of problems. But Hammett didn’t do that, and decades later people go to eat where the Maltese Falcon resides. Hmmm.