The Adventures of Sam Spade - The Dry Martini Caper

Gordon Martini, chairman of the board of the Martini Trading Company, had recently been the victim of an attempted kidnapping. He had received some injuries during the ordeal, and spent some time in the hospital. Upon leaving, he calls Sam Spade to meet him at his home located at 1000 Marina Boulevard. After Sam arrives, Martini decides that the best place to discuss his business with Sam would be in his limousine on his way to work. As they walk toward it, Martini sees his chauffeur appearing to be asleep in the back seat. He asks Sam "Can you drive a car?" Sam indicates that he can. Martini opens the car door and sees that the person is not his chauffeur, but a stranger with a gun. Shots are fired and Martini gets hit. As he goes down, Sam is under his 300lbs. of dead weight. By the time Sam rolled Martini off of him and got up, the gunman jumped out of the limousine and into a gray sedan that was double parked. Sam was only able to get part of the sedan's license plate. A crowd starts gathering around the scene. Soon, Gordon's wife Netta appears. She says "It's my fault. I called Ernie from our apartment window and asked him to come upstairs. I wanted him to return some lingerie that was the wrong color". Sam asks "Who's Ernie?" Netta says "He's our chauffeur. I was looking for the exchange slip when we heard the shots. Is he dead this time?" Sam says "Yeah, don't go to pieces". Netta says "Poor Gordon, he had so many enemies. He didn't drink well, you know, people dropped us like flies". Sam says "Well, they certainly dropped your husband".