The Case That Turned A Once Famous California P.I Lew Archer Into A Has-Been-The Road Down To Skid Road Aint That Far-The Spinner Case   

By Seth Garth

Hold the presses! Or maybe that is what I should have done when I learned that there was a smaller previous case by the once famous California P.I. Lew Archer who died at 104 recently found head down in a toilet seat in a Bunker Hill (L.A.) skid row rooming house of a drug overdose, heroin. I spent considerable cyber-ink laying out the facts of what I have called the Jameson case, the late 1950s case that set Lew on his ass, got him rolling downhill. Of course all of this including the verifiable facts left remaining after fifty-plus years was subject to some serious holes although on the basics that case can still provide argument for the definitive slide. But with this new information gathered from the archives of his last boss, the sleaze ball junkie P.I. Kenny Millar who got Lew hooked on junk for good it appears we now have the Spinner case that shows in light detail where Lew was heading and why. Moreover the case has the central virtue of having been worked on very shortly after Lew’s ex-wife Martha heaved him out of the house and took everything he had including his vaunted sexual prowess which is what led to the toss in the first place.

I don’t want to beat a dead horse but that sexual prowess/impotency angle really does play a major role in the big fall down here so it bears a short analysis of its own. (The other major points you can gather in from the Jameson case if interested.) Every serious male private eye from about Sherlock Holmes, no, bad example, since we have discovered via Will Bradley of this publication that he and Doc Watson were, well lovers, unofficial husband and husband in today’s terms, let’s try Philo Vance. Every serious male private dick since Philo Vance has had the mandatory frail or seven hanging off his every arm as a sign that not only will he solve the case before him no matter how high the bodies stack up but is manly enough for the tasks at hands, including in bed. So Lew in a way really was a victim of his times, or the far edge of his times when he had to compete with reputations like Sam’s who thought nothing of sending some dishy dame over when it looked like she had him set for the fall guy, like Phil who specialized in sisters and multiples, Phil Larkin for the young ones, Lance Larson for the wealthy not too old widow set and so on.

Lew had married Martha his high school sweetheart before he went into Military Intelligence in World War II and things were fine until after the war when he decided to set up a private investigation operation on his own. Naturally after winning a few high-profile cases that were the beginnings of his bigtime reputation he needed to have his share of twists hanging off of him, serious or just one night, hell, maybe one afternoon, stands and be done with it. Just as naturally that did not set well with his ever -loving Martha who was no stranger to beauty herself. According to her when I interviewed her for a piece in the early 1970s for the whys of the fall of Lew Archer the last straw was when he would start hanging around with what looked like underaged girls. Started taking only cases when some young fluff was on display. That led to the toss (the final toss there were a couple of earlier bumps around that same issue). Out on his ear Lew realized as much as he loved having dames hanging on him his rock was Martha and without that rock he was in trouble. That would not stop him from pursuing young fluff-inspired cases but we now know what happened to Lew when any woman, young, old or indifferent put the moves on him. Nada. The newly found Spinner case can serve as a primer of the way down for formerly promising Lew Archer, a cinch to make the P.I. Hall of Fame on his first try.         

A first glance of the archives at U/Cal-Irvine’s School of Criminology where all the serious cold cases and hot wind up to provide teachable moments my impression was that there were too many moving parts to the case itself, that maybe Lew should have, given his emotional frailty at the time passed on this one. The old now seriously yellowed newspaper articles from the period list a bewildering number of interconnections between a small group of people none of whom I would not turn my back on for one minute. The tapes, all old-fashioned six of them digitally remastered for the archives, tell an even more horrendous tale of evil and treachery almost on a   daily basic for a number of years. Of course, the nexus was the money, the knee-deep oil money which once Lew was in kept the bodies started piling up, that Lew let the case get away from him.      

         

This is where the aging Lew’s sexual appetites for younger and sometimes underage women got the best of him, at least that is where he thought the deal was heading. Seems that some lower level hedge fund manager’s high school daughter had flown the coop with, Danny, Danny Spinner, some bad ass doper, con artist, psycho who will really be the link to all the craziness in the case but that is the side fluff since Lew had a photograph of the young damsel and was ready to get the lances out on that inspection. Here is what is weird though right from the get-go when Lew went to that hedge fund manager’s house he was greeted at the door by his wife, a knockout who went straight at Lew with her come hither look-all to cut the tariff, to cut Lew’s fee with a little human barter. No go, Lew said he had hot flashes or something that day.      

It only gets weirder from there as Lew puts the clues in hand together which led to the place this bad ass Danny was employed, an apartment building run by some red-headed older woman who was looking for a little loose company when Lew crossed her path. No go, probably the residue from those hot flashes. I guess this bad ass kid was a social worker’s dream, you know the misunderstood youth noise because the next big lead was some high school do-gooder who saw this Danny as an alienated youth who had some good qualities not apparent to the general public who faced assaults, robberies, con games and mayhem from this stumblebum kid. The important thing is that this do-gooder had left his wife high and dry while he went around trying to save this motherfucker. Knocking on said do-gooder’s door a few times could have gotten Lew whatever he wanted from the lonely J.D-chasing widow. Lew touched, no brushed against her dress as she came forward which in the old days would have had him in the sack before lunch but now he was “all business” (no wonder this case was buried  deep in the Irvine files since even honest criminologists have an interest in keeping the legend of P.I. sexual prowess on the front burner).   

After this things start to get ridiculous because this bad ass Danny and that wayward daughter Ginny have decided for their own reasons to kidnap her dad’s boss, the ill-begotten son of some super-rich oilman who migrated in California after the Texas oil boom went bust. Get this double-header. It seems that this oilman, Steve, in his travels picked up a German wife, some frail from Dresden who hated being held in splendid Malibu isolation and was ready to break out, break out with Lew when he showed up to see what anybody knew about where the misunderstood kids would take Papa. All she got for her troubles was the now familiar Lew raincheck. But wait there is more, there is a doting Steve mom who will pay big bucks and throw in a little something extra for Lew’s troubles. She got the let’s get your apparently kidnaped son out of harm’s way first. What would become a frequent dodge.

It only gets worse from there, but I will shorten it up because you know what the results are already. Some ex-cop, a county guy was working his magic with modern technology to either blackmail or get some woman who turned out to be Danny’s mom. He got his head blown off for his own troubles but when Lew went to his house he ran into this ex-cop’s drunken wife who was not afraid to let her kimono slip for Lew’ eyes. He took an offered drink or five to while away the time with her in the kitchen. They blew out the door. I won’t even bore you with the few female cabbies and waitresses cluttered along the trail since a guy needs to get places and to eat since we now have a well-worn path.  Nothing doing.

Lew, who never even mentioned this case when I interviewed him in the early 1970s after he had been reduced to repo work and key-hole peeping through the generosity of Sheila Sharp’s detective agency, wound up letting the body count rise without getting to the bottom of the case. The bottom of the case, which cost him plenty of dough for not finding Steve alive, was that the whole play was an elaborate set-up so Steve’s mom, actually Jasper’s mom, her illegitimate son who had many years before killed Steve and had taken his place and his dough, could run through a Texas oil fortune. As for Danny he got blown away by that do-gooder high school guy when he showed his real colors. And that Ginny who was more than willing once she met Lew to play house with him got the big step-off and nothing else from him.