"The Big Sleep" [.]

[fiefoe]

I guessed 'a Chicago overcoat' is a shroud, but no, it is a coffin. (My first car was innocently nicknamed 'bucket'. Does that mean that my noir instincts are good, after all?)  And apparently other people paid attention to this line, 'He was like Caesar, a husband to women and a wife to men.' as well.

• The General spoke again, slowly, using his strength as carefully as an out-of-work show-girl uses her last good pair of stockings.
• Her smile was tentative, but could be persuaded to be nice. <...> "Er - not at the moment," she purred harshly. Her smile was now hanging by its teeth and eyebrows and wondering what it would hit when it dropped. <...> She tried to jack the smile back up on her face.
  
• I went back to the office and sat in my swivel chair and tried to catch up on my foot-dangling.
  

• "The Sternwoods have money. All it has bought them is a rain check."
• "That sounds like it might grow up to be a dirty story," he said.
• "I smell of policemen," I said. "I'm too tired to talk, too tired to eat."
• "You kept your head beautifully. That's so flattering."
• "If I had a razor, I'd cut your throat just to see what ran out of it." <> "Caterpillar blood," I said.
• "He's whatever looks good to him, whatever has the cabbage pinned to it. Don't try to sell me on any high-souled racketeers. They don't come in that pattern."
  

• His voice was the elaborately casual voice of the tough guy in pictures. Pictures have made them all like that.
• He moved his dark eyes up and down slowly and then glanced at his fingernails one by one, holding them up against the light and studying them with care, as Hollywood has taught it should be done.
• You have to hold your teeth clamped around Hollywood to keep from chewing on stray blondes.

<<