The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett [88]
“Cut it out, Sam,” Tom grumbled. “We didn’t think—”
“Like hell he didn’t,” Spade said merrily. “He came up here with his mouth watering, though you’d have sense enough to know I’d been stringing Gutman.”
“Cut it out,” Tom grumbled again, looking uneasily sidewise at his superior. “Anyways we got it from Cairo. Gutman’s dead. The kid had just finished shooting him up when we got there.”
Spade nodded. “He ought to have expected that,” he said.
Effie Perine put down her newspaper and jumped out of Spade’s chair when he came into the office at a little after nine o’clock Monday morning.
He said: “Morning, angel.”
“Is that—what the papers have—right?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” He dropped his hat on the desk and sat down. His face was pasty in color, but its lines were strong and cheerful and his eyes, though still somewhat red-veined, were clear.
The girl’s brown eyes were peculiarly enlarged and there was a queer twist to her mouth. She stood beside him, staring down at him.
He raised his head, grinned, and said mockingly: “So much for your woman’s intuition.”
Her voice was queer as the expression on her face. “You did that, Sam, to her?”
He nodded. “Your Sam’s a detective.” He looked sharply at her. He put his arm around her waist, his hand on her hip. “She did kill Miles, angel,” he said gently, “off hand, like that.” He snapped the fingers of his other hand.
She escaped from his arm as if it had hurt her. “Don’t, please, don’t touch me,” she said brokenly. “I know—I know you’re right. You’re right. But don’t touch me now—not now.”
Spade’s face became pale as his collar.
The corridor-door’s knob rattled. Effie Perine turned quickly and went into the outer office, shutting the door behind her. When she came in again she shut it behind her.
She said in a small flat voice: “Iva is here.”
Spade, looking down at his desk, nodded almost imperceptibly. “Yes,” he said, and shivered. “Well, send her in.”
Reader’s Guide
1. Sam Spade’s attitude toward authority is patently clear in remarks like “It’s a long while since I burst out crying because policemen didn’t like me” [this page] or “At one time or another I’ve had to tell everyone from the Supreme Court down to go to hell, and I’ve got away with it” [this page]. How is Spade’s distrust of power manifested in his actions? How important is distrust as an aspect of his character?
2. Of the three women in the book—Brigid O’Shaughnessy, Effie Perine, and Iva Archer—are any fully realized, or are perhaps all three, as stereotypes, three sides of one woman? As a stereotype, what does each woman represent? What does Spade mean, and what does it say about Spade, when he tells Effie, “You’re a damned good man, sister” [this page]?
3. A blatant stereotype is Joel Cairo: “This guy is queer” [this page], Effie informs Spade when the perfumed Cairo comes to the office. Is a homosexual character effective or necessary in the plot? Would he be as effective without sterotyping? Why do you think Hammett created him?
4. Near the end of the story, Spade says to Brigid, “Don’t be too sure I’m as crooked as I’m supposed to be” [this page]. What evidence is there that he’s not crooked? Does honor temper greed in his negotiations with the others in the hunt for the black bird? How are greed and ruthlessness packaged here so that ultimately we might not care whether the characters are crooked or not? Does style compensate for all in the hard-boiled genre?
5. “By Gad, sir, you’re a character” [this page], says Gutman, laughing, when Spade suggests making Wilmer the fall-guy. Is the Spade-Gutman relationship one of justice versus corrupt wealth or one of equals competing for the same prize? How does Gutman