Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down—from high flat temples—in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.

from The Maltese Falcon, D. Hammett

“They think they’re clever, with their guns and their plans and their money, but they’ve lost the plot. Hardboiled, they say, but what do they know about hardboiled. Little boys playacting at being men. They can’t bear the scrutiny of idleness or the focus of work.”

Satan he nods, noncommittal, yellow and red. He cocks his head to the side and yawns; he’s heard it before.

“Always half smart. I’d kill the president for someone who was smart all the way around the track.” She spits out a tooth, not hers. “With their hands, sculpted by an artist who worked big and liked veins—nuts to that. Big hands, small hands, what does it matter. Any hands is big enough if you’re close enough.”

He hands her the knife and she flicks it open and closed and open again. Tests it against the leather: sharp as needed.

“Now,” she says, and leans over the table, touches one narrow fingertip to the tongue held immobile in forceps, “the past is prologue. Let’s get to work.”