The Glass Key

by Dashiell Hammett

Ned Beaumont was looking gravely at the man who was not looking at him.

“Sure,” the man in bed confessed.

Beyond excellent prose structure.

The white-haired man said: “But

Excellent. Use the brief descriptor instead of name

“I never seen a guy that liked being hit so much or that I liked hitting so much.”

“A copper found you crawling on all fours up the middle of Colman Street at three in the morning leaving a trail of blood behind you.” “I think of funny things to do,” Ned Beaumont said.

“I must be losing my grip,” he said. “I usually make senators’ daughters cry.”

She held herself tall without stiffness, in the manner of one more sure of his balance than of stability underfoot.

Excellent

Her face was a tinted statue’s.

Ned Beaumont’s face, after a grimace of rage at the closed door, became heavily thoughtful. Lines came into his forehead. His dark eyes grew narrow and introspective. His lips puckered up under his mustache. Presently he put a finger to his mouth and bit its nail. He breathed regularly, but with more depth than usual.

Excellent

You know how you can tell when people are arguing sometimes by the way they stand.” Ned Beaumont smiled mirthlessly. “Yes, if one of them’s standing on the other’s face.”

Ever been given the electric cure?”

if it ain’t Sock-me-again Beaumont!”

He’s a—” he hesitated, frowning, wet his lips “—a God-damned massacrist, that’s what he is.”

“Looking at you,” and drank.

Murray Burnett, Casablanca.