Un amic d'aquells que varen morir abans de que poguessim néxier la majoria de nosaltres, va escriure:

I sipped my rye. The bartender cut up some limes and lemons and stored them in a big-mouthed jar.

The old couple in the booth had another round. She had her head on his shoulder now, her eyes half shut, her mouth dropped open. A fly circled slowly in the wet spot where my glass had sat. It lazed down close to it, its translucent wings blurred, then it landed and sampled some and rubbed its forefeet in appreciation.

A red-haired woman came into the bar and glanced around and saw me and came to the bar and sat two stools away.

She smiled and got out a long thin cigarette with a brown wrapper and looked in her purse, then turned towards me with the cigarette in her mouth, held in place by two fingers.

'Got a light?' she said.

Feia poc que, després d'una llarga malaltia, se li havia mort la dona, i justament en quedar vidu és quan va obligar al seu personatge més estimat, un tal Marlowe, a casar-se per a que donés voltes en rodó al voltant de les marques que deixen els gots.

Extracte del Poodle Springs de Raymond Chandler