devon marie’s Reviews > The Big Sleep > Status Update

"The butler came along the red path with smooth light steps and his back as straight as an ironing board."

"...with sad eyes and a smile as wide as Wilshire Boulevard."

"The old man licked his lips watching me, over and over again, drawing one lip slowly across the other with a funeral absorption, like an undertaker dry-washing his hands."

"I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider"

"I lit the cigarette and blew a lungful at him and he sniffed at it like a terrier at a rathole."

"The champagne as cold as Valley Forge"

The General spoke again, slowly, using his strength as carefully as an out-of-work show girl uses her last good pair of stockings."

"A few locks of dry white hair clung to his scalp, like wildflowers fighting for life on a bare rock."

"They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket."

"The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men."