#RaymondChandler
Today March 26 2019 is 60th death anniversary of Raymond Chandler.
Today March 26 2019 is 60th death anniversary of Raymond Chandler.
"So we just sat there, and she started crying softly like the
rain on the window. And we didn't say anything. Maybe she had stopped thinking
about it, but I hadn't. I couldn't because it was all tied up with something
I'd been thinking about for years. Since long before I ever ran into Phyllis
Dietrichson. Because, you know how it is Keyes, in this business you can't
sleep for trying to figure out all the tricks they could pull on you. You're
like the guy behind the roulette wheel, watching the customers to make sure
they don't crook the house. And then one night, you get to thinking how you
could crook the house yourself. And do it smart. Because you've got that wheel
right under your hands. You know every notch in it by heart. And you figure all
you need is a plant out front, a shill to put down the bet. And suddenly the
doorbell rings and the whole setup is right there in the room with ya. [pause]
Look, Keyes, I'm not trying to whitewash myself. I fought it, only I guess I
didn't fight it hard enough. The stakes were $50,000 dollars, but they were the
life of a man too, a man who'd never done me any dirt except he was married to
a woman he didn't care anything about. And I did."
(screenplay of one of the greatest noir films of all time, 'Double Indemnity', 1944)
“....They watched me go out and didn’t say goodnight. I
walked down the long corridor to the Hill Street entrance and got into my car
and drove home.
No feelings at all was exactly right. I was as hollow and
empty as the spaces between the stars. When I got home I mixed a stiff one and
stood by the open window in the living room and sipped it and listened to the
groundswell of the traffic on Laurel Canyon Boulevard and looked at the glare
of the big angry city hanging over the shoulder of the hills through which the
boulevard had been cut. Far off the banshee wail of police or fire sirens rose
and fell, never for very long completely silent. Twenty-four hours a day
somebody is running, somebody else is trying to catch him. Out there in the
night of a thousand crimes people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying
glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being
beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick;
bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel, feverish,
shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full
of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness.
It all depends on where you sit and what your own private
score is. I didn’t have one. I didn’t care.
I finished the drink and went to bed...”
('The Long Goodbye', Raymond Chandler, 1953)
