You know what's wrong with this country, baby?...A man can't stay honest if he wants to...he gets chiseled out of his pants if he does. You play the … - Raymond Chandler

I hung up.
It was a step in the right direction, but it didn't go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hid under the desk.

I looked at the ornaments on the desk. Everything standard and all copper. A copper lamp, pen set and pencil tray, a glass and copper ashtray with a copper elephant on the rim, a copper letter opener, a copper thermos bottle on a copper tray, copper corners on the blotter holder. There was a spray of almost copper-colored sweet peas in a copper vase.

It seemed like a lot of copper.

Tsk, tsk,” I said, not moving at all. “Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains. You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail. Put it down and don’t be silly, Joe.