"So you shoot people," she said quietly. "You're a killer."
"Me? How?"
"The papers and the police fixed it up nicely. But I don't believe everything I read."
"Oh, you think I accounted for Geiger - or Brody-or both of them."
She didn't say anything. "I didn't have to," I said. "I might have. I suppose, and got away with it. Neither of them would have hesitated to throw lead at."
"That makes you a killer at heart, like all cops."
"Oh, nuts."

If you kill me, how are you going to get the bird? If I know you can't afford to kill me till you have it, how are you going to scare me into giving it to you?"
Gutman cocked his head to the left and considered these questions. His eyes twinkled between puckered lids. Presently he gave his genial answer: "Well, sir, there are other means of persuasion besides killing and threatening to kill."
"Sure," Spade agreed, "but they're not much good unless the threat of death is behind them to hold the victim down. See what I mean? If you try anything I don't like I won't stand for it. I'll make it a matter of your having to call it off or kill me, knowing you can't afford to kill me."
"I see what you mean." Gutman chuckled. "That is an attitude, sir, that calls for the most delicate judgment on both sides, because, as you know, sir, men are likely to forget in the heat of action where their best interest lies, and let their emotions carry them away."
Spade too was all smiling blandness. "That's the trick, from my side," he said, "to make my play strong enough that it ties you up, but yet not make you mad enough to bump me off against your better judgment."
Gutman said fondly: "By Gad, sir, you are a character!

I won't die, eaten alive," he said. He put a fresh clip in his gun. I'll do you first if you want, or you can do it yourself.
Save your bullets, Edward. I lifted a can of gasoline in one hand.
What are you planning? he asked.
I'm going to set the shed on fire. I splashed gasoline on the door. The smell was sharp and tugged at the back of my throat.
With us inside? he asked.
Yes.
I'd rather shoot myself, if it's all the same to you.