The Maltese Falcon


an excerpt from the film
Sam Spade:
	Listen: this won’t do any good. You’ll never understand me, but I’ll try once and then give it up. When a man’s partner’s killed, he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him, he was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it. And it happens we’re in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it’s bad business to let the killer get away with it. Bad all around. Bad for every detective everywhere.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy:
	You don’t expect me to think that these things you’re saying are sufficient reason for sending me to the…
Sam Spade:
	Wait till I’m through, then you can talk. I have no earthly reason to think I can trust you, and if I do this and get away with it you’ll have something on me that you can use whenever you want to. Since I’ve got something on you, I couldn’t be sure that you wouldn’t put a hole in me someday. All those are on one side. Maybe some of them are unimportant; I won’t argue about that. But look at the number of them. And what have we got on the other side? All we’ve got it that maybe you love me and maybe I love you.
Brigid O’Shaughnessy:
	You know whether you love me or not.
Sam Spade:
	Maybe I do. I’ll have some rotten nights after I’ve sent you over, but that’ll pass.