A fine bunch of thieves,

but I suspect The Russian…

Cairo: You! It's you who bungled it! You and your stupid attempt to buy it! Kemidov found out how valuable it was! No wonder we had such an easy time stealing it! You... you imbecile! You bloated idiot! You stupid fathead, you!

Gutman: Yes, it's the Russian's hand. There's no doubt about it. What do you suggest...we stand here, shed tears and call each other names...or shall we go to Istanbul?

Cairo: Are you going?

Gutman: Seventeen years I've wanted that item, and have been trying to get it. If we must spend another year on the quest...well, sir, it will be an additional expenditure in time of only...five and fifteen-seventeenths percent.

...

Ah. Nobody slings the .38 caliber invective like crime writers.

And what is this dingus they’re talking about?

Why, this one of course. The stuff that dreams are made of.

Maltese Falcon disappears in a real-life mystery
A thief takes a replica of the movie prop from a San Francisco eatery where Sam Spade, and his creator, dined.
By John M. Glionna
Times Staff Writer

February 14, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO — Call in the coppers, get Sam Spade on the case: The Maltese Falcon's gone again.

In a missing-bird caper reminiscent of the one that perplexed Dashiell Hammett's fictional sleuth, the owner of a landmark restaurant here is offering 25 Gs ($25,000) for a replica of the famed Maltese Falcon swiped from a locked display case over the weekend.

John Konstin, the owner of John's Grill, a nearly 100-year-old restaurant with a museum dedicated to the crime novelist, said the purloined plaster statuette and 15 rare books by and about Hammett that were also stolen are emotionally priceless.

"The statue had historical significance to this restaurant and to the city," said Konstin, as he sat in a dining room framed by movie stills and Hammett mementos. "People came from all over the world to see that bird. And we want it back."

Hammett used to frequent John's — and the falcon has been housed since 1995 in a wooden display case just upstairs from booth 21, where, as the story goes, he wrote parts of the 1930 novel that introduced readers to Spade, the womanizing, sly-talking gumshoe.

"He came here a lot, he drank a lot, hung out a lot," Konstin said of Hammett, who died in 1961. "Sam Spade ate here as well. One scene was set at the restaurant."
…

And as sure as I am that the Russian that pinched it, I’m equally sure the shamus’ll get ‘er back.

Why?


You'll never understand me, but I'll try once and then give it up.

When Hollywood memorabilia is pilfered, a man’s supposed to do something.

It makes no difference what you thought of it.

It was your bread and butter, and you're supposed to do something about it...and it happens we're in the detective business.

Well, when one of your trinkets gets swiped, it's... it's bad business to let the thief get away with it...bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.

Were it me, I’d start by sweating whatever low-rent, big-talk gunsels might be haunting the area.

Because, hey, the cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter. :-)