Home > Work > The Way Some People Die (Lew Archer #3)
1 " It was midnight when I parked my car under Union Square. A wet wind blew across the almost deserted square, blowing fogged breath from the sea on the dark pavements. Flashing neons on all four sides repudiated the night. "
― Ross Macdonald , The Way Some People Die (Lew Archer #3)
2 " Tourists and transients lived in hotels and motels along the waterfront. Behind them a belt of slums lay ten blocks deep, where the darker half of the population lived and died. On the other side of the tracks - the tracks were there - the business section wore its old Spanish facades like icing on a stale cake. "
3 " It was a small room, and it was as crowded with coffee- and end-tables, chairs and hassocks and bookcases, as a second-hand furniture store. The horizontal surfaces were littered with gewgaws, shells and framed photographs, vases and pincushions and doilies. If the lady had come down in the world, she'd brought a lot down with her. My sensation of stepping into the past was getting too strong for comfort. The half-armed chair closed on me like a hand. "
4 " The tea tasted like a clear dark dripping from the past. My grandmother came back with it, in crisp black funeral silks, "
5 " When I stepped out of my car the night shot up like a tree and branched wide into blossoming masses of stars. Under their far cold lights I felt weak and little. If a fruit fly lived for one day instead of two, it hardly seemed to matter. Except to another fruit fly. "
6 " He was recovering his style, or whatever it was that kept him upright and made him interesting to women. On the shooting level he was a bum, as useless as a cat in a dogfight. But he had his own feline dignity, even with his hands up. "
7 " On the other side of the tracks - the tracks were there - the business section wore its old Spanish facades like icing on a stale cake. "
8 " I’m just a floating question-mark, waiting for an answer to hook onto me. "
