deliberately: “I can’t say yes or no. There’s nothing certain about it either way, yet.” He looked up at the fat man and stopped frowning. “It depends.”
“It depends on—?”
Spade shook his head. “If I knew what it depends on I could say yes or no.”
The fat man took a mouthful from his glass, swallowed it, and suggested: “Maybe it depends on Joel Cairo?”
Spade’s prompt “Maybe” was noncommittal. He drank.
The fat man leaned forward until his belly stopped him. His smile was ingratiating and so was his purring voice. “You could say, then, that the question is which one of them you’ll represent?”
“You could put it that way.”
“It will be one or the other?”
“I didn’t say that.”
The fat man’s eyes glistened. His voice sank to a throaty whisper asking: “Who else is there?”
Spade pointed his cigar at his own chest. “There’s me,” he said.
The fat man sank back in his chair and let his body go flaccid. He blew his breath out in a long contented gust. “That’s wonderful, sir,” he purred. “That’s wonderful. I do like a man that tells you right out he’s looking out for himself. Don’t we all? I don’t trust a man that says he’s not. And the man that’s telling the truth when he says he’s not I distrust most of all, because he’s an ass and an ass that’s going contrary to the laws of nature.”