Spade exhaled smoke. His face was politely attentive. He said: “Uh-huh. Now let’s talk about the black bird.”
The fat man smiled benevolently. “Let’s,” he said. He squinted so that fat puffs crowding together left nothing of his eyes but a dark gleam visible. “ Mr. Spade, have you any conception of how much money can be made out of that black bird?”
“No.”
The fat man leaned forward again and put a bloated pink hand on the arm of Spade’s chair. “Well, sir, if I told you—by Gad, if I told you half!—you’d call me a liar.”
Spade smiled. “No,” he said, “not even if I thought it. But if you won’t take the risk just tell me what it is and I’ll figure out the profits.”
The fat man laughed. “You couldn’t do it, sir. Nobody could do it that hadn’t had a world of experience with things of that sort, and”—he paused impressively—“there aren’t any other things of that sort.” His bulbs jostled one another as he laughed again. He stopped laughing, abruptly. His fleshy lips hung open as laughter had left them. He stared at Spade with an intentness that suggested myopia. He asked: “You mean you don’t know what it is?” Amazement took the throatiness out of his voice.
Spade made a careless gesture with his cigar. “Oh, hell,” he said lightly, “I know what it’s supposed to look like. I know the value in life you people put on it. I don’t know what it is.”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“Miss O’Shaughnessy?”
“Yes. A lovely girl, sir.”