The Levantine
Spade did not look at the pistol. He raised his arms and, leaning back in his chair, intertwined the fingers of his two hands behind his head. His eyes, holding no particular expression, remained focused on Cairo’s dark face.
Cairo coughed a little apologetic cough and smiled nervously with lips that had lost some of their redness. His dark eyes were humid and bashful and very earnest. “I intend to search your offices, Mr. Spade. I warn you that if you attempt to prevent me I shall certainly shoot you.”
“Go ahead.” Spade’s voice was as empty of expression as his face.
“You will please stand,” the man with the pistol instructed him at whose thick chest the pistol was aimed. “I shall have to make sure that you are not armed.”
Spade stood up pushing his chair back with his calves as he straightened his legs.
Cairo went around behind him. He transferred the pistol from his right hand to his left. He lifted Spade’s coattail and looked under it. Holding the pistol close to Spade’s back, he put his right hand around Spade’s side and patted his chest. The Levantine face was then no more than six inches below and behind Spade’s right elbow.
Spade’s elbow dropped as Spade spun to the right. Cairo’s face jerked back not far enough: Spade’s right heel on the patent-leathered toes anchored the smaller man in the elbow’s path. The elbow struck him