The Rustin Hickory

Get this and get it straight. Crime is a sucker's road and those who travel it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave. The Lady Taurus was a school teacher, out after glamour and she got it.

But only after she learned that in Hollywood the three hours could be written done in a dark room, right and found in a dead man's pocket in arithmetic that added up to murder times two.

From the pen of Raymond Chandler, outstanding author of Crime Fiction Counts, his most famous character in... The Adventures of Philip Marlow. Now, with Gerald Moore, star is Philip Marlow, we bring you tonight's transcribed story, The Rustin Hickory.

It was hot in my apartment, even at 10 o'clock at night. The sultry wind blowing through curtains at the far side of the room didn't help a bit. It was the kind of night that made me wish I was something else, a butcher of Baker Candles take-make or anything.

After a long hot day spent in the downtown courts of law listening to the petty arguments of a petty case I was tired of petty people. The paper I had picked up on my way home wasn't helping any of it. Ten killed in an air crash. Metal cruelty says local song word. I made myself another highball. Lots of ice easy with water. I picked up the

paper again. It was still more of the same. Syneistic killed in office on Sunset Strip. Syneistic. He'd hit the papers before. Bookie B minus picture producer a general racketeer. Somehow I wasn't too surprised he was on the receiving end for a change.