Sublime

Vic is a pointy-faced man of about forty with slicked-back dark hair who looks like a weaselly sort of hood, or maybe just a weasel, with his small eyes and vicious smile. Before landing here at the DMV, Vic worked as a bouncer, a roadie, a security guard, a fitness trainer, an auditor, and a head cook—name a job where you got to intimidate people

He has a kind, round face and the relaxed, easygoing manner of someone who’s spent most of his life in California.

Mr. S put Karloff up there with the Barrymores. The only stars in Hollywood he may have admired as much were Bogart and Fred Astaire. He had met the horror icon on a studio lot in the late forties and had been bowled over by what an English gentleman he was. Karloff’s real name was William Henry Pratt and his two great passions in life were cricket

Father grinned and winked at his visitor. Joe Kane decided that the man who confronted him was mildly insane but harmless.

Ah, Evelyn and Vivian, I love you both, I love you for your sad lives, the empty misery of your coming home at dawn. You too are alone, but you are not like Arturo Bandini, who is neither fish, fowl nor good red herring. So have your champagne, because I love you both, and you, too Vivian, even if your mouth looks like it had been dug out with raw

Not even Albert, who was as stone cold a killer as he’d known.

He was smiling now as he greeted his wife and turned to me, and the smile lit his face attractively. There was no earthly reason why I should feel suddenly nervous, or why I should imagine that Héloise de Valmy’s voice as she introduced us was too taut and high, like an over-tight string. I thought, watching her, she’s afraid of him … Then I told m