- [first lines]
- Mike Hammer: My old neighborhood hadn't changed much since I was a kid. I guess that's because there's a limit to how old and dirty and decrepit any spot on Earth can become. I hadn't been back in a long time and I wouldn't have gone back when I did if it had been anybody else but Mama Dukas who sent for me.
- Lt. Checkers: [discussing Nick Dukas] The carny people called him a gazoony, if you know what that means.
- Mike Hammer: I know what it means. It means he's no good.
- Lt. Checkers: There's nothing worse than a gazoony.
- Mike Hammer: How about the guy who murders a gazoony?
- Mike Hammer: What do you worry about, Lieutenant?
- Lt. Checkers: Ohh, the weather, my feet, how the White Sox are doin', my wife's arthritis and not having enough men to check out 25 felonies and over a hundred misdeamors that occur in my little district every day.
- [shows mike a sheaf of reports on a clipboard]
- Lt. Checkers: This is a mighty long list, Mr. Hammer. There just isn't enough room on it for the murder of guys like Nick Dukas.
- Lt. Checkers: Yeah, you private eyes really have it made from what I read in those paperbacks and see in the movies and on the TV.
- Mike Hammer: Yeah, it's a ball, Checkers, a ball... crime, women and song.
- Lt. Checkers: I sure do wish you could stick around in Chicago a little while. I'd kind of like to watch you operate; maybe I could pick up a pointer or two.
- Mike Hammer: Looks like you got all you can do to pick up your feet, Mr. Checkers.
- [Mike picks up Nick's suitcases]
- Mike Hammer: Ooof! He didn't travel light did he?
- Bonnie Tate: No, he was a regular pack rat.
- [Dakin and Boyd enter the room]
- Max Dakin: Rat is right.
- Mike Hammer: Who are the gorillas?
- Max Dakin: What have you got in the suitcases?
- Mike Hammer: Bricks! I'm on my way to a hod carriers convention. What's it to ya?
- Mike Hammer: What gives with you, Checkers? Nick Dukas is murdered, a couple of goons use me for a bongo drum and all you do is stand around and make like the moderator of a debating society. Those two punks were after something!
- Mike Hammer: Just how did they know where to find me?
- Lt. Checkers: Well, that's a very good question, Mr. Hammer, but you're sure that this ain't somethin' personal between you and those two hoods?
- Mike Hammer: No. No, but it is now.
- Mike Hammer: I was going back to New York tonight, but now I'm goin' huntin' for those two punks and when I find them, I'm going to make them wish they'd never been born!
- Lt. Checkers: I guess I know how you feel, Mr. Hammer. Well, I'd do the same thing if it were me.
- Mike Hammer: If I were you, Checkers, I'd shoot myself.
- Mike Hammer: Now you listen to me, Max, and hear me good. Killin' you would be like steppin' on a bug. Well, maybe you don't believe that and maybe I'm hopin' you don't so I have an excuse to prove it to ya!
- Lt. Checkers: I sure wish I knew what happened to that currency exchange money after Dukas was killed.
- Mike Hammer: Have you ever considered buying yourself a ouija board?
- Lt. Checkers: But who would believe that I arranged for it to work out that way? Why, everybody knows that a dumb, ordinary cop like me is not smart enough to pull anything like that on a smart, slick, tough private detective like you... now would they, huh?
- Mike Hammer: Yeah. Yeah, that's probably right, Checkers, nobody would have believed it. You're just too ordinary looking and too...
- [Mike hands Checkers the bag with the robbery loot]
- Mike Hammer: ...dumb.
- [last lines]
- Lt. Checkers: Well, I'll be seein' you, Mr. Hammer.
- Mike Hammer: Not if I see you first, Checkers.
- Lt. Checkers: [to himself] Not if you see me...
- [Checkers leaves the shop laughing]