She went along the sidewalk in

   the sun

looking like something the censors

had cut out of a sailor's dream.

Charles Williams

A Touch of Death

1954

A one-dollar bill has

a humble and homely look.

A five-dollar bill has

a few meek pretensions.

A ten is vigorous and

forthright and honest,

like a scout leader.

A twenty, held to the ear

like a seashell

emits the far-off sound

of nightclub music.

A fifty wears the faint sneer

of the race track.

It has a portly look

needs a shave,

wears a yellow diamond

on the little finger.

And a hundred is

very haughty indeed.

John D. MacDonald

Soft Touch

1958

Let's all

go kill

the scared

old man.

Will Cook

"Let's All Go Kill

      the Scared Old Man"

1959

The Lieutenant flipped a lever
on a desk transmitter.
"Send Spillane in here."

Cornell Woolrich
"Marihuana"
1941

He had greased black hair

parted in the middle

and a wax mustache;

wasn't tall and wasn't short;

and looked more like

his mother's side of the family,

but he didn't want anyone

to forget his father.

I made a bet with myself that

his parents never made it legal.

Earl Norman

Kill Me in Tokyo

1958

"I am sorry for all men,"

   she said.

"But the others I am sorry for

   and send away.

You I am sorry for

   and I let you come.

That's how I know

   I love you."

Eric Knight

You Play the Black

    and the Red Comes Up

1938

He told about all the women

what he had knowed,

and all the saloons he'd been in,

and some of it was a lie,

'cause if all those saloons

was as swell as he said they was

they'd of throwed him out.

James M. Cain

"Pastorale"

1928