- Warren Quimby: What are you doing?
- Claire Quimby: I'm leaving. I'm through. I got what I'm looking for and I'm gonna grab it while I got the chance.
- Warren Quimby: Barney Deager?
- Claire Quimby: A real guy.
- Warren Quimby: Claire, don't do this, I'm asking you, don't do it.
- Claire Quimby: There's nothing to talk about. It was different in San Diego, you were kind of cute in your uniform. You were full of laughs then. Well, you're all laughed out now.
- Claire Quimby: Why don't you save that for the cops?
- Warren Quimby: Let them come, I've got nothing to hide, I'll tell them the truth.
- Claire Quimby: Fine, fine - and what's the truth? Gonna tell 'em that you hated Barney Deager? Gonna tell 'em that you hated Barney Deager so much you could've killed him? Why don't you tell 'em that he kicked you off the place? That he beat ya up? Tell 'em that he stole your wife.
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: Where's the gun, Quimby?
- Warren Quimby: Where's the gun? Why don't you ask my wife? Barney Deager was her friend, not mine. She was at his house, not me. Why don't you ask her? Maybe she'll tell you that, too. Go on, ask her! Ask her! Ask her!
- [first lines]
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: I'm Collier Bonnabel. I'm a cop. I'm a Lieutenant Detective in, uh, Homicide. That's a fancy name for murder. We get plenty of tough cases. Solve most of 'em, sure. But how?
- [begins to stretch and relax a rubber band]
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: I only know one way, one thing that breaks 'em wide open - tension. I work on people, on suspects. Play up to them. Play up to their strengths, pour it on their weaknesses. Romance 'em or ignore 'em. Kiss 'em. Press 'em. But whatever way, keep stretching them.
- [now stretches rubber band to its extreme without relaxing it]
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: Everything, everybody's got a breaking point. And when they get stretched so tight they can't take it any longer...
- [rubber band snaps as film title flashes on screen with dramatic fanfare in score]
- Artie: [approaching Bonnabel in a bar] Lieutenant, what are you working on?
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: Irish whiskey.
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: You're talking to me, Claire. That's like talking to an old friend. I know you from way back.
- Claire Quimby: So?
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: So... I got a file on you that goes back further than you'd like to remember and up to where you wish you could forget.
- Warren Quimby: He was a liquor salesman. You know, big car, big bankroll. He was a...
- Claire Quimby: He was full of laughs.
- Lt. Edgar Gonsales: [chuckling] He's full of lead now.
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: [voice over] This is the corner of St. Ann's and 13th. That's an all night drug store. It never closes! You know, in a town as big as this there are only four or five of 'em. Oh, that's Warren Quimby. He's the night manager. Lives in an apartment right over the drug store. You know, these stores have everything: raisins and radios, paregoric and phonographs, vitamin capsules and cap pistols. They'll serve you a cup a coffee, sell you a pack of cigarettes or a a postage stamp, and in a pinch they'll even fill a prescription for you.
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: [voice over] It was a beautiful morning. Most people look forward to the morning as the beginning of the new day. There's a hope, a promise of good things about to happen.
- Freddie: They're still at it. Tryin' to find out who owns Germany, who owns the A-bombs, floods, cyclones, earthquakes, riots!
- Freddie: Something else, Mrs. Quimby?
- Claire Quimby: Still with that Mrs. Quimby business, eh, Junior.
- Freddie: Don't start that again, please.
- Claire Quimby: Claire's my name. Why don't you call me Claire.
- Freddie: But, you're the manager's wife, Mrs. Quimby.
- Claire Quimby: That makes me poison?
- Freddie: Look, I got a good job here with plenty of golden hours; so, don't stink me up.
- Warren Quimby: Gee, it'd be wonderful to live out here, darling. Fresh air. Room to entertain. It's a great spot for kids.
- Claire Quimby: You want to know something? I think it's a miserable spot. It's 30 minutes from nowhere.
- Lt. Edgar Gonsales: There is no Paul Southern.
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: What are talking about?
- Lt. Edgar Gonsales: Get a load of this. Not in the phone directories. Has no car on the ship. He's not on any payroll, hotel registry. No hospital cards on him. No charge accounts. Never took out any insurance. He doesn't take milk from a milkman. Doesn't have a newspaper delivery. And he's got no police record. All we've got to do is find him.
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: We'll find him. They always make one mistake. All we got to do is look for that one mistake. Find it and we've got Paul Southern.
- Freddie: A guy commits a murder, see. He blows and leaves no traces, no clues, nothin'. Just commits the murder and disappears. It drives the cops daffy.
- Lt. Edgar Gonsales: Mrs. Quimby, you shouldn't have done that. You shouldn't have left there. It only makes us come after you. Couldn't stand the sight, eh? Well, women always seem to react that way.
- Artie: What about the dame? When are you gonna haul in the dame?
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: What dame, Artie? What dame?
- Artie: The dame what plugged Deager, that dame.
- Claire Quimby: What's with you, anyway? You want the cops to move in and live with us? If you haven't got enough brains to agree with me, then keep your mouth shut. From here on in, I'm answering all the questions. Got it?
- Claire Quimby: Look, Lieutenant. I'm a big girl. About the dame...
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: Yeah?
- Claire Quimby: Me maybe?
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: What's wrong with this? What's wrong combining a little business with a little...
- Claire Quimby: Pleasure?
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: You're in the clear. We've checked all the leads. Everybody's in the clear. The Deager case is right back were it started. No place.
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: Missing persons just called.
- Lt. Edgar Gonsales: What?
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: Paul Southern had a dame.
- Lt. Edgar Gonsales: Yo ho!
- Lt. Collier Bonnabel: [voice over] Yeah, the tension was working; but, nobody was ready to break. I needed more pressure. Claire. She was a smart baby and tough. But, I thought I knew what would work on her - all the way down the line.