(with apologies to Dashiell Hammett)

Disclaimer - Well, ABC may or may not own them.

*

Place: San Francisco
Period: the 1930's
Time: Midnight On This Side of the Globe

As the fog from off the bay swirled around his head, Sam Denby pulled up the collar of his trenchcoat and took one last puff of his cigarette before grinding it out on the sidewalk with his foot. "What can we say about life, sweeheart?" Denby said philosophically. "It's stupid and tawdry and dangerous. What we cannot say, sweetheart, is that life gets less interesting. You yourself, Diane, have suddenly become very interesting."

"Sam--I don't know what you mean," Diane O'Shaunnessey murmured, her low, soft, musical voice caressing the words. She looked up at him appealingly.

"You're good," Denby snapped. "You're really good. But you don't fool me. You tried to make a sap out of me just like all the others. You did it to Thursby, then Archer, then Jacobi--all because you would do anything--use anyone--to get what you wanted. Let us be honest. It was all about getting the Maltese Falcon--wasn't it, Diane. Honey."

Diane stared at him, her blue eyes wide and pleading. "You've been playing with me? Only pretending you cared--to trap me? You didn't care at all? You didn't--don't--love me?"

"I think I do," Denby said. "What of it?"

"But Sam," Diane said, "I thought we were in this together. We both wanted the Falcon! I thought you and I were a team, that we were going to--"

Denby interrupted her. "Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be. That kind of reputation might be good business--bringing in high-priced jobs and making it easier to deal with the enemy. Remember Diane, honey--I'm a detective. I work at it, I don't play at it."

"You mean," Diane said, her mouth trembling, "you were undercover the whole time? And that you won't let me go free? Please let me go Sam!" Diane gazed at him longingly. "We would be so good together. We could live in some exotic locale together--in Surinam, or the Falkland Islands! Oh Sam---"

"No." Denby said quietly. "I won't. And I won't because all of me wants to--wants to say to hell with the consequences and do it--and because you've counted on that with me the same as you counted on that with the others. I'm sending you over, babe. I'm not going to play the sap for you."

Diane looked deep into his Denby's eyes. She sighed, softly. A bitter smile played around her lips as she pulled a ring from her pocket. "I--I was going to give this to you. As a token of our partnership, our friendship--our--our love. I thought this would be a way of celebrating our wonderful romance."

"Keep it," Denby said as he pushed the ring away.

"No, you keep it," she said ruefully as she pressed it into his hand, "Maybe we'll meet again. Maybe you'll give this ring back to me one day--in the next life," she said, smiling up at him tremulously. She kissed him gently on the cheek and turned to the waiting policeman.

"Take her away," Denby said, rubbing his cheek pensively.

After they put her in the squad car and sped away, Denby stopped at a bar and had a couple of scotches. "Like holy wine," he thought to himself. Then he took out the ring Diane had given him. There were some kind of interlocked hearts on the inside. He raised his glass in a toast and said, sardonically, "To the next life, babe."

END