- Debby Marsh: [to Bannion] I guess a scar isn't so bad, not if it's only on one side.
- [takes a swig of scotch]
- Debby Marsh: I can always go through life sideways.
- Bertha Duncan: Did Mr. Stone send you?
- Debby Marsh: No. I've been thinking about you and me, how much alike we are.
- [glances at the expensive furs they're both wearing]
- Debby Marsh: The mink-coated girls.
- Bertha Duncan: I don't understand you. What are you here for, Miss Marsh?
- Debby Marsh: Debby. We should use first names, Bertha. We're sisters under the mink.
- Debby Marsh: [to Bannion] The main thing is to have the money. I've been rich and I've been poor. *Believe* me, rich is better.
- Dave Bannion: [having figured out Bertha's blackmail scheme] Our city is being strangled by a gang of thieves, and you protect Lagana and Stone for the sake of a soft, plush life.
- Bertha Duncan: The coming years are going to be just fine, Mr. Bannion.
- Dave Bannion: There aren't going to be any... "coming years" for you. None at all.
- Vince Stone: Hey, that's nice perfume.
- Debby Marsh: Something new. It attracts mosquitoes and repels men.
- Vince Stone: It doesn't work that way with me.
- Debby Marsh: It's not supposed to.
- [they embrace in a lusty kiss]
- Dave Bannion: [to Lagana] You know, you couldn't plant enough flowers around here to kill the smell.
- Tierney: All any of these dames owe me is a night's work, one night at a time. They come and go like flies.
- Dave Bannion: Only this fly got herself strangled.
- Tierney: These things happen, Sergeant. Outside of my place, some of these babes keep pretty shady company. It figures. They know nobody cares much what happens to 'em.
- Debby Marsh: [to Stone about his quick retreat when Bannion threatened him] You made better time getting away than they make in the Olympics.
- Dave Bannion: [about Lucy Chapman] Where did she live?
- Tierney: If I ask for an address, they lie. It's not worth the bother. They're floaters. Not much more than a suitcase full of nothin' between them and the gutter.
- Dave Bannion: Hey, you know somethin'? You ought to be doin' radio commercials - how to talk a lot and say nothin'.
- Debby Marsh: [has just thrown scalding coffee in Vince's face] It'll burn for a long time, Vince. It doesn't look bad now. But in the morning your face will be like mine.
- Debby Marsh: [she dramatically rips the bandages from her scarred face and gets up close to Vince] Look at it. It isn't pretty, is it? You'll walk through side streets and alleys so that people won't stare at you. Oh, but you're lucky. It won't be for long. Bertha Duncan is dead. No more insurance for you and Lagana. The lid's off the garbage can, and I did it!
- Mike Lagana: [on the phone] This is not a social call, Debby. Tell Vince I want him, right away.
- Debby Marsh: Oh, sure, Mr. Lagana, I always like to tell Vince you're calling. I like to see him jump.
- Debby Marsh: [leaving Bannion's hotel room] You really want me to go?
- Dave Bannion: I wouldn't touch anything of Vince Stone's with a ten-foot pole.
- Lt. Ted Wilks: You have any doubt Duncan killed himself?
- Dave Bannion: No, none at all, but I just got back from the county morgue.
- Lt. Ted Wilks: You mean the barfly? I read the teletype about your identification.
- Dave Bannion: Lucy Chapman used to be Duncan's girlfriend.
- Lt. Ted Wilks: And the army's and navy's.
- Katie Bannion: [to Bannion] Your big trouble, honey, is that you attack yourself from all sides, like Jersey mosquitoes.
- Dave Bannion: [to Larry Gordon] I'm through with you, but your friends aren't. I'm going to spread the word that you talked. You're out of business, thief.
- Dave Bannion: [in Bannion's hotel room] You know Mike Lagana, don't you?
- Debby Marsh: Just say hello and goodbye to him. Vince talks business, I go out and get my legs waxed or something. I don't like to hear things. Why don't you stop the cross examination? I didn't come up here to talk out of school.
- Debby Marsh: Vince threw hot coffee in my face. I'm gonna' be scarred. The whole side of my face will be scarred.
- [breaks down sobbing]
- Dave Bannion: Do you mind if I walk around the yard? Talk to your men?
- Atkins: I have to mind. When it comes to my bread and butter, I stay careful.
- Dave Bannion: It doesn't matter to you that Slim might have been mixed up in a murder, huh?
- Atkins: Sure it matters. But what can I do about it? I don't know anything.
- Dave Bannion: You're a liar.
- Atkins: You can't insult me, mister. I said I don't know anything, and that's how it stands.
- Dave Bannion: You know, I've been meeting your kind every day now for ten years - scared rabbits who never see a thing. You wouldn't stick out your big fat neck for anybody, would you?
- Atkins: That's the truth. But it's my big fat neck. So now if you're through talking, I'll get back to work.
- Dave Bannion: [approaches Atkins threateningly] I ought to...
- Atkins: That won't change my story. Cops are paid to take risks. I'm not. You see, I've got a wife and kids, too.
- [Bannion glares at him, then walks away]
- Lt. Ted Wilks: It was bad judgment to bother a cop's widow about the love life of her husband.
- Dave Bannion: Good or bad, it was my judgment.
- Lt. Ted Wilks: You're missing the point. I'm the one that gets the pressure calls from upstairs. I'm the one that has to explain. You don't keep an office like this very long stepping on a lot of corns.
- Dave Bannion: You want me to go upstairs and explain?
- Lt. Ted Wilks: Not you. You're a corn stepper by instinct.
- Dave Bannion: [to Bertha Duncan] That's the way you arranged it, didn't you, bright lady? You got it all put away someplace. That's how you kept Lagana over a barrel. But I'm not Lagana. With you dead, the big heat follows, the big heat for Lagana, for Stone, and for all the rest of the lice.
- Dave Bannion: Hey, what about Joyce? She go to bed all right?
- Katie Bannion: Just the usual tug of war. She had to go to the bathroom a few times, hear three stories, and have a glass of water before she finally went to sleep. She's angelic all day, but at night, she's a holy terror.
- Dave Bannion: That's the way I usually describe you.