I made a considerable dent in the bourbon reserves of three bars. Maybe I couldn’t quite walk a straight line after that, but I was still thinking up a storm and getting nowhere. I switched to Calvert’s the way the ads tell you, with no better results. I thought maybe if I got in touch with Doc Kincaid and asked him for a list of people who had answered his questions I’d be able to find out if the killer had broken his code. It seemed like a fine idea, but I wasn’t buying any of that, either. It was the professional way to go about things and it might bring results in a month or two or twenty, but I didn’t have the time. I’d drink myself into an alcoholic ward long before that.But Tad Barrett might like the idea and might be able to do more about it with a whole staff of trained operatives.Jason Chase, you are a genius. You must drink to this brilliant idea. You must. You will. But the barman shook his head.“What do you mean, I’ve had enough?”“I mean, I don’t think you ought to take another. Not here.”“That’s ridiculous, my good sir.
Stephen Marlowe, Model for Murder
drinking, drunk