Private Eye on the Weather

Business has been slow for hard-boiled private detectives since Hammett, Chandler and Macdonald checked out. Now Elmore Leonard is gone too, and Lawrence Block says he's breaking the pencil, leaving Matt Scudder out in the cold.

So several of the private eyes--aging and unable to take as many slugs on the head as they used to, packing walkers instead of gats--have moved into broadcasting. Let's tune in and hear Philip Marlowe, who works now as a weather forecaster.

"It's colder than a grifter's heart out there. Sunny, yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful and cold, like a dame I knew. And that wind--goes into you like a shiv's ice pick.

"Watch out for flurries of snow--naw, not that kind of snow, the legit stuff. And in the morning, these mean streets could be layered in black ice like a floozy's pancake makeup, slick and tricky as a con artist's spiel.

"Okay, that's the weather, chumps. Stay tuned for my amigo Sam Spade with the sports news. Sam's still after the falcon. But this time, it's the Atlantic Falcons. Sam, baby, you'll do better putting your bucks on another bird--the Seattle Seahawks."