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Captain Al Gregory
The wife of racketeer Eddie Mars, Mona tells herself that her criminal husband doesn’t have blood on his hands. Mona hides after the disappearance of Rusty Regan to support Eddie’s lie that she and Rusty ran off together. In reality, Eddie helped Mrs. Regan hide Rusty’s body after her younger sister, Carmen Sternwood, killed him. When private detective Philip Marlowe finds Mona’s hiding place, she helps him escape Eddie’s hired thug Lash Canino. Marlowe calls her “Silver-Wig,” after the wig she wears to hide her cropped hair, which she cut off to prove her loyalty to Eddie.
Mona Mars Quotes in The Big Sleep
The The Big Sleep quotes below are all either spoken by Mona Mars or refer to Mona Mars. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 20 Quotes
He’s got friends in town, or he wouldn’t be what he is.
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Chapter 21 Quotes
Eddie Mars would have been very unlikely to involve himself in a double murder just because another man had gone to town with the blonde he was not even living with … If there had been a lot of money involved, that would be different. But fifteen grand wouldn't be a lot of money to Eddie Mars. He was no two-bit chiseler like Brody.
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Chapter 28 Quotes
Once outside the law you’re all the way outside. You think he’s just a gambler. I think he’s a pornographer, a blackmailer, a hot car broker, a killer by remote control, and a suborner of crooked cops. He’s whatever looks good to him, whatever has the cabbage pinned to it. Don’t try to sell me on any high-souled racketeers. They don’t come in that pattern.
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Chapter 30 Quotes
Being a copper I like to see the law win. I'd like to see the flashy well-dressed mugs like Eddie Mars spoiling their manicures in the rock quarry at Folsom, alongside of the poor little slum-bred hard guys that got knocked over on their first caper and never had a break since. That’s what I’d like. You and me both lived too long to think I’m likely to see it happen. Not in this town, not in any town half this size, in any part of this wide, green and beautiful U.S.A. We just don’t run our country that way.
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Mona Mars Character Timeline in The Big Sleep
The timeline below shows where the character Mona Mars appears in The Big Sleep. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 11
Smiling, Mrs. Regan says Eddie ought to help her out as Mars’s wife ran away with her husband Rusty. Marlowe is uninterested, saying he doesn’t think Rusty is...
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Chapter 13
Marlowe asks Mars how Mars’s missing wife is. Annoyed, Mars tells Marlowe to leave, and not to mention his name in any...
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Chapter 20
...but no one saw him leave. The car was later found in a private garage, Eddie Mars’s wife ’s garage. It seems they disappeared around the same time.
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Marlowe asks for a photo of Eddie Mars’s wife , but the police don’t have one. Gregory offers Marlowe a picture of Rusty instead....
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Gregory’s theory is Mars’s wife and Regan ran off together, as they never found her car. As such, he says...
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...little more, and asks if he really thinks Eddie Mars killed both his own wife (Mona) and Rusty. Marlowe agrees with Gregory that the two missing people likely ran away together.
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Chapter 21
...Gregory that Mars is probably too smart to kill both Rusty and his own wife (Mona) out of jealousy.
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Chapter 25
...Marlowe doesn’t believe him. Jones says Regan was a good man and in love with Mona Mars, Eddie’s wife. The way Jones talks tells Marlowe the grifter has brains and the...
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For the $200, Jones tells Marlowe he can tell him where Mona Mars is now. That gets Marlowe’s attention. Jones says Mona never ran off with Rusty,...
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...Marlowe then sits in his office thinking it through, wondering why Captain Gregory hadn’t found Mona yet. Maybe he hadn’t tried, he wonders, as the rain falls.
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Chapter 27
Agnes recounts seeing Mona Mars driving with Canino in the car a couple weeks ago. Agnes was with Joe...
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Chapter 28
Mona Mars doesn’t like it when Marlowe tells her he knows who she is. She says...
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Marlowe takes in the room as he tells Mona that Eddie killed Rusty. She asserts that Eddie isn’t like that. Marlowe accuses her of...
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Mona becomes angry, repeating that Eddie is not a killer. Marlowe says Eddie orders Canino to...
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Mona leaves the room and returns with a knife. She cuts the ropes holding Marlowe down,...
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Marlowe can stand but still has his hands cuffed behind his back. He tells Mona to leave with him, but she tells him not to waste time. He calls her...
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Marlowe tries to convince “Silver-Wig” to go with him, but she won’t. The detective warns Mona that Canino might kill her, but she says she’s still his boss’s wife. Marlowe says...
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Chapter 29
...Art as he goes back to his car in the pouring rain. He thinks about Mona, who hid to protect Eddie, whom she loves. He also thinks through how Canino likely...
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The front door opens, and Mona steps out, with Canino holding a gun to her back. Mona screams and says she...
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...him. Marlowe shoots him four times and Canino falls to the ground, dead. Standing near Mona now, Marlowe begins to laugh maniacally. Mona asks if he had to kill Canino, stopping...
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Chapter 30
...has heard all about Marlowe’s encounter with Canino. The Captain asks who told Marlowe where Mona was hiding, and Marlowe tells him about Jones. Gregory says maybe he ought to have...
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Gregory says maybe he left Eddie and Mona to “play a little game like that.” Marlowe says he hadn’t thought about that, even...
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...that Regan will likely appear sometime soon. The Captain explains that Eddie confessed to hiding Mona to the police the previous night, but Eddie had said he hadn’t realized that Canino...
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...smart” by telling the police everything about his encounter with Canino. Marlowe explains he and Mona had filed statements and the police let Mona go.
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...back to the previous night, when he had driven to District Attorney Wilde’s place with Mona and told the police the whole story. He had taken them to Jones’s office to...
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Chapter 32
...Rusty was and didn’t want the police to find out, which is why he hid Mona to create a useful diversion. Mrs. Regan says she’s bored.
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...his bed. Once back in town, Marlowe hits a bar and drinks Scotch, thinking about Mona.
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