The novel starts with the protagonist, Philip Marlowe, going to a barber shop on private-detective business, but he ends up seeing a large man “not more than six feet five inches tall and no wider than a beer truck” going into a bar called Florian’s. The large man throws another man through the doors; Marlowe goes over to see what’s going on. The large man says he threw out “A dinge,” meaning an African-American person. Marlowe says that “[i]t’s that kind of a place,” so “[w]hat did you expect?” (5). The man says that it couldn’t have always been that kind of place because his beloved “Velma used to work here. Little Velma” (5).

The large man hasn’t seen Velma in eight years and has not heard from her in six, and he’s on a mission to find her. The man forces Philip to come into the bar with him, but Marlowe says, “They won’t serve you. I told you it’s a colored joint” (6). The big man ignores Marlowe’s warning, and the two go into the bar together, despite being strangers.