The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories
- Автор: Adams Cleve F., Babcock Dwight V.
- Год: 2010
- Язык: английский
- Год: A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
- ISBN: 978-0-307-45543-7
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
Black Mask was the apotheosis of noir. It was the magazine where the first hardboiled detective story, which was written by Carroll John Daly appeared. It was the slum in which such American literary titans like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler got their start, and it was the home of stories with titles like “Murder Is Bad Luck,” “Ten Carets of Lead,” and “Drop Dead Twice.” Collected here is best of the best, the hardest of the hardboiled, and the darkest of the dark of America’s finest crime fiction. This masterpiece collection represents a high watermark of America’s underbelly. Crime writing gets no better than this.
“I didn’t mean to, at first. I didn’t, really. I meant what I told you, but when I saw Floyd couldn’t be frightened, I—”
Spade shook her roughly. He said: “That’s a lie. You asked Miles and me to handle it ourselves. You wanted to be sure the shadower was somebody you knew and who knew you, so they’d go with you. You got the gun from Thursby that day — that night. You had already rented the apartment at the Coronet. You had trunks there, and none at the hotel, and when I looked the apartment over I found a rent receipt dated five or six days before the time you told me you had moved in.”
She swallowed with difficulty, and her voice was humble:
“Yes, that’s a lie, Sam. I did mean to, if Floyd — I... I can’t look at you and tell you this, Sam.” She pulled his head farther down until her cheek was against his cheek, her mouth by his ear, and whispered: “I knew Floyd wouldn’t be easily frightened, but I thought that if he knew somebody was shadowing him, either he’d— Oh, I can’t say it, Sam!” She clung to him, sobbing.
Spade said: “You thought Floyd would tackle him, and one or the other would be killed. If Thursby was the one, then you were rid of him. If Miles was, then you could see that Thursby was caught, if he didn’t go away then, and you’d be through with him. That it?”
“Something like that.”
“And when you found that Thursby didn’t mean to tackle him, you borrowed the gun from him and did it yourself. Right?”
“Y-yes.”
“And then you thought Thursby would be nailed for the killing.”
“Yes, and... and they’d hold him at least till after Jacobi had come and I’d had a chance to get the falcon.”
“And you didn’t know then — you didn’t even suspect — that Gutman was here hunting for you; or you wouldn’t have wanted to shake your gunman. You knew Gutman was here when you learned Thursby had been shot. Then you knew you needed another protector, so you came back to me. Right?”
“Yes, but, oh! Sweetheart, it wasn’t only that. I would have come back to you sooner or later. From the first instant I saw you I knew—”
Spade said tenderly:
“You’re an angel. Well, if you get a good break, you’ll be out of San Quentin in twenty years, and you can come back to me then.”
She took her cheek away from his, drawing her head far back to stare up at him without comprehension.
He was pale. He said tenderly: “I hope to — they don’t hang you, precious, by that sweet neck.” He slid his hands up to caress her throat.
In an instant she was out of his arms, back against the table, crouching, both hands spread over her throat. Her face was wild-eyed, haggard. Her dry mouth opened and closed. She said in a small parched voice: “You’re not—” She could not get more words out.
Spade’s face was yellow-white now. His mouth smiled and there were smile wrinkles around his glittering eyes. His voice was soft, gentle. He said:
“I’m going to send you over. The chances are you’ll get off with life. That means you’ll be out again in twenty years. You’re an angel. I’ll be waiting for you.” He cleared his throat. “If they hang you I’ll always remember you.”
She dropped her hands and stood erect. Her face became smooth and untroubled except for the faintest of dubious glints in her eyes. She smiled back at him, gently.
“Don’t, Sam, don’t say that even in fun. Oh, you frightened me for a moment! I really thought you — You know you do such wild and unpredictable things that—” She broke off, thrust her face forward, and stared deep into his eyes. Her cheeks and the flesh around her mouth shivered, and fear came back in her eyes. “What—? Sam!” She put her hands to her throat again and lost her erectness.
Spade laughed. His yellow-white face was damp with sweat and, though he held his smile, he could not keep softness in his voice. He croaked:
“Don’t be silly. You’re taking the fall. One of us has got to take it — after the talking Gutman and Cairo will do. They’d hang me sure. You’re likely to get a better break. Well?”
“But... but, Sam! You can’t! After what we’ve been to each other you can’t—”
“Like hell I can’t.”
She took a long, trembling breath. “You’ve been playing with me? Only pretending you cared? You didn’t, at all? You didn’t... you don’t... l-love me?”
“I think I do,” Spade said. “What of it?” The muscles holding his smile in place stood out like wales. “I’m not Thursby. I’m not Jacobi. I won’t play the sap for you.”
“That is not just,” she cried. Tears glistened in her eyes. “It’s unfair. It’s contemptible of you. You know it was not that. You can’t say that.”
“Like hell I can’t,” Spade said. “You came into my bed to stop me from asking questions. You led me out for Gutman and Cairo yesterday with that phoney call for help. Last night you came here with them, and waited for me outside, and came in with me. You were in my arms when the trap was sprung, so that I couldn’t have gone for a gun if I’d had one on me, and couldn’t have made a fight of it until too late if I had wanted to. And, if they didn’t take you away with them, it was only because Gutman’s got too much sense to trust you except for short periods when he has to, and because he thought I’d play the sap for you and, not wanting to do anything to hurt you, I couldn’t do anything to hurt him.”
Brigid O’Shaughnessy blinked her tears away. She took a step toward him and stood there looking him in the eyes, straight and proud.
“You’ve called me a liar,” she said. “Now you’re lying. You’re lying if you say that, in spite of anything I’ve done. Down in your heart you don’t know I love you.”
Spade made a short, abrupt bow. His eyes were becoming bloodshot, but there was no other change in his damp and yellowish, fixedly smiling face.
“Maybe I do,” he said. “What of it? I should trust you? You who arranged that nice little trick for — for my predecessor, Thursby? You who knocked off Miles, a man you had nothing against, in cold blood, just like swatting a fly, for the sake of ruining Thursby? You who’ve never played square with me for half an hour at a stretch since I’ve known you? I should trust you? No, no, darling. I wouldn’t do it, even if I could. Why should I?”
Her eyes were steady under his, and her hushed voice was steady when she replied:
“Why should you? If you have been playing with me, if you do not love me, there is no answer to that. If you did, no answer would be needed.”
Blood streaked Spade’s eyeballs now, and his long-held smile had become a frightful grimace. He cleared his throat huskily and said:
“Making speeches is no damned good now.” He put a hand on her shoulder. The hand trembled. “I don’t care who loves who. I’m not going to play the sap for you. I won’t walk in Thursby’s and Jacobi’s and God knows who else’s footsteps. You killed Miles and you’re going over for it. I could have helped you by letting the others go and standing off the police the best way I could. It’s too late now. I can’t help you, and — I wouldn’t if I could.”
She put a hand on his hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t help me, then,” she whispered. “But don’t hurt me. Let me go away now.”
“No,” he said. “I’m sunk if I haven’t got you to hand to the police when they come. That’s the only thing that can keep me from being sunk with the others.”
“You won’t do that for me?”
“I won’t play the sap for you.”
“Don’t say that, please.” She took his hand from her shoulder and held it to her face. “Why must you do this, Sam? Surely Mr. Archer wasn’t as much to you as—”