The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
- Автор: Anderson Lars, Barr Randolph
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Vintage Books
- ISBN: 978-0-307-28048-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps». Краткое содержание книги:
Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train — a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best.
“You’ll have to tell her,” Shaley said.
“Me? Oh, — no! No. I don’t want to. You tell her, Mr. Shaley.”
Shaley said: “I can’t.”
The short man stared at him. “I got to tell her. And she thought he was so swell. She gave him most of her wages.” He rubbed his hand across his mouth. “Oh, — ! That poor kid.”
Shaley turned around and walked away. He was swallowing hard.
When Shaley came up and peered through the big iron gate, Mandy and the chauffeur were looking into the engine of the Rolls-Royce much in the same attitude as before.
“It’s a wrist-pin,” Mandy said. “I’m telling you it’s a wrist-pin.”
Shaley said: “Mandy.”
Mandy came over and opened the gate. “You’re like a depression,” he told Shaley sourly. “Always popping up when people don’t expect you. What do you want now?”
“I want to see Van Bilbo.”
“He’s in his office. They’re just gettin’ ready for some re-takes on that saloon scene. What’s the matter with you, anyway?”
Shaley said: “I just saw a kid that was murdered. He was a little rat and a chiseler and a liar, but he had a swell sister. She trusted me, and I let her down. I’m going to talk to Van Bilbo and then I’m going to start something. Stick around.”
He walked along the road, his feet crunching in the gravel.
The chauffeur looked at Mandy. “Screwy?” he inquired.
Mandy was squinting at Shaley back. He shook his head slowly.
“No. He gets that way when he’s mad. And when he’s mad, he’s a great big dose of bad medicine for somebody.”
Shaley turned around the corner of a barnlike building and was in a short dusty street with false-fronted sets on each side. There were board sidewalks and a couple of big tents that had saloon signs in front of them.
There were saddled horses tied to a long hitching-rack. There were men in fringed buckskin suits with coonskin caps and long rifles, and men in big sombreros wearing jingling spurs on their boots and big six-shooters in holsters at their waists, and men clad in black with high stovepipe hats. There were girls in low-necked dresses, and girls in calico and sun-bonnets.
A man up on a wooden tower that held an arc lamp was yelling angrily at a man on the ground, who was yelling back at him just as angrily. Two carpenters were having a loud argument in front of a saloon door. Another man had a long list in his hand and was running around checking up on the costumes of the extras. At the side of the street three men had a camera apart, examining its interior gravely.
Shaley walked along the middle of the street, went into a small wooden office building at the far end. He walked down a dusty corridor, knocked on a door that had a frosted glass panel with a crack in it running diagonally from corner to corner.
A voice said: “Come in.”
Shaley opened the door and went into a small, cubby-hole of an office.
Van Bilbo was sitting behind the desk. Van Bilbo was a small, thin man. He was bald, and he wore big horn-rimmed glasses that gave him an owlish look. He always reminded Shaley of a small boy making believe he was grown up.
“Hello,” he said shyly, peering over his glasses at Shaley.
“Do you remember me?” Shaley asked.
Van Bilbo shook his head, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I meet so many people... I don’t remember...”
Shaley shut the door and sat down in a chair. “I’ll tell you a story — a true one. One time there was a man who was a racetrack driver. He cracked up badly, and his nerves went haywire. He couldn’t drive any more. He came out to Hollywood, hoping to find something to do. He didn’t. He went broke. One day he was standing outside a studio. He’d pawned everything he owned but the clothes he wore. He was hungry and sick and pretty much down. While he was standing there a director came along. The director gave that man a ten-dollar bill and told him to go get something to eat. He gave the man a work-slip and let him work as an extra for a month, until he got on his feet again. I was that man, and you were the director. I don’t forget things like that.”
Van Bilbo made flustered little gestures. “It... it was nothing... I don’t even remember...”
“No,” said Shaley. “Of course you don’t. You’ve helped out plenty that were down and out and plenty that were in trouble — like Big Cee.”
Van Bilbo repeated: “Big Cee,” in a scared voice.
Shaley nodded. “That wasn’t very hard to figure out, knowing you. She used to work for you a long time ago. She was in a jam. She called on you to help her out, and you did. She was running a joint in Cleveland. She got in wrong with some politicos, and they closed up her place. She was sore. She got hold of some affidavits that would look mighty bad in a court record. She skipped out here, intending to hide here and shake the boys back in Cleveland down for plenty. But they didn’t want to play that way. They sent a guy after her, and he biffed her.”
Part of this Shaley knew, and part he was guessing; but he didn’t have to guess very much; with what he knew, the rest was fairly obvious.
Van Bilbo was staring at the door with widened eyes. Shaley turned to look.
A shadow showed through the frosted glass — a hunched, listening shadow.
Shaley slid the .45 out of his shoulder-holster and held it on his lap, watching the shadow. He went on talking to Van Bilbo:
“That was what happened and everything would have been closed up now and over with, only you and a bellhop, by the name of Bennie, put your fingers in the pie. Big Cee got scared somebody might be after her, and she called you in and gave you the affidavits to keep for her. Bennie saw you leaving her room, and, being a chiseler by trade, he got the idea that he might shake you down a little. He was curious about Big Cee, and he kept on watching the room. He saw the murderer go in and out. Then when he found out Big Cee had been knocked off, Bennie thought he was on easy street for fair.”
Shaley paused, watching the shadow. The shadow was motionless.
“Bennie planned to put the squeeze on both you and the murderer. He made a bad mistake as far as the murderer was concerned. This murderer wasn’t the kind of a boy to pay hush money. He’s a dopey and a killer. Bennie found that out and went undercover while he tried to get in touch with you through me. The murderer was looking for Bennie. In the first place, Bennie knew too much, and in the second place the murderer didn’t want Bennie putting the squeeze on you for fear you’d get scared and turn those affidavits over to the police.”
The shadow was moving very slowly, getting closer to the door.
Shaley went on quickly: “The murderer was trailing Bennie’s sister, trying to locate Bennie. He trailed the sister to me. He used my name to get the sister to give him Bennie’s address. He killed Bennie. But he hasn’t got those affidavits yet, and he wants them. He paid your chauffeur to quit, so he could get his job and be close to you without anybody getting suspicious. Come on in, baby!”
The glass panel of the door suddenly smashed in. An arm in a plum-colored uniform came through the opening. A thin hand pointed a stubby-barreled revolver at the two men inside.
Shaley kicked his chair over backwards just as the revolver cracked out.
Shaley’s big automatic boomed loudly in the small room.
There was the pound of feet going quickly down the hall.
Shaley bounced up, kicked his chair aside, jerked the door open.
The thin form in the plum-colored uniform was just sliding around the corner at the end of the hall. Shaley put his head down and sprinted.
He tore out through the door into the street in time to see the plum-colored uniform whisk through the swinging doors of the saloon.