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.
There wasn’t anybody in the room; at least in sight. In another second I was over the sill and inside.
It was a bigger room than the others, several chairs, a table, a bed — I slid across to the bed and pulled a quick old maid; but nobody was hiding there. I crossed to the door. Then I swung around and went over to the window on the side of the building and looked out.
There was a maple there, reaching to the roof. One branch stuck out, almost to the window. It wasn’t a hefty branch; I’d hate to shinny down it, and I’d just put on an act myself that wasn’t so bad. But I figured a slim active guy could manage it, if it was that or the chair.
He could have done it; but — I stood a minute, staring out the window. There was something wrong, somewhere; something that didn’t fit into the picture. I turned back, stared at the floor, thinking. I stooped to look under the bed again, just to satisfy myself.
“Well? Lose something?”
I whirled around. A girl was standing in the doorway. That had been a fast one! I sauntered towards her.
“Just a hairpin. It doesn’t matter.”
She forced a little grin at that — nice lips, they were; but her eyes watched me pretty hard through a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. And now her smile got a little curl to it as she walked in to meet me.
“What did you want it for? Clean a pipe, or just pick a lock?” She halted behind a chair, rested her elbows easily on the back of it, and looked me up and down. “I suppose you know you made a mistake and got in the wrong room?” she said.
I sat down on the bed, took out my cigarettes and lit one, pretty slow, giving her look for look. I was stalling for time. I wanted to size her up, get what there was to get from her; and at the same time I was trying to put together a little puzzle that was working in my mind. She wasn’t hard to look at, for all the glasses and her hair twisted in a knot at the back of her head like a biddy’s on Monday morning. Somehow she looked familiar, but I shoved that off; I can only work on one thing at a time.
I said:
“You’re half right on your supposition, Miss Kelly.”
Her eyebrows rose at that.
“Miss Kelly, eh? Pleased to meet you, Mr.—”
“Burns. William J.”
She had to laugh.
“You don’t go in for false whiskers like most of them, do you?” she said. Then, going back: “So I’m half right, am I? And as this is the wrong room, I take it you didn’t make a mistake in getting into it.”
“Good for Vassar!” I applauded; then I got serious. “How long have you been working here, Miss Kelly?” I asked. Not that I wanted an answer. I was busy thinking.
“Let’s see your tin medal before you start the third degree,” she answers, coolly. “And while you’re about it,” she drawled, when I didn’t make a move, “you might tell me how you happened to get in this locked room. It’d make interesting reading.”
I looked up at her quick. I’d got hold of something.
“Do you know Jobson?” I demanded.
“Let’s see the medal.” She flicked a fly carelessly off her cheek.
“Do you know Jobson?” I repeated it in a monotone.
She was tapping her toe, easy, looking bored-like at the ceiling.
“Let’s see the medal.”
And then, in the same monotone:
“Do you know a murderer was in this room with him?”
She forgets the ceiling at that. Her eyes shot down to mine, big and startled behind her glasses. I could see the color draw out of her cheeks.
“You saw — a murderer — here?” she almost whispered.
“I’m not saying what I saw.” I leaned forward, studying her a moment. She wasn’t faking that horror; that was easily seen. But I wasn’t worrying about that right now. I had a theory, and I was taking a long shot at it.
“Miss Kelly,” I said, slowly and distinctly; “you were in the hall after the cops left with Job-son and another chap — Mr. Bond, the lawyer?”
She hesitated a moment. She swallowed hard; then she nodded, without speaking.
“Now!” I snapped; “answer me this, and answer me right! Did you see another man sneak out of here after they left?”
Again she gave me a long hard stare, like she was doing a lot of thinking. Then, finally, she nodded.
“Yes, I did,” she said, low. “I thought he was one of the party, so—”
I waved explanations away.
“Never mind that,” I said; but I felt a quick thrill. It looked like my guessing was coming out right. “What did he look like?” I asked.
“A medium, thin fellow; white face, big nose; sort of mean little eyes—”
That was a description of Spike Lewis himself. I jumped up.
She drew in her breath. Then she went on. “Listen. I’ve tended to my own business so far. But I can learn a lot of interesting news if I want to, and in quick time.” She thought a moment. “Where are you going to be at eight o’clock?” she asked at last.
“Who knows? Maybe in the morgue with the unidentified bodies.”
She tossed off a polite smile, and then was all serious.
“Listen. Take this number.” I pulled out my note book. “Ashley 2836. That’s a long way from here. I wouldn’t dare give you this number. Phone that number at eight, sharp. If I’m not there, I haven’t any news for you. If I have, I’ll be there.” She stuck out her hand, pal fashion, looking me in the eye. “And I think I’ll be there,” she finished.
We shook.
“Good enough for you, Miriam!” I says, starting down the hall. “I’ll give you a ring.”
I was half way down the next flight when I heard her call. I looked up, and saw her grinning over the banister.
“Believe it or not,” she calls, softly, “it’s Desdemona!” Two minutes later I was in my car and bowling towards town.
I was pretty well pleased with myself as I tore along. I was damned certain who the killer was now; all I had to do was catch him, and catch him with the goods. That may sound hard, and I knew it wasn’t going to be any cinch. But Percy Warren wasn’t being paid easy money for an easy job. When I reached town, I turned off the highway and slowed her up a bit. Then I sat up with a bang.
“Why, you ham sleuth you!” I muttered to myself.
Here I’d been handing myself orchids for snappy thinking. And if I was right, it meant that Jobson, instead of being safe in jail, held as material witness, suspicious character, or whatever the temperamental captain decided on, it meant he’d probably been freed to get himself murdered! I was only about ten blocks from the Bradford Street apartments, but I swung up to the curb by a drug-store, vaulted out, and ran inside to a phone booth.
Jobson answered after a minute’s ringing. I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard his voice.
“Listen, Jobson,” I said when I’d told him who I was, “are you alone there?”
He hesitated long enough so that I knew the answer.
“Yes, I am,” he growled.
“All right,” I snapped; “have it your way. But answer me this: did your little playmate come up the elevator with you, or did he sneak in some other way?”
I heard him suck in his breath. Then he turned and whispered something to somebody. I climbed inside the mouthpiece. There wasn’t any time for fooling.
“Jobson!” I called. “Jobson!”
He came back at that.
“What is it?” he says, sulkily.
“Listen, Jobson,” I says, sharp and quick. “You’re playing with dynamite! You get out of that apartment right away, you understand? That guy’s going to—” I stopped.
There was a curious dxxMplop! in my ear.