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.
Hansard jerked his head toward the Coffee Pot. “Parked in front of the scoff-shop down there. Might be some of the boys inside got an idea where it came from, but I doubt it. This was the same outfit who were supposed to be riding around in a green Buick sedan. The truck was probably stolen, half an hour ago.”
“I’ll drop in the lunch counter.” The sergeant bent over to get a good look at the girl’s face. “This dame didn’t work this part of town. I’ll guarantee that.”
“Might not be from New York at all.” Mike’s face was stern. “But the fingerprint boys’ll find out. This mob that knocked her off has gone kill-crazy. If we don’t put the clamps on ’em—”
“Yeah.” The sergeant pulled out his report book. “They might’ve holed in, right close by here. We’ll give this precinct a going over. Don’t worry about that. I knew Tom MacReady. He was a right cop.”
“One of the best,” Mike agreed.
The other officer ran out of the hockshop. “Tunnels and ferries and bridges all blocked. There’ll be an ambulance here in a couple of minutes.”
“Thanks.” Mike stepped over the girl’s body. “Get something to cover that up, will you? I’m going inside a minute. I’ll stick around till Homicide gets here, anyway.”
Chapter Three
Lily Doesn’t Work Here Any More
Inside old Elias was blubbering incoherently, in a frenzy of fear. Sol was still trying to calm him. Mike spilled the contents of the girl’s bag out on the counter-top. Lipstick, cigarettes, gum, an address book full of phone numbers, a couple of old letters without the envelopes, a purse, some hairpins and a few keys.
Mike opened the purse. There was a roll of bills, a couple of dollars in silver. He tossed the currency across the counter.
“Tear up that ticket, Sol. Here’s the dough. Lemme have the ring.”
The younger Litzman took the money as if it was a scorpion, went to the safe. Mike pawed over the miscellany on the counter, put the stuff back in the bag. The letters were addressed to Dearest Daughter and were signed Mama. There wasn’t anything in them to tell who the daughter was, or where she lived or anything about her except that her mother was glad she was so well and happy with her work.
The names in the address book were Phils and Johns and Pauls and Bobs — no women. Most of the phone exchanges were in the midtown office section.
Tucked away in the back of the book, where he hadn’t noticed it before, was a little piece of blue paper about three inches long and an inch wide. It was a remitter’s receipt from the American Express Company for a money order. It was for twenty bucks, was made out to F. O. Marshal, signed by L. Marsh.
He went over to the telephone, worked the dial. After a second Schmidt came on.
“Ed? Saw some wood for me, will you?... Yeah... I want to know who L. Marsh was. The skirt who was with the two who put the burn on MacReady. They just fixed her up with a slug, too. L. Marsh is the name. I don’t know anything about her except she’s a five-buck floozie. But she sent an express money order to someone named F. O. Marshal on April twenty-second. Number is 1317522. Get me an address, Ed... Yeah, I’m still at Litzman’s.”
Outside the ambulance slid to the curb with bell clanging and bloodshot headlights. The emergency intern came in and swabbed off Mike’s cheek with something that stung like fire.
“Y’oughta come back to the hospital. Have this treated right, officer.”
“Later, maybe. Just do your stitch-in-time stuff, Doc. I got a rush job on hand.”
The intern got out the needle.
Sol brought the ring to the plainclothesman while the suture was being threaded into the flesh of Mike’s cheek.
“It ain’t the plate glass, Mr. Hansard, or the damage inside the shop here. But nobody’ll come near us now. A thing like this’ll ruin us, honest. Especially if it gets out that the poor girl was borrowing a little money from us and got murdered like that, right after. Couldn’t you tell those newspaper men that it was accidental, that she just happened to be in front of our place of business...”
Mike couldn’t talk back. He mumbled, “No,” as well as he could.
“There you are, Officer.” The intern slapped gauze and collodion over the wound. “Come around in a couple days and have it dressed.”
“Sure.” Hansard grinned lopsidedly. “That’ll be fun.”
The intern went out to help put the girl’s body on a stretcher.
Sol held out his hands, despairingly, to Mike. “Suppose those killers come back. Maybe they’ll think Papa and I could identify them.”
“They know damn well I can. So they’ll come after me first. Long as I’m alive you don’t have to work up a sweat about it. There’s your phone. Maybe that’s Ed Schmidt.”
It was. “Jeeze Mike, I just got the news over the short-wave. They get you bad?”
“Only a scratch, Ed. You get that address?”
“Yeah. I don’t know if it’s the right one. But the Express people say Lily Marsh lives at Four-seventy-eight West Seventy-second Street. Know what that is?”
“Riding academy, Ed?”
“That’s what they tell me. I wouldn’t know. I’m a married man, myself. But you’re white, single and over twenty-one, so—”
“Go to hell, Eddie. Any other stuff come in?”
“Not from hockshops. Word about the truck.”
“What?”
“Picked up what was left of it on West Forty-eighth. They’d folded it over a hydrant. Bloodstains on the upholstery of the driver’s seat. You must’ve nicked one of ’em.”
“I hope. That wouldn’t even up the score, either. Any report from that stupe in the Ames Patrol?”
“Yeah. He’s got Dumont down at the store. Want me to cover it?”
“No. Stick to that phone for the time being. I’ll have a look at the Marsh hangout and then run down to Dumont’s.”
The Homicide boys rolled up in two black cars, brought out their print kits and cameras, questioned Mike for a few minutes. Then he left them there, with the assistant medical examiner making chalk marks around the body. He got to his car, tramped on the button up through Central Park, turned west at Seventy-second.
The ground floor of Number 478 was occupied by a glorified lunch counter, with shiny red-leather stools and lots of chromium and glass brick. There was a big neon sign flashing over the door. Every couple of seconds the crimson-and-green tubing proclaimed — THE MEATING PLACE... Where Gourmets Gather...
There was a little hallway off at one side, a row of letter boxes with name cards in them. None of the cards bore the name of Marsh or Marshal.
Mike went up a carpeted flight. At the head of the stairs, behind an oval marble-top table, sat an enormously fat woman in a black lace dress. Her eyes peered out slyly from puckers of pink flesh. There was no way of telling where her chin ended and her bosom began. She patted a crown of permanent curls with pudgy fingers covered with diamonds, and leered ingratiatingly.
“Evening, sweetheart. Which one of the girls did you wanna see?”
Mike grinned amiably. “Lily Marsh. She in?”
The madame’s lips made an O! “She ain’t, honey. But maybe you’d like t’ make the acquaintance of a cute little redhead. She’s—” The fat woman stopped and squinted at the gold badge Mike was holding in the palm of his hand. Then she giggled. Her jowls shivered with merriment. “You’re a man who can take a joke, aren’t you, Officer? I like a man who can stand for a little kidding once in a while.” She reached down, pulled up her skirts, brought out a wad of bills from its stocking hideout.
Hansard waved a hand. “Once in a while. But not tonight. Which is Lily’s room?”
She put both hands flat on the marble, levered herself erect. “You ain’t gonna get rough, or anything like that, are you?”
“Not unless I have to.” Mike’s smile was still agreeable but his eyes were frosty. “Which room?”
“Front, right.” The stout woman pointed. “Want a key?”
“I don’t want to kick the door down.” He held out his hand. From somewhere in the folds of her dress she produced a flat key. “Just sit right down there again. Act natural. Don’t bother to tip off anybody. Just go right on as if I wasn’t around. Probably in a few minutes I won’t be.”
“I always play ball, Officer. It’s the safest way.”
He went toward the front of the house, used the key. He kicked the door open, stood to one side. The room was pitch-dark, the shades were drawn in the windows looking down onto the street, although through them Mike could see the dull claret glare of the MEATING PLACE sign at regular intervals. There was an odor of musky perfume.
He held his gun in his right hand, felt around for the light switch with his left. An unseen hand gripped his left wrist, jerked him off balance!
Mike wrenched himself free, but not before a two-foot length of lead pipe had smashed down across the back of his neck, half stunning him. He crashed forward, to his knees. A foot stamped savagely on his gun-hand, crunching the knuckles. The shoe, which had come within the detective’s blurred vision, booted the revolver out of his grasp.