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.
And what did that prove?
I took that thought into a restaurant and chewed on it along with an extra tough steak. It might not prove so much, and then again it might prove a hell of a lot. The more I thought of it, the more I leaned towards the latter idea. It was just short of eight o’clock, and jumping up, I paid my check, went out to the nearest drugstore, and put in a call.
Desdemona herself answered the phone.
“Listen, Mr. Warren.” She spoke in a whisper, her lips close to the mouthpiece. “I’ve learned something. I know who did it and I know where to find him. Have you got a car?”
“She’s champing right outside here.”
“Well, listen. Can you drive out now and get me? I’m on Milton Boulevard in a drug-store. Number 1038.”
I whistled.
“That’s a hell of a long ways out, Juliette,” I said.
“Well,” she answered, “if you’re interested in landing this fish—”
“Right you are!” I cut in. “I’ll motor right along. But listen, lady!” I added quick. “You park yourself there, understand? Maybe I’ll put in a call or two for you on the way!” And I hung up, went out and whipped up the steed.
While I bowled along at a good pace, I kept my eyes peeled, watching particularly the traffic coming the other way. It must have been two miles out that I realized I was nobody’s fool.
The car — a high-powered bus — was coming slow. Over the headlights I could just make out a half dozen men’s heads, all turned to peer at the traffic going my way. Then they came alongside me.
I just had time to see six pair of eyes staring at me, to see one thin white face with a long nose — the face of Spike Lewis that decorates the front page of our papers so often — to hear a quick exclamation from all of them. Then they were way behind me, and I was working Elizabeth up to sixty. I gave a quick glance around.
The big car was swinging around. I turned front and tended to business.
The traffic was medium thick about now. For a couple of miles there weren’t any side streets, so the cars were buzzing right along, with nothing to hinder them. But I got Elizabeth going full steam and left the most of them pretty much standing still. After a minute or two I gave another look behind me.
Boy, was that bus eating up the road! In that quick eyeful I could see it charging down on me, a powerful looking baby, with a half dozen heads peering forward. I had the same chance of pulling away from her as if I was on foot with the gout. But I tore on for a bit longer.
Then I eased up, as much as I dared. Fifty. Forty-five. Forty. I can hear those lads now, roaring behind me. I saw one long chance, and I took it.
The road was clear all around me, except for a car ahead. I eased her some more, until I could near feel the hot breath of that bus, so to speak, on the back of my neck. Then, all at once, I clamped down on clutch and brake.
It all happened in a flash. There was a zipp! as that juggernaut went shooting past; six tense faces turned towards me; the loud crrrackrack-rack! of a machine-gun and a plop! as the tail end of the burst hit my fender. I went shooting in a crazy wide arc across to the left hand side of the road, up on the sidewalk, passing the lamppost on the wrong side; but not before, from the corner of my eye, I saw the poor innocent bozo in the car that was ahead of mine, suddenly slump in his seat.
I came down off the sidewalk — lucky it was low here — without stopping, and gave a look around. The car with the dead man had crashed into another, and the crowds were already pulling up to see the fun. Nobody noticed me; if they did, I suppose they figured I was getting out of the way and that it was the dead man they wanted. The juggernaut was probably a mile away by now, and I figured it would keep right on going. I glanced at a house number.
1104. I’d come a bit beyond where I was heading for. In another minute I was drawing up at the drug-store number 1038 and climbed out.
Desdemona Kelly met me at the door, pale and fidgety.
“You got here all right, I see,” she said in a low voice.
I hauled up the eyebrows in the right fashion.
“Why shouldn’t I?” I asked.
“Why — I just thought — it seemed like I heard some shooting up the line,” she answered, weaklike.
“Oh that.” I shrugged. “Just some Chicago confetti. It seems they were after a guy in the car ahead of me — and got him. Got his wife and baby too,” I added, to make the story good.
Desdemona turned all white at that.
“The wife and baby?” she whispered.
I led her out to the car.
“Why not?” I murmured. “The baby might shake a rattle at them. Brave lads like that can’t take chances.” I steered her in, climbed inside myself, and we started off for town. I passed her a fag and we both lit up.
“Mr. Warren,” she said, slow and low, “I suppose you think I’m as good as a — as a murderer.”
“Depends on how good the murderer is,” I answered, easy, snapping my butt into the street.
“You think,” she went on, “I worked this racket.”
“Do I?” I murmured. “Tell us some more, Portia.”
“What you going to do?” she asked, after about a mile.
“Eat, dance, then back to the Stopover Inn a day or two—”
She sucked in her breath quick.
“Ain’t you... ain’t you—” she commenced; and then she stopped.
“Afraid of meeting some of the boys?” I finished. “That’s just what I’m hoping for. You see, Jessica, it just happens that I’ve got information that Lewis — or whoever the hell did the killing — was trying to double-cross the gang. That’s why he bumped old Fuller off!”
She stared at me hard at that. Somehow it seemed that her face — under the drug-store blush — went white again. She didn’t say a word. Just looked and looked at me.
We got back to the Stopover and found the place all dark. Desdemona slipped out the car first to get the lay of the land, claiming she didn’t want to be seen in my company. Then she came back to the door, wig-wagged me an “all’s well,” and I climbed down and went in after her. There was one green-shaded lamp lighted in the lobby, over the desk, and the pimpled-faced lad was sprawled under it, fast asleep.
Desdemona turned with her finger to her lips.
“Good night,” she whispered; blew me a kiss, and disappeared in a back room. I waded up the dark stairs, two flights, turned down the corridor to room 317. I shut and locked the door, and then pulled it open without bothering to turn the key back.
The bolt had been taken out of the lock.
“Oh, ho!” thought I; “there’ve been villains at work!” And I shut the door and shoved the flimsy washstand in front of it, just in case. I pulled out my little toy, gave it a quick loving once-over, and stuck it back in my pocket. Then I stood before the window, stripped to the waist, slipped on my pajama jacket, turned out the light, and got dressed again. After which I went over to the open window and looked out.
It was mighty dark outside, but not so dark that I couldn’t make out something I’d noticed this afternoon — a little roof, about two feet wide (probably over a bay window below) running from just beneath my window to the window of 319. It was a flat roof, I found when I stepped outside; it was mighty simple to slip over to the next room. I pulled open that window, soft and wary. I stood a second, out of gun range, ears cocked. Then I climbed inside.
I slipped over to the bed, ran my hand lightly over it. It was empty. I’d been pretty sure the room wasn’t taken. According to the keys on the board downstairs, I seemed to be about the only guest in the hotel. I crossed to the door, settled myself and waited.