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 laid them out on the desk. “All here but one,” he announced. “I got that one in my pocket already.”
“They wanted three thousand dollars for the lot,” Kutwik murmured, resentfully. “Claimed they’d brought it over from Naples and smuggled it in.”
“Don’t give me any of that guff.” Hansard scooped up the jewelry, dumped it in his coat pocket. “You knew where it came from. Probably you bought it, at that.”
“Oh, I deny it, absolutely. I asked for time to make an appraisal.”
“Did, eh? Tell me why a crook should trust you with five or six thousand dollars’ worth of rocks. Unless, of course, they’d done business with you before on the same basis.”
The fence arched his eyebrows, superciliously. “I am a reputable dealer. I wouldn’t be likely to run away.”
“Not unless you could make a dollar by doing it. All right. When were these rats coming back for their cheese?”
“Tomorrow morning, Officer.”
“Didn’t they leave any address, anyplace you could get hold of them?”
Kutwik looked startled. “Why do you ask me? You have them under arrest, haven’t you?”
“I didn’t say so, mug. But I’ll have you in a cell in no time at all, unless you answer my questions.”
The jeweler groaned. “They mentioned a Nevins Street number. Over in Brooklyn 24781, if I remember correctly. But they were most particular that I shouldn’t attempt to contact them.”
Hansard wrote it down. “O.K., mister. I’ll get over there and give a gander. You better close up shop now.”
“I’d intended to.”
“One more thing.” Mike reached for the phone, dialed Spring 7-1000. When he got the switchboard man, he rattled off: “Hansard talking, hockshop squad... I’m up at 9744 Lenox Avenue. Jewelry store. Nathan Kutwik. Got that? The phone is Edgecombe 7-0741. Put a tap on the wire, right away, will you? Want a record kept of all conversations, numbers called, the works.”
He hung up with the operator’s comment still ringing in his ears. “What’s the matter with you, Hansard? You know we got to get a court order before we do any wire-tapping.”
Mike started for the front door.
“Where you live, Kutwik?”
“At the Concourse Savoy. On the Grand Concourse.”
“You better beat it right up there. Stay there till I give you a ring.”
The jeweler unlocked the door. “You won’t double-cross me, Mr. Hansard. After my helping you, this way?”
The detective clucked derisively. “Tchk, tchk. You’re a guy should talk about double-crossing! I’ll promise you nothing except an even break. And you won’t get that if you don’t keep your nose clean from here on in.”
Chapter Five
Ten Carats of Lead
He went out, swung briskly past Schmidt, without speaking. After he’d gone halfway down the block, he flailed one arm in a come-on motion without turning around. His partner got it, slid the car up alongside.
“No dice, huh, Mike?”
“Plenty dice. I got the junk in my pocket.”
“Ain’t you going to arrest Kutwik?”
“Not yet, Ed. I’m not sure he’s really working with these choppers. But we’ll find out. You stick here, at this end of the block. I’ll drive around to the other end. We tail him. If he comes your way, I’ll see him and pick you up. If he heads my way, you’re on your own. You better check in with H.Q.”
Hansard dropped his partner, drove on around the block. The lights at the Kredit Korner were just going out as he hit the end of the street. A minute later the jeweler stepped out of the door. He glanced cautiously up and down the block, hurried toward Schmidt’s corner. Mike followed with the car, keeping well behind him.
Kutwik turned down Seventh Avenue. By the time Mike saw Ed Schmidt, the fence was nowhere in sight.
“That yellow,” Schmidt snapped. “Headin’ downtown. That’s him!”
Mike grunted. “He’s taking one hell of a roundabout route to get to the Concourse, isn’t he?”
Through the northwest corner of Central Park, they trailed the taxi to a short crosstown block between Columbus and Broadway. Mike stopped the coupe before the taxi ceased moving. When Kutwik got out of his cab and scanned the street, there was no indication anyone had been trailing him.
The jeweler paid off, hurried into a three-story brownstone house.
Schmidt said: “That’s one of those remodeled joints with a couple of apartments on each floor. How do we know which one he’s in?”
“We don’t, Eddie. You stay here. Collar him if he comes out. If you get rough about it, nobody could blame you. Cuff him to the wheel and then hit the hall. Wait there until you hear a racket, somewhere. That’ll be me. If you don’t hear a rumpus in a couple of minutes, make one yourself and get some help.”
“How’ll you know where to head in, Mike?”
“I’ll have to pull a Peeping Tom act. Up the fire-escape, at the rear. If he’s not in one of the rear flats I’ll go to the roof and come down inside.”
“Don’t climb into some dame’s room by mistake, pal.”
Mike told him to go to hell, got around back past a row of ash cans, using his flash, found the iron ladder leading up past the rear windows.
There were lights on all three floors. The voices on the first floor were female, those on the second an old man and a child.
But when Hansard put his ear to the window on the top floor he heard Kutwik say: “I don’t want any part of it, Babe. I don’t mind running a few legitimate risks. But this hot-squat stuff is too much for me.”
The high-pitched voice of the Babe cut in. “You soft-bellied—! What do you think you can do about it now?”
“All I want is my money back. I’ll give you the stuff. You can get rid of it outside the state.”
The Babe cursed him obscenely. “You got as much chance of getting back that grand as you have of staying in the clear if George or I get picked up, Nate. The junk was worth three thousand, any way you wanted to figure it. You chiseled us down to one and now you want to welsh on that.”
“All right.” Kutwik sounded tired. “Forget the cash. Come up tomorrow and take the junk back. I don’t want it. It’s too hot for me. I’d rather take the loss and throw the stuff down the sewer.”
“Why didn’t you bring it with you tonight, if you’re so damn anxious to get rid of it?”
The jeweler said: “I don’t want to touch it again. Much less carry it around where they could frisk it off me. You come up in the morning and get it. If you don’t, I’ll heave it in the river. I’m telling you.”
Mike squatted on the fire-escape and grinned sourly as he patted the bulge in his pocket where the rings were. The old buzzard was still after that reward, figured that by getting Babe and the Gorilla to return to the Kredit Korner in the morning, he’d square himself with the authorities and be able to claim at least a part of the twenty-five hundred. He wouldn’t miss the thousand bucks he’d paid over to the Babe so much, then.
There was no more talking from within. Somewhere in the apartment a door slammed. Mike got out his jack-knife, went to work on the catch of the window. It was a gamble, busting into a crook’s flat this way. But it would be even more of a gamble if he and Eddie tried to crash the front door. And maybe this rear window wasn’t being watched.
It wasn’t. He slipped the catch with the blade, put his fingers on the pane, pushed up gently. The window came up with no noise. He got out his gun, shoved the shade aside, stepped quietly over the sill. Then he closed the window softly. The Babe might notice a draft from an unaccustomed source.