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.
“Sure. Some one was going to put him on the spot.” I nodded. It may have been a rather new and unique procedure to the Colonel, but to me it was an old racket — a natural one. A member of a gang no longer able to hold up his end. Body and mind weakened, and the gang afraid that if he was dragged over the coals at police headquarters — denied his drug — he would talk.
But the Colonel was talking again.
“Yes — on the spot. That’s why he told me what he did. He wanted protection; protection I could have given him. Tomorrow I would have put him where they could not find him. In fear that they would get him, he came to me. Now — in fear that he was not safe here, he has lost himself in a great city.”
“It all depends on who THEY are,” I suggested. This running up and down an alley after another guy’s hat was beginning to lose its interest.
“Ah!” The Colonel stroked his chin, pushed me into the living room, indicated a chair and sat down across from me. I took the cigar he offered me, shoved it into my pocket, and lit a cigarette.
“Mr. Williams,” the Colonel said very slowly, as he drummed on the arm of his chair, “would you like to see the city purged of vice and crime — racketeers, and most of all, corrupt officials — crooked magistrates. Yes, and even members of the higher courts perhaps? For the hand of graft can find its way into the pockets of the mighty. It is bad indeed when greed and ambition enter the same brain.”
He was so serious that I tried not to smile as he went on.
“You are a good citizen — a staunch citizen. Wouldn’t you like to feel that you played an important part in cleansing New York’s cesspool — wouldn’t you?”
“At the right price?” I looked straight at him.
His dignity hit him again. The outward chin — the backward neck. I killed his words.
“Before you go on with your altruistic oration, let me spill a bit of chatter.” I leaned forward and gave him what was on my chest. “I daresay there isn’t a big shoe manufacturer who wouldn’t want to see every child in the country wear a pair of his shoes — but he don’t give them away. Henry Ford would like to see every man, woman and child sporting a Ford coupe — but he don’t give them away. It’s business with them. When these men are called upon to give to charity, they make out a check. You never saw John D. Rockefeller alleviate the suffering of the unemployed by giving each one of them ten gallons of gas. But he has given away more money for charitable purposes than any man in the country.
“Now — if you want a man hunter, I’m open for such work. And I expect to get paid for it. If a contractor builds a small house he gets a small sum. If he builds an apartment—. Well — that’s me. I’ll take small pay for a small job and big pay for a big job. If you’re raising a fund to help clean up the city and want me, as a good citizen, to contribute to it — all right. I’ll give you a check, and expect to see ninety per cent of the money go back into that cesspool you were speaking so elegantly about.
“I’m no amateur detective. I’m a hard working, private investigator. I won’t take a job that isn’t straight and don’t interest me. I may be just a common gunman in your estimation, but I’m a big shot in my own — my own line. At least, others think enough of me to pay me well. I don’t know your racket, but I know mine. There. That’s a chestful for me, but it’s gospel. At least I’ve made myself clear — that I’m not doubling for a Saint Patrick and driving the snakes out of New York.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “you’ve made yourself clear. But I expect to pay you. You’re a very conceited man, Race Williams.” And more slowly even, “Undoubtedly a very courageous one also. The man I will want you to face — the man I will want you to deliver a message to is a man who has crushed every one who has stood in his way, politically or financially — and though I can not prove it, I believe that behind him is the greatest villain — the greatest murderer — the—. Here!” He took a folded bit of paper and threw it into my lap.
“Just what price does a big shot like you want, to deliver that message to Joe Gorgon? Stop!” His hand went up as I read the single line on the paper. “The message means nothing to you. But, as God is my judge, I believe that Joe Gorgon would murder, without a moment’s hesitation, the man who delivered that message to him — if he believed, as he must believe, that that man was familiar with its significance.”
“Just hand this to Joe Gorgon — nothing more?”
“No. Repeat the message to him tonight. Say it as if you were giving him some information. Say it loud enough for his friends to hear. Oh... they won’t understand it. Then report to me his reactions to the message.”
“Don’t you think I’ll be blasted right then and there?” I couldn’t help but be sarcastic.
“No, not then and there. Not you — after what I saw tonight.” And his face paled slightly, in memory of the dead gunman, I thought.
“And that’s all you want me to do? When is the message to be delivered?”
“At once — at the Golden Dog. Mr. Myer is keeping the table for your return.”
I looked down at the message again. It seemed simple enough. Cryptic, perhaps. I was thinking of my knocking Eddie Gorgon about, just for amusement. Now — well — this little bit of byplay would only accentuate the animosity of the Gorgons. Besides which, I’d be paid for a hatred that I had already acquired under the head of pleasure.
“And that ends my job?” I asked.
“I hope not. If things are as I believe, I will be able to employ you in the biggest case of your career. The anger of the Gorgons won’t matter to you then. It will already be established after you deliver—. But here. It is not fair — it is not right. You are a man whose business brings him into queer places; the blackness of dismal, deserted city streets in the late hours. Come! Give me back the message. I forget that you saved my life tonight.”
But I closed my fist about that bit of paper as I came to my feet.
“Friend,” I told him, “I’ll hurl this message into the teeth of the devil himself for one thousand dollars.”
“Yes, yes — I believe that you would.” And suddenly, “Done! For after all it is a great step toward a glorious accomplishment. Here.” He took my hand, pressed it a moment and then dragged open a drawer.
I counted the money and pushed it into my pocket. He went on.
“There will be five hundred more if you do it knowingly! As if the message means as much to you as I hope it will to Joe Gorgon — or the man behind Joe Gorgon. The Third Gorgon. Doctor Michelle Gorgon.”
“And that’s the whole show?” I asked him, as we left the room and descended the stairs together.
“No. I would like, if possible, to know where Joe Gorgon goes after you deliver that message.”
“I can arrange that.” I was thinking of my assistant, Jerry. A product of the underworld — a boy I could always count on.
“Good!” said the Colonel. “Telephone me here, then.” And he gave me his phone number. “And, Mr. Williams — would you be willing to,” and he smiled, “at a price, of course, work for me? Work for the overthrow of the Gorgon brothers? Work silently and secretly, to get evidence against them — rid the city of their presence? A big job, a hard job, and a job that must be accomplished before the opposing political forces appeal to the governor for another investigation of the racketeering. One man is responsible for it all — you know that.”