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.
“The first thing to do,” he said, “is to see the wife. Tell her you’re going to represent her, see? Let her know I’m on the job, and tell her to keep a stiff upper lip, and to keep quiet, see? Tell her to keep quiet, see?”
Ken Corning folded the money, got to his feet, stood there, signifying that the interview was over.
“Come back when I send for you. Leave your name and address and your wife’s name with the girl in the outer office so I can get my records straight. Leave a telephone number where you can be reached.”
The man turned on the threshold.
“You ain’t in with the ring?” he asked, and there was a note of anxiety in his voice.
Ken Corning reached for a law book, shook his head.
The pneumatic door clicked shut.
Ken set down the law book and fingered the money. He turned it over and over in his fingers. He cocked his head on one side, listening. After a moment he heard the click of the outer door catch. Then Helen Vail was standing on the threshold of the inner office. Her eyes were starry.
Ken Corning waved the money.
“Start an account for that bird, and credit it with a hundred and fifty.”
She was smiling at him when the door opened. Broad shoulders pushed their way across the outer office. From his desk, Ken could see the man as he crossed the outer office. Helen Vail barred the inner office door.
“Whom do you wish?” she asked.
The man laughed, pushed past her, walked directly to Ken Corning’s desk. He flipped back a corner of his coat with a casual hand.
“Who,” he asked, “was the guy that just left here, and what’d he want?”
Ken Corning pushed back the swivel-chair as he got to his feet.
“This,” he said, “is my private office.”
The broad shouldered man laughed. His face was coarse skinned, but the gray eyes had little lights in them that might have meant humor, or might have meant a love of conflict.
“Keep your shirt on, keep your shirt on,” he said. “I’m Perkins from the booze detail. There was a speak knocked over last night. The woman who was running it tried to slip a bribe, and she’s booked on a felony. That big guy was sitting in there, eating chow. He claimed he was a customer. I happened to see him come in here. He looked phoney, so I tagged along. I want to know what he wanted.”
Ken Corning’s voice was hard.
“This,” he said, “is a law office, not an information bureau.”
The gray eyes became brittle hard. The jaw jutted forward. Perkins crowded to the desk.
“Listen, guy,” he said, “you’re new here. Whether you’re going to get along or not depends on whether you play ball or not. I asked you who that guy was. I asked because I wanted to know...”
Corning moved free of the swivel-chair.
“You getting out?” he asked.
The lips of the broad shouldered man twisted in a sneer.
“So that’s your line of chatter?”
“That’s my line of chatter.”
The man turned on his heel, strode towards the door. He turned with his hand on the knob.
“Try and get some favors out of the liquor detail!” he said.
Ken’s tone was rasping. He stood with his feet planted wide apart, eyes glinting.
“I don’t want favors,” he said, “from anybody!”
The broad shouldered man walked from the office, heels pounding the floor. Slowly the automatic door check swung the door shut.
Ken was ready to leave his office, seeking an interview with his client at the jail, when the door of his private office framed the white features of Helen Vail.
“It’s Mr. Dwight,” she said.
“What is?”
“The man who just came in. Carl Dwight. He’s outside. He wants to see you.”
Ken whistled. “Show him in,” he said.
She motioned towards the desk.
“Shall I get you some papers?”
“Not with him. He’s a wise bird. He knows. Shoot him in.”
Helen stood to one side of the door and beckoned. Carl Dwight came in. He walked with a slight limp. His lips were smiling. He had pale eyes that seemed covered with a thin white film, like boiled milk. Those eyes didn’t smile. His skin was swarthy and oily. There was a cut on his forehead, a slight bruise on his left cheek bone.
He wasn’t large, and yet he radiated a suggestion of ominous power. He said, crisply: “I’m busy. You’re busy. You know of me. I know of you. I’ve had my eye on you for the last week or two. You’re a likely looking young man. I want to give you a retainer. Here’s five hundred dollars. That’ll be for this month. There’ll be five hundred dollars more coming next month, and the month after that.”
His gloved hand laid an envelope on the desk.
Ken picked up the envelope. It was unsealed. There were five one hundred-dollar bills in it.
“What,” asked Ken cautiously, “am I supposed to do?”
The gloved hand waved in an airy gesture.
“Just use your head,” said Dwight. “I’ve got rather extensive interests here. You’ve probably heard of me, know who I am.”
Ken Corning chose his words carefully.
“You,” he said, “are reputed to be the head of the political machine in this county. You are reputed to be the man who tells the mayor what to do.”
The filmed eyes blinked. The swarthy skinned man made clucking noises in his throat.
“That, of course, is an exaggeration, Mr. Corning. But I have interests in the county, interests which are rather extensive. Now you can sort of look out for those interests. And, by the way, there’s a criminal case, the matter of a woman who was running rather a disreputable joint, gambling, hooch and all that. Parks was the name, I believe.
“Do you know, I think it might be rather a good thing to have that case disposed of rather rapidly. A plea of guilty, let us say. I’m certain you’ll agree that it’s a dead open and shut case. She tried to bribe an officer. There were witnesses. She gave him fifty dollars. Having such things aired in front of a jury don’t do any good.”
He got to his feet. The swarthy skin crinkled in a smile, a sallow, bilious smile. The filmed eyes regarded Ken Corning with the wisdom of a serpent.
“So now,” he smirked, “we understand each other perfectly. I think you’ll like it in York City, Corning.”
Ken slowly got to his feet.
“Yes,” he said, “I understand you perfectly. But you don’t understand me, not by a long ways. Take back this damned money before I slap your face with it!”
Dwight teetered back and forth on his feet, made little clucking noises with his mouth.
“Like that, eh?” he said.
“Like that,” agreed Corning.
Dwight sneered.
“You won’t last long. You can’t...”
He didn’t finish. Ken Corning reached out with the envelope which he held by a corner, and slapped it across Dwight’s mouth. The filmed eyes blazed into light. The mouth twisted in a snarl. Dwight snatched at the envelope, crammed it in his pocket, whirled and started to the door. He paused on the threshold.
“Wait,” he said, significantly.
And Ken Corning, standing by his desk, feet braced wide apart, jaw thrust forward, said: “You’re damned tooting I’ll wait. I’ll be waiting long after you think you’re finished with me!”
The attorneys’ room in the county jail was a dull, cheerless place. There was a long desk which ran down the center of the room. Above this desk was a heavy wire screen. The prisoner could sit on one side of the desk, the attorney on the other.