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.
“I am not surprised,” he said. “Some fun, chum!”
“Some fun,” Nick said. “But this may surprise you. I was just talking with Captain Malta of Army Intelligence. He told me that your friend Colonel Venner is dead.”
“Dead?” Wing said, in a whisper.
“Yes. I’m sorry, Eddie. He’s dead. Make. He was murdered last night. They found his body today at noon. I don’t have any details.”
Eddie Wing’s face became hard. “Tough, Nick. He was a swell guy. Good medico. And the culprit?”
“Anonymous and at large.”
Eddie Wing said slowly, after a long breath: “Guess I’d better talk. I had lunch with Colonel Venner yesterday. He was scared. He mentioned your name. He had never met you. But he was familiar with your work in Cairo, where he had been stationed before the war. Not only familiar, he was fervent concerning it. He said he wished you were here. I mentioned that you were, that I had the dope on your location in Molokai. He asked for it. And thus it began. Yowzuh.”
Nick sat down. “There’s an angle here,” he said. “Maybe we can talk something out of it. Eddie, you’ve got to use the old bean. Remember everything. Did he say anything which might give us a clue to this message he sent? Please think about it.”
“You are going to continue with the case, sweetheart?”
“What else can I do?” Nick said. His voice was hard. “The man was depending upon my help. No one else seems to have had any word of it. I can’t just let it ride. If he meant what he said, something rotten is breeding. If he was a friend of yours, I can’t take his message lightly. I’ve got to work on it.”
“He was murdered for his pains,” Wing said.
“Oh hell, that part of it doesn’t bother me,” Nick said. His chin began to point out a little. “I’ve never been afraid and God knows there have been more things to fear than men in the pest-holes of the earth.”
“You’ve got something there,” Wing said. “O.K., Nick, can do. Hiki no. Now get this. Dr. Venner was disturbed at luncheon. Greatly disturbed. I didn’t ask him what was none of my affair, but presently he told me that he had unearthed a ghastly business. What were his words? ‘If I don’t break this thing cleanly, every mother’s son in Oahu will walk in the valley of death within two days.’ A very close translation.”
“What did you suggest?”
“I suggested that perhaps his problem was meant for the Army Intelligence, and I pointed out the impossibility of a single man attempting to handle a threat of such proportions. But he disagreed with me. He was afraid that the Intelligence might muddle it, and that if it were ever muddled, the result would be catastrophic.” Wing blinked. “Boy, can I sling the lingo!”
“He should have confided in either the Intelligence or the police,” Nick said. “As a result we’re left with our hands tied. You can be too secretive. Look at this blank wall we start from.”
“He was afraid of panic.”
“Panic?”
“Panic. Mob panic.”
“How could he have — Eddie, look here. Did he say anything — anything — as to how he found it out — what it was—”
“No,” Eddie Wing said. “He didn’t trust me with such information. But whatever it was, it was real to him. He could barely eat.”
Nick pounded his fist into his hand and stalked around the room. It didn’t help much. My God, he thought desperately, I want something to work with!
“I have been thinking,” Eddie Wing said. “John was very close to his aide, Bertram Woolton, a sergeant. From Brooklyn. Not a medico. Maybe the sergeant—”
“Good. We’ll get in touch with him at once. The Schofield Barracks?”
“Yowzuh. Sergeant Woolton was on Venner’s staff at the Stafford Hospital. I think he drove the car and such.”
“Will you drive out with me?”
Dr. Wing studied him very carefully. “No,” he said finally. “No can do, Nick.”
“Eddie, you’re not afraid?” Nick scoffed.
“Who, me? No, palsy. Got another date.”
Nick said, nodding: “I’ll drive out alone. If this doesn’t give us anything, we’ll have to work backwards from Venner’s body. That’s outright detective work and doubtless the trail won’t be any too fresh. But I’ll do what I can.”
“O.K.,” Eddie Wing said. “But look, Nick. Be very careful and don’t forget for an instant that Colonel Venner is dead as a red herring from following this same road you’re starting on.”
“I’ll remember,” Nick said.
Chapter Three
The Day Before Doomsday
The Stafford Hospital was located out in Wahiawa, east of the barracks and Wright Field. Nick Adams was taken pleasantly by the sight of it, for it was a fresh and new building, impressive in architecture and set against an excellent job of landscaping, the lawns studded with giant palms. He went in and stopped at the information desk and asked if he could see Sergeant Bertram Woolton.
The reception nurse was a big-boned, pink-faced woman with straight hair and a strong jaw. The plaque on her desk said Miss Farrar. She smiled very faintly and remarked: “Then you would be Dr. Nicholas Adams of the Cardwell Institute?”
“That’s correct,” Nick said, surprised. “How the devil—”
“We expected you, Doctor. Captain Malta is at the hospital, and wishes to see you. I was to send you in to him when you arrived. I believe he’s in the waiting room on the second floor. As for Sergeant Woolton, Doctor, he isn’t in the hospital. He is not a medico, as you may be aware. He is simply on Colonel Venner’s staff, an aide-de-camp,” she explained.
“Any idea where I might locate him?”
“Probably at the barracks.”
“Thanks very much,” Nick said. “I’ll give it a try.”
“You won’t forget Captain Malta?”
“I’ll go right up and see him.”
Nick passed her desk to the elevator without another word. He was impressed. Of course Captain Malta had been in touch with Eddie Wing in some way and had learned he was going out to the Stafford. But even so, they rather kept track of him. Considering they were the right people, he was not displeased at all.
On the next floor he found a gentleman writing on a small scratch pad in the waiting-room. It was obviously Captain Malta, in uniform. He was quite an elderly man, his eyebrows dead white, his hair white, his skin coppery. His face was characteristically long and mild where it should have been severe, but his gray eyes were shrewd and sharp and his mouth had a wry practical twist.
“Captain Malta?”
“Dr. Adams, I believe. A real pleasure for me, Doctor.”
They shook hands. Nick said, with a smile: “You don’t look like your voice, Captain. Glad to meet you.”
“Sit down,” Captain Malta said. “Why did you come out here, Adams?”
“Same reason as you,” Nick said. “Only how did you know I was coming?”
“Oh, that. Dr. Wing called and asked for police protection for you. Naturally they called me out here to report it. Anything to do with the Venner case comes to me. Did you know you had a sergeant of police on your trail?”
“Not in the slightest!” Nick said, surprised. “Damn Eddie, so that was the engagement he had! I can take care of myself, Captain.”
“I should have thought Colonel Venner could take care of himself too.”
Nick shrugged off the inference.
“Now, Doctor,” Captain Malta said, “are you after Woolton?”
“Yes.”
“So am I. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were after you. He’s not at the barracks. So I imagine he’s downtown and moving rather cautiously after what happened to Dr. Venner. You and I have some things to talk about. There are elements here beyond me. Here is the picture as I have been able to gather it together. First, I have not located the gentleman who posed as Venner and I haven’t the faintest notion what his purpose would be.”