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.
“Want to sell your forty percent, Berryman?” he asked in a cold tone.
The second glanced towards Gus. Hurry followed the glance with contempt in his eyes. Gus yawned and reached for a cigarette. Berryman shook his head.
“It’s a gamble,” he said shakily. “He might take Bolley — then my cut would be worth plenty. Or he might get licked and go hitting the sticks again. It’s a gamble.”
“Once in a while,” Hurry said slowly, “I like to gamble. Twenty-five grand for your forty.”
Berryman looked at Gus again. The moon-faced one stopped tapping his foot on the wood of the floor, leaned across the table and got big fingers around the gray-striped tie that the second wore. He jerked Berryman’s shoulder and head towards him.
“You dirty liar!” he snapped coldly. “You don’t hold a cut on that slugger!”
Berryman’s face got white. Gus Monkly got to his feet, shoving back his chair. The blond girl swung around and kept her left arm low.
“You be good!” she warned. “I’ll give you the works quicker than hell—”
Hurry Lassen raised his right hand and closed the fingers. He struck without much effort, but the blow sounded as though Berryman’s jaw was broken. The second slipped off the right side of his chair and hit the wood of the speakeasy heavily. Beyond the swinging doors someone swore loudly; there was the metallic sound of a bar dropping against steel.
Gus kept his beady eyes on the girl. He didn’t speak. Hurry got up from his chair and wiped his right-hand knuckles with the fingers of his other hand. On the floor, Berryman groaned.
The girl said: “He had that comin’, Hurry. How about Gus?”
A man with a mop of black hair swung open the doors and started to talk. Hurry turned around and the man stopped talking. He said, after a few seconds’ silence:
“Hell — I didn’t figure you were in, Hurry. I was in back when you—”
Lassen nodded his head and smiled. “Keep that bar on the door until I get through,” he said.
The waiter stood back of the polished wood and kept his eyes on Hurry. Gus looked at the girl.
“Take that rod off me, Edna,” he breathed. “I don’t get this slamming down—”
Lou Berryman pulled himself to his feet, and kept his hands over his face. Hurry said sharply:
“Burke!”
A medium-sized man with gray hair and a brown-skinned face came in through the swinging doors. Hurry smiled at him, but kept his eyes on Berryman.
“Get Berry’s rod,” he ordered. “Take him in back and stay with him. Let him wash his face, but don’t let him use brains. That is, if he has any.”
Burke elbowed the second away from the table. Hurry Lassen said pleasantly to Gus Monkly:
“Sit down — put your hands out where I can see them. Keep that rod in your lap, Edna. I got a question you didn’t hear the first time. You didn’t hear it — and Berry didn’t have the right answer.”
Gus Monkly lifted an empty beer glass with fingers that didn’t shake, and tried to moisten his thin lips. He set it down and smiled at Hurry.
“You can’t get a cut in on Pardo — not by slugging,” he said.
Hurry leaned his broad shoulders and big head across the table surface. He said coldly:
“The beer racket got too tough for you, Gus. And when you pulled out you left me holding the bag. We needed guts and guns — and you took a little of each with you. You cost me money. I figured on getting some of it back. I’ll gamble for it. Twenty grand for a forty percent cut-in on Pardo.”
Gus swore. “You just offered Berry twenty-five grand,” he stated grimly.
The round-faced one grinned. “He didn’t have it to sell,” he replied. “And it was different — five minutes ago.”
The manager shrugged. “If Pardo loses to Bolley, he won’t be worth twenty grand to you. I don’t get it all, Hurry. The big boy gets his share.”
The girl laughed. Hurry kept on grinning.
“I’ll bet you treat him square,” he said mockingly. “You get sixty percent of what’s left after you settle with him, Gus — I get forty. That guy you said got twenty — he don’t. I’ve got a good shyster we can get tonight — he’ll fix the papers.”
Gus narrowed his little eyes on Lassen’s. He shook his head.
“What I’ve got of that palooka — I’m keeping,” he said slowly. “I don’t owe you anything, Hurry. I played with you — and I quit clean. I dug up Pardo. He’s dumb as hell. What he knows, I taught him.”
The blonde chuckled. “And he’s still dumb as hell!” she muttered.
Hurry nodded agreeably. “Just the same,” he said quietly, “I’ve got a hunch he’s going to take Bolley.”
Gus shook his head. “We may pick up a few grand in the sticks, after Bolley takes him,” he said. “But you’d be making a bad buy-in, Hurry.”
Hurry lighted a cigarette, and started tapping the floor with a foot again. Gus was getting nervous. The girl said:
“Take him in back and give him the works, Hurry. He’s lyin’ — and he’s yellow. He got me this slug in the arm—”
The moon-faced one shook his head. He smiled at the manager.
“You were slow shiftin’, Kid,” he said. “Gus used to be real fast at the wheel. We got out of places in a hurry — when Gus was workin’ with us.”
There was a little silence. The blonde shifted around and swore.
“Giant Pardo looks good,” she said. “I’ve seen a flock of big boys. Get your cut, Hurry. Gus is a rat.”
The manager swung on the blonde. “The next slug won’t get you in the arm, Edna,” he stated coldly. “You hate out loud. Not so good.”
Lassen frowned. “Gus is all right, Kid,” he told the girl. “It would be just too bad if his big boy didn’t get inside the ropes with Bolley.”
The manager sat back in his chair and kept his eyes on Hurry’s. His hands were on the surface of the table, near the beer glass.
“If anything happens to Pardo — I’ll know who made it happen,” he said slowly.
Hurry tilted his chair away from the table and looked pleased with himself.
“Sure — but will you be able to prove it?” he mocked.
Gus sucked in his breath sharply, leaned forward and spoke in a hard, low voice.
“You keep off, Hurry. I’m square with you. I’m gamblin’ on the Giant — and I’m playin’ it alone. You stay outside, see?”
The big man leaned back and nodded. He spoke in a pleasant voice.
“You got a week to fix me up, Gus. I’m staying near here, and Callahan can tell you where. I’ll see that he does. I’m paying twenty grand for a forty percent share of your take on Giant Pardo. I don’t care how much your take is. It’s plenty, I know that. I’ll gamble that your boy gets the big shot with the champ. If you don’t see it my way—”
He shrugged. Gus’s voice got a little high.
“You lay off Pardo!” he said. “If you fix him so he can’t—”
He stopped as Hurry shoved back his chair slowly and got to his feet. The blonde threw a neck piece over her left arm and hand, got up. She said softly:
“Better be good, Gus. You might be takin’ the count yourself. It ain’t so easy to get over the ropes—”
Gus Monkly spoke through lips that were pressed together.
“I ain’t inside the ropes—”
Hurry Lassen said from a spot beside the swinging doors:
“No? Well, do some thinking, Gus.”
He went outside. The girl followed him. The waiter came around and looked at Gus.
“How about the drinks?” he asked.
The manager paid for them, got up and went into the back room. Burke was gone; Berryman was holding a wet rag to his jaw. He said thickly: