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.
He was a good-looking devil, if you cared for his type of good looks — and women usually did. Then later on, they always found out how wrong they’d been. They were only a sideline with him, anyway; they were apt to get tangled around a guy’s feet, trip him up when he least expected it. Like this little — what was her name now? He actually couldn’t remember it for a minute, and didn’t try to; he wouldn’t be using it any more now, anyway. She’d come in handy, though — or rather her life’s savings had — right after he’d been cleaned at the Longchamps track. And then holding down a good job like she did with one of the biggest jewelry firms on the Rue de la Paix had been damned convenient for his purposes. He smiled when he thought of the long, slow build-up it had taken — calling for her there twice a day, taking her out to meals, playing Sir Galahad. Boy, he’d had to work hard for his loot this time, but it was worth it! He unwrapped the little tissue-paper package in his breastpocket, held the string of pearls up to the light, and looked at them. Matched, every one of them — and with a diamond clasp. They’d bring plenty in New York! He knew just the right fence, too.
The guff he’d had to hand her, though, when she first got around to pointing out new articles in the display cases, each time one was added to the stock! “I’d rather look at you, honey.” Not seeming to take any interest, not even glancing down. Until finally, when things were ripe enough to suit him: “Nice pearls, those. Hold ’em up to your neck a minute, let’s see how they look on you.”
“Oh, I’m not allow’ to take them out! I am only suppose’ to handle the briquets, gold cigarette cases—” But she would have done anything he asked her by that time. With a quick glance at the back of M’sieu Proprietor, who was right in the room with them, she was holding them at her throat for a stolen moment.
“I’ll fasten the catch for you — turn around, look at the glass.”
“No, no, please—” They fell to the floor, somehow. He picked them up and handed them back to her; they were standing at the end of the long case, he on his side, she on her side. And when they went back onto the velvet tray inside the case, the switch had already been made. As easy as that!
He was all dressed, even had his hat on the back of his skull, but he’d left his shoes off, had been going around in his stocking feet, hence the catlike tread. Nor was this because he intended beating this cheesy side-street hotel out of his bill, although that wouldn’t have been anything new to his experience either. He could possibly have gotten away with it at that — there was only what they called a “concierge” on duty below until seven, and at that he was always asleep. But for once in his life he’d paid up. He wasn’t taking any chances of getting stopped at the station. He wanted to get clear of this damn burg and clear of this damn country without a hitch. He had a good reason, $75,000-worth of pearls. When they said it in francs it sounded like a telephone number. Besides, he didn’t like the looks of their jails here; you could smell them blocks away. One more thing: you didn’t just step on the boat like in New York. It took five hours on the boat train getting to it, and a wire to Cherbourg to hold you and send you back could make it in twenty minutes. So it was better to part friends with everyone. Not that the management of a third-class joint like this would send a wire to Cherbourg, but they would go to the police, and if the switch of the pearls happened to come to light at about the same time...
He sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up his right shoe. He put the pearls down for a minute, draped across his thigh, fumbled under the mattress and took out a tiny screwdriver. He went to work on the three little screws that fastened his heel. A minute later it was loose in his hand. It was hollow, had a steel rim on the end of it to keep it from wearing down. He coiled the pearls up, packed them in. There was no customs inspection at this end, and before he tackled the Feds at the other side, he’d think up something better. This would do for now.
It was just when he had the heel fitted in place again, but not screwed on, that the knock on the door came. He got white as a sheet for a minute, sat there without breathing. Then he remembered that he’d left word downstairs last night that he was making the boat train; it was probably the porter for his wardrobe trunk. He got his windpipe going again, called out in his half-baked French, “Too soon, gimme another ten minutes!”
The knocking hadn’t quit from the time it began, without getting louder it kept getting faster and faster all the time. The answer froze him when it came through the door: “Let me in, let me in, Bebe, it’s me!”
He knew who “me” was, all right! He began to swear viciously but soundlessly. He’d already answered like a fool, she knew he was there! If he’d only kept his trap shut, she might have gone away. But if he didn’t let her in now, she’d probably rouse the whole hotel! He didn’t want any publicity if he could help it. She could make it tough for him, even without knowing about the pearls. After all, she had turned over her savings to him. Her knocking was a frantic machine-gun tattoo by now, and getting louder all the time. Maybe he could stall her off for an hour or two, get rid of her long enough to make the station, feed her some taffy or other...
He hid the screwdriver again, stuck his feet into his shoes without lacing them, shuffled over to the door and unlocked it. Then he tried to stand in the opening so that she couldn’t see past him into the room.
She seemed half-hysterical, there were tears standing in her eyes. “Bebe, I waited for you there last night, what happen’? Why you do these to me, what I have done?”
“What d’ya mean by coming here at this hour?” he hissed viciously at her. “Didn’t I tell you never to come here!”
“Nobody see me, the concierge was asleep, I walk all the way up the stairs—” She broke off suddenly. “You are all dress’, at these hour? You, who never get up ontil late! The hat even—”
“I just got in,” he tried to bluff her, looking up and down the passageway. The motion was his undoing; in that instant she had peered inside, across his shoulder, possibly on the lookout for some other girl. She saw the trunk standing there open in the middle of the room.
He clapped his hand to her mouth in the nick of time, stifling her scream. Then pulled her roughly in after him and locked the door.
He let go of her then. “Now, there’s nothing to get excited about,” he said soothingly. “I’m just going on a little business trip to, er—” He snapped his fingers helplessly, couldn’t think of any French names. “I’ll be back day after tomorrow—”
But she wasn’t listening, was at the bureau before he could stop her, pawing the boat ticket. He snatched it from her, but the damage had already been done. “But you are going to New York! This ticket is for one! You said never a word—” Anyone but a heel like Babe Sherman would have been wrung by the misery in her voice. “I thought that you and I, we—”
He was getting sick of this. “What a crust!” he snarled. “Get hep to yourself! I should marry you! Why, we don’t even talk the same lingo!”
She reeled as though an invisible blow had struck her, pulled herself together again. She had changed now. Her eyes were blazing. “My money!” she cried hoarsely. “Every sou I had in the world I turned over to you! My dot, my marriage dowry, that was suppose’ to be! No, no, you are not going to do these to me! You do not leave here ontil you have give it back—” She darted at the locked door. “I tell my story to the gendarmes—”