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.
McGovern took his arm above the elbow and gave him a push.
“Listen, guy, I told you I wasn’t interested in all that stuff. Are you going to tell me where you got the plates or where you’ve got the rest of this queer cached?”
Ken Corning’s eyes narrowed.
“Okey,” he said, “I tried to give you the breaks and you wouldn’t listen. Now I’ll take a look at your credentials before I leave this place.
McGovern grinned easily and dropped his right hand to the side pocket.
“Gee,” he said, “you sure are full of alibis and stalls. Come on and let’s get going. This is all in the day’s work with me and I want to get home and get my beauty sleep. You can stall all night, but you can’t keep me from taking you to jail and booking you on a charge of possession of counterfeit money. If you want my authority, here it is.”
Ken felt something hard prodding against his ribs. He glanced down to where the right hand of McGovern was holding the gun concealed by the right-hand side pocket of his coat. He said: “Oh, it’s like that, is it?”
McGovern said: “Yes, guy, it’s like that. You’re going to take it and like it. Get started out of here. You’ve got counterfeit money in your possession and there are witnesses that you tried to pass it. You can either go quietly or you can get your insides blown out right here. Which is it going to be?”
Ken grinned and said: “Under the circumstances, I guess I’ll go quietly.”
McGovern said: “Now you’re talking sense. You can’t gain anything by talking any other way. I’m on the square and I’m going to take you in, but I ain’t going to stand here all night and listen to a lot of hooey and I ain’t going to have you pull any smart aleck stuff on me. Get started!”
Corning moved towards the door. He noticed that the man who had worn the white carnation was moving towards the door also and that the man who had been with the red-haired girl was walking with him. The red-haired girl moved off towards the left and went into the women’s dressing room. The man who had worn the white carnation lit a cigarette. He seemed in no hurry. Ken Corning went out of the door painfully conscious of the pressure of the gun which was held against his ribs. The doorman looked at them and said: “Taxicab?”
McGovern shook his head and said: “No, I’ve got a car.”
The big limousine which had been parked near the curb with motor running slid smoothly up to the front of the cabaret and stopped. The doorman started to open the door and McGovern spoke sharply: “That’s all right,” he said, “I’m a Federal dick and this man is a prisoner. He’s desperate and may try to start something. Keep back, I’ll handle this!”
He reached out and opened the door. His gun prodded Ken in the ribs. “Get in,” he said.
Ken put his right foot on the running-board of the limousine. He could see two men seated in the back seat. They were grinning. Ken swung his body in a pivot, grabbing with his left hand at the gun which McGovern was holding against his ribs and pushing down with all his strength.
McGovern fired twice before Ken’s fist connected with his jaw. Neither shot hit. Somebody shot from the interior of the limousine but the bullet hit the plate-glass window, shattered it into a thousand fragments and deflected. McGovern went down like a sack of cement. Ken swung himself on him and reached for the gun. Over his shoulder he could see the swirl of motion from the interior of the limousine. A man jumped to the running-board while Ken was still struggling for the possession of the gun. Ken heard him say: “All right, guy, take a load of this!”
Two shots roared out as though they had been one explosion. The man who had stood on the running-board of the limousine pitched forward and struck on his face. Ken jerked the gun from the pocket of McGovern and saw that the man in the dinner jacket was standing on the steps of the cabaret, an automatic in his hand. The man who had been with the red-haired girl was standing on the sidewalk a little bit to one side with a double-action revolver spouting fire. The doorman was running heavily, his gold-braided coat flapping grotesquely behind him. The limousine had lurched into motion. Somebody was rolling down the back window, which had not been shattered. Guns blazed over Ken’s head. A bullet whistled past his cheek. The two men standing in the front of the cabaret answered the fire.
Ken got McGovern’s gun in his hand and took a couple of shots at the limousine. He heard the bullets give forth a clinking sound as they struck against the metal of the body. The limousine swung far over to one side as it rounded the corner to the accompaniment of screaming tires.
The man in the dinner coat ran towards Ken as McGovern, recovering from the daze of Ken’s blow, started to struggle to his feet.
Ken said: “Those men were trying to take me for a ride. This guy posed as a Federal agent...”
McGovern spoke up and said: “I am a Federal agent. This crook’s been shoving the queer. He’s got a wallet of phoney stuff on him right now.”
The man in the dinner coat laughed and said: “Federal, hell! I know you, you’re Jim Harper, and you’ve done time!”
A uniformed policeman, on beat, ran up. The man in the dinner coat spoke to him sharply: “All right, Bell. Get the crowd back. I’ll handle what’s left of this.”
A curious crowd was commencing to form a ring around the men, and the uniformed policeman started to herd them back.
The man in the dinner coat said: “That’s all right, buddy, I know this guy, he’s a crook. You’re a witness in the Parks case, huh?”
Ken Corning stared at him with round eyes and shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I’m not a witness, I’m attorney for Mrs. Parks and I came here to meet a witness but he didn’t show up.”
The man in the dinner jacket stared at Ken Corning for a long five seconds. Then his right eyelid slowly closed in a solemn wink: “So,” he said, “that’s your story, eh?”
Ken Corning kept his face perfectly straight and his eyes perfectly steady. “That,” he said, “is my story and I’m sticking to it. I’m not a witness, I’m a lawyer. I was to meet a witness here. These guys tried to keep me from meeting him, that’s all.”
The man in the dinner coat said: “Who were they? Would you recognize any of them if you saw them again?”
Ken Corning shook his head.
“No,” he said, “the light wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t see them.”
The man in the dinner coat turned to the fake Federal agent. Ken Corning slipped away. No one tried to stop him. There was the sound of a police siren, approaching fast, as he turned the corner.
Ken Corning walked into his office.
The morning sun streamed in at the east window. Helen Vail stared at him with eyes that were dark with emotion, warm with pride.
“Got your name in the papers, didn’t you?”
He grinned at her.
“How about our client?” she asked.
He spread his hands, palm up, made a sweeping gesture.
“Gone. Case is closed, dismissed.”
“And all we get then is the hundred and fifty dollar retainer?”
Ken nodded.
“That’s all. The woman was driving the car. Her husband wasn’t with her. I figured that he must have been, but he wasn’t. Dike and Dwight had been having a secret meeting. They’d been out in the country at a roadhouse where they were safe. Coming back they were riding in the same car. Dike was driving and he was a little bit ‘lickered.’ The woman was driving the flivver and they had a smash. She was a little bit belligerent and insisted on taking down the license number of the automobile. They paid her for her damage but she acted a little suspicious so Dwight got the license number of her automobile and found out who she was. They knew that she was running a speak, and figured that she was too dumb to know what it was all about, but they wanted her out of the way, just the same. With the deal Dike was planning to pull, it would have been fatal if somebody had uncovered this woman as a witness, so Dwight decided that he’d get her convicted of a felony. That would have discredited her testimony if she’d ever been called as a witness.