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.
Sherman just looked at the two objects, white and still. The night had thrown back the evidence he had tried to get rid of, right into his very teeth! There were two executions waiting for him now, the tall knife at Vincennes, the electric chair at one of the Federal penitentiaries — and though he could only die once, what consolation was it that only by one death could he cheat the other?
The captain said: “He’s as good as dead already! Take him down below and keep him under double guard until we can turn him over to the Federal authorities when we reach Quarantine.”
Sherman stumbled off in the middle of all of them, unresisting. But he did crack up completely when the captain — just as they were taking him inside — folded a yellow wireless message and showed it to the chief officer. “Funny part of it is,” he heard him say, “this came in not fifteen minutes ago, from the New York City police authorities, asking us to hold this man Fowler for them, for blackmail, for preying on people on ships and trains, impersonating a detective abroad. The badge is phony, of course. If our friend here had kept his hands off him for just a quarter of an hour more—”
Sherman didn’t hear the rest of it. There was a rush of blood to his ears that drowned it out, and the laughter of the Furies seemed to shriek around him while they prodded him with white-hot irons. All he knew was that he was going to die for a murder that could have been avoided, in order to cover up one that otherwise would quite probably never have been revealed!
The House of Kaa
Richard Sale
A prolific writer for the pulps, Richard Sale (1911–1993) also wrote such successful novels as Lazarus #7 (1942), Passing Strange (1942), Not Too Narrow — Not Too Deep (1936), which was filmed in 1940 as Strange Cargo, and For the President’s Eyes Only (1971). He devoted most of his writing energy to writing and directing movies, including Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949), the Frank Sinatra vehicle Suddenly (1954), and Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955).
Among his pulp fiction, he is most remembered for the reporter/detective series about Daffy Dill, written for Detective Fiction Weekly, and his adventure-packed tales written for Ten Detective Aces about The Cobra, one of the early examples of what is generally known among pulp aficionados as a “Weird Menace” or “Avenger” story. Such characters as The Shadow, The Avenger, The Spider, Operator 5, and The Phantom Detective were among the most popular figures in the pulps. They mainly dressed in costumes, usually with masks, sometimes with capes, as they wreaked justice without bothering about the police, judges, or juries.
In “The House of Kaa,” first published in the February 1934 issue of Ten Detective Aces, villains abound and The Cobra kills them with impunity. No masked avenger is worth his salt unless confronted by larger-than-life crooks, and those in the following story meet the standard.
Scotland Yard thought it strange that the firm of Gorgan & Wilkins imported only regal pythons. But no law was being broken. And they thought it very strange when the Cobra, a lone avenger from India, suddenly appeared in London. But the Cobra had once helped them, so there was no investigation. And the greatest surprise of all was the appearance of Deen Bradley of the British Intelligence — who had an amazing plan to offer.
Jack Kirk, whose profession had never been anything but sordid murder, paused before the dreary brownstone house on Rokor Street. He glanced all about him in a wary and frightened sort of way.
He could have sworn that some one was following him. If not some one — something! A black, misshapen, baroque giant. A flitting spectre.
Kirk had seen a shadow — only for an instant.
Then the shadow had disintegrated like the whispering dissipation of a gliding ghost.
Kirk shook his shoulders and blamed it on his imagination. He went slowly up the short flight of stairs in the front of the house and glanced at the sign over the door. It read:
Quickly, Kirk pulled a key from his pocket, inserted it in the lock, and opened the door. He entered with alacrity, slamming it after him.
The main hall was dark as pitch. But Kirk knew where he was going. He ascended the long, creaking staircase to the second floor of the dreary place. A solitary light on the second floor led him to a door marked “Office.”
He rapped sharply four times and entered.
Three men were in the room. He recognized them as Maxie Gorgan, John Wilkins, and the man from India, Went worth Lane. They had been talking but now they looked up at him.
“Sit down, Jack,” Gorgan smirked. “Lane here is reporting on our... ah... Indian importations.” He grinned knowingly.
Kirk smiled and sat down. Lane bit his lip angrily.
“You can be as sarcastic as you like, Maxie,” he snapped, “but I tell you it’s so. I don’t know about this end, but I do know that the police are close to catching us in Bombay. There was an American operative on my trail for several days before I left for London. You know, the one we checked on.”
“What do they suspect you of?” Gorgan leered. “Maybe they think you’re maltreating snakes!” He laughed harshly. “Listen, Lane, you’re an agent for a company. You’re an importer of reptiles from India.”
“But the trouble is — the only reptiles I ever import to you are regal pythons. It’s damned suspicious.”
“If you’re afraid—” Gorgan began coldly.
Lane leaped to his feet, his eyes blazing.
“You want me to deny I am. Well, I’m not lying for any one. And you can’t make me! I am afraid! And I’m going to get out!”
Gorgan eyed Wilkins surreptitiously and nodded. Kirk, watching the proceedings, was mildly amused. He failed to see what had gotten Lane’s wind up so. Lane had been a good reliable man on the Bombay end.
“Just a second, Lane,” Wilkins purred softly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we’ve misjudged you. We don’t want you to quit.”
“No,” Gorgan added with a trace of acerbity, “you can’t quit.”
“Well, I’m going to nevertheless,” Lane declared stridently. His voice lowered as he leaned forward. “Did you ever hear of the Cobra?” he whispered.
Gorgan and Wilkins looked dumb. They shook their heads.
“Did you, Kirk?”
Jack Kirk smiled amusedly.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Sure, I’ve heard of him. Some sort of a guy who thinks he’s a public avenger. Goes around alone.”
Lane nodded. “That’s he — the Cobra.”
“But he’s supposed to be in India.” Kirk was enjoying this baiting Lane. “You know how those yarns get around the underworld. The last thing they had on that guy was when he put down the Persian uprising in Bombay. Last month, I think.”
Lane said, “Yes, last month. And we started this business last month. It was all right when we got away with those emeralds and that Mahar diamond. I thought the whole layout was foolproof. But I haven’t felt right since I shipped the Kubij opal to you. That’s a damned unlucky stone. It belonged to Sarankh, a rajah of the Hindustan country. I hired three dacoits to steal it, paid them well, and sent the stone through the customs with our regular snake freight.