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.
The Island detective leaned forward and called sharply:
“You have trouble — with the lights?”
The Chinese jerked his head around, nodded. His almond-shaped eyes held a hard expression; they seemed to glitter. His lips were drawn back. The car slowed down, halted. The Chinese used the emergency brake gratingly. He turned his head all the way and said shrilly:
“Him go bad. You wait — me fix.”
He slid from the seat back of the wheel, got to the left side of the car. He went swiftly towards the headlights, which seemed to be showing dimly. Jo Gar was leaning forward in the seat, his gray-blue eyes narrowed.
He heard the other machine before he saw it. There was the roar of an engine — the car seemed to be speeding up the far side of the slope on which the car in which Jo was seated was resting. There were no lights, but the engine roar was increasing in sound.
The Chinese heard the roar, too. He stood near the lights, his small body rigid. He called shrilly:
“Me need — stick. Me get — him!”
His body swung around; he moved towards the right side of the road, the thick foliage. As he neared it there was a flare of light beyond the crest of the slope. Headlights of the approaching car had been suddenly switched on. But they slanted high, above the standing car and above the road.
The Chinese driver’s body crashed through the foliage; his back was turned to Jo as he went into it. The island detective moved with surprising swiftness. In a flash he was out of the car. He ran, in darkness, his small body bent low, to the left side of the road, dived into the thick foliage. Branches and leaves struck against his outflung arms. He went to his knees, let his body drop flat. Back of him the road was suddenly yellow-white with the glare from headlights.
There was the increasing roar of the car engine. And then the staccato beat of the guns. Metal made sound, and there was the shattering sound of glass. The air was filled with the clatter — Jo Gar could hear the bullets pounding into the body of the car.
The engine roar had diminished momentarily. Now it increased in volume. The clatter of the guns died away. There had certainly been more than one gun, and they had been machine-guns. Few bullets had missed the car in which he had been seated.
The engine roar became a hum as the car from which the bullets had been loosed sped back towards the heart of Honolulu. Jo Gar lay motionless, listening to the decreasing sound. His Colt was gripped in the fingers of his outflung right hand.
He moved about very quietly, pulling his body nearer the road and parting the foliage a little. He could see the machine now. There was light from the stars and crescent moon. The windshield was shattered, both headlights had been shot out. He could see bullet marks along the side facing him. The rear left tire was flat.
In the distance the engine of the departing car was making only a faint hum sound. Jo Gar smiled with his lips and kept narrowed eyes on the foliage ahead of the bullet-filled car, across the road. He half whispered:
“Machine-guns in Manila. And now here. Methods of the Western world, these are!”
There was faint sound from the foliage across the road. He saw the short figure of the Chinese chauffeur appear, crawling. The man glanced towards the car, then slowly straightened his body. For several seconds he stood motionlessly, looking towards the battered machine. Then his head turned; he glanced in each direction, along the road. He listened intently.
There was no sound of another car. The hum of the speeding one had died away. Jo Gar guessed that the spot was a deserted one, one from which the noise of the machine-guns would not reach habitation.
The Chinese chauffeur moved slowly into the rough-surfaced, dirt road. He stood for a few seconds in front of the car, then walked around it. He stood with his back to Jo as the Island detective rose and lifted his Colt a little. The Chinese moved closer to the car, getting up on his toes and peering towards the floor at the rear.
Jo Gar stepped from the foliage to the road-bed. There was crackling sound as he did so, and the driver’s body swung around. His eyes went wide with fear as he stared at Jo. His breath made a whistling sound and he cried out shrilly in his native tongue.
Jo said quietly: “I was not — in the machine, you see.”
He smiled a little. The Chinese was staring at the gun now. His lips were drawn back from his teeth; his face was a mask of fear. Jo said:
“I think — you must die — for what you have done.”
He moved the gun up a little, and forward. The chauffeur started shrilling words in his native tongue. His body was shaking. Jo said:
“Stop it! You are not Benfeld’s chauffeur. This is not Benfeld’s car. It is a hired car. Perhaps your car. Will you answer my questions?”
The Chinese was staring at him. He jerked his head up and down.
The Island detective said slowly: “You will certainly die, if you do not answer me truthfully. Who were those in the machine that just passed? Those who used the guns?”
The Chinese shook his head. Jo Gar smiled with his almond-shaped eyes almost closed. He repeated the question in stilted Chinese, a tongue with which he had difficulty, in spite of his many years in Manila.
The driver said: “Me — not know!”
Jo Gar said, moving a little closer to the chauffeur:
“The Dutchman, Benfeld — he went to you and paid you money. Very good money. He told you that you were to act as his chauffeur. He furnished you with a new coat, though there was no time to make it fit. He told you where to drive me and how to signal with your headlights. He said you must then stop the car — and hide yourself. Is this not so?”
He had spoken very slowly and clearly. The chauffeur nodded his head. He said:
“He do not — tell me more.”
Jo Gar nodded and smiled grimly. He was thinking that Benfeld had taken a big chance. And yet, he had almost succeeded. There had been only a few seconds’ time between life and death — for Señor Gar.
The Island detective stopped smiling. He moved his gun hand a little.
“I think you must die,” he said steadily. “You would have killed me—”
The Chinese shook his head and shrilled words. After a few seconds he spoke more slowly. He said that he did not know that the big guns were to fire into the car. He did not know what had been about to happen. He was a poor man, and Benfeld had offered him much money.
Jo Gar cut him off, after a little time.
“I will give you a chance,” he said slowly. “There is a person I wish to see. He is Chinese. And he is — blind.”
He saw instantly that the chauffeur knew of such a man. And he saw that the man was of importance. But the driver shook his head.
“There are — more than one — blind Chinese in—”
Jo Gar interrupted again. “There is one of some importance,” he said. “Think carefully. Perhaps this one has a place where dishonest men go. Perhaps he is not a good person. Think well, for you are young to die.”
He spoke very slowly, and with no smile on his face. He held his Colt low and slightly forward of his right side.
The Chinese driver stared at him wildly. But he did not speak. Jo Gar said:
“Very well — I shall find him alone. But first I must silence you, so that you do not again interfere with me.”
The chauffeur threw out his hands. They were browned, and the fingers were jerking, twisting. He said:
“I know — him! I go — his place—”
Jo Gar lowered his Colt slightly. He nodded his head and smiled. His voice was almost toneless when he spoke.
“You are wise — we shall go there together. We shall walk to a spot where perhaps we may obtain a ride. You will do as I say, and if you make one, slight mistake—”