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.
“We will leave the machine, Señor. I have a gun in my right hand. There is a small plantation house just beyond the car. Will you walk towards it?”
Jo Gar let his eyes widen a little on the dark eyes of the Spaniard. He said quietly:
“You can murder me here — just as well, Señor Mendez.”
For a second he saw sardonic amusement creep into the thin-faced one’s eyes. And then a puzzled expression showed. But he knew that Mendez was acting now.
“Murder you?” The Spaniard laughed in a chuckling way. “Why do you think of murder, Señor Gar?”
The Island detective smiled. “Does it seem so strange?” he replied. “After all — you are aware of the Von Loffler diamonds. For them there has been much murder.”
Mendez nodded, his face suddenly serious. “That is so,” he agreed. “But you were not satisfied.”
Jo Gar’s gray-blue eyes showed no expression. “Not satisfied?” he said very tonelessly.
Mendez frowned. “At the house we can talk more easily,” he said. “Please descend.”
Jo Gar shrugged. He got from the car, saw the thatch-roofed house through the thinned foliage, up a slope a short distance. There were windows, but no lights. The house was well protected from even the narrow path. The dirt road was a hundred yards or more distant, and the other road perhaps a half mile.
The Island detective moved slowly up a path that wound. He heard Mendez instruct the driver to turn the machine and take it down near the dirt road. As he walked slowly up the slope he heard the engine of the car changing speed. Twice the brakes made squealing sounds. There was no sign of the one who had been seated on his left.
He was certain of one thing — Mendez held death for him. Perhaps there was information that the Spaniard wanted first. Perhaps he would make promises. But in the end there would be death. He could read it in the dark eyes, feel it in the cold amusement of Mendez’ voice. And it was in the mockery of the Spaniard’s words, too.
Behind him he heard the Spaniard’s foot-falls, very close. He moved slowly, and he was thinking fast. There was a better chance outside, here on the path, than there would be within the thatch-roofed plantation house. If he could take Mendez by surprise—
The Spaniard said almost pleasantly: “It is the fine view that Señor Benfeld liked here. The dawn — it is all red. The sun rising from the water—”
He let his voice die. He was breathing a little heavily now. Jo Gar said, suddenly stopping and breathing as though with difficulty:
“Benfeld tried to kill me, Mendez. He was a representative of the insurance company handling the Von Loffler stones. He thought I would be off my guard, because of that. How much was he offered — for my death?”
Mendez said cheerfully: “Enough, Señor Gar. But he was a fool — and not careful enough. He knew that you were trained in hunting down people, yet he was careless.”
Jo Gar moved slowly up the slope again. He was breathing very heavily, though he was not tired. Behind him he could hear Mendez. And he was sure that the Spaniard was not pretending. He slowed his pace just a little, spoke haltingly.
“I will make — a bargain with you — Señor Mendez. If you will let me — have the chance—”
He uttered the last word softly, easily. And then, like a cat, he let his body swing around — he leaped at the figure of the man behind and several feet below him on the path!
But even as his short body shot through the air — he knew that he had lost. He saw Mendez’ body stiffen — the features of the long, sharp face were twisted into a mask of hate. The Spaniard’s body swung to one side. His right hand went up and then came down. Something gleamed dully in it. The first time it struck Jo a glancing blow on the shoulder. But as his hands and knees hit the earth — it struck him again, in a second chopping motion. Pain streaked across the back of his head — the yellow light of the moon became a curtain of black. He lost consciousness.
The room held little furniture, and what there was of it was bamboo. There was a table and two chairs, and between the windows a small bookcase. Mendez stood near the bookcase, his back to the wall of the house that was little more than a shack. The lamp on the table had a faulty wick, or the oil was bad. The light was faint and uneven. Shadows were on the walls. Mendez said in a conversational tone:
“You are lying, Gar. You have been lying for an hour. And there are few hours left to you. You were successful, in the Islands — but the Philippines are not like these islands. They are hotter — and the brain of that breed is stupid. You killed a man, on the Cheyo Maru. And that man had with him ten diamonds. They were worth more than two hundred thousand dollars. You tell me you found only one of them. You are lying.”
Jo Gar slumped in one of the bamboo chairs. Pains stabbed across his head. The gun that Mendez used was a heavy one, and the Spaniard had struck him with a savage motion. There was blood on the Island detective’s face, and on the fingers of his right hand. He was tired. Three times in the last hour Mendez had struck him. Once the one who had sat on his left in the car had struck him — he was a Chinese with a stupid, typical face. He sat in a chair and watched the Island detective now, his eyes expressionless. The driver of the car was not in the plantation shack.
Jo said thickly: “I have told you the truth, Mendez. From the one in white — the one the Malay spoke of before he died, in Manila — I got only one diamond. It was he who told me of the blind Chinese. That was why I went there.”
Mendez’ sharp face held a dull hatred now. It was clear that he did not believe the man who had tried to trick him on the sloping path that led to the plantation shack. Jo Gar knew that he had lost much, in that attempt. But he also knew that from the beginning Mendez had determined to kill.
The Spaniard said in a toneless voice: “You are a fool, Gar. For years you have been lucky. But that was with Chinks and Island half-breeds. I will tell you something — because now it will not matter. Either you are lying — or two others are lying. On the Cheyo Maru were three persons who might have had the Von Loffler stones. The man you murdered was one of them. But the diamonds were not separated. One person had the ten of them. That was agreed upon. And you got one from the man you killed. Which means that you are lying. You got them all.”
Jo Gar shook his head. “Only one,” he said steadily. “How do you know the truth of what you say?”
Mendez smiled. “I was one of the three persons — aboard the Cheyo Maru,” he said steadily. “I did not travel first-class. I did not have the diamonds. The man you killed had them — all ten of them. And you have them now. You are a fool — because they will do you no good.”
The Island detective pulled his short body up a little. He said very slowly:
“There was — the third man—”
He watched Mendez’ eyes narrow. But the Spaniard shook his head.
“I said that either you lie, or two others lie,” Mendez said grimly. “I am one of those two others, and I do not lie. And the other one — she is—”
His body stiffened; for a second rage showed in his eyes. And then suddenly, as though he remembered that it would not matter, he relaxed. He smiled grimly. Jo Gar widened his almost colorless eyes.
“A woman—” he said very slowly. “There was a woman who—”
His own voice died away. Mendez smiled coldly. He lighted a cigarette.
“It makes no difference to you,” he said. “You have killed one of the three who might have had the diamonds. I tell you that I was one of the three, and I did not have them. A woman was the other. You say you have one of the stones. I say you have them all.”