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.
When the lock made a faint clicking sound he returned the master key to his pocket, moved the knob and slowly opened the door. He stepped inside quickly, shut the door without sound but did not lock it from the inside. The cabin was small and held the odor of cigarettes. There was little baggage about, but what there was bore the initials E. T. Jo Gar smiled a little, went towards cool-colored curtains that formed a protection for hung clothes. There was only a coat of gray material hanging behind the curtains.
“Señor Tracy is traveling very lightly,” Jo observed in a half whisper.
He got his small body back of the curtains, arranging them so that he had a slitted view of the room, where they met. For several minutes he remained motionless. Then he stepped from behind the curtains and started the search. He worked very slowly and thoroughly, placing each object that he touched in the same spot from which he had raised it. Twice there was sound in the corridor, but neither time did he lock the cabin door. Instead, he got his diminutive body behind the curtains that faced the door from the opposite end of the cabin, waited.
He finished his search in a little over ten minutes, straightened and sighed. The phone made a buzzing sound, three times. Jo got his right-hand fingers over the grip of his Colt, moved behind the curtains and was motionless. Several minutes passed, and then there were footfalls in the narrow corridor beyond the cabin. A key turned in the lock — there was muttering. The door opened with a small crashing sound, but the thin-lipped one did not immediately enter. He stood in the doorway — his eyes going about the room. Through the very thin slit where the curtains met Jo Gar watched him.
His body relaxed suddenly; he entered the cabin, closed the door behind him, locked it. His eyes kept moving about. He lifted the smaller of the bags, opened it, looked inside. When he placed it on the floor again he was frowning. But the frown became a grin — a slow grin that twisted his thin lips.
“He’s been in here,” he said in a peculiar, flat voice. “A lot of good that did him!”
Jo Gar half closed his almond-shaped eyes. This was the one who had called him; he knew that now. He moved the muzzle of the Colt slightly, so that it was pointed towards the body of the thin-lipped one.
After he had drawn a small curtain across the port, the thin-lipped man placed a towel over the knob of the door, draping it so that it covered the keyhole. Then he seated himself at a small table beneath the center light, and faced the port. His left side was turned towards Jo. From a vest pocket he took a red-colored, large-sized fountain pen. His face was grim as he unscrewed an end of it. The table at which he sat had a green surface; the thin-lipped one spilled the diamonds across it very carefully. He chuckled, staring at them and poking them with a long, white finger.
Jo Gar straightened his cramped body a little. He drew the Colt from his pocket, extended it through the slit in the curtains. His eyes could count five diamonds — he thought there was another on the table surface but he could not see it.
“A hundred — thousand!” The thin-lipped one’s voice was not so flat now. “And with Gar chasing the Jetmars woman—”
He chuckled again, huskily. Jo Gar said in a cold, hard voice:
“—you might easily have got the stones through the customs—”
The man at the table jerked his body straight. His right-hand palm flattened over the diamonds; his white face turned towards the curtains. Jo parted them with his left hand, stepped away from them. His face was expressionless. He held the Colt very firmly.
“But you weren’t so wise,” Jo said calmly and softly. “You don’t know how much I knew, how much I had been told. So you thought I might be watching you, rather than the woman in black. You didn’t know that Mendez had told me a woman had the Von Loffler diamonds. You called me, after she had given you the diamonds, afraid of me. The two of you gave the child beads of blue glass, cut very much like the Von Loffler stones. You wanted me to believe what you had suggested — that the woman in black was smuggling the stones through the customs — so that you could get them through without trouble. But you played too strongly.”
The thin-lipped man was staring at him, breathing slowly and heavily. His right palm was still flat over the diamonds; his left arm rested on the table. The ship rolled and his body swayed with it. Jo Gar said:
“You didn’t disguise your voice — and you couldn’t speak to me when I addressed you, for fear of detection. That worried you. You knew you were being watched by Porter, and you had a confederate call me while you were seated in the smoking room. You had worked well with him, but his voice was not exactly like yours. Even so, for a little time I thought that you were not the one who had called me. And then I realized what you had tried to do — to make me believe that very thing. And I knew that you were the one. So I came here — for the diamonds — nine of them.”
There was a little silence. The thin-lipped man said in a harsh, strained tone:
“You got to Jetmars — you scared her and — she squealed.”
The Island detective shook his head. “I haven’t spoken a word to her,” he said steadily. “You were too worried about yourself — and too greedy. You betrayed yourself.”
The thin-lipped one took his palm away from the diamonds. Jo Gar said softly:
“Please keep both arms — on the table. How many stones — are there?”
The one at the table did not speak. Jo Gar moved the gun muzzle sharply.
“Many men have died because of the stones,” he reminded. “One more thief — one murderer — it would not matter too much. How many stones — have you?”
The thin-lipped one said huskily, the peculiar flat note barely evident:
“Five — the woman has — the others. Three of them. You have one, Gar.”
There was hatred in his voice as he used the Island detective’s name. Jo said softly:
“I would not lie — where are the other three stones?”
The thin-lipped one said savagely: “I tell you — the woman in black — she has them. She would not give them all to me. She is the one who—”
The Island detective smiled coldly. His gray-blue eyes were almost closed.
“Raise your arms,” he said slowly, “Keep them raised. If you do not—”
He made a swift — strangely swift movement for him, as the thin-lipped one obeyed. When he stepped away from the man at the table there were five diamonds in his left palm. They felt warm and very good. He said steadily:
“We will stay here until a certain diamond expert comes to the cabin, with the captain. When the stones have been inspected we will go to the woman in black. We will obtain the other three stones.”
The lips of the man at the table were tightly pressed and thinner than ever. He parted them suddenly.
“It is she who—”
The phone buzzed. Jo Gar moved towards it, but did not take his eyes from the figure of the man in the chair. He spoke into the mouthpiece, as he slipped the diamonds into a pocket.
“Señor Gar—”
Porter’s voice said: “Did the buzz catch you in time? He went from the smoking room pretty fast.”
The Island detective kept his eyes on the thin-lipped one. He said:
“Yes — it reached me in time. I was prepared for Mr. Tracy. Will you please call the captain and tell him—”
His words died as the thin-lipped one hurled himself from the chair, slashing his right arm at the Colt. Jo squeezed the trigger of the gun as it was battered to one side. There was a crashing sound, and then the thin-lipped one’s fingers were on his throat; his white face was close to Jo’s.