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.
He muttered hoarse, distorted words as his fingers tightened their grip. He was strong; the swinging arms of the detective failed to hurt him. Already Jo’s breath was coming in short gasps; his efforts to get free of the man’s grip were growing weaker.
His head was pulled close to the thin-lipped one’s body; there was a mist in his eyes. Blackness was coming now; he was choking terribly. He felt his body swung to one side; his head was battered against the wall of the cabin. And then, once again, the room was filled with a crashing sound. The strangler’s body jerked; he cried out hoarsely. His fingers went away from Jo’s throat; he swung gropingly towards the cabin door. Jo stared towards it, his vision clearing. It was half opened.
Voices reached him faintly from the corridor; they grew louder. The thin-lipped one was down on his knees now; he sprawled at full length, his left-hand fingers pawing at the small of his back. Then, very suddenly, he was motionless.
Jo Gar stared towards the half-opened door. He breathed hoarsely, sucking in deep breaths of air:
“He would have killed me — and yet — he was murdered — the woman in black—”
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought his eyes had seen dark color, just after the shot had crashed. And if the woman in black had thought that the thin-lipped one had said too much, if she had overheard, following him to his cabin—
Porter’s voice was calling from the corridor:
“Señor Gar — Señor Gar!”
There were heavier footfalls now. Gar tapped the pocket into which he had slipped the diamonds. He was sure they were real. Five of them, and there was the one he already had recovered. Six stones — with three still missing. And the one who could have told many things — he was dead.
The Island detective knew that, even before he bent over the man, calling hoarsely:
“Yes — Porter — it is — all right—”
Porter came into the room, pulling up short at the sight of the man on the floor.
“Heard the crash sound — over the phone—” he muttered.
Jo Gar straightened and smiled a little. “I was forced to shoot,” he said more clearly. “But he got me by the throat—”
Ship’s officers were inside the room now. The second officer stared at the figure on the floor, then at Jo.
“You shot him?” he breathed. “You had to shoot him, Señor—”
Jo Gar shook his head. Porter leaned down suddenly and lifted something from the floor near the doorway. The Island detective said:
“He had five of the Von Loffler diamonds — I’ve got them now. I tried to shoot him, but I failed. He was shot in the back, from the corridor.”
The second officer drew in a sharp breath. “You saw who it—”
Jo Gar shook his head. “I saw nothing,” he said very slowly. He was sure that he had seen black color — the color of a woman’s dress. “He was choking me—”
The newspaperman extended a palm. “What’s this?” he muttered. “Just picked it up near the doorway.”
Jo looked at the bead in Porter’s palm. He shook his head very slowly.
“It looks very much,” he said huskily but with little tone, “like a bit of blue glass.”
Diamonds of Death
Ramon Decolta
Jo Gar, the little Island detective, collects.
The room was in a cheap hotel, a few blocks from Market Street. The room had two windows, one of which faced the Bay. Jo Gar, his small body sprawled on the narrow bed, shivered a little. San Francisco was cold; he thought of the warm winds of Manila and the difference of the bays. He sighed and said softly to himself:
“Four diamonds — if I had them I could return to the Islands. I do not belong away from them—”
The telephone bell on the wall jangled; Jo Gar stared towards the apparatus for several seconds, then rose slowly. He was dressed in a gray suit that did not fit him too well, and his graying hair was mussed. He unhooked the receiver and said:
“Yes.”
A pleasant voice said: “Inspector Raines, of the customs office. I have information for you.”
Jo Gar said: “That is good — please come up.”
He hung up the receiver and stood for several seconds looking towards the door. One of his three bags had been opened, the other two he had not unlocked. The Cheyo Maru, bringing him from Honolulu, had arrived three hours ago, and there had been much for the Island detective to do. In the doing of it he had gained little. Perhaps, he thought, Inspector Raines had done better.
He took from one of his few remaining packages a brown-paper cigarette, lighted it. His gray-blue eyes held a faint smile as he inhaled. Down the hall beyond the room there was the slam of the elevator’s door, and foot-falls. A man cleared his throat noisily. Jo Gar put his right hand in the pocket of his gray suit at his right side, went over and seated himself on the edge of the bed, facing the door. A knock sounded and the Philippine Island detective called flatly:
“Please — come in.”
The door opened. A middle-aged man entered, dressed in a dark suit with a light coat thrown across his shoulders. The sleeves of the man’s suit were not within the coat sleeves; it was worn as a cape. Raines had sharp features, pleasant blue eyes. His lips were thick; he was a big man. He said:
“Hello, Señor Gar.”
Jo Gar rose and they shook hands. Raines’ grip was loose and careless; he looked about the room, tossed a soft, gray hat on a chair. Jo Gar motioned towards the other chair in the room, and the inspector seated himself. He kept the coat slung across his shoulders.
Jo Gar said slowly, almost lazily:
“Something was found?”
The inspector frowned and shook his head. He took from his pocket a small card. His picture was at one corner of the card, which was quite soiled. There was the printing of the Customs Department, some insignia that Gar merely glanced at, a stamped seal — and the statement that Albert Raines was a member of the San Francisco customs office.
Raines said: “The chief thought I’d better show you that right away, as we hadn’t seen each other.”
The Island detective smiled. “Thank you,” he replied, and handed the card back. “Something was found?”
Raines shook his head. “Not a thing,” he said. “We held her up for two hours, and we searched everything carefully. We even searched the child — the child’s baggage. We gave her a pretty careful questioning. For that matter — everybody on the boat got about three times the attention we usually give. And we didn’t turn up a stone.”
Jo Gar sighed. Raines said grimly: “If the diamonds were on that boat — they got past us. And that means you’re in a tough spot, yes?”
The Island detective said: “I think that is very much — what it means.”
Raines said in a more cheerful tone: “Well, the chief said you recovered six of the stones, between Manila and San Francisco — that’s not at all bad.”
Jo Gar smiled gently: “I was — extremely fortunate,” he said. “But the woman in black — I had hopes that the four diamonds—”
Raines said quickly: “So had we. When we got your coded wire telling us that you suspected her of the murder of the man you recovered five stones from, but that you couldn’t prove a thing against her, we figured we might be able to help. We weren’t. But we did as you requested — when she left the dock we had a man follow her.”
The Island detective said: “Good — she went to a hotel?”
Raines shook his head. “Don’t suppose you’ve ever been out around the Cliff House, Señor Gar. It’s a spot out on a bunch of jagged rocks, about an hour from town. A sort of amusement park has grown up around it. Seals fool around in the rocks and the tourists go for it strong. The woman took a cab, and our man took another. She went to the amusement park near the Cliff House.”