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 gun in the dancer’s hand was as steady as a rock. Her crimson lips jeered. “Sweetie Malloy gunned Clement in her own house. The body’s on her own bedroom floor. She’s surrendering to the cops — if she hasn’t done so already.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because she phoned me and confessed.”
“And you’re letting her take the rap?”
“Why not? She killed the guy, didn’t she?”
Jerry stared contemptuously until the hard eyes flickered and turned away. He said, quietly: “Your mother was here in this penthouse today.”
“What of it? I had some sewing stuff for her. She... she sews things for me.”
“I see. Sews things for you. And won’t tell the cops she’s your mother. But you don’t mind if she burns for murder... God, you get better all the time.”
“What you think about me doesn’t worry me,” Lois said sullenly.
“Is your maid coming back here tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where does this Selma live?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does she look like?”
Lois’ lovely lips curled contemptuously. “What does any Swede look like?”
“A Swede, eh? Thanks.”
He leaned towards her, smiling, and with a sudden gesture wrenched the gun from her hand and shoved her into a chair. She landed with a force that made her bounce.
“I’m taking a quick look about this arty dump, just for the fun of it,” Tracy growled.
He disappeared into another room. She could hear him moving about, but her rigid pose never changed. She was still sitting there, barefooted, creamy-bosomed where the coat gaped, when Tracy returned.
He snapped her eyes awake with a sharp question:
“Do you happen to know a guy who likes to wear very sporty gray topcoats?”
He could see the dancer freeze up inside.
“Well? Do you?” he repeated.
“Get out!”
“Sure,” Tracy said unevenly. He threw her gun into her lap. “Do me a favor, Toots. Empty that thing into your rotten little skull. I’d do it myself if I had an exterminator’s license.”
“What’s your angle on this thing, Tracy?”
He eyed her steadily. “I’m working for the lad in the gray topcoat.”
Lois’ breath sizzled briefly. “Do... do you know anything about architecture, Mr. Tracy?”
“Not a thing.”
“This apartment is completely soundproof.”
“So what?” he asked.
“So — this!” The gun he had tossed contemptuously into her lap streaked upward like a flash of light. Her finger pressed the trigger six times.
The six harmless clicks sounded almost like one. It was nearly twenty seconds before the knowledge that the gun was empty seeped into her rigid eyes.
Tracy gave her a scornful, sandpaper chuckle. “I emptied that toy while I was strolling through the apartment. Wanted to see what you’d do. Here — take ’em back! They stink in my pocket.”
He threw the handful of loose cartridges at her. They bounded off her body, rolled helter-skelter across the rug. Lois didn’t utter a sound. She was sitting there, watching him like a stone carving, when he slammed the apartment door.
He shivered a little while he waited for the elevator, blinked once or twice to get rid of the image of that baleful face.
The opening door of the elevator found him debonair and cheerful.
“Were any of you boys on duty this afternoon?” he asked on the way down.
“No, sir... That is, come to think of it — Roy was.” This little bareheaded guy had eyes that seemed to dig right into a fella. “Roy was... was home sick one day this week, so he hadda take a double stretch to make up for it.”
“I get it.” The elevator stopped and the doors slid apart. “Which one is Roy? Call him over.”
Roy was a tall, gangling youth with pale, good-natured eyes in a weak, taffy-colored face. The shrewd Daily Planet columnist tabbed his type instantly: a two-dollar racehorse sport, a policy ticket sucker, a sweepstake boob, an eager patron of small craps games. There were a dozen kids just like him in the Daily Planet building. A cinch for a bribe.
“Come here, son. I wanna talk to you.”
He went with Roy down a short corridor off the lobby and halted in front of the service elevator. His fingers opened and left a crumpled ten-dollar bill in Roy’s moist palm.
“All you’ve got to do is answer a couple of harmless questions.”
Tracy’s grin had never been more warmly appealing. His wink was a humorous, good-natured, man-to-man affair. Roy grinned back.
Once the kid had started, he spilled like a broken faucet. Tracy’s respectful nods were subtle flattery to egg him on.
The señorita had gone out a little before two o’clock that same afternoon. Said she couldn’t wait for the sewing woman, and to send her up for the stuff when she came. The old dame came a little after two. Went up. About a half hour later the service buzzer rang. The sewing woman and the maid met Roy in the kitchen doorway. They both looked scared and sorta funny, he thought. He didn’t pay no particular attention; people were always looking funny in a big house like this.
“What did they want?” Tracy asked.
Well, they wanted a trunk up out of the storage room in the cellar. He brought it up. After a while — must have been around three o’clock then — he got another buzz. Went up. Took the sewing woman down and the trunk, too. Got it out to a cab and the old lady drove off with it.
“Did she say what was in it?”
“Yeah. She did. I didn’t ask her, but she told me anyway. Old dresses of the señorita’s. Felt as heavy as hell.” He grinned weakly. “Maybe that was because the old sewing woman forgot to gimme a tip.”
“Let’s fix that right now.” Tracy shot him another ten-spot. “What about the maid?”
Well, Roy thought, that was sorta funny, too. Selma, the maid, came down in the passenger elevator about twenty minutes later. With a heavy suitcase. Gave up her apartment key. Said she was called away suddenly and to give it to the señorita when she came back. The señorita got back around four or so, Roy thought. He gave her Selma’s key and she looked pretty angry and pretty puzzled.
“Not scared?”
“No, sir. Just wonderin’, sorta. She said okey and rode upstairs. And I guess that’s all.”
“Do you know Mr. Clement?”
“Oh, sure. Her manager, you mean?”
“Yes. Did he call on her any time today?”
“No, sir.”
“How about a short, heavy-set man in a light gray topcoat?”
“Dunno him. There wasn’t any visitors except the old sewing woman.”
“Thanks, Roy. You’ve been a big help.”
His pale eyes goggled. “You a detective, mister?”
Tracy grinned, leaned closer. “Say, ever hear of a guy named Jerry Tracy?”
“Jeeze, yes...”
Jerry tapped his chest briefly. “Me.”
“No kiddin’. I... I always thought you was a much bigger guy. I’ll be darned.”
“Keep your eyes and ears open — and your mouth shut. Any time you run across a hot bit of dirt, gimme a ring at the Planet office.”
“I sure will, Mister Tracy. Jeeze, thanks...”
Tracy went back to the lobby and out to the street. The rain had stopped but the gutter still raced with water. The doorman’s shrill whistle brought a cab splashing east from the dark avenue.
Tracy murmured his own address, relaxed with a tired grunt — and immediately leaned forward again. “Change that! Take me to the Club Español.”
No sense riding home like a shivering, bareheaded dope! His topcoat and hat were still in the checkroom; Nita would be wondering what the hell was wrong.