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.
“Thanks,” she said, blinking long lashes at me and smiling shyly. “I... I don’t know how to thank you, Mr...”
“Beeker,” I told her. “Just call me Beek. So what’s your name and who are you and how did it happen those two lugs—”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head in wide-eyed wonder. “I never saw them before in my life. I... I got separated from my... my friend in the crowd on the Gayway, and those men accosted me and drew me down a dark passageway and made me come out here. I don’t know where they were taking me.”
“Why didn’t you scream?” I asked skeptically.
Her doll-like eyes got even wider. “But I couldn’t! The fat one had a black-jack and he said he’d hit me with it if I let out a peep.”
She was either very dumb, or putting on an act. I reluctantly pulled my shoes back on my aching feet, slid over to her side of the car and got out to stand beside her. “Maybe we’d better go report this at the Exposition Police Headquarters.”
“No!” She said it quickly, almost too quickly, as though a swift stab of fear had forced it out of her. She sent a quick look swinging around the parking area. “I’ll be all right now, I think.”
“Well,” I said, “at least I can help you find your friend. Who is he and where did you get separated from him?”
“In front of the Greenwich Village. I stopped to look at the dancing girls out in front and when I looked around Johnny was gone. He just seemed to have disappeared.”
“Johnny who?” I asked patiently.
“Johnny Foster,” she told me, gazing over toward the Gayway.
The name clicked. “Not the Johnny Foster who’s heir to the Foster sugar millions?”
She looked at me, batting her eyelids. “I... I don’t know. You see, I don’t know him very well.”
“Oh,” I said. “And now, just to get the record more or less complete, suppose you tell me your name.”
She hesitated before answering, glancing around again. “Daisy,” she said then. “Daisy May Huggins. Who’s that coming?”
Her hand had tightened on my arm and she was staring toward the dark back of the Gayway, at a figure who was coming toward us in a fast slouching shuffle.
“That looks like little Mac. Don’t worry, he’s a pal of mine.” I looked down at her. “Daisy May Huggins,” I said. “That’s a pretty name.”
She glanced up sharply, to see if I was kidding her, and I knew she wasn’t as dumb as she was acting. I kept a straight face for her benefit, and then Mac was on us, croaking excitedly:
“Hey, Beek! I found her! I found her!”
“You found who?” I said.
He was a little guy with an oversize Adam’s apple and a thin and crooked face. His moist eyes were usually sad as a setter’s, but now they were lit up and glowing. He waved the newspaper he had clutched in one hand and his Adam’s apple bobbled with excitement.
“The missing Ingraham babe,” he said. “Take a swivel at this.”
He snapped the paper open and thrust it into my hands. In the glow that fell out from the dome light I could see it was a bulldog edition of the Morning Tribune, and a head in midpage read:
I’d read the story before. Hildegarde Ingraham, daughter of a wealthy Chicago meat-packer, had disappeared from her home in the Windy City about ten days ago. At first a kidnaping had been suspected, but no ransom notes had been received, and the father had finally offered a reward for her return unharmed, or information as to her whereabouts.
Now, it had been ascertained — on good authority, according to the writeup — that a girl answering Hildegarde’s description had left a trail that led to San Francisco after evidently just running away from home. There was no art with the story; due to an eccentricity of her parents and a fear of kidnapers, they had never allowed her photograph to be taken, either by reporters or in a studio. There was a description of the girl, a brunette of eighteen years.
I looked up and saw that Daisy May had drawn away a little and was watching me silently. I grinned at Mac.
“So what gives, pal?”
“So there’s a reward. And I know where she is! She’s one of the girls in the Nude Ranch. We can put the arm on her and cop off the reward.”
His full name was Adelbert McGillicuddy and he was a former small-time crook with a record, on parole now and trying to go straight. Being sorry for him and not knowing what I was letting myself in for, I’d done him a favor in the past. In return he’d saved my life and attached himself to me like a porous plaster.
He was all right except when temptation was put in his path, and then he weakened very easily. I had a time watching him and keeping him fairly honest. He was a pest sometimes, but he meant well, and I couldn’t get rid of him without hurting his feelings. Besides, I’d learned to really like the little twerp and I owed him something for saving my life, though that couldn’t be worth a hell of a lot.
“So that’s where you’ve been all this time — in the Nude Ranch,” I said, and couldn’t help laughing. “Nuts! What would a gal like this Ingraham kid be doing exhibiting herself in a place like that?”
“But she is!” Mac was very earnest, his crooked face screwed up into prunelike wrinkles, gesturing volubly with his hands. “Maybe she is one of these here now exhibitionists by nature. Or maybe she run out of dough and had to take this job. This twist is different than the rest. She’s not bad, if I do say so myself, and she’s got something the others ain’t — class and stuff like that there. And she’s young, a brunette, and with a mole on her left upper arm, just like that description in the paper. It’s her, honest to Gawd, Beek. I know it!”
I sighed, shook my head. “Ever since we happened to be lucky enough to knock off that reward for recovering some letters for a gal, you seem to think we’re in the dick business. Every time you read about a reward being offered for something, you start getting ants in your pants. You’re driving me nuts. Drop wise, Mac. This girl isn’t—”
“But, criminy, Beek.” He looked hurt and his voice was wistful. “Five grand, this reward is! And I tell you honest that this is the girl. It wouldn’t hurt none just to take a swivel at her, would it?”
“O.K.,” I agreed, just to humor him. “We’ll take a look. We’ve got to go back that way anyway and help Miss Huggins here find her escort. She got separated from him in the crowd.”
“Oh!” He stared at her as if he hadn’t realized she was there before. He doffed his hat and bobbed his head. “Pleased to meetcha, miss.”
Daisy May smiled at him and I said, “Come on. We’ll see if we can find Johnny and then take a look at this gal in the Nude Ranch.”
The throng was thinning out along the Gayway and the blare and glitter were dying a slow death due to the lateness of the hour. We made one trip up and down its length to see if we could spot Daisy May’s friend Johnny Foster, but it was no dice, so to satisfy Mac and get it over with we turned in at the Nude Ranch.
The Nude Ranch was a long, low building with a rustic, Spanish-type front. In the heart of the Gayway and its most popular attraction, the barkers out front were made up like copies of the Lone Ranger and didn’t have to work very hard to lure customers inside at two bits a crack. The exhibit was coining money.
Daisy May seemed to want to stick close to us as long as we couldn’t find Johnny, and now that we had her I didn’t know what to do about it, so I shelled out six bits and we all went through the turnstile.