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.
“All right, wise boy! Freeze!”
There was an icy glitter in his eyes, and his face was sharp and dangerous-looking. I froze, but Kline didn’t. His moon face was no longer dull and stupid, but alive with hate. He crowded close to me, bumped me with his huge paunch and swung his fist again. It was sort of a one-two punch — first the paunch, and then his fist. The first set me up in just the right position, and the second sent me to the floor. For a fat man, he was good. He may not have been fast, but he knew how to get all his weight behind a blow.
Bells were ringing and the room and everything in it was going round and round in blurred circles. I heard Vogelsang say, “Come on, let’s get out of here,” and their feet moved on the floor.
I wasn’t completely out; some instinct urged me to be up and after them, but I couldn’t move. The gate in the railing squeaked open and clicked shut. The front door opened. They were getting away!
And then a familiar voice croaked shrilly: “Hands up! Halt or I’ll shoot! Get back inside and turn around before I blow you apart.”
I knew that was Mac’s voice and I think I tensed, expecting to hear the blast of the gun Vogelsang had taken from me. But instead there was a muttered curse, the shuffle of feet as they backed inside and turned. Mac’s voice wavered and almost cracked as he ordered:
“Drop the roscoe, bo.”
I heard it hit the floor; then there was a faint swish and a hollow thunk of impact, and another greater weight hit the floor like a dropped sack of potatoes.
“Hey!” Kline’s deep voice protested. “What the—”
“Don’t move!” Mac warned. “Let this be a lesson to you, fatty. Crime don’t pay.”
There was another smacking sound, like someone thumping a ripe watermelon. The floor shook as Kline dropped. Then little Mac was at my side, pulling me up, saying:
“Hey, Beek, what is it? What’s the matter? Come on, snap out of it!”
I was sitting up, but I was still dizzy. Everything kept wavering in and out of focus. Little Mac was crouching over me, his funny crooked face twisted with worry.
“I can’t take it,” I told him, and my tongue was thick as an overstuffed frankfurter. “Fatso pushed me and I fell down.”
“Tsk, tsk,” he clucked sympathetically, and went on: “I gave those bimbos what for. I didn’t know what they’d done to you, but when they tried to bust out of here alone, I knew something was wrong.”
The room was settling down and things were clearing up. Even the ache in my jaw was getting more acute. “Thanks, pal,” I said. “But how’d you stop them? I thought you never packed a rod.”
“I don’t,” he answered piously, and looked down at the gun in his left hand. A black-jack dangled by its thong from his right wrist. “This here roscoe is the one Vogelsang had. But I just happened to have along my sleep inducer for pertection, and when Vogelsang stepped out the door I jabbed him in the ribs with the small end and he don’t know the difference. Then when I get them back in here I just let them have it on account of I don’t want them to find out how I have deceived them.”
The black-jack — his sleep inducer — was small and harmless-looking, but Mac was very proficient in its use, as I’d learned from past experience. He was looking sideways at the kid.
“What’s the matter with him?”
The kid was sitting up, looking around and blinking.
“Vogelsang clipped him with the gun,” I said, “but it looks like he’s all right now. How’s it, fella?”
He pressed one palm against the swelling on his temple, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them slowly. “What happened?”
I said, “Those two mutts took us, and then my little pal here took them. So that makes it even.”
His eyes sharpened with comprehension. “Yeah? Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here!”
He surged to his feet, reeled sideways and caught himself against the railing.
“Hey, wait a minute!” I said, but he didn’t pay any attention.
He found the gate, was through it, making a bee-line for the street door. He tripped over one of the prone bodies on the floor, brought up against the door, jerked it open and was outside.
“Come on,” I rapped at Mac, and lunged to my feet. But the floor tilted up at a crazy angle and I almost went straight over onto my kisser. Mac caught and steadied me, and after a moment the floor bent down to where it was supposed to be.
About then, from out in front we heard the starting roar of a motor. Gears clashed and tires spun on the pavement as a car — I knew it was the kid’s car — shot away from the curb. I plowed forward. It was tough going for a while, but with Mac pushing I finally got through the gate in the railing and made it around Vogelsang and Kline, who were out cold on the floor.
The cool night air felt good on my face and in my lungs when we reached the street. Mac had switched off the inside lights and pulled the door closed behind us, and the street was just as empty and deserted as before — except for the taillights of the kid’s car, which was scooting away up the hill toward Chinatown.
I knew where he was headed — to the house on Noriega Street where Vogelsang had said the girl was being held — and we had to get there before he could get away with the girl. The night air had cleared most of the dizziness out of my skull and we pounded up to the corner and around it to where Mac had left the Zephyr. I piled in behind the wheel, jabbed the starter button and gunned the motor to life, took out after the kid as Mac fell in beside me.
The other car was out of sight by now, but I knew the approximate location of Noriega Street; the Sunset District was clear across town toward the Pacific Ocean. I pointed the Zephyr’s nose in that direction and toed down on the throttle.
About half a mile south of Golden Gate Park and a mile east of the ocean, right in the center of the Sunset District, is a section of sand dunes where streets do not run through. Bleak and bare, it is a lonesome area at night, with only a few houses spotted here and there across the dunes.
The house we wanted was where Noriega Street dead-ended, running westward into this waste space of rolling sand. We spotted it as we passed the nearest other house, more than a block away and clustered about a corner street lamp as if for protection from the night. It stood by itself, inner light making glowing squares of its windows, a low stucco bungalow. There was a dark shape squatting out in front — the kid’s car. We’d made good time, but he’d got here before us.
I braked the Zephyr to a stop behind the convertible, and jumped out. The kid was on the porch at the front door, his shoulder jammed against it, arguing with someone who was trying to close it in his face. Mac was right behind me when I skidded up onto the porch, and the short-barreled police special was out in my hand.
Looking back over his shoulder, the kid half sobbed: “He won’t let me in!”
I saw he had one foot stuck in the door, and above and behind the white blob of his face I could see the outline of Buck Madden’s gorilla head, silhouetted by the inner light. I was sure no one else had a head like that, and I wasn’t particularly surprised to find him here.
“Stand back, Madden,” I told him. “I’ve got a gun here and we’re coming in.”
“Oh, you again, huh?” he growled.
“Yeah, me.” I let the police special glitter in the wedge of light that fell out through the opening. “Stand back.”
He stood back and the kid rammed through the door and on inside. I followed more cautiously. The gorilla tried to jump me from the side as I came in. I was remembering the clout on the jaw he’d handed me before and was expecting something, and maybe that made me lean on the gun heavier than I might have as I laid it against the side of his skull. Anyway, he went down, falling loosely to the carpet.