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 gave her one of his very best smiles. “Couldn’t you sort of compromise and just be friends? I’m not on the make. It’s just that — well, a night in a Jefferson Heights tank is like the ill wind that blows nobody good. I knew a guy once that had to burn his clothes afterward.”
“I see,” she said. Then with the faintest of shrugs she came down the last step. “I think I shall avail myself of your kind offer. There’s nothing like a police escort when you are thinking thoughts like mine.” Her golden eyes had angry little glints in them. “Who knows? You may keep me from committing murder.”
Canavan thought she was beautiful as hell, but he carefully refrained from saying this. Instead, he opened his car door for her, went around to the other side and climbed in under the wheel.
“Where to, lady?”
“The Hotel Wickersham,” she said.
They rode in silence for a little while.
North Broadway was a magic lane of lights, weighted with the sounds and smells of Little Italy and, later on, with those of the new Chinatown. Canavan, leisurely threading his way through ten-o’clock traffic, watched the girl’s ungloved hands. They were good hands, indicative of character. Presently he said: “Care to tell me about it, Hope?”
At the use of her given name she shot him a swift glance. Then, apparently satisfied, she once more looked straight ahead. “I was to meet a man at the Cathedral, ordering dinner for both of us if he happened to be late.” She shrugged. “He didn’t show up at all and I had less than a dollar in my bag.”
Canavan growled deep in his throat. “Didn’t Renaldo proposition you?”
She shivered. “So you even know about that!”
“I know Luis Renaldo.” Canavan swung the car west on Seventh Street. “Listen, Hope Carewe, I’m not trying to pry into your affairs—”
“Oh, aren’t you?”
“All right,” he said savagely, “then I am! Just the same, there’s something about this business that smells. How come, if you stay at a place like the Wickersham, you haven’t got eight bucks to square a dinner check? Who was the guy you were supposed to meet? Why didn’t you contact him?”
“I couldn’t,” she said, answering the last question first. “I don’t know who he is. As for the money, I left all I had in my room. They say it isn’t there anymore.”
“Who does?”
“The management.”
Canavan took his eyes off the road long enough to stare at her. “You mean you’ve been robbed?”
She nodded. “That’s what I mean. The hotel people seem to think it’s all a figment of my imagination, that I never had any money.”
“Well,” Canavan said decisively, “we will certainly have to look into this.”
He ran the car into the curb before the pretentious portal of the Wickersham. Getting out, the girl dropped her bag and the contents spewed all over the car floor. Canavan scooped up the miscellany and dumped it back in the bag. They entered the lobby.
There were quite a few people around, well-dressed, important-looking people. The Wickersham was that kind of hotel. Hope Carewe crossed directly to the desk. “See here, if there has been anything taken from my room I’m going to hold you responsible.”
The clerk just looked at her. He was a tall, languid young man with the manner of a diplomatic attaché. His words, however, were not exactly diplomatic. “Valuables are supposed to be checked at the desk, Miss Carewe. If, as you claim, there really were any valuables.”
She was outraged. “If I were a man I’d—”
Canavan leaned on the counter. “Look, punk, if the lady says she had some stuff in her room, then she had it.”
The clerk examined him. “You sound like a policeman.”
Canavan reached across and got a handful of coat lapels. “You said it, Lord Fauntleroy. I am a policeman.”
A second man now made his appearance from behind a glass partition. This man was portly, dignified. He pointed a plump pink forefinger at Canavan’s nose. “I take it that you are interested in Miss Carewe?”
Canavan pushed the finger aside. “And if I am?”
“Then perhaps you would like to pay her bill here.”
“Meaning you’re asking her to vacate?”
The portly man’s mouth curved downward. “Exactly. We do not care for guests who have been in jail. Nor can I release her baggage until the account is cleared up.” He coughed. “A matter of some eighteen dollars only. I am sure that—”
The girl’s face was as white as paper. “Lieutenant Canavan, I think—”
“Shut up!” Canavan said. He fished a twenty-dollar bill from a pants pocket. “Change back, Shylock. And the key to Miss Carewe’s room.” He got both. Then, cursing under his breath, he took the girl’s arm and piloted her across acres and acres of carpet to the elevators. “A fine business!”
In the third-floor corridor she faced him. “See here, why are you doing all this for me?”
He glared at her. “What do you think?” He unlocked the door to 327 and they went in. Even to an untrained eye it would have been obvious that the room had been searched. Hope Carewe gave a little cry and ran to the dresser.
Something hard and heavy as an anvil clunked Canavan behind the ear. He went suddenly and definitely bye-bye.
Chapter Two
A Couple of Ghouls
Canavan awoke to the realization that he had been tricked, and that there was a guy bending over him who could not possibly be anybody but the house dick. This man was small and neat and as inconspicuous as Mr. Average Citizen. Beyond him was the portly and pompous manager. Canavan propped himself on an elbow. “So who let you in?”
“I just sort of drifted in,” the house dick said. His brown eyes were laughing. “Looks like you’ve been suckered into something, copper. Did the girl hit you?”
Canavan saw then that Hope Carewe was not among those present. Swift anger made him forget the aching lump behind his ear. He pushed himself to his feet. “Listen, what kind of a flophouse are you running around here?”
The manager’s face purpled. “Are you insinuating that any of this is our fault?”
“You’re damned right I am! This room has been prowled. Not only that, but the mugs that did it were still here when we walked in.”
The house dick made disparaging noises. “Then you saw them?”
Canavan suddenly was aware that he was in a swell spot to be ridiculed by every antiadministration newspaper in town. The knowledge did nothing to improve his temper. “Get out of here, both of you! And if you think all the signs about the hotel’s liability will keep you from being sued you’re crazy. I’ll back up the girl’s complaint myself!”
“By the way,” the manager said, “just where is the young lady?” His tone implied that Hope Carewe was not a lady at all.
Canavan controlled himself with an effort. “I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind. This is police business now.”
“Monkey business,” the house dick said.
Canavan stabbed him with a hard forefinger. “Let’s have your side of it. What do you know about the girl?”
The house dick shrugged. “She fooled us, all right. She looked like class, and” — he indicated the rifled luggage — “her bags were class. Registered from San Diego. Been here two days.” He spread his hands. “Take it from our angle, Lieutenant. Renaldo, at the Cathedral, calls up and tells us she’s trying to beat a dinner check. She claims there’s money in her room to cover. So we come up and it looks like she’s taken a powder on us, grabbing the best of her stuff and leaving the rest. There is no money.”
Canavan took a deep breath. “The room was like this when you first saw it?”