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 wondered if they really were brother and sister. The name Carroll lent a certain amount of credibility to this. The first syllable of both names was identical. Canavan frowned a little, remembering Big George Kolinski. Was Big George’s interest merely what he had stated? Or was the business of the Morticians’ Protective Association just a blind for a much deeper interest in Ed Carroll, alias Ed Stengel? Canavan was suddenly struck with Kolinski’s own words. Obviously someone was looking for something, and rather seriously too. The search had encompassed not only Hope Carewe’s hotel room, but also the corpse. Conceivably it would extend, or had already extended, to include this second-rate bungalow.
Canavan went up the three shallow steps and tried the door. It opened under his hand, and he went in quietly, closing it behind him before he turned on the lights. It was even as he had expected. The place had been combed thoroughly, and certainly not too carefully. Evidences of hurry were scattered all about. Canavan decided there was not much use in his doing the job all over again. Whatever was being sought for had either been found or was never there at all.
He went to the phone and called headquarters.
“Hey,” the sergeant yelled, “we got a pickup order on you!”
Canavan cursed Kleinschmidt. “That heel!” He took a deep breath. “Listen, Donny, what did the boys find out about that girl?”
It appeared that the boys had found out nothing at all from the hotel room. There had been plenty of fingerprints, but none of these were on record at headquarters. “And anyway,” the sergeant said gloomily, “I don’t know where you got the idea she was hot. We checked with San Diego, where she registered from, and you know what?”
Canavan admitted that he didn’t know what.
“Why, she’s one of the Carewes. Her old man is worth around seventeen million bucks.”
“The hell he is!”
“Well, he is.” Lieutenant Canavan became suddenly conscious that the sergeant was prolonging the conversation unnecessarily. Obviously they were trying to locate Canavan by way of the phone he was using. He banged the receiver down and whirled as there was a creaking noise behind him. The folding-bed, apparently insecurely fastened, swung slowly down from its niche in the wall. Restraining springs allowed it to settle quite gently. There was a man on the bed. He was Luis Renaldo, who ran the Cathedral and to whom Canavan owed the sum of eight dollars. He was so dead that it hurt to look at him. Someone had cut his throat. The job had been done very thoroughly indeed and there was a lot of blood.
Canavan just stood there for a moment, fascinated by the sight. Not that he was morbid, but this happened to be the first dead man he had ever found folded up in a disappearing bed. Also there was the fact that he was more than intimately acquainted with the corpse, that he had spoken with him but an hour or so ago.
He wondered to whom he would now owe the eight dollars.
It was some little time before he attempted to rationalize Renaldo’s being there at all, dead or otherwise. So far as Canavan knew, this latest dead man’s contact with Miss Hope Carewe had been slight. It was beginning to be quite apparent, however, that any contact at all was the same as taking cyanide.
She was absolutely and positively poison.
Look what just a speaking acquaintance had got a guy named William Canavan. He had been conked, and robbed, and was now even a fugitive from his fellow cops. Indeed he was accused of violating the sanctity of the Weems Mortuary and the person of yet another corpse, though at least it seemed agreed by all that Ed Stengel, or Ed Carroll, had not been murdered. He had just died. Of stomach ulcers.
Canavan, remembering suddenly that headquarters had probably traced his phone call, and that a prowl car was due any minute, had just decided that he had better get the hell out of there when the doorbell rang. It sounded loud enough to wake even Luis Renaldo. Canavan considered vanishing by the rear exit, but in case the bell-ringer was a cop he more than likely had his partner posted at the back door, and an attempted escape would make things look even worse than they were. Canavan compromised by folding Luis Renaldo and the bed back into the wall. He then opened the door. The caller was Terence O’Day, he of the horsily waggish face and caustic wit. He looked slightly drunk, but then he usually did. He did not seem surprised at finding Canavan here.
“Hello, handsome,” he said.
Canavan stared. “Well!”
O’Day used his spread hand to push his disreputable hat farther back on his head. “Aren’t you going to invite me in? I’m the Press, you know. The good old Meteor.”
Canavan breathed gustily. “How did you find out about this place?”
O’Day grinned. “Everybody knows about this place, pal. Or almost everybody. And about you too,” he added cheerfully. “You’re getting quite famous, really you are, Bill, going around rescuing damsels in distress, and robbing corpses and one thing and another.”
“I did not!” Canavan yelled.
“Well,” O’Day said, “I’m only repeating what I heard. Kleinschmidt called in and my legman at headquarters passed the facts on to me. It was a simple matter to phone the hospital and get this address. Probably even Kleinschmidt has thought of it by this time.”
Behind Canavan there was a tell-tale creaking. That damn bed was coming down again! Rather desperately he tried to close the door in O’Day’s face, but he wasn’t quick enough. O’Day put his foot against it. “Oh-oh, what have we here?”
Reluctantly Canavan stood aside. “Now look, don’t go getting ideas. It wasn’t me that killed him.”
“Certainly not,” O’Day said. He went over to the bed. “My, my, that prince of heels, Luis Renaldo!” He lifted a quizzical eyebrow at Canavan. “Didn’t you owe him eight bucks?”
Canavan shook with impotent rage. “So you know that too!”
“Of course,” O’Day said equably. His breath smelled of Sen-Sen. “When you escorted the little lady away from the bad, naughty jail I was just curious enough to find out how you did it.”
“Someday,” Canavan snarled, “your curiosity is going to get you a swift sock in the nose!” He mopped sweat from his upper lip, though the night was not cold. “Look, Terry, be a good egg and forget you ever saw me, will you? And let’s get the hell out of here.”
O’Day rocked back and forth on his heels. “Tell me about the little lady, pal. Is it true that she’s Stengel’s sister? Has her old man really got seventeen million dollars? Does she love you, or does she not?”
Canavan lifted a threatening fist. “All right, heel, you’re asking for it!”
Behind him a harsh voice said: “Hold it, Lieutenant!”
Canavan whirled. There was a harness bull in the doorway, and the harness bull was holding his service gun as if he meant business. Out in back, someone was fumbling at the kitchen door. That indicated at least one other cop. The bull in the doorway caught sight of the corpse on the bed and he let out a yell and charged. Terence O’Day stuck out a foot and tripped him. Then, winking owlishly, he jerked a thumb at the open door. Canavan’s lips formed a soundless thanks. He ran out.
From far down the street came the wail of a siren. That would probably be Kleinschmidt, and of all people Canavan did not want to meet the Dutchman. Especially with a murder victim at hand. He headed at top speed down the flagged walk, reached his car and had the righthand door open when two enormous shadows closed in on him. Something that certainly was not a frankfurter rammed him in the right kidney.