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.
She stared at him. “Why, no!”
He flicked on the dashlight and searched the floor. At the moment he couldn’t have told her what he was looking for. It was just a hazy idea that in scooping up the bag’s contents he might have missed something. Presently he slid the floor mat out from beneath the seat and a tiny object, bright and shiny, lay there winking up at him. It was a key — perhaps the key to the whole frantic chase. He held it up. “Yours?”
She shook her head. “It could be one of the three or four that Edward had. What is it?”
“Safety deposit box,” he said shortly. “Only trouble is, we don’t know which one. There isn’t anything on the key but a number. It’ll take hours, maybe days, to check up on it.” He put the key in the fob pocket of his pants, looked at the gun he had taken from Tubby, finally put that in his pocket and climbed in.
Canavan started the motor and they bumped out over a rutted road to the main artery. Hope Carewe said: “Bill?”
“Yes?”
“Isn’t it possible that whoever is behind all this will come out here?”
His mouth made a thin hard line. “Meaning we should stay here and wait?” He shook his head. “I’m not much good at waiting. Besides, we’ll stop in Arcadia and send a couple of troopers back.”
After a while he pulled up at an all-night café where a couple of white motorcycles bore evidence of the presence of coppers. He went in and used the telephone. Then, in passing, he mentioned almost casually that he thought he had heard shots over by one of the abandoned rock crushers. The cops made a hurried exit.
It was almost one o’clock when he parked beside the Club del Rey. “I want you to stick close to me, Hope. Close and a little behind. I wouldn’t take you at all, only I’m afraid to leave you alone.”
“Isn’t this a job for the police?”
“I am the police,” Canavan said. “Not that you’d think it, the way I’ve been pushed around tonight.” He pushed in through double glass doors with the girl. On the right, through an arch, was the bar, and on either side of the main salon broad stairs climbed by gradual stages to the mezzanine.
The lights were romantically dim. Canavan, ignoring a beckoning headwaiter, pretended he had business in the men’s lounge and went past the private dining-rooms to a blank white door. He was about to knock when the door opened suddenly and he was face to face with Big George Kolinski. “Hello, George,” he said. His fist was wrapped around the gun in his pocket, but his face gave no sign that he was on edge.
Kolinski’s eyes opened wide, sighting the girl behind Canavan. Then, ponderously polite, he stood aside. “Why, hello, Lieutenant! Come right in.”
Canavan went in sidewise, watchfully. He was not too surprised when a weasel-faced man in a snap-brim and midnight-blue Chesterfield stepped from behind the door. “Hello, Maury.” Maury’s right hand was buried in the side pocket of the Chesterfield.
He didn’t say anything.
Kolinski closed the door behind Hope Carewe. “Well— Miss Carewe, isn’t it?”
Hope admitted this. She was having trouble keeping behind Canavan and still avoiding Kolinski and Maury. Kolinski finally solved the problem himself by going over to his desk. He looked at Canavan out of sleepy-lidded eyes. “I take it you’re not here alone?”
“Kleinschmidt ought to be along shortly,” Canavan said. “He’ll probably bring a platoon with him.”
“I see.” Kolinski did not seem worried. The big red-leather swivel chair creaked under his weight. “You must have fixed up a pretty good story, cop.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Canavan said. He watched Maury from the corner of his eye.
Kolinski sucked at his fat lips. “We feel pretty bad about Luis Renaldo, Canavan. Matter of fact, Maury is Renaldo’s cousin. You think we ought to do something about it, Maury?”
Maury said: “It’s a thought.” The hand in the pocket of the Chesterfield began to shake.
Canavan said: “Here’s another thought, Maury. Maybe it was Big George who killed Renaldo.”
Maury was poised on the balls of his feet. “Don’t be silly, copper. Renaldo worked for Big George. Kolinski owns nine-tenths of the Cathedral.”
Canavan nodded as though he had half expected this. “In that case neither of you would be interested in what’s in Ed Stengel’s safety deposit box.” He took out the key and tossed it on the desk. “Or would you?”
The hall door opened and Terence O’Day stood there. He had a gun in each fist and he breathed as though he had been running.
“I’ll take that, pal. Don’t anybody move,” he said.
Canavan shot from his jacket pocket, twice.
It was probably only accident he got O’Day in the legs. The tall thin man went down, arms flailing, both guns making a hell of a racket, and then Maury, risking half a dozen slugs, went over and kicked him in the chin. Lieutenant Kleinschmidt barged in on the crest of the ear-splitting silence which followed. “Hell’s fire, Bill, I didn’t know things would move so fast!”
Canavan looked slightly sick at his stomach. “No,” he said. “No, you wouldn’t.” He bent and picked up Terence O’Day and carried him over to the divan. The columnist’s eyes fluttered open. His horse face was not waggish anymore, only very tired and disillusioned. His hat had fallen off and the lock of untidy sandy hair straggled down over his forehead.
“Sorry, Bill.”
Canavan felt like hell. “I’m sorry too, Terry. It’s just one of those things, I guess.” His mouth drooped. “You couldn’t have done anything with the key anyway. Not even the department could have. It’ll take a long search, and court orders and a lot of red tape to find that box and get it open. And—”
Big George Kolinski bellowed, “Shut that damned door!” and came out of his chair like a lumbering elephant. “You, Canavan, what’s this all about?”
Canavan shrugged tiredly. “By me, George. We’ll have to wait till we find the box — unless Terry wants to talk.” He looked down at O’Day’s legs. “Maybe you’d better, keed.”
O’Day was game. He asked for a cigarette and, getting it, propped himself on an elbow.
“First, tell me how you knew, Bill. You must have known. You were expecting me.”
“Sort of,” Canavan admitted. “I wasn’t sure. Nobody could have been sure without knowing what you or somebody else was after. Matter of fact, I’d built up a pretty good circumstantial case against Kolinski. That’s why I held the party here. I had to get his reactions first.”
Kolinski grunted. Canavan looked at him. “All right, you were in Night Court. Also, you were at the Weems Mortuary, and you are in a position to tap the police department for information, and hire any number of hoods. Also, with a finger in every pie you were the most likely guy to be in contact with a man like Ed Stengel. It didn’t occur to me till later that a lot of these counts against you could likewise apply to Terry O’Day.
“He too was in Night Court. He too knew plenty of hoods and had an in with the cops. As a newsman he could have known even before you that Stengel, or Ed Carroll, had died in the hospital.” Canavan took a breath. “But hell, I had no more reason to suspect him than you. Obviously Stengel had something of value, or inimical to the best interests of someone else. Because the girl had been in contact with him, and I with her, it was logical to cop us both off. Luis Renaldo just happened to be a chiseler who smelled something and started investigating on his own hook. He ran into a knife.