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.
I knew Papa was wincing inside. But his face gave no indication of it. “Prices,” he said, “have never been more favorable, Mr. Egan. Values have never been better.” He called to me: “Levon, you will help me, please?”
To everybody I know, I’m Lee. To Papa, I’m still Levon. I went over to help him take down and spread some rugs.
I knew the pile he’d go to. Egan was shopping. Egan was buying on price and price alone. We had some very loosely woven Lilihans Papa had picked up as trade-ins. They’d been used less than a year: they were new, you might say.
Name alone means only the locality, you understand. There are good, bad and indifferent weavers in all localities. These Lilihans were not of the best, but they were good serviceable rugs.
The trouble is, they looked pretty bad against that Sarouk in the window. The memory of that was still in the Egans’ mind, I could tell.
The price Papa quoted them made me wince. He wanted this sale. He wanted the Egans back.
Mr. Egan’s eyebrows went up. He was interested. But Mrs. Egan was frowning. I thought of saying something to her, but I never interfere when Papa’s selling.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Papa asked.
Mr. Egan nodded. Mrs. Egan continued to frown. “I was wondering about the colors,” she said doubtfully. “Our decorator tells me it’s so hard to work a motif around an oriental rug.”
Interior decorators... From the painter, the paper-hanger, the furniture and drapery dealer they get a cut. But not from the oriental dealers. No rake-off, no recommendation from them.
“These colors are not bold,” Papa said. “They will blend with anything.”
“Perhaps.” She didn’t look like she believed it. “The decorator also says we should not spend all our money on the floor.”
All their money would buy three medium-sized banks. But maybe being careful like that is why they had it.
Papa looked grave. “Let me suggest something, Mrs. Egan. Let me bring some rugs up to your house, some rugs I will personally choose. Leave them there for a week or two. Then you can make your decision.”
“That seems fair enough,” Mr. Egan said.
But Mrs. Egan shook her head. “I want to look at some carpeting, first, this morning. If I don’t find what I want, I’ll be in again.”
Papa started to say something, but Mr. Egan beat him to it. “Isn’t your cousin over on Broad Street selling carpeting in addition to orientals, Mr. Kaprelian?”
“I believe he is,” Papa said.
Sarkis had been selling domestic carpeting for seven years and Papa knew it well. Every Sunday, Papa and Sarkis ate chicken and pilaff together. Every Sunday, they played tavlu. The rest of the week they were busy cutting each other’s throats.
Mr. Egan smiled. “Well, we’ll be back. I’ll see that she comes back, Mr. Kaprelian.”
Papa smiled and nodded, his eyes sad.
He said nothing as I helped him pile the rugs back. For minutes after we’d finished, and he was back in his chair behind his desk, he said nothing.
Finally, he said: “Carpeting—” and shook his head.
“It covers the floor,” I said. “It serves the same purpose.”
He looked at me as though I’d uttered a sacrilege — which I had. “It covers the floor,” he repeated. “It serves the same purpose.”
I started to explain but he raised a hand. “We will pretend I am Rembrandt. We will pretend I have a fine, beautiful idea, and I get my brushes and my paint, and I work like a dog. I work weeks, maybe months — maybe longer, I don’t know. When I finish, I have this beautiful picture, this work of art. The dealer says it is the best I have ever done. He puts it up, so people can look, so somebody can buy. The customers come in and admire it. It would look beautiful, they know, on their wall. Am I right?”
“Sure,” I said, “but—”
He raised a hand to silence me. “No buts. It would be a credit to the wall. Now — do they say, ‘Well, I want to look at some wallpaper first. I’ll be back if I can’t get the right wallpaper?’ Don’t they both cover the wall?”
“Rembrandt is dead, Papa.” I said. “This is 1948.”
“Both of these things I know. Have you some more things to say I don’t know?”
“A Rembrandt is a work of art,” I said.
“Oh. In the window, a Sarouk, a fine Sarouk. Maybe twenty-seven thousand knots to the square foot. Each knot is tied by hand. The finest wool is used, vegetable dye is used, care and cunning is used. This is not a work of art?”
“In a way,” I admitted.
But Papa wasn’t listening. He was rushing for the phone. “I forgot—” he said.
Now, he was calling Sarkis’ number. Now, he had him on the wire.
“Sarkis, you’re busy? No? Well, it’s like this. One of my very best, one of my most loyal customers was in, a Mr. Egan and his wife. Old oriental customers. But the wife has some idea she would like to try carpeting and they were going to Acme, you understand, to look at some. But I told them you had a finer selection, Sarkis. I told them you had more reasonable prices. Together, we could make a dollar or two on these customers of mine. Right, Sarkis?”
A silence while Sarkis answered.
Then: “Oh, you know they have carpeting now? You sold them the carpeting they have now? They are your customers, Sarkis? Listen, my cousin, when you are still living in a mud house in Sivas, I was selling rugs to Mr. Egan. Good-bye.” He hung up the phone angrily.
“Is that true what you told him, Papa?” I asked. “I thought you and Sarkis came to this country at the same time.”
“I have been here some time when Sarkis arrived. A considerable time, Levon.”
“How long?”
“Over a month.” He went over to get his hat. “I am going to lunch.” His face was stormy as he left.
I went into the back shop where Selak was washing rugs. Selak’s a big boy, over two hundred pounds, with warm brown eyes and a timid smile. Selak’s mind stopped growing when he was about nine, but he’s kind and gentle. It’s only his strength that scares you. He’d been with us for years.
“It’s time to eat, Selak,” I told him.
He nodded and smiled.
I wouldn’t have to tell him it was time to start again, after lunch. Selak’s old-fashioned; he likes to work.
I waited until he had unwrapped his lunch and started to eat before I went into the front shop again. That’s when I saw the vision.
I knew it was a vision because no girl could be that beautiful. No hair could be that golden, no eyes that blue. Nobody could wear simple green linen and still look like a queen. A slim, regal vision, standing right inside the doorway.
She was smiling. “I’ve been admiring that rug in the window.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I said. I hadn’t moved since coming through the door. I just stood there, like some oaf, staring.
“It certainly is. It’s a Sarouk, isn’t it?”
I came forward, now. We lived on the same plane for the moment. “It’s a Sarouk,” I agreed.
“I’m not sure it would go with my furnishings, though,” she said doubtfully. “The place is almost too modern, if you know what I mean.”
“Perhaps a Bokhara, or a Fereghan, then,” I suggested. “They work in very well with modern decoration.”
“Perhaps—” she said. “I’ve got a Bokhara now. I mean a real one. There’s so much confusion about Bokharas, isn’t there? The real ones are called Khiva, sometimes, or Afghanistan. This was really made in Bokhara.”