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.
“Sit down, Les. What’ll you have.”
The Professor — Les Boyden — slid down on the opposite bench and put up a palm. “Nothing, thanks,” he said.
Casey lit a cigarette, studied Boyden over the match flame. The face was pleasant, but tired, with a look of a man who is not very well. A half smile was quite constant, but the blue eyes were pale and dull, and there was a weakness, somehow, to the mouth and jaw.
Norma Patten had once been Mrs. Les Boyden. Back when they had been a vaudeville team. Casey remembered this, and, seeking some lead on the Sorenson murder that might connect with Norma Patten, he had come here to see Boyden. He wanted time to think about this man, and he kept his voice casual and did not come to the point directly.
“How long you had the girl?” he asked.
“About three months.”
“Where’d you get her?”
“She just came in.” Boyden flipped a thin-fingered hand in an aimless gesture: “She came in and wanted to sing for her dinner. Honest.”
He smiled at Casey, then looked away when the photographer eyed him questioningly without speaking.
“She was down to her last dime. Desperate. I guess this was her last stop on the way to the river. Anyway, she came in and was standing by the piano when I saw her.”
There was a far-off look in Boyden’s eyes and he continued in the absent tones of a man talking to himself.
“Well, I couldn’t throw her out. She stuck around until I started another piece and then, damned if she didn’t start to sing anyway.” His eyes came back to Casey’s. “She’s been here ever since. She can sing, can’t she?”
Casey nodded, and Boyden’s manner brightened.
“And she’s getting noticed. I’m dickering now for a spot on the radio. I think we might go places some day. She’s got something. I don’t know what it is. Something sort of genuine and sweet in her voice, like Kate Smith. I want you to meet her.”
“Wait,” Casey said.
But Boyden had already stood up, and in a minute or so he came back with the girl.
Boyden introduced Flash to her — Mary Nason.
She stood at the end of the booth as Casey rose. Her smile helped his first impression. Nice-looking, genuine. Her hair was dark and wavy and simply done. She had a trim little figure and nice hands and a rounded chin that looked firm and smooth. After a moment of conversation, Boyden said:
“About ten minutes, Mary, and we’ll do a number for Flash.” He watched her walk across the floor, then turned. “How do you like her?”
“She’s nice,” Casey said. “You like her too, huh?”
“Yeah,” Boyden said, flushing slightly. “But I thought you might give her a plug sometime.”
“You know Norma’s in town?” Casey asked after a pause.
“Yes, I saw in the paper she was.”
“Seen her?”
Boyden shook his head. Casey said casually: “Got a cigarette?”
“Only these.” Boyden took out a brown paper package, shook out a cigarette wrapped in ivory-colored paper. “You wouldn’t like them.”
Casey took one, rolled it absently and said: “I always had a feeling she gave you a dirty deal.”
“Perhaps — perhaps not. I guess it was my fault. I was in love with her and I married her. She was ambitious and had the determination to get what she wanted. When she made her mind up to do anything she went right ahead. She had what it takes and I didn’t, that’s all.
“I had ambitions too, but I wouldn’t sacrifice everything else for them. I guess I never had enough guts or backbone to step with Norma.” He shrugged, smiled weakly. “But that’s all over. And no hard feelings. She saw a chance to get ahead alone and took it.”
“You don’t hold a grudge, do you?”
“No. Why? What’re you trying to prove?”
“Somebody’s been blackmailing her,” Casey said, and his eyes narrowed in his study of Boyden’s loose face. “With some old nude pictures Sorenson took. He was murdered tonight.”
Boyden was smiling when Casey spoke, and the smile remained, a ghastly thing. It took him seconds to freeze out that smile and say:
“I asked you what you were tryin’ to prove.”
“I don’t know,” Casey said, and went on to tell how he had gone to try and buy the negatives and release from Sorenson. “And,” he finished, “I think you were at Sorenson’s place.”
“Don’t rib me, Flash,” Boyden said, his face chalky. “Not about a thing like that.”
“I wouldn’t rib you,” Casey said. “But I found a cigarette butt at his place.” He lifted the cigarette in his hand. “Like this one.”
Boyden swallowed with an effort. “Plenty of guys smoke them besides me.”
“Some, but not plenty.”
“It doesn’t prove anything.”
“Not a thing,” Casey said. “That’s why I came to ask.” He sighed, pocketed the cigarette. “I may be wrong, but I always thought you had a yen for Norma in spite of the fact that she used you to climb. I thought maybe you might be helping out or something — like I was — and spill what you knew.
“But then again,” he added dryly, “maybe you were just waiting for a chance to pay her back. You knew Sorenson. A few large coarse banknotes — say a cut of twenty-five grand—”
“Twenty-five?” Boyden husked.
“Yeah?” Casey said curiously, unable to analyze this new reaction. “A piece of that would help to put you and your singer over in a big way, wouldn’t it?”
Boyden straightened up. His lips drew down; his eyes grew frosty.
“You’re wasting your time,” he said, “on a newspaper. You oughta go after Edgar Hoover’s job.”
“Okey,” Casey said. He beckoned the waiter and paid his check. “But I was at Sorenson’s looking for the negatives when the police crashed in. They didn’t like my story — it wasn’t very good. Sometime pretty soon I’ve got to give ’em the details.
“So” — he stood up — “I was just checking to see if I could find something to help my story.”
There was a telephone in the dimly lighted foyer, and Casey stepped inside and called Norma Patten. When he had told her what had happened at Sorenson’s he said:
“It’s gonna be a mess, Norma, but there’s one place I might try before I call it off. Who is this guy Ambrose that made the touch yesterday?”
“I think his name was Sol Ambrose,” Norma Patten said.
“Oh, that one,” Casey growled. “The shyster, huh? Okey, I’ll see if I can find him on the way back to the Carteret.”
“Please, Flash,” Norma pleaded, “don’t make it worse.”
“I won’t,” Casey said. “I’ll just give him a scare and see what happens.”
IV
The so-called office building that served as Sol Ambrose’s business address was a gloomy brick walk-up not far from Atlantic Avenue. Light from a frosted glass door spread an elongated rectangle across the dusty third-floor hall and up the cracked wall opposite. Casey opened the door without knocking and stalked in aggressively.
A plump, red-faced man with two chins and a shiny bald pate was hunched behind a book-filled desk. Small black eyes, nearly lost in the shadows, blinked angrily while Sol Ambrose half rose, poised, dropped back in his seat.
“Why don’t you knock?” he asked resentfully.
Casey moved up to the desk, pushed some books out of the way and slid a thick thigh across one corner.
“Hello, Sol,” he said levelly.
“I don’t know you,” Ambrose said.
“Don’t let it bother you,” Casey said. “I just stopped in to get those pictures you’re holding for Norma Patten.”
Ambrose blinked and his head seemed to shrink between hunched shoulders. He wet his lips and his eyes mirrored alarm as they swiveled helplessly about the room.