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 waved that away. “No. Not those kind of sales.”
“It’s an antique Fereghan,” I said. “You think I should sell it cheap?”
He looked interested. “Green in the border?”
“All Fereghans have that. It’s like velvet. Yellow, rose, blue, purple, violet, red. And they all blend. It’s an odd size, narrower than most.”
He nodded. “Mr. Egan’s?”
“Not that I know of.”
“It sounds,” Papa said, “like a rug he bought from Bogosian, years ago.”
“Well, maybe it is, then. Maybe he sold it years ago.”
“Maybe,” Papa agreed. “I took some rugs over to Grace to be repaired.”
Grace was Selak’s sister, and she did our finer repairing. I didn’t say anything.
Papa said: “She told me Selak was with you last night. You brought him home.”
“That’s right.”
Papa put a hand on my arm. “I’m glad he was with you. I was worried about you, Levon.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’m a big boy now.” I didn’t feel any more like Judas than Judas must have felt. “I think I’ll take Selak this afternoon if he’s finished the cleaning. This is a high-class sale, and I don’t want to be lugging the rug like some peddler.”
“Sure,” Papa said. “Take the station wagon, too.”
I went back to the washing room, where Selak was running the big squeegee over the rug, taking out the surplus water. “Don’t start another one, Selak,” I said. “I’ll need you after lunch.”
He nodded, not looking at me.
When I came back from lunch, he was sitting in the station wagon. He’d changed from the sweatshirt he wears for washing to a semi-clean white shirt. His hair was plastered in a crooked part.
“Did you eat lunch?” I asked, as I climbed behind the wheel.
He nodded, looking straight ahead. I cut out of the alley, and over to the Avenue, up the Avenue to Prospect.
Using the station wagon, we didn’t need to stick to the streets designated for trucks. And it looked better than a truck for this business.
The false summer weather still held. Most of the traffic along Prospect was toward the beach and the picnic grounds in the park. When I stopped in front of the Towers, I could see Claire up on the top-floor terrace. She waved, and I waved back.
I told Selak: “You can come along. I’m going to pick up a rug.”
He was still staring up at Claire.
She met us at the elevator. She said: “I didn’t expect you’d bring a chaperone.”
“I thought I might need one. Have you made the appointment?”
She nodded. “For two o’clock. It’s Mrs. Harlan Cooke. Do you know her?”
Mrs. Harlan Cooke was a woman of sixty who tried to look forty and looked eighty. “I’ve sold her a rug or two,” I said.
We went into the apartment. Claire asked: “What do you think we could get for that Feraghan?” She paused. “George thought about six thousand—”
“Maybe. And maybe more. I’ll get her reaction to the higher figure first.”
She was looking uneasily at Selak. Selak’s heart was in his eyes. I took him into the room that held the rugs and helped him pull the rug from the pile.
“Wait for me in the car,” I said. “I’ll be right down.”
When he’d left, carrying the rug, Claire asked: “What’s the matter with him? Why does he stare at me like that?”
“It’s spring,” I said. “It’s been a long winter.”
She studied me. “It’s not spring for you, is it? You’re all business, today.”
“That’s my training. The days for business, the nights for romance.”
Annoyance was on her face. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there? You’re different from — from last night.”
“Maybe. Last night I hadn’t met the Turk with the derby nor Sergeant Waldorf. Last night, I didn’t know that was Mr. Egan’s Bokhara.”
She was quiet. She was chewing her lower lip vexedly and thoughtfully.
“I thought I was a partner,” I said quietly, “not a stooge.”
“Lee—” She looked up pleadingly. “You’re not that. You know you’re not.” She took one of my hands in both of hers. “After you’ve seen Mrs. Cooke, come back. There isn’t time to explain it all now, but I will when you come back.”
“All right,” I said. “But one thing before I go. How did you make out with Waldorf?”
“How should I make out with him? He was investigating Henri Ducasse’s death, and I had nothing to do with that. As for the rug, I told him I’d had it for years. Which is a lie, but I didn’t think it was any of his business.”
“We’ll talk about that, too, later,” I said. “Good-bye for now.”
She was looking up expectantly. I kissed her and my legs got rubbery again, and I had a hunger I knew pilaff wouldn’t satiate.
“O.K.,” I said, “it’s spring. But I’ll want the story just the same, Claire, when I come back. I’ll want it straight.”
“You’ll get the whole story,” she said.
Chapter Three
Soul for Sale
Mrs. Harlan Cooke lived in River Hills, the gold coast of this town of mine. She was a very careful woman with a dollar unless the dollar was to be spent for oriental rugs or male companionship. For these two, she would unlatch the roll. She was canny enough to try for both in the same deal. Henri Ducasse had been her boy, there.
A maid opened the door and led the way into a mammoth living room, expensively and ornately furnished.
Mrs. Harlan Cooke was waiting for us in here, posed graciously in a wing-back tapestry chair, smoking a cigarette through a long, ebony and gold holder.
The room was dim; the illusion was almost complete at this distance. But it needed distance. As I came closer, the make-up was too obvious, the sag in her thin figure too evident. Ducasse, I was beginning to realize, had earned his money.
“Back from the wars?” she said in a high voice. “It’s been a long time, Lee.” She came forward to greet me.
“You haven’t changed,” I said. “Nor has this beautiful house. You’ve the most delicate and artistic taste in this town, Mrs. Cooke.”
After that, the chiseling started.
It was a battle. The old girl knew how to dicker, and she held the upper hand, being the buyer. But when Selak spread out the Feraghan, I saw the expression in her eyes as she looked at it and I knew it was just a matter of time. She wanted that rug.
She got it, finally. For seventy-one hundred dollars, which was just four hundred under my opening price and eleven hundred higher than her opening offer.
As she wrote out the check, she said: “I’d expected Mr. Herro to bring the rug. He’s still in town, isn’t he?”
“I think so,” I said. “He was last night. He certainly — admires your taste, Mrs. Cooke. He insisted there was only one customer in town who had the background to appreciate that Feraghan. I would have waited for him to come back this afternoon, but Miss Lynne had another customer who wanted the rug badly, and I wanted you to have the first chance at it.” I smiled. “Regular customers first.”
“Thank you, Lee,” she said, and tried a smile herself. But the makeup threatened to crack, and she killed it half-born. “I wish you would tell Mr. Herro that I’m still in the market for anything worthwhile, though.”
I felt faintly let down. Not that I believe what Papa says about Tyrone Power, but I didn’t expect to run second to George Herro.
“I’ll be sure and tell him,” I said, and folded the check carefully.
She was frowning, as she walked with me to the door. There, she said; “By the way — who is this Miss Lynne? A friend of — Mr. Herro’s?”