The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
- Автор: Anderson Lars, Barr Randolph
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Vintage Books
- ISBN: 978-0-307-28048-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps». Краткое содержание книги:
Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train — a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best.
As McEwen talked to them, the door of the chiefs office opened quietly. Sue McEwen sidled in, stood aside, and listened with intense interest. His eyes strayed to those of Steve Thatcher, who was standing beside his father’s desk; they exchanged a smile.
“This is our chance,” McEwen declared to his men. “We’ve got to make it good. If the Moon Man gets away from us tonight, God only knows if we’ll ever grab him. Wait downstairs.”
The six men turned and filed from the office. McEwen paced across the rug. Steve Thatcher looked thoughtful. The chief of police sighed and wagged his head.
“You’re all set, Gil?” Chief Thatcher asked.
“Yeah. You wait right by that phone, chief, in case of an emergency. And I hope when I phone you it will be to say we’ve got our man.”
Sue McEwen stepped toward her father eagerly. “How soon are you leaving, dad? I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
McEwen stared at her. “You’re not getting in on this, young lady!”
“Why not?” Sue asked. “If I go to the house with you it won’t do any harm, and I may be able to help. As long as I’m a detective’s daughter, I want to make the most of it.”
“How many times have I got to tell you, Sue,” her father sighed, “that this sort of thing is not for you? We’ve argued about it a thousand times. I won’t let you mix yourself up in police matters.”
“You forget,” Sue answered, smiling, “that I gave you the tip that helped send John Hirch, the forger, to prison. And didn’t I figure out where Mike Opple was hiding after he killed his woman? I don’t think I’m so bad at this. If you’ll give me a chance tonight—”
“Nothing doing!” Gil McEwen snapped. “You go home and go to bed!”
“Dad,” said Sue indignantly, “I’m not a child. I’m perfectly able to take care of myself. This Moon Man fascinates me, and I’m going to—”
“I think your dad’s right, Sue,” Steve Thatcher interrupted gently. “You’d better leave this to us. There’s no telling what will happen.”
Sue raised her chin defiantly. “It’s going to take more than an argument to stop me this time. I—”
The telephone jangled. Gil McEwen snatched the instrument off the chief’s desk. A voice twanged into his ear:
“This is Preston, downstairs, McEwen. You told me to let you know if a message came for you. There’s one coming in now!”
“Be right down!” McEwen answered quickly. He dropped the telephone and hurried to the door. “Answer to my cable coming in over the teletype!” he exclaimed as he hurried out.
Steve Thatcher’s eyes brightened. He hastened out the door after McEwen. They jumped down the stairs side by side, paced along the brick corridor, and squeezed into a little room. Inside it was a sergeant, a battery of telephones, a short-wave radio receiving set, and a teletype machine. The teletype was clicking and spinning out its yellow ribbon.
McEwen leaned over it and read the words as they formed:
POLICE HEADQUARTERS GREAT CITY-ARGUS GLASS SPHERE SHIPPED TO GILBERT MCEWEN GENERAL DELIVERY GREAT CITY-ST. GOBAIN.
“By damn!” gasped McEwen.
He tore the strip out of the machine. He glared at it. He said unprintable things.
“By damn! He ordered that mask under my name!”
Steve Thatcher’s eyes were twinkling. He had known what this cable would say. He had planned for this exigency. And he was enjoying the veteran detective’s discomfiture.
“Looks suspicious, Gil,” he remarked. “You’re not the Moon Man, are you?”
“Yah!” snarled McEwen. “He’s smart, isn’t he? He’s clever! Pulling a stunt like that — getting his damn’ glass mask made under my name! Wait’ll I get my hands on that guy!”
Steve Thatcher chuckled in spite of himself.
McEwen squeezed out of the teletype room. He hurried down the corridor to a door which opened into a larger room. His six detectives were there, perched on and around a table usually devoted to pinochle.
“Come on!” he snapped. “We’re going!”
The six men began trooping after McEwen. Steve Thatcher followed the veteran detective a few steps.
“You’ve got all your car will carry, Gil. I’d better follow you in mine. I’ll be along in a minute.”
McEwen nodded his agreement and pushed through a big door into the adjoining garage, with the six following him. Steve Thatcher looked up and saw Sue McEwen coming down the stairs. He turned to her.
“I want to come with you, Steve,” she said.
“Darling, I’m sorry. I’ll phone you as soon as there’s news.”
“But, Steve—”
He did not wait to listen. He did not like this insistence of Sue’s. It emphasized in his mind the painful disaster that would surely follow if it were ever learned that he, Steve Thatcher, son of the chief of police, was the Moon Man. He hurried out the entrance, turned sharply, and went into a drug store on the corner.
He slipped into a phone-booth and called a number which was unlisted in the directory, unobtainable by anyone, known to none save him and one other.
Two miles away, in the maze of the city, a phone rang. A stocky, broken-nosed young man picked it up. He heard a voice say over the wire:
“Hello, Angel.”
“Hello, boss.”
“Listen carefully. I want you to leave the car in front of the home of Kent Atwell at exactly five minutes before midnight tonight.”
“Sure, boss.”
“Don’t wait. Take a taxi back. Leave the car right in front of the house, and make sure nobody sees you do it. I’ll meet you at the usual place thirty-five minutes later.”
“Right, boss.”
“Wish me luck, Angel.”
Then the line went dead.
Chapter IV
The Trap Is Set
Nine o’clock. A sedan buzzed past the front of the home of Kent Atwell. It rolled on smoothly and turned at the next corner. Halfway down the block it turned again, swinging into the driveway of a dark house. It paused in front of the garage; and out of it climbed Gil McEwen and his six detectives.
Standing silent in the darkness, they waited. A moment later another car turned from the street and crept into the driveway. It braked behind the sedan. Steve Thatcher climbed out of it and walked to Gil McEwen’s side.
No one spoke. Leading the way, McEwen strode past the garage and pushed his way through a high hedge. Steve Thatcher followed, and the six men. They walked silently across the rear of an adjoining estate, and paused at a gate in the hedge. They listened a moment, then eased through.
They drifted like shadows to the rear of the home of Kent Atwell. McEwen knocked softly at the door. It opened; no light came out. McEwen, Thatcher and the six men entered. Kent Atwell closed the door, turned, and led them into a spacious library.
“Okay,” said McEwen without formality. “You alone, Atwell?”
“Yes,” said the gentleman. “My wife is away, and I’ve given the servants the night off.”
“Place all locked up?”
“Every door except the front, and every window. All the blinds are drawn.”
“Money in the safe?”
“Yes.”
Atwell crossed the room to a stack of bookshelves. From one the height of his head he removed a unit of four thick volumes. In the wall behind shone the front of a circular safe.
“Locked?” McEwen asked.
“No,” Kent answered as he replaced the books.
“Good. Now.” The detective turned. “We’re all going to keep out of sight and wait. First thing, I want to make sure there’s only one way for the Moon Man to get in — the front door. Steve, take a quick look around, will you — upstairs and down.”