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 shook his head, saying nothing, staring at me.
“There was so much of it,” I said, “so much, it was suspicious. Maybe my imagination was too active. But you see, Henri Ducasse’s death was in the papers that same day, and Claire — Miss Lynne — had talked of him. The whole set-up looked bad.”
He wasn’t listening. “Blood—” he said. “Dry, Lee?”
“Dried. So maybe it wasn’t so important. Henri was just killed yesterday, I guess.”
He shook his head. “Haven’t you read the evening papers? Henri Ducasse was found yesterday. He was killed three or four days ago.” His eyes were reminiscent. “Ducasse—” he said, and he was talking to himself. His face grew tight. “Lee, we’ll talk about this later. Don’t decide against us just yet.”
He turned and was gone from the store.
It was nearly five-thirty, now. I locked the back door, and turned out the lights in the washing room. I checked the windows back there. In the store, I checked the safe also and set the alarm system.
All this I did automatically, thinking of Claire every second. Even Egan’s sudden departure didn’t interest me; there didn’t seem to be any room in my mind for anything but Claire.
As for Selak, I felt sure he’d be back tomorrow. Grace would talk to him and straighten him out, if he told her he’d quit.
At five-thirty, I got the signal from the alarm system and left.
I went home by way of Prospect Avenue. It isn’t the direct route, but I took it for the same perverted reason you’d prod a sore tooth with your tongue.
I didn’t look up as I passed the Towers. It was an effort of will, but I managed it. That’s how I happened to notice the derby going through the front door, and the narrow back of Ismet Bey.
It wasn’t any of my business. I was well out of it. I was due home for supper, and after supper I intended to get drunk.
Only there was this parking space at the curb, beckoning almost, and I slid the convertible into it.
So he’d found the owner of Maksoud’s rug. Or, at least, the possessor. Had he come to make an offer? Or had he come to make a claim? There was danger in this ridiculous little man, I sensed; there was a threat to Claire.
When I reached Claire’s door, I could hear their voices inside. I could hear the Turk saying: “It was my rug originally. I know how much it went for at the auction. I don’t know what you paid for it, Miss Lynne, but I’m prepared to give you forty thousand dollars for it. In cash, of course.”
Claire’s voice: “I’ll have to talk this over with Mr. Herro.”
“It was Mr. Herro,” Ismet Bey said, “who sent me to you, Miss Lynne.” And now his voice was lower. “I mean to have that rug one way or another, Miss Lynne.”
That’s when I rang her bell.
She didn’t smile when she saw me there. She said: “I can’t think of any more you’d want to tell me, Lee.”
“I saw Bey come in here.” I took a breath. “I worried about you, Claire. I thought—”
“Come in,” she said, without expression.
When I entered the living room, Ismet Bey rose and smiled. He bowed slightly. “The boy from the store.” He nodded. “We’ll make a deal, now?”
“First,” Claire said, “I want you to tell Lee the history of your losing the rug, Mr. Bey.” Her voice was brittle and she avoided my eyes. “Lee seems to think he’s being hoodwinked.”
He looked from me to her, and back to me. “Of course.” The smile, again, and he seated himself. “As soon as we’re all comfortable.”
The story he told was substantially the same she’d told me about him. The only difference was that he put his own position in a more favorable light. His trip out of town had been a business trip, purely a business trip.
“That was in January,” he told me. “At the auction in February, the rug was sold to settle some claims. I did not know who bought it. I heard only last week that it had come to this town. Today Mr. Herro contacted me and gave me this address and Miss Lynne’s name.”
“You want to buy it back? For how much, Mr. Bey?”
“For forty thousand dollars.”
“You must want it badly.”
“Who can value an altar? Who can appraise the symbol of a faith, Mr. Lee? If it were cotton and machine-made, it would still have value under those qualifications. But this... this could conceivably be the work of Maksoud. My disciples believe it is; I almost believe it is myself. There is no proof of this; there can be no proof. But there remains the faith.”
“Forty thousand dollars’ worth of faith?”
His face grew faintly harder. “We’ve mentioned the sum enough, I think. It will be cash and no record of the transaction need be made. It will be tax-free money. I am not a poor man, Mr. Lee, and it was the rug which helped to make me a rich one. The price I am suggesting is more than fair. It will be my only offer.”
“It’s the merchant blood in me,” I said. “I like to haggle.”
“I am not here for that purpose.”
I looked at Claire. “You’re the boss.”
She looked at Ismet Bey, and I thought I saw uneasiness in her eyes. “It seems like a fair offer to me,” she said quietly.
“It’s a small rug,” I said, “and even if Maksoud wove it, that’s a lot of money, an awful lot of money.”
“It is settled, then?”
“It’s settled,” Claire said. “Tomorrow morning, at ten o’clock, here. Bring the money. The rug will be here.”
He nodded agreeably and rose.
I said: “Was it Mr. Herro who told you about the rug being in this town, Mr. Bey?”
He looked at me questioningly. Then he nodded.
“You’ve known him for quite a while?”
“For some time.”
“He’s — not a disciple of yours.”
He shook his head. “No. No, I’m afraid faith is not one of Mr. Herro’s virtues.” He looked down at his derby. “Why do you ask, Mr. Lee?”
“Just curious,” I said. “And the name is Kaprelian, Mr. Bey, Lee Kaprelian. I’m the son of the man who owns that shop.”
His smile was dim. “You were fortunate enough, it seems, not to have inherited his disposition. Good-evening, Mr. Kaprelian.”
She went with him to the door. When she came back, her face was still grave. “Just a quiz kid, aren’t you? I hope you have enough answers now.”
Golly, she was beautiful as she stood there, looking down at me. To Papa, Berjouhi was beautiful, but no girl I was ever likely to meet could match Claire, I knew.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I came here, didn’t I? I... worried about you. What did you expect, that I’d crawl? How truthful have you been through all this?”
“More questions,” she said. “Allan had some, too, after you talked to him. He came up here screaming about the blood on that Bokhara.”
Allan was Mr. Egan. I said: “Did you give him a satisfactory answer?”
She said tautly: “Yes. He trusts me.”
“And Sergeant Waldorf trusts you?”
“He seemed satisfied.”
“You’re so beautiful,” I said. “You’re so damned beautiful. I wonder how your answers would sound if you weren’t.”
Her face was white; her blue eyes blazed. “We’ve nothing to say to each other, Lee. Nothing can be gained by this bickering.” There was the glint of tears in her eyes. “Oh, why did you have to come back?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I had to, Claire.”
And she was in my arms again. She was sobbing in my arms and I was soothing her as well as I could, feeling soft and rotten. But way under the softness, the hard core of my skepticism remained.
I called up Mom and told her I wouldn’t be home for supper. I went out and got a couple of steaks and some rolls. Claire broiled the steaks and we ate out on the terrace.