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.
At breakfast Ann and Mom had enough to talk about, so my silence and Papa’s weren’t so noticeable.
At eight-thirty, I was at the store. At nine, Sergeant Waldorf came in.
“You put in a long day, don’t you, Sergeant?” I said.
“It’s not usually this bad,” he said. “I’ve just been over to Egan’s. She knows, all right. He told her he expected to get at least five thousand dollars for that pile of rugs.”
I shook my head.
“That seem reasonable to you?”
“There might be twenty rugs up there,” I said. “I didn’t count them, but that’s a good guess, I’d say. I sold one of them yesterday. I sold it for seventy-one hundred dollars, Sergeant.”
He whistled. He said: “Oh, oh.” He shook his head. “So that’s the angle. He gets a nice wad, clear, and he and Miss Lynne take off on the luxury trail. Or that’s what he hopes, huh? She’d have the money, wouldn’t she? And it might be good-bye, Mr. Egan.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You look tired, kid. No sleep?”
“No.”
He went over to the window. It was a gray day, outside. The rain had stopped, but the chill was still with us.
“You didn’t get an answer to those wires, yet?”
“Not yet.”
He turned. “I’m going out to get a cup of coffee. I’ll be back before you leave with the rug.”
There was one answer to my wires when he came back. It read:
Ducasse was out here in January and February. Made a few deals, but nothing sensational that I heard of. It’s a bad town for orientals, as you know.
Jack.
Sergeant Waldorf looked at me when he’d finished reading it. “It still doesn’t prove anything. I’ll need more than that.” He was looking thoughtful. “You take the rug up there and get your money from Bey. Find out what you can. I’ve an angle or two to check, yet.”
He left then, and I went to the safe, got out the prayer-rug. Papa came in as I was looking at it.
“Selak came home at three o’clock,” he told me. “Grace called. He left again around six. Where do you think he goes?”
I shrugged. I said: “I’m going to take this rug up to Miss Lynne. I’ll be back before lunch.”
He nodded, saying nothing. He went back to the washing room, as I went out with the Maksoud masterpiece.
There wasn’t much traffic; the weather was keeping the shoppers at home. I made time getting to the Towers, even though I was earlier than I’d promised.
George Herro was there when Claire let me in. And so was Ismet Bey. We were all early.
The Turk’s black eyes were gleaming as he looked at the rug. His face was enraptured.
“It’s worth the money,” I said.
He looked up at me. “Yes. About the money. I said cash, I know. This is the same.” He handed me the check.
It was a cashier’s check for forty thousand dollars, on the First National Bank. It was made out to George Herro.
“You’ve made it out to Mr. Herro,” I said.
He nodded quickly and his bird eyes were shadowed. “That was all right with Miss Lynne.”
I looked at George Herro. “And it would be all right with you, too, wouldn’t it?”
His hard old eyes met mine. “Why shouldn’t it be?”
“You can prove ownership?”
“For heaven’s sakes, Lee,” Claire said, “you’re not going back to the questions again, are you?”
I didn’t look at her. I continued to look at George Herro.
“What’s on your mind, Lee,” he asked.
“Murder,” I said. “You didn’t pick this rug up at the auction, George. The auction was in February. You were in Europe, then.”
“Oh. Who did pick it up at auction?”
“Henri Ducasse,” I said.
Ismet Bey was looking at George. Then he was looking at me: “Henri Ducasse? He is the man who was murdered?”
I nodded. “He knew rugs, too. He knew he had a good buy. But he didn’t know the history of this one. You did as soon as he showed it to you, George. And you can read Arabic.”
George Herro was very quiet in his chair. The hardness in his face had brought out his age and his cynicism.
I looked at Claire and tried to smile. “Baby, why don’t you come clean? You’re in fast company with George. I thought, at first, that the blood might have got on that Bokhara at Egan’s house. But it was too much of a surprise to him. Ducasse was killed here, wasn’t he, in your dining room?”
She was ready to crack up, again, just as she had last night. Her face was tight, her body rigid, as she stared at me.
Herro said: “Mr. Bey, I believe our transaction is completed. Thank you very much for the check. And good-bye.”
The little Turk gave us all one last glance before nodding. He folded the rug carefully and walked out. Nobody went to the door with him.
“And now,” George said, “I’ll have the rest of your ridiculous story, Lee.”
“It’s all guesswork,” I said. I paused. “The first deal,” I said, “was between Claire and Egan. Egan wanted the rugs sold from here, so his wife wouldn’t know what he was getting for them. You were called in, George, as the kind of salesman who could get the last dollar out of them. I’d say Ducasse heard about the deal and came here to chisel in on it. Henri was your biggest competitor, George, and he usually knew what you were doing. He brought the Maksoud piece along as an inducement, maybe, to let him in on the deal?”
Herro said nothing, nor did he move in his chair.
I looked at Claire. “That’s right, isn’t it?”
She nodded, still in that trance-like stage.
“For a rug like that one,” I went on, “a man like you would go pretty far, George. As far as murder.” And now I tried a lie. “We’ll know if that was Ducasse’s blood on the Bokhara. The police lab has a sample of the blood from the wash water, now.”
That got to him. He stirred in his chair. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.
I said: “You started the rumor about Dykstra among the dealers. You saw all the dealers from time to time, working on consignment as you do, and you started the rumor to throw Waldorf off the trail.”
He said nothing.
“I don’t know why Claire came down to the shop,” I said, “but maybe it was at Egan’s suggestion. Maybe she wanted an outside appraisal of those rugs, just to make sure you weren’t holding out. And maybe they wanted a legitimate dealer in the business to give it some tone.” I looked at her. “Was that it?”
I said: “You overestimate yourself, Claire. You’re too young for a couple of old men like Egan and this one. You’ve been kidding yourself, Claire. You’re too young and too soft.”
She was crying. She said, “Lee, there was nothing between us. They were—” She put her face down into her hands.
“They were stooges, you thought,” I finished for her. “Maybe Egan would be. But you don’t know this Herro, baby. You don’t know him like I do.”
Herro’s voice was an Arctic wind. “You don’t know me well enough either, Lee. You didn’t think I’d come to a deal like this unprepared, did you?”
He was still sitting in the chair. But now there was a gun in his hand. It was an automatic. It wasn’t a big gun, but it was big enough to kill.
Claire looked up quickly and some ejaculation escaped her throat.
The gun was pointing at me. Herro said: “She won’t talk as much as you hope for, Lee. She didn’t see me kill him, but she knows I did. And that would get her some time in jail. She’s too soft; you’re right about that. Jail is rough on the soft ones.” His smile was thin and cruel. “I’ll take the check, now.”