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.
“Huh? What pictures?” he blustered.
“The ones you thought you’d get twenty-five grand for. I want the negatives and the release. And snap it up, I’m in a hurry.”
Ambrose tried to outstare the burly figure perched on his desk, dropped his glance when he saw the bad look in Casey’s eyes. Finally he cleared his throat, and with forced authority said:
“Beat it or I’ll call the cops!”
“I said, snap it up!” Casey growled.
Ambrose reached for a telephone in nervous alarm. Casey slid off the desk, slapped the lawyer’s hand aside. One long step put him behind the desk and, reaching down, he grabbed Ambrose’s vest and jerked him erect with one hand.
“You’ve got two chances,” Casey said, shaking the lawyer a bit for emphasis. “If you want to pass that stuff over I might pay you ten grand for it. If not, I’m gonna beat hell out of you, search this joint and drag you down to Headquarters.”
Ambrose swallowed and his eyes bulged. Casey was still bluffing and he was still convincing — and here the odds were all his. Ambrose was not in a very good spot to argue. Thrice on the brink of disbarment he had a shady reputation and barely enough legitimate business to pay his rent. He opened his mouth, shut it; then Casey shook him again and rapped:
“Make up your mind!”
“I don’t know nothing about it,” Ambrose whined.
“You put the touch on her, didn’t you?” Casey countered. He held the lawyer at arm’s length and drew back his fist.
“But I haven’t got those negatives.”
“You know where they are.”
“Suppose I do. What—”
That word was chewed off short. It was the last word Sol Ambrose ever spoke.
Casey was staring right at the lawyer’s face. He saw that face jerk sidewise, the red spot jump out on one corner of the forehead, the spatter of blood on the hand that gripped the vest; yet it was a full second before he realized what had happened.
There had been no warning, no sound of the door opening; even the roar of the gun seemed late. Somehow he was still waiting for Ambrose’s next word: waiting, and staring into suddenly vacant eyes, and supporting a sagging weight with his left arm.
Casey broke the grip of surprise with latent action that tried to recover the lost second. He dropped Ambrose, forgot him and spun towards the door.
It was ajar. He thought he saw a wisp of powder smoke in the opening as he raced towards it. With no preconceived plan except to get a glimpse of the killer, he yanked the door open and dashed into the hall.
Too late he saw the out-thrust foot and realized the man had waited with his back against the wall for just such a headlong rush. Casey stumbled, crashed into the opposite wall and dropped to the floor. Before he could lift his head a gun muzzle jabbed into the nape of his neck.
“Up!” a whispered voice commanded. “Up. Easy, and with your face in the wall.”
Casey stood up.
“Pull your hat down,” the voice directed. “Over your ears.”
Casey, prompted by the pressure of the gun and the knowledge he could not hope to reach the hand that held it, pulled his battered felt down over his ears with both hands. Another hand reached in front and tugged at the brim to make sure it was over his eyes.
“Now into the office — and keep your chin down or I’ll knock it down.”
Casey felt his way into the room. The gun was withdrawn. After the door closed he heard the man behind him, and a hand began to pat his trench coat pockets. Again the gun pressed against his spine while the hand tapped his hip pockets.
“No cannon?” the voice whispered.
Casey stiffened as something inside him froze. For the first time he was conscious of the bulging bulk in his inside coat pocket; that ten thousand dollars seemed to press against his chest and make it hard to breathe.
The hand moved up. Slapping the armpits and chest it tapped the pocket two or three times experimentally. And Casey stood there with the sweat coming out on his face, afraid to move lest he betray himself.
“What’s this?” the voice said coolly, and a hand slid inside the coat.
The bulge vanished. Casey shot his eyes down past the rim of his hat at the bridge of his nose. All he could see was a gray coat sleeve, a lean, thin-fingered hand — and that sheaf of fifty-dollar bills.
Outraged anger rather than the fear of what might happen when he confessed his loss to Norma Patten motivated Casey’s next move. It was a foolish play, risky, without much hope of success; but then when Casey was mad he was not always reasonable.
Whirling with a savage grunt, he ducked and dived behind him, arms outstretched. Apparently the man moved with the skill of an adagio dancer. Casey smacked the floor on his knees, brushed a slender leg but failed to grasp it; then the gun rapped down on his head and he went flat on the floor.
“Get up, chump!” the voice ordered grimly.
Casey heard a door open as he obeyed. Presently he felt the gun in his back again and he was being pushed through a doorway into what he felt was a closet.
He sensed the movement behind him. It was like a swish of air, intuitive rather than actual. He tried to duck; then pain exploded in his brain from a smash back of his ear. His knees crumpled and he went down. Behind him he thought he heard the door close and the bolt snap home.
At no time was Casey entirely unconscious. Half-stunned at first, he fought the dizziness in his head, wrenched off his hat and got to his knees. He remained that way a minute or so, and when the roaring in his ears abated, he could hear the killer searching the office. He stood up and oriented himself in the darkness, but he made no attempt to break out until he heard the man slam the outer door; then he put his shoulder against the closet door and tried to smash the panel or the lock.
He kept to these tactics for several minutes. The closet was so small he could not draw back for a real charge, could get no momentum.
Finally he rested, and while he devised another method he heard the office door open again. He listened. Someone was moving about. He could hear desk drawers open and close; a filing cabinet rasped on its metal slides.
Casey rapped on the door. The only result was a slap of heels on the floor and the clicking of the outer door. He cursed, arched his back against the rear wall of the closet, put one foot at a time beside the lock and, bent almost double, strained to straighten out.
The door creaked under the thrust of his powerful muscles. He rested, still wedged clear of the floor, took a breath and tried again. This time the lock ripped from the panel. The door flew open and he dropped heavily on his back.
Picking himself up, he went straight to the telephone and swept it into his hands. He barked a number, stood there, a burly, impatient figure with a trickle of blood on one ear and his eyes sultry and brooding.
When he got his connection he said: “Police Headquarters? Lemme speak to Lieutenant Logan.”
V
Suite 9-B at the Carteret had acquired a different aspect. Cigar smoke hung in a blue haze from the ceiling and the air had a stale, stuffy smell. Two plain-clothesmen, who looked bored and indifferent, leaned against the wall adjacent to the doorway. In the center of the room Sergeant Haley and Captain Judson were looking down at a slender hard-muscled man of forty-five or so; nearby, on the love seat, sat Norma Patten.
Casey, entering with Lieutenant Logan, stopped short and his surprise was apparent on his thick face. Because he trusted Logan, he had given him the whole story in Sol Ambrose’s office; but he was unprepared for this sort of scene. Haley gave him the clue as to why the police were here in his first greeting.