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.
“Was he in court last Tuesday?”
“Tuesday? I’m sure he wasn’t.”
“That’s queer. I tried to phone him twice during the day and he was out both times.”
She frowned uncertainly and then her face cleared. “Tuesday! Of course. How stupid of me. He was out all day with a client.”
Shayne lifted his hat and went out. He drove north on Miami Avenue to Chunky’s place and went in. A couple of men were seated halfway down the counter. Shayne took the stool by the cash register, and Chunky drifted up to him after a few moments. He leaned his elbows on the counter, carefully selected a toothpick from a bowl in front of Shayne and began picking at his teeth. He murmured: “Looks like someone prettied you up las’ night.”
Shayne grinned. “Some of the boys got playful. Look. I’m still hunting a line on John Grossman. Pug or Slim been in?”
Chunky shook his head. “Ain’t seen ’em. Grossman usta have a fishin’ place south of Homestead.”
“Think he went there after he was paroled?”
“Good place to hole up,” Chunky murmured. “I know he stayed in town just one night.” He took out the toothpick and yawned.
Shayne got up and went out, leaving a dollar at the place where he had been sitting. There was a public telephone in the cheap hotel next door. He called Timothy Rourke’s home number and waited patiently until the ringing awoke the reporter. He said: “There’s about to be a Caesarian operation.”
Rourke gurgled sleepily: “What the hell!”
“On that baby we were talking about in your morgue this morning.”
“That you, Mike?”
“Doctor Shayne. Obstetrics specialist.”
“Hey! Is it due to break?”
“It’s coming to a head fast. Get dressed and hunt up Will Gentry if you want some headlines. Don’t, for Christ’s sake, tell him I tipped you, but stick to him like a leech.” Shayne hung up and drove to Renaldo’s saloon.
Blackie jumped up nervously from his seat beside Renaldo’s desk when Shayne pushed the door open. He sucked in his breath and stared with bulging eyes at the result of his work on the detective’s face, while his hand instinctively went to his hip pocket.
Behind him, Lennie leaned against the wall with his hand in his coat pocket. Lennie’s features were lax and his eyes were filmed like a dead man’s. The left side of his pallid face twitched uncontrollably as Shayne looked at him.
Seated behind the desk, chewing savagely on a cigar, Henry Renaldo looked fearfully from the boys to Shayne. He said: “I don’t know what you’re up to, Mike. The boys didn’t much like the idea...”
Shayne closed the door and laughed heartily. He said: “Hell, there’s no hard feelings. I’m still alive and kicking.”
Blackie drew in another deep breath. He essayed a nervous smile. “We thought maybe you was sore.”
Shayne said gently: “You got a pretty heavy foot, Blackie.”
“Yeah.” Blackie hung his head like a small boy being reprimanded. “But you come bustin’ in with a gun an’, jeez! What’d you expect?”
“That was my mistake,” Shayne admitted. “I always run into trouble when I pack a rod. That’s why I’m clean now.” He lifted his arms away from his sides. “Want to shake me down?”
“That’s all right.” Renaldo laughed with false heartiness. “No harm done, I guess. The boys’ll forget it if you will.”
“Whatcha want with us?” Lennie demanded thinly.
Shayne said bluntly: “I need help. I’ve run into something too big for me to handle, and after seeing you guys in action last night I think you’re the ones I need.”
“That’s white of you,” Blackie mumbled.
“I never hold a grudge if it’ll cost me money,” Shayne said briskly. “Here’s the lay.” He spoke directly to Renaldo. “I can put my hands on plenty of French cognac. Same as the case you bought last night. And this won’t cost us a hundred a case. It won’t cost us anything if we play it right.”
Renaldo licked his lips. “So the old captain did talk before he died last night?”
“Not to me. I got onto it from another angle. Are you interested?”
“Why are you cutting us in?” Renaldo protested. “Sounds like some kind of come-on to me.”
“I need help,” Shayne said smoothly. “There’s another mug in my way and he’s got a couple of torpedos gunning for me. I need a couple of lads like Blackie and Lennie to handle that angle. And after that’s cleared up, I still need somebody with the right connections like you, Renaldo. I haven’t any set-up for handling sales. You know all the angles from way back. And since you put me onto it in the first place I thought you might as well have part of the gravy. Hell, there’s plenty for all of us,” he added generously. “A whole shipload of that same stuff.”
“Sounds all right,” Renaldo admitted cautiously.
“I’m the only one standing in this other guy’s way,” Shayne explained. “So he plans to put me on the spot. I’ve got a date to meet him out in the country this morning, and I know he’ll have a couple of quick-trigger boys on hand to blast me out of the picture.” He turned to Blackie. “That’s where you and Lennie come in. I’m not handing you anything on a platter. This is hot, and if you’re scared of it say so and I’ll find someone else.”
Blackie grunted contemptuously. “Lennie an’ me can take care of ourselves, I reckon.”
“That’s what I thought,” Shayne grinned, “after last night. Both of you ironed?”
“Sure. When do we start?”
“Well, that’s it,” Shayne told Renaldo. “You sit tight until the shooting’s over. If things work out right we’ll do a four-way split and there should be plenty of grands to go around. I’m guessing at five hundred cases but there may be more,” he ended casually.
Renaldo took out his cigar and wet his lips. “Sounds plenty good to me. You boys willing to go along?”
Both of them nodded.
Shayne said briskly: “We’d better get started. I’m due south of Homestead at eleven o’clock.” He led the way out to his car and opened the back door. “Maybe both of you will feel better if you ride in back where you can keep an eye on me.”
“We ain’t worryin’ none about you,” Blackie assured him, but they both got in the back while Shayne settled himself under the wheel.
In the rear-view mirror he could see the pair conferring together earnestly in the back. Both sides of Lennie’s face were getting the twitches and his hands trembled violently as he lit a cigarette. He took only a couple of drags on it, then screwed up his face in disgust and threw it out.
Shayne turned slightly and observed sympathetically to Blackie: “Your pal doesn’t seem to feel so hot this morning.”
“He’s all right,” Blackie muttered. “Sorta got the shakes is all.”
Shayne said: “He’d better get over them before the shooting starts.”
Lennie caught Blackie’s arm and whispered something in his ear, and Blackie cleared his throat and admitted uneasily: “Tell you what. He could use somethin’ to steady him all right. You know.”
Shayne said: “Sure, I know. Any place around here he could pick up a bindle?”
“Sure thing,” Lennie said, violently eager. “Couple of blocks ahead. If I had two bucks.”
Shayne drove on two blocks and then pulled up to the curb. He passed four one-dollar bills back to Lennie and suggested: “Get two bindles, why don’t you? One to pick you up now and the other for just before the fun starts.”
Lennie grabbed the money and scrambled out of the car. He hurried up the street and darted into a stairway entrance.
Blackie laughed indulgently as he watched him disappear. “You hadn’t oughta give him the price of two bindles,” he reproved Shayne. “He’ll be plenty high in an hour from now on one. Another one on top of it will pull him tight as a fiddle string. Like he was last night,” he added darkly.