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.
Pug went down at almost the same instant with a look of complete bewilderment on his broad face. He dropped his revolver and put both hands over his belly, lacing his stubby fingers together tightly. He sank to a sitting position with his legs doubled under him, and swayed there for a moment before toppling over on his side.
There was no more shooting. And there was no sound from the back of the car.
Shayne got up stiffly and began dusting the dirt off his clothes. He heard shouts and looked up to see excited men filtering through the trees and coming from behind the lodge to converge on the car. He went around to the right-hand side and opened the back door to peer inside.
Both Blackie and Lennie were quite dead. Blackie lay with his body sprawled half out on the running board, his gun hand trailing in the dirt. Blood was trickling through two holes in his yellow polo shirt. His mouth was open.
Lennie was crouched down on the floor behind him and there was a gaping hole where his right eye had been. His thin features were composed and he looked more at peace with the world than Shayne had ever seen him look before.
Will Gentry came puffing up behind Shayne, his red face suffused and perspiring. A tall, black-mustached man, wearing the clothes of a farmer and carrying a rifle, was close behind him. Other men were dressed like farmers, and Shayne recognized half a dozen of Gentry’s plainclothes detectives among them. He saw Tim Rourke’s grinning face and had time to give the reporter a quick nod of recognition before Gentry caught his arm and pulled him about angrily, demanding: “What the bloody blazes are you pulling off here, Mike?”
“I? Nothing.” Shayne arched his red eyebrows sardonically at the chief of detectives. “Can I help it if some damned hoods choose this place to settle one of their feuds?” He stepped back and waved toward the rear of the car. “Couple of hitch-hikers I picked up. Why don’t you ask them why they started shooting?”
“They’re both dead,” Gentry asserted angrily after a quick survey. “And the other two?” He started around the car.
“This one’s still alive,” Rourke called out cheerfully, kneeling beside Pug. “But I don’t think he will be long.”
Shayne sauntered around behind Gentry. Blood was seeping between Pug’s fingers laced together in front of him, but his eyes were open and when Gentry shook him and demanded to know where Grossman was, he muttered thickly: “Inside. Cellar.”
“You. Yancy and Marks,” Gentry directed two of his men. “Stay here and get a statement from him. Find out what this shooting is about. Everything. The rest of you fan out and surround the house. Take it careful and be ready to shoot. The real criminal is in there.”
Shayne took Gentry’s place beside Pug as Gentry moved away to direct the placing of his men around the house. He leaned close to the dying man and asked: “Where’s the girl, Pug? The girl. Where is she?”
“Inside.”
Shayne got to his feet. Rourke got up beside him and grabbed his arm. “Sweet Jesus, Mike! I don’t know what any of this is about, but it’s some Caesarian.”
Shayne pulled away from him and started stalking toward the fishing lodge. Rourke hurried after him, expostulating: “Hold it, Mike. Don’t try to go in there. Didn’t you hear the guy? Grossman’s inside. Let Gentry and the sheriff chase him out in the open.”
Shayne didn’t pay any attention to him. Unarmed, he strode on toward the sprawling stone house, his face set and hard.
Gentry was spacing his men about to cover all exits. He saw Shayne’s intention and called out gruffly: “Don’t, Mike. No need for anybody to get hurt now. We’ll smoke him out.”
Shayne went on without hesitation. He mounted the wide stone steps, his heels pounding loud in the sudden stillness, and went on to a sagging screen door. He pulled it open and went in, blinking his eyes against the dimness.
The interior of the house had a stale, long-unused smell. It was cool and quiet inside the thick rock walls. A wide arched opening led into a big room on the right.
Shayne went in and saw Myrna Hastings sitting upright in a heavy chair fashioned of twisted mangrove roots. Her legs and arms were bound tightly to the chair and her mouth was sealed with adhesive tape. Her eyes rolled up at him wildly as he strode across the room, getting out his knife.
He slashed the cords binding her arms and legs, pulled her upright and put his left arm about her shoulders. “This is going to hurt,” he warned. “Set your lips and mouth tightly.”
She nodded and her eyes told him she understood. He ripped the adhesive loose in one jerk and put his other arm around her. She clung to him, crying softly.
He looked around the room and gave a grunt of satisfaction when he saw a square of water-soaked canvas on the floor with a pile of straw and bottles on top of it. An empty bottle lay on its side and another stood open.
Shayne drew her forward gently, instructing her: “Try to walk. Use your arms and legs and they’ll limber up.”
She said, through her tears: “I’m trying. I’m all right. I knew you’d come, Mike.”
She drew away from him as he leaned down to pick up the open bottle. He studied the water-soaked label and his eyes glinted. It was Monnet cognac, vintage of 1926. The bottle was half-full. He drew in a long gulping breath of the bouquet, then put the bottle in Myrna’s hands. “Take a good drink. Everything’s all right now.”
She obediently tilted the bottle to her lips. A flush came to her cheeks as she swallowed. Shayne laughed and took it away from her. “It’s my turn.” He drank from it and then led her over to a dusty rattan couch.
She sat down limply and he got out two cigarettes. He put one between her lips and the other in his mouth, thumb-nailed a match and lit them both.
She started violently when Gentry’s voice bellowed at him from outside. “Shayne! What’s happening in there?”
Shayne called back: “A lady and I are having a drink. Leave us alone.” He laughed down at Myrna’s bewildered face. “We’re surrounded by a posse of detectives and deputy sheriffs. They’re summoning their nerve to storm the place.”
“What happened?” she asked tensely. “All that shooting. They were laying a trap for you, weren’t they? I heard them talking before they went out. They were going to kill you because they thought you’d read the log-book. I told them you hadn’t but they wouldn’t believe me. I was so frightened when I heard the shooting. I was sure you’d walked right into the trap.” She began to tremble violently.
Shayne patted her hand reassuringly. “I practically never walk into a trap.”
They heard cautious shuffling footsteps on the porch outside, and Gentry’s voice lowered to a rumble. “Mike. Where are you?”
“In here,” Shayne called blithely. He put the bottle to his swollen lips and sucked on it greedily. He lowered it and grinned as Gentry tiptoed in with drawn gun, followed closely by the mustached sheriff with his rifle cocked and ready.
“You look,” Shayne chuckled, “like the last two of the Mohicans.”
Gentry straightened his bulky body and glared across the dim room at Shayne and the girl. “What the devil’s going on? Who’s that and how did she get here?”
Shayne said: “You met Miss Hastings last night, Will. Why don’t you and Leatherstockings run along down to the cellar and look for Grossman? That’s where Pug said he was.”
Other men began to file cautiously into the hallway behind their leaders. Gentry turned to them and growled: “Find the cellar stairs. And take it careful. Grossman isn’t the kind to be taken alive.” He crossed the room heavily. “And you can start talking, Mike. What are you and this girl up to?”
“Nothing immoral — with so many people around.”