The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
- Автор: Anderson Lars, Barr Randolph
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Vintage Books
- ISBN: 978-0-307-28048-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps». Краткое содержание книги:
Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train — a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best.
“You’re quite a thinker,” Vargas said sourly. “Just why should he clown around like that when he could just as well go out the back door of Fitzgerald’s apartment?”
“Because of the lay-out of the apartment building,” Bly explained. “If he went out her rear door, he couldn’t get away without going past the front of the building because there is a blind alley on this side that doesn’t go through the block. But if he came through here, he could go along the second-floor hall, down the back steps, and out through the garage underneath and at the rear of the building. He probably didn’t want to come out the front door of Patricia Fitzgerald’s apartment because someone might be watching it after she screamed.”
Vargas grunted. Hands in his pockets, he strolled closer to the window and examined it and the glass on the floor carefully. “Look and see if you’re missing anything,” he said over his shoulder.
Bly looked in his closet and the drawers of his bureau. “No. Nothing. There’s nothing around here anyone could take except a few old clothes.”
Farnham came quietly in the bedroom and nodded at Vargas. “I couldn’t find it, but I found out why I couldn’t.”
“Why?” Vargas asked.
“She didn’t pay none.”
Vargas swung around. “What? You mean to say they let a tramp like her in here without payin’ any rent in advance?”
“Yeah,” Farnham said. “They had a reason for it. It seems another tenant — a party who’s lived here for over a year and paid his rent on the dot every month — recommended her and said that she was a good risk.”
Vargas’ eyes looked beadily bright. “And who was this accommodating party?”
Farnham nodded at Bly.
“So?” said Vargas very softly.
He and Farnham stood there motionless, both of them watching Bly with the coldly detached interest of scientific observers, and Bly had the same sense of helpless bewilderment he had had when they were questioning him in the apartment below.
“What is this?” he demanded nervously. “What are you two talking about?”
“Sonny,” said Vargas, “it seems like every time we turn around in this case, we fall over you. We’re beginning to get tired of it. When you interrupted us downstairs, we were looking for Fitzgerald’s rent receipt, just because we didn’t have anything better to look for. We didn’t find it, because she didn’t have one, because she hadn’t paid any rent yet. The reason she hadn’t paid any is because you told the guys who own this building that she was O.K. and a good risk.”
Bly swallowed hard. “You said that — that I recommended—”
“Yeah,” said Vargas. “You. It seems mighty funny. You don’t know this Patricia Fitzgerald at all, as you say, but you run errands for her and you recommend her as a good credit risk. You’d better come up with some answers about now.”
“I never recommended her for anything to anyone!” Bly denied indignantly.
Earnham took a long step closer. “Don’t pull that stuff. I called up the bank that owns the place, and I talked to Bingham, the vice-president in charge of all their rental property. He looked it up, and said you did.”
“But I didn’t!” Bly said. “I don’t know—”
Farnham took another step. “Maybe you lost your memory. Maybe if you fell downstairs, you’d find it again.”
“I heard you,” said Mrs. Tibbet. She was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, nodding her head up and down meaningfully. “Oh, I heard you, all right. I’m a witness. Falling downstairs, eh? I know what that means. Third degree. Dear Mr. Tibbet told me all about it. I’m going to report you to the mayor.”
The policeman’s anxious face appeared over her shoulder. “Lieutenant, I couldn’t help it. She sneaked up the stairs when she seen Farnham come up—”
“Scram,” said Vargas curtly. “You too, lady. I got no time for fooling now. I’m busy. Get out of here.”
Mrs. Tibbet still had her knitting needle, and she held it up now and sighted down its thin shining length. “Make me. Go ahead. I dare you. You’re not going to beat up this poor boy, and I’m going to stay right here and see that you don’t. You can’t bully me. I’m not afraid of you. Not one bit. Dear Mr. Tibbet always said that policemen were bums and that he could prove it by figures.”
Vargas took a deep breath. “Look, lady. We just found out now that this guy Bly, here, is the bird that recommended the Fitzgerald dame when she came in here.”
“That’s a lie,” said Mrs. Tibbet.
Farnham wheezed indignantly. “It ain’t neither! I telephoned to Bingham, the vice-president—”
“I know him,” said Mrs. Tibbet. “Horace Bingham. He’s fat. Not as fat as you are, nor quite as sloppy, but almost. And he’s even dumber than you are — if that’s possible. If either one of you had asked me I could have told you who was responsible for the Fitzgerald creature’s presence here, but no, you wouldn’t think of a simple thing like that. You’re too busy going around shouting and threatening innocent people. Mr. Tibbet always said that no detective could count above five without using his fingers and what’s more—”
“That’s enough for this time,” Vargas told her. “You said you knew who was responsible for the Fitzgerald girl being here. Who is it?”
“If you had any sense you’d know by this time and wouldn’t have to go around asking. It is Gus Findley, of course. The janitor.”
“Are you sure about that?” Vargas asked.
“I’ll have you know,” said Mrs. Tibbet, “that I don’t go around lying to people, not even to policemen, although that would hardly count because they aren’t really people. Mr. Tibbet always said that all you needed to do was furnish a policeman with a tail and he’d be at home in any tree. Gus Findley was in and out of that Fitzgerald hussy’s apartment on the average of ten times a day, and in my opinion it’s a scandalous affair and has been from the very first.”
Vargas jerked his head at the policeman, who was still waiting nervously in the doorway. “Get Findley.”
Farnham said doubtfully: “Seems like this Findley is a pretty old boy to go in for—”
“Hah!” said Mrs. Tibbet. “Men! I could tell you a thing or two—”
“Don’t bother,” Vargas advised wearily.
They waited and in five minutes the policeman came back and thrust Gus Findley roughly into the bedroom. “Here he is, Lieutenant.”
Gus Findley blinked at them fearfully. He looked old and sick and shaken, and in the strong light his face had a leaden pallor. “What — what is it, please?”
Vargas strolled over to him. “Now look here, you. We know that you’re responsible for Patricia Fitzgerald coming to this joint, and we know you’ve been hanging around in her apartment all the time. We want some facts, and we want ’em right now. Start talking.”
Gus Findley’s face twisted painfully. “She... she was my niece, sir.” He turned to Bly. “Mr. Bly, I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad with me. She come here, and she didn’t have no money, and I didn’t have none I could give her on account of my sister’s boy having the operation. So I... I said she could live here, and I... I told Mr. Bingham that you had recommended—”
“That’s all right, Gus,” Bly said uncomfortably. “If you had asked me, I probably would have recommended her anyway. Don’t worry about it. It’s O.K.”