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.
Bly went sideways one cautious step after another, sank numbly in the chair beside the stand that held a chrome-and-gold telephone set.
“If this is a hold-up,” he said huskily, “you... you’re wasting your time. I didn’t bring the money you wanted to borrow with me. There’s no way you can get it without appearing at the office yourself.”
“No hold-up,” said the pudgy man in his softly amiable voice. “My name is not Perkins. It is Johanssen — two s’s, if you please. You have heard it, perhaps?”
“No,” said Bly numbly.
“You recognize me, though?”
Bly nodded stiffly. “Yes. You were in Doc’s Hamburger Shack last night when I came in.”
“Just so.” Johanssen stood staring at him for a second, his bland eyes speculatively wide. “You do not look like a thief, but then one can never tell in these matters. I would like to tell you a story, Mr. Bly. You do not mind? I will not bore you?”
“No,” said Bly.
Johanssen smiled. “Good. Since you do not know my name I will tell you I am a pawnbroker. But not the ordinary kind. You believe me, Mr. Bly? Not ordinary.”
“Yes,” said Bly.
“Good,” Johanssen repeated. “My business is under my hat. I have no office. I go to my customers. They are all rich people, Mr. Bly. But sometimes they need cash — lots of cash — very quickly and very badly. They do not want people to know this. So they call Johanssen. I come to them with the cash. You see?”
“Yes,” Bly admitted.
“One year ago, Mr. Bly, a person called me and gave me the name of a very prominent person with whom I had done business many many times. This person wanted ten thousand dollars at once. He is good for much more, so I say I will bring it to him. But, he says, he is not at home. He is at the apartment of a friend. Will I bring it to him there?
“So I bring the money where he says. But it is not my customer that has called me. It is a thief. You are listening carefully, Mr. Bly?”
“Yes,” said Bly.
“Good. This thief, he is waiting for me on the darkness of the stairs of the apartment house. He gives me no chance, Mr. Bly. He stabs me in the back with a knife and takes my money and runs away. He thinks I am dead. But no. I crawl down the stairs and through the lobby and to the street. I crawl two blocks away before someone sees me and calls an ambulance. It was very hard, that crawling. I remember that, Mr. Bly.”
Bly swallowed. “Why... why didn’t you wake someone in the apartment house?”
“No,” said Johanssen gently. “That would bring the police. This is not a business for police. This is Johanssen’s business. You see?”
“Oh,” said Bly blankly.
“You do not understand,” Johanssen said. “It is known everywhere that Johanssen carries large sums of money with him. It must be known, also, that it is not safe to rob Johanssen. Not because the police will come after you, but because Johanssen will come after you — and find you. Now do you understand?”
Bly had the same sense of nightmare panic he had felt the night before when he had been accused of murdering Patricia Fitzgerald.
“You’re not saying — saying that I—”
“No, no. May I go on with my story? I found out who stabbed me. It took much money and time and then I did not find the man. Only some of the names he had used. I found out that he had done many crimes — not bad ones like this, only cheating and swindling. This time he is very afraid. He runs and hides, and hides so well that I cannot locate him. But I do locate his woman. He leaves her when he runs with my money. You can guess who his woman was, Mr. Bly?”
“Patricia Fitzgerald,” Bly said automatically.
“Yes. She is very angry because he left her. When I offer her five thousand dollars to point this man out to me she says she will do it if she can find him. She did. Last night he was in her apartment. He murdered her. Do you know who that man was, Mr. Bly?”
“No!” Bly exclaimed.
“I am willing to pay you five thousand dollars if you will tell me who it was.”
“But I don’t know!” Bly said. “I didn’t see him.”
“Then,” said Johanssen gently, “then you will give me back my five thousand dollars, please.”
“You... your what?”
“My five thousand dollars.”
“But I haven’t got — I never saw—”
“Yes. It was in an envelope in the paper sack that contained the hamburgers.”
Bly’s mouth opened slackly. “Envelope — hamburgers...”
“Yes. You see, this Patricia Fitzgerald did not trust me. First, before she points out the man who stabs me, she must see the money. We arrange it. I will wait in the hamburger stand. She will send someone who will mention her name. I will put the money with the hamburgers. Then she will lead this man to this apartment. I will be waiting for them. The five thousand dollars is a reward I have offered, Mr. Bly. I have even put it in the papers that I will pay that much to anyone who shows me the man who stabbed me. But you have not done so. Give me the five thousand dollars back, please, at once.”
Bly shook his head dizzily. “But I didn’t know—”
Johanssen moved the automatic slightly. “I am not joking, Mr. Bly. Give me my five thousand dollars.”
“Listen,” Bly said desperately. “I didn’t even open the sack. I threw the whole business, just as Doc gave it to me, in the garbage.”
“Garbage?” Johanssen repeated gently. “This is not the time to be funny, Mr. Bly. You had better realize that.”
Bly leaned forward. “But it’s true. I did just that. Wait! Gus Findley! The janitor at my apartment house! He’s got a lame back and I hardly ever cook in my apartment...”
“Yes?” Johanssen said very softly.
“Maybe he hasn’t emptied the garbage! Let me call him up. It’s a chance—”
“A chance that you are taking,” Johanssen said. There was an icy little flicker deep back in his eyes. “You may call him up. I will listen. Be very careful what you say.”
Fumblingly, with cold and stiff fingers, Bly dialed the number of the apartment house. He could hear the buzz of the telephone ringing, going on and on interminably while the icy little flame in Johanssen’s eyes grew steadier and brighter.
And then the line clicked suddenly and Gus Findley’s voice said irritably: “Yes? What you want, please?”
Bly drew in a gulping breath of relief. “Gus! This is Dave Bly.”
“Ah! Hello, Mr. Bly. How are you? I ain’t got that money to pay Mr. Crozier yet, Mr. Bly. I’m sorry, but—”
“Never mind that. Listen to me, Gus. Have you emptied the garbage in my apartment this morning?”
“No, I ain’t. I’m sorry, Mr. Bly, but my back has been sore like anything and them damned police has been botherin’—”
“Gus!” said Bly. “I want you to do a favor for me. Go up to my apartment. Go on the back porch and look in the garbage pail. There’s a small paper sack right on top. It’s closed. Bring the sack down with you. I’ll hold the line.”
“Well, sure...”
“Hurry, Gus! It’s very important!”
“You ain’t sick, are you, Mr. Bly? You sound—”
“Gus!” Bly exploded. “Hurry up!”
“O.K. Sure. Hold the wire.”
Bly heard the receiver bump as Gus put it down, and then there was nothing but the empty hum of the open circuit. He waited, feeling the sweat gather in cold beads on his forehead. Johanssen had come quietly closer, and Bly could catch the black slick glint of the automatic, leveled a foot from his head.
After centuries of time the receiver bumped again and Gus said cheerfully: “Sure, I got it. What you want I should do with it?”