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,” J. S. Crozier said in a shaky whisper. “Run for help. Quick. He’ll kill me.”
“Mr. Bly will not move,” said Johanssen gently. “No.”
Bly literally couldn’t have moved if he had wanted to. He was staring, fascinated, from Johanssen to J. S. Crozier. Johanssen had his right hand in his coat pocket, but he apparently wasn’t at all excited or in any hurry.
“I have been looking for you for a long time,” he said. “It is so very, very nice to see you at last.”
J. S. Crozier began to shake. His whole body shuddered. “Johanssen,” he begged hoarsely. “Wait. Wait, now. Don’t shoot me. Listen to me. It was an accident. I didn’t mean — Johanssen! You can’t just shoot me in cold blood! I’ll pay back the money I stole from you! I... I’ve made a lot! I’ll give it all to you! Johanssen, please—”
The door opened in back of Johanssen, pushing him forward. He stepped aside quickly and alertly, and Vargas came into the office. His eyes were bright and beadily malicious.
“Police,” he said casually to Crozier. “Hello, Bly. I’ve been following you around today. Checking up.”
J. S. Crozier caught his breath. “Officer!” he shouted hoarsely. “Arrest this man! He’s going to kill me!”
“Which man?” Vargas asked. “You mean Johanssen? Why, he’s a respectable businessman. Are you thinking of killing anyone, Johanssen?”
“No, Mr. Vargas,” said Johanssen.
“See?” said Vargas to Crozier. “You must be mistaken. Well, I’ve got to run along. Behave yourself, Bly.”
“No!” J. S. Crozier pleaded. “No, no! You can’t! Take me with you!”
“What for?” Vargas inquired reasonably. “I couldn’t take you with me unless I arrested you for something. And what would I arrest you for — unless it was maybe for murdering Patricia Fitzgerald last night?”
J. S. Crozier swayed. “That... that’s absurd!”
Vargas nodded. “Sure. That’s what I thought. Well, so long.”
J. S. Crozier held on to a desk to keep upright. “No! You can’t go and leave me to this... this... Wait! Johanssen thinks I stabbed him and robbed him! You’ve got to arrest me for that! You’ve got to lock me up!”
Vargas looked at Johanssen in surprise. “Did he stab you, Johanssen?”
“I have not said so.”
“So long,” said Vargas.
J. S. Crozier’s face was horribly contorted. “No, no! You can’t leave me alone with... with—”
Vargas stood in the doorway. “Well? Well, Crozier?”
“Yes,” Crozier whispered hoarsely. “I did it. I killed her. I knew — the way she looked and acted after Bly went for the sandwiches. I twisted her arm and... and she told me...” His voice rose to a scream. “Take me out of here! Get me away from Johanssen!”
Vargas’ voice was quick and sharp now. “You heard it, both of you. You’re witnesses. Farnham, come on in.”
Farnham came stolidly into the office. “Come on baby,” he said in his heavy indifferent voice. J. S. Crozier’s legs wouldn’t hold his weight, and Farnham had to half carry him out the door.
“Could have nailed him anyway on that toupee business,” Vargas said, casual again. “But this way made it more certain. Johanssen, you stick around where I can find you.”
“I will be very glad to testify. I will also wish to witness the execution, if you please.”
“I’ll arrange it,” Vargas promised. “Kid, that was clever work — that business about the toupee.”
“It just — came to me,” Bly said shakily. “It seemed all clear at once — after Mr. Johanssen told me about the arrangement for him to wait in the hamburger stand. I knew then that Patricia Fitzgerald was playing her radio loud on purpose. She thought Gus, the janitor, would come up and then she would have sent him for the sandwiches. And then I remembered the black mitten...”
High heels made a quick tap-tap-tap along the corridor and Janet ran into the office. “Dave! Are you all right? I saw Mr. Crozier going downstairs with another man. He... he was crying...”
Bly said: “It’s all right now, dear. Mr. Crozier was the man who murdered that girl in my apartment house. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“I’ll be going,” said Vargas. “Bly, you stick around where I can find you.”
“That will be easy,” Bly said bitterly. “Just look on the handiest park bench. I was so clever I thought myself right out of a job.”
“I will go also,” said Johanssen, “but first there is this.” He took a black thick wallet from his pocket. Carefully he counted out five one-thousand-dollar bills.
“The reward, which I have offered legally and which I have advertised in the papers. Mr. Vargas is a witness that you earned it and that I paid it.”
“It’s yours,” Vargas said. “He made a public offer of it. If he didn’t pay you, you could sue him.”
“Yes,” said Johanssen. “And then there is this.” He took a folded sheet of blue legal paper from his pocket. “This is a lease for my apartment at the Marigold, paid a year in advance. It is too big for me. For two people it would be good. You will take it, please, Mr. Bly.”
“No!” Bly said. “I couldn’t...”
“Bly,” said Vargas conversationally, “I’ve been standing around here wondering when you were going to kiss this girl of yours. Don’t you think it’s about time you did?”
The Crimes of Richmond City
Frederick Nebel
Writing in the midst of the Great Depression, Frederick Nebel (1903–1967) wrote prolifically for Black Mask, Dime Detective, and other pulps, producing scores of relatively realistic hard-boiled stories about such fixtures of their era as Cardigan, the hard-as-nails Irish operative working for the Cosmos Agency in St. Louis; tough dick Donny Donahue of the Interstate Agency; and, most important, the long-running stories about Captain Steve MacBride and the ever-present local reporter, Kennedy, who frequently takes over a story and does as much crime solving as the official member of the police department.
Nebel had two mystery novels published during his lifetime, Sleepers East (1934) and Fifty Roads to Town (1936). The Crimes of Richmond City, a powerful depiction of violence and corruption, has never before appeared in book form. It was published as five separate episodes in Black Mask in the issues of September 1928 through May 1929.
Publishing novels in serial form was common for Black Mask in this era, as it was responsible for such important works as Dashiell Hammett’s first four novels, Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, and The Glass Key, as well as Paul Cain’s Fast One and many of Carroll John Daly’s books.
Raw Law
Frederick Nebel
A city of graft and crime; a man’s buddy, a victim; then the deadly game of vengeance — and justice
1
Captain Steve MacBride was a tall square-shouldered man of forty more or less hard-bitten years. He had a long, rough-chiseled face, steady eyes, a beak of a nose, and a wide, firm mouth that years of fighting his own and others’ wills had hardened. His face shone ruddily, cleanly, as if it were used to frequent and vigorous contact with soap and water. For eighteen years he had been connected, in one capacity or another, with Richmond City’s police department, and Richmond City today is a somewhat hectic community of almost a hundred-thousand population.