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.
“Been razzing you?”
“Has he! Jack, he’s got the whole thing worked out to a T. He’d just need my O.K. to spill the whole beans to the public, and likely Police Headquarters’d be mobbed. He’s right. He’s got the right slant on the whole dirty business. Jack, if I was ten years younger, I’d tell the Big Boss to go to hell and take my chances. That lousy wop is sitting on top of the world, and his gang’s got Richmond City tied by the heels.”
Cardigan sat down on the edge of a chair. There was something on his mind. You could see that much. He tapped with his fingers on the desk, his lips were a little set, the muscle lumps at either side of his jaw quivered, his dark eyes were close-lidded, active, flashing back and forth across MacBride’s face.
“Brace up, Steve,” he clipped. “I’ve got some news that might knock you for a row of pins.”
“Eh?” MacBride straightened in his chair.
Cardigan’s lips curled. “I came up alone. The sergeant said Kennedy’d gone up to see you. Didn’t notice if he’d left. So I came up beforehand — to see.”
“Kennedy left fifteen minutes ago. What’s up?”
“Enough!” Cardigan took a vicious crack at the desk with his doubled fist. “The dirty pups got Hanley!”
“What!” MacBride’s chair creaked violently. He leaned forward, laid his hand on Cardigan’s knee, his breath sucked in and held.
“Two shots — through the lung and the heart! Somebody’s going to pay for this, Steve! Joe Hanley was my partner — my sister’s husband! There’s nobody’ll stop me — nobody! I’ll—”
“Just a minute, Jack,” cut in MacBride gently. “How’d it happen?”
Cardigan got a grip on his temper, bit his lip. “I was out at Joe’s place for dinner tonight, on Webster Road. Marion was a little upset. Kid had a bad cold, and she had a streak of worrying on, just like her. I mind five years ago, how she used to say she’d never marry a cop. She used to worry about me all the time. Not that a cop wasn’t good enough — hell no. But she used to say if she married a cop she’d be laying awake all night worrying. So, like a woman, she married Joe, and Joe’s been a buddy of mine since we were kids. Well, you know that. Then she had two to worry over — Joe and me.
“And she was worrying tonight. Joe laughed. So did I. She got me alone in the hall and told me to watch out for Joe. She’d always been doing this. I kidded her. She said she meant it, and that she felt something was going to happen. I remember how she hung on to him when we breezed. God!”
“Steady, Jack!”
“I know. Well, Joe and I hoofed it to the park, to get a bus into the city. There was none in sight, so we began hiking down Webster Road till one’d come. Pretty lonesome there. A car came weaving down behind us, and we heard a girl scream. We turned around and held up our hands for it to stop. The driver swerved to one side, intending to duck us. He slid into a ditch, roared his motor trying to get out. The girl was yelling hysterically. We saw her pitch out of the car. Then it heaved out of the ditch and was getting under way when Joe hopped it, pulling his rod. Two shots slammed out, and Joe keeled. I had my hands full with the girl. The car skidded and crashed into the bushes.
“I had my rod out then and ran up. Two guys in the back had jumped out and ducked into the bushes. I nailed the chauffeur. He wasn’t heeled, but he was trying to get away, too. He started giving me a line and I socked him on the head so he’d stay put till I looked after Joe. Well, there wasn’t much to look after. Joe was dead. The girl — she was only a flapper — was bawling and shaking in the knees. She’d been pretty well mauled. A machine came along and I stopped it.”
“Wait. You say you got the chauffeur?”
“Sure. He says his name’s Clark, and he’s downstairs, barking for a lawyer.”
“Who’s the girl?”
“Pearl Carr’s her name. Just a wise little flapper who thought she was smart by taking a ride. She was waiting for a bus — she told me this — when this big touring car stopped and one of the guys offered her a lift. Sure, she got in, the little fool, and these guys started playing around.”
“Know the guys?”
Cardigan growled. “Two of Cavallo’s guns or I don’t know anything. Her description of one tallies with Bert Geer, that walking fashion-plate. You remember two years ago they nabbed Geer on suspicion for that girl out in St. Louis they found strangled near Grand Gardens. But he got out of it. The other guy sounds like that rat ‘Monkey’ Burns. I took the number of the touring car. I looked up the records downstairs and found the plates had been stolen from a sedan two weeks ago. If they’re Geer and Burns, it means that Cavallo’s in the pot, too, because they’re the wop’s right-hand guns. If we make them take the rap, they’ll draw in Cavallo, and just as sure as you’re born Diorio and Pozzo and our estimable State’s Attorney Mulroy’ll get in the tangle, and there’ll be hell to pay all around. But I’m going through with this, Steve, and the state’s attorney’s office be damned! Joe was my buddy, closer to me than a brother — my sister’s husband! God — can you picture Marion!”
MacBride was tight-lipped, a little pale, terribly grim. The ultimate had come. Would they tie the Department’s hands now?
“Did you let Clark get a lawyer?” he asked.
“No — cripes, no!”
“Then get him up here. Where’s the girl?”
“Downstairs, still bawling. I sent a cop out to get her a dress or something. I phoned her old man and he’s driving in to get her.”
“All right. Leave her there. But get Clark.”
Cardigan went out and MacBride settled back, heaved a vast sigh, crammed fresh tobacco into his pipe. When, a few moments later, the door opened, he was puffing serenely, though deep in his heart there was a great numbness.
Clark came in, aided by a shove in the rear from Cardigan. The detective closed the door, grabbed Clark by the shoulder and slammed him not too gently into a chair.
“Say, go easy there, guy!” whined Clark, a charred clinker of a runt, with a face of seeming innocence, like a mongrel dog.
“Close your jaw!” snapped Cardigan.
Clark spread his hands toward MacBride. “Tell this guy to leave me alone, Captain. He’s been treatin’ me hard. First off he beans me with his gat and since then he’s been chuckin’ me around like I was a rag. I got my rights. I’m a citizen. You can’t go cloutin’ citizens. I got my—”
“Soft pedal,” said MacBride heavily. “So your name’s Clark, eh? How’d you come to be driving that car?”
“I was drivin’ it, that’s all. I’m all right. I don’t know nothin’. I was just drivin’ it. You can’t make a slop-rag outta me.”
“Shut up,” cut in MacBride.
“All right, I’ll shut up. That’s what I’m gonna do. You gotta let me get a lawyer. I got rights. Them’s a citizen’s rights.”
“Listen to the bum!” chuckled Cardigan.
“There, see!” chirped Clark. “He’s still insultin’ me. He’s just a big wise guy, he is. I got my rights. I’ll see you get yours, fella. I was drivin’ a car. All right, I was drivin’ it. I know you guys. I ain’t gotta talk.”
“You’re going to talk, Clark,” said MacBride ominously. “And none of this cheap chatter, either. Talk that counts — see?”
“I ain’t. No, I ain’t. I want a lawyer. Gimme that phone.”
He scrambled out of the chair, clawed for the telephone. Cardigan grabbed him by the nape of the neck, hurled him back so hard that Clark hit the chair aslant and, knocking it over, sprawled with it to the floor. He crouched, cringing, blubbering.
“You leave me alone, you! What the hell you think you’re do in’? You leave me—”