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.
“Yeah?” Cardigan laughed softly. “Be yourself, Kennedy. Run along. You’re wasting time on me.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Then learn.”
Kennedy had a highball and went on his way. Alone, Cardigan took another drink, and looked at his watch. It was half-past eight at night. He looked across at the telephone on the wall. He drained his glass and lit a cigarette.
The telephone rang. He got up and beat the owner to it. “This is for me,” he said, and took off the receiver. “You, Pete?... O.K. Be right over.”
He hung up, paid for his drinks and shrugged into his dark overcoat. Outside, it was damp and cold, and automobiles hissed by over slushy pavements.
Cardigan did not walk toward the bright glow that marked the beginning of the theatrical district. He bored deeper into the heart of Jockey Street. Where it was dirtiest and darkest, he swung in toward a short flight of broken stone steps, reached a large, ancient door, groped for a bell-button and pressed it. It was opened a moment later by a huge, beetle-browed negro.
“Pete Fink,” said Cardigan. “He expects me.”
“Who yuh are?” asked the negro.
“None of your damned business.”
“I’ll get Fink,” said the negro and slammed the door in Cardigan’s face.
“Takes no chances,” muttered Cardigan. “Well, that’s good.”
Fink opened the door this time, while the negro hovered behind him, his face like shining ebony under the single gas-jet.
“Take a good look, big boy,” Cardigan said, as he passed in.
And the negro said, “Got yuh, boss.”
Fink led the way up a flight of crooked stairs that creaked under their footfalls. They reached the upper landing. Cardigan placed six doors in a row. One of these Fink opened, and they entered a large, square room, furnished cheaply with odd bits of furniture, no two pieces the same in make or design.
Cardigan stood with his hands in his coat pockets, idly running his eyes about the room.
Fink was leaning against the door he had closed. He was a big, rangy man, with one of his shoulders higher than the other. His nose was a twisted knot; a tawny mustache sagged over his mouth. He had a jaw like a snowplow, and eyes like ice — cold and steady and enigmatic. His hands were big and red and bony. He wore brown corduroy trousers, a blue flannel shirt, a wide belt with an enormous brass buckle. He looked like a tough egg. He wasn’t a soft one.
Cardigan sighed and poured himself a drink. He downed it neat, rasped his throat, and looked at the empty glass.
“Good stuff, Pete.”
“Cavallo sells the same.”
They faced each other. Their eyes met and held and bored one into the other. At last Fink grinned and rocked away from the door, sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. Cardigan sat down opposite him, opened his overcoat and helped himself to one of Fink’s cigarettes.
“Well, Pete?...”
Fink leaned forward, elbows resting on the table, his butt jutting from one corner of his mouth and an eye squinted against the smoke that curled upward.
“Six,” he said. “I got six.”
“Who are they?”
“Chip Slade, Gats Gilman, Luke Kern, Bennie Levy, Chuck Ward and Bat Johnson. All good guns.”
“Yeah, I know. How do they feel about it?”
“Cripes, they’re ripe!”
“They want to know who’s behind you?”
“I said a big guy — somebody big, who’s in the know.”
Cardigan chuckled. “Remember, Pete, it stays that way. I’m — it sounds like a joke — the mystery man in this. The master mind!” He chuckled again, amusedly, then grew serious. “To come out in the open would be to shoot the whole works. I’m too well known as a gumshoe. But I’ll manage this, Pete, and supply the first funds. I’ve got a measly two thousand saved up, but it’s a starter. And I’m out to flop on the bums that got Hanley, my buddy. If everybody holds up his end, you’ll all make money and Cavallo and his crowd will get washed out.”
“You say the word, Jack. I’m takin’ orders from you. The rest take orders from me and no questions asked.”
“Good. I’ll give you five hundred bucks to buy a second-hand car. Get a big touring. To hell with the looks of it; buy it for the motor — for speed. Buy half-a-dozen high-powered rifles and plenty of ammunition. Pick up some grenades if you can. How about a storehouse?”
“Got one picked — an old farmhouse out on Farmingville Turnpike.”
“Sounds good. Rent it for a month.”
“It’s way out in the sticks,” added Fink. “Off the main pike, way in on a lane, and no other house inside of a quarter mile. I can get it for fifty bucks a month.”
“Get it. We’ve got to watch out for tapped wires, though. Here, I’m staying at the Adler House. You know that number. If things get hot and you’ve got to talk a lot, just call me up and say, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ I’ll hang up and run down to the drug-store on the corner. There’s a booth there and I’ll get you the number. We’ll choose booths all over the city where we can make calls, and we’ll get the numbers.”
“O.K.”
“How about the dinge downstairs?”
“He owns a dump. Sees a lot and says nothin’.”
Cardigan ground out his cigarette. “Then it’s all set. Get me straight, Fink. Leave the cops alone. Tell your boys that. We’re after Cavallo and his rats — not the cops. If the cops show up, run. I’ve got a grudge against that wop and the crowd he runs with. I’m playing my grudge to a showdown. If I make some jack out of it, all right. But I’m after rats first — not jack. You and your guns can clean up sweet in this racket, if you use your head and move how I tell you.”
“I got you, Jack,” nodded Fink.
“All right. Let me know when you’re all set and I’ll map out our first move. Get the rifles, ammunition, grenades. Get a fast car and see that the tires are good.” He drew a wad of bills from his pocket. “There’s a thousand as a starter.”
Fink shoved the money into his pocket and poured another brace of drinks.
“You got guts, Jack,” he said, “to chuck the Department — for this.”
“Guts, my eye!” clipped Cardigan. “I’ve got a grudge, Pete, a whale of a grudge — against the dirty, rotten bums that killed the best friend I ever had.” He raised his glass. “Down the hatch.”
On that they drank.
4
Two days later Cardigan was sitting in his room at the Adler House, when the telephone rang. It was the desk, and he said, “Send him up.” Then he settled back again in his over-stuffed easy-chair. It was ten in the morning and he was still in pajamas and bathrobe. On a settee beside him was a detailed map of Richmond City and its suburbs. Here and there he had marked x’s, or made penciled notations.
There was a knock on the door and he called, “Come in, Steve.”
MacBride came in, closed the door and stood there stroking his chin and regarding Cardigan seriously.
“Sit down,” said Cardigan. “Take the load off your feet, Steve. You’ll find cigars in the box on the table. How’s tricks?”
MacBride took a cigar and eased himself down on a divan. “My day off and I thought I’d drop in and see you.”
“Is that all you came for, Steve?”
MacBride lit up and took a couple of puffs before replying. “Not exactly, Jack.”
“Spill it.”
“Oh, it’s not much. Only I was worrying. You still thinking of butting in on Cavallo’s racket?”
“What a question! Why’d you suppose I left the Department?”