The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories
- Автор: Adams Cleve F., Babcock Dwight V.
- Год: 2010
- Язык: английский
- Год: A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
- ISBN: 978-0-307-45543-7
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
Black Mask was the apotheosis of noir. It was the magazine where the first hardboiled detective story, which was written by Carroll John Daly appeared. It was the slum in which such American literary titans like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler got their start, and it was the home of stories with titles like “Murder Is Bad Luck,” “Ten Carets of Lead,” and “Drop Dead Twice.” Collected here is best of the best, the hardest of the hardboiled, and the darkest of the dark of America’s finest crime fiction. This masterpiece collection represents a high watermark of America’s underbelly. Crime writing gets no better than this.
The El Romano Club was located on the top of a storage building. The attendant looked at Lennox, nodded and motioned him to the elevator. They shot skyward, stepped out into a hallway with blank concrete walls. There were doors off this hall. Lennox knew that some of them opened into storage rooms. The door at the end seemed to open automatically as he stepped before it. He said: “Hello, chiseler,” to the man that stood aside for him to enter.
The man grinned in what he thought was a pleasant manner. “Evening, Mr. Lennox. How are you?”
Bill said: “Pretty lousy, Bert. Big crowd tonight?”
The man shrugged expressive shoulders. “Fair. What can you expect with the studios on half-pay?”
Lennox nodded and tossed his hat and coat to the hat-check girl, “ ’lo, gorgeous.”
She gave him a dimpled smile. “Hello, Bill. You look like the devil.”
“Sure, that’s because I’ve been working for him so long.”
He went down the short, carpeted hall and into the main room. The room was large, high-ceilinged and comfortably filled. Three roulette wheels, set in line, occupied the center. In the far corner was a group of men and one woman about the crap table. Chuck-a-luck and the half-moon blackjack tables were ranged against the wall. Lennox crossed the room, conscious that people were turning to look at him. A blonde who a week ago would have rushed across the room to attract his attention presented a pair of too prominent shoulder blades for his inspection.
Lennox’s lips thinned. “Just a friendly town,” he thought. “When the knife falls, everyone helps you down into the gutter.” He paused before the grilled window of the cashier’s cage and, picking up a pad of blank checks, filled one in for five hundred.
The man behind the grille took it in his soft white fingers and pretended to study it. Lennox watched him with narrowed eyes. “Don’t you read English?”
The cashier said: “You’re sure that this is good, Mr. Lennox?”
Lennox said: “Hell, no; it isn’t good, and you know it, but you’ve cashed a hundred like it. I’ve never failed to pick them up, have I?”
The man shrugged. “Sorry. My orders are not to cash any more checks.”
“You mean any more of mine?”
Again the shrug, as he pushed the check towards Lennox. Someone behind him snickered. A voice said: “Did you hear that Sol was getting himself a new office boy?” Several people laughed.
Lennox apparently had not heard. He said: “Is French here?”
The cashier shrugged for the third time. Lennox picked up the check, folded it carefully and slipped it into his pocket as he crossed one corner of the room, went around the end of the metal bar and through a curtained doorway. Before him was a wide hallway with a door at the end. A young man with too black hair was seated on a chair in the bare hall, reading a confession magazine. He dropped the magazine and came to his feet with cat-like grace. “You can’t come in here, you.”
Lennox said softly: “I’m coming in, lousy. Out of the way.”
For the space of a half-minute neither moved. The black-haired one’s hand was in his pocket. He said, slowly, distinctly: “You don’t rate around here any more, Lennox. Take a tip and get out.”
Bill’s smile was very thin. “That’s where you have your cues mixed, handsome. I still rate, plenty. I’m seeing French, and he’s going to like seeing me.”
The other’s voice was confidential. “Why don’t you get wise? When you’re through in this town, you’re through. Go out easy, pal. I wouldn’t like to throw you out.”
Lennox hesitated, shrugged, and half turned. The other relaxed slightly. Suddenly Lennox’s right shoulder sagged, his left came up, and his right fist crossed to the gunman’s jaw. The black-haired one went down with a look of surprise and pain. Lennox caught him, eased him to the floor, knelt on his chest, pulled the gun from the side pocket and got another from the shoulder-harness. There hadn’t been much noise.
“Now I’ll give you a tip,” he said, in a low, grim tone. “This town isn’t healthy for you. Remember that killing at San Clemente? The D.A.’s office might hear something about that if you aren’t out of the village before morning.”
He straightened his coat, pocketed the two guns, and went on down the hall to the door. Looking back, he saw the gunman get slowly to his feet. Lennox stuck a hand into his pocket. The man looked at him once, then disappeared into the gambling room.
There were voices in the room beyond the door. One that Lennox knew said: “But, French. How was I to know they had a list of the numbers?”
“You fool! That’s what you should have found out. A hell of a help you are. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because I couldn’t get away sooner. My uncle kept me at the studio until late. He’s half-crazy.”
“Yeah.” French’s voice had a biting quality. “Now get out of here and don’t let anyone see you go. I’ll call you when I want you.”
A door closed somewhere within the room, and Lennox retreated down the passage towards the gambling room. His eyes were narrow, but there was a thin, half-mocking smile about his lips. The voice he had heard belonged to Stan Braun, Sol Spurck’s nephew.
He came back along the passage, taking pains to walk heavily.
“Hello, handsome,” he said to the empty hall. He didn’t shout, but his voice was loud enough to carry to the room beyond. “The boss in? Yeah, well, don’t move, rat. This thing in my hand isn’t an ornament.”
He covered the remaining distance to the door in quick strides. It wasn’t locked and he pushed it inward, only far enough to slip through. A man was just stepping around the flat-topped desk, a man with a young, cold face, and gray hair. He stopped when he saw Bill, his face showing no emotion, his eyes very narrow.
“Hello, Lennox! Didn’t Toni tell you that you weren’t wanted?”
Lennox’s smile was almost child-like. “He did mention something like that, but I didn’t believe him.”
The gambler took a step backwards and sat down in the desk chair. “Maybe you’ll believe me?” The direct, prominent eyes measured Lennox carefully.
Bill walked slowly towards the desk. He took his hand from his coat pocket, calling attention to the fact by doing so very slowly. “The cashier turned down my check. I got the idea that it was your orders.”
The man at the desk shifted his weight slightly. “We’ve had plenty of trouble with your paper, Bill. That bank account of yours is like a sieve, a rubber one.”
Lennox said: “You never howled about my paper before. It’s always been covered.”
The other shrugged expressively. “Spurck always took care of that. I hear that he isn’t taking care of it any longer.”
“Meaning?”
“Just that. You’re off the gold standard as far as Spurck is concerned. Sorry, Bill. If ten will help you?” He drew a large roll from his pocket and hunted through the big bills slowly, insultingly.
Lennox grinned. “Thanks, French, but I’ll eat tomorrow.” He turned towards the door, then said, across his shoulder: “Don’t mind if I hang around a while? I always did like raids.”
The man at the desk laughed. “So you’ll have me raided. Your mind’s getting twisted. You’ve got yourself mixed with someone important. There isn’t a cop in town that would dare touch this joint.”
“Like that?” Lennox’s voice sounded interested.
“Like that,” French told him, blandly.
9
Lennox went back into the main room. Toni, the slick-haired gunman, was not in sight. Lennox stopped before the bar and spun a half dollar on the polished surface. The white-coated bartender shoved across a scotch and soda, with a twisted bit of lemon peel in the bottom. Lennox tasted his drink; then, hooking his elbows on the edge of the bar, he considered his next move. The blonde, who had given him her back when he first came in, swept past with a black-haired youth in tow. She turned her head.