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
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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.
Cardigan went out with the pint flask on his hip and dropped in to see Maloney in the speakeasy. He talked business to him, and let him take a drink from the bottle.
“Boy!” whistled Maloney. “That’s Scotch, what I mean!”
“What’s the news?”
“The boss says all right, if he likes the stuff. Fifty-five a case.”
“I can get two-hundred-and-forty cases. He can have the lot or none, and he’s got to act fast. This is no young stuff—”
“Hell, I know! Ain’t I just tasted it? And me — I get my share, when?”
“When your boss pays, you get twelve-hundred bucks, and then forget about everything. There are no names necessary.”
“Of course not,” nodded Maloney. “How do you get the money?”
“Your boss’ll send it to John D. Brown, at a post office box. You’ll get the box number later. Send it in a plain package, with no return address. Thirteen thousand and two hundred dollars in one hundred dollar bills.”
“Insure it?”
“Lord no! Just first class — that’s the safest way to send stuff through the mails. It beats registered mail four ways from the jack. I never lost a first class letter, but I’ve lost ’em registered and I’ve lost insured packages. A man will pick up the letter at the post office.” He thought for a moment. “Get the dope from your boss, and let’s know where the booze goes.”
“I ought to get my share first,” demurred Maloney.
“I know. You think I’ll skip. You’ll get yours through the mail, too. That’s the proposition. It’s up to you.”
“I’ll take the chance.” Maloney got up. “Come in at six.”
Cardigan nodded and left. He took a box at a suburban post office under the name of John D. Brown. When he met Maloney at six that night the ex-saloon keeper was flushed with elation. Everything was settled, and the liquor was to be delivered as soon as possible.
“That means tonight,” put in Cardigan.
“The boss stores it at the Tumbledown Inn. Say the word and there’ll be somebody there tonight to meet the truck.”
“It’ll be delivered sometime after midnight.”
With that Cardigan went out and met Fink in the latter’s hideout. He explained what had transpired, and Fink rubbed his hands in joyful anticipation.
“I know where I can get a truck, Jack. Leave it to me.”
“I am,” said Cardigan.
He explained in detail how the liquor should be transported, how Bat Johnson should drive the truck alone and the others ride in the touring car ahead. The Tumbledown Inn was on Farmingville Turnpike, four miles beyond the farmhouse where the liquor was stored at present.
“It’s a cinch,” said Fink.
“When it’s all over, ring me up and say the O.K. word.”
They parted, and Cardigan headed for the Adler House. He had proved a successful general on his first try. He believed he could repeat a second time, and then some more. He turned in at eight and set his alarm to wake him at one. He figured that he should get a report from Fink at about two.
When he got up at one a.m., he dressed, in the event of an emergency. He drank some hot black coffee from a thermos and ate some sandwiches which he had brought up before. Then he lounged on a divan with a cigar and watched the clock. The hands moved around the hour and passed two. They passed two-thirty and wheeled on toward three. At three, Cardigan sat up.
He looked grave, a bit tight-lipped. He stared at the telephone. It was black and silent. The hotel was silent as a tomb. Up from the street floated the sound of a lone trolley car rattling across a switch. He sat down, clasping his hands around one knee, tapping an impatient foot. Half-past three.
“Something’s gone wrong,” he muttered. He cracked fist into palm, cursed under his breath, bitterly.
Dawn came, and then the sun. And still no word from Pete Fink.
Cardigan put on his overcoat and went out. He bought a paper, thinking he might find some clue there, but he reasoned that if anything had happened in the early hours, the morning papers wouldn’t have it yet. The next edition might. He ate breakfast in a dairy restaurant. Then, reasoning that he ought to be at his room in case Fink might call, he hurried back.
At nine Fink called. He said two words. “My room.”
“Right,” said Cardigan.
7
Twenty minutes later he was striding down Jockey Street. The negro let him in and he climbed the rickety staircase. He knocked at Fink’s door. There was a slow movement.
Then, “You, Jack?”
“Yes, Pete.”
The door opened. Cardigan went in.
Fink was dropping back into a chair.
“Lock it,” he muttered.
His face was haggard. His left arm was in a sling, and blotches of dry blood showed on the bandage.
“I thought so,” said Cardigan.
“Yeah,” nodded Fink, and forced a grin. “They got Bat.”
Cardigan sat down. “Go on.”
“They got Bat. It was all a accident. We delivered the booze and was on the way back. We took Prairie Boulevard. Bat wanted to bring back the truck. The tourin’ car got a flat and we stopped to make a change. Bat went ahead slow all by his merry lonesome. We got the spare on, all right, and whooped it up to catch him. You know where Prairie Boulevard goes through them deep woods. It’s pretty lonely there.
“Well, our headlights pick up Bat and he’s stalled. But we see another car stopped in front of him, facing him. It looks phony, and we take it easy. We see some guys standin’ around on the road, but they duck for the car. We stop our car and wait. We think maybe they’re dicks, see. Then their car starts and roars towards us. It looks like they’re goin’ to crash us, but they cut around and slam by, scrapin’ our mudguard. A lot of guns bust loose and I’m socked in the arm. Chip gets his cheek opened. Nobody else is hurt. Gats turns around and empties his rod at the back of it. I don’t know who he hit, but the car kept goin’.
“I get out, holdin’ my arm and Bennie tears off some of his shirt and sops up the blood. Chip is holdin’ his cheek and cursin’ a blue streak. Gats runs up to the truck and we go after him. Bat is layin’ on the road, pretty still. Him and Gats were buddies, you know. You should hear Gats curse!
“Bat is dyin’. They’d busted his knob with a blackjack. He says he was ridin’ along when this car stopped him. See, just by accident. Monkey Burns and Bert Geer and two others. They smell there was booze in the truck, and ask him what’s he been doin’. He tells them where they can go. They wanter know who he’s been runnin’ booze for. He ain’t talkin’. They sock him, but he don’t chirp. That’s Bat all over. More you sock him the worse stubborn he gets. Gawd, they batted hell outta him! Ugh! Then they see us. Bat croaks after he spiels us his story. Poor Bat. He was a good shuffer.”
Cardigan stared at the floor for a long minute, his hands clenched.
Fink was saying, “I took the plates off the truck and disfiggered the engine number and the serial number with a couple o’ shots. Then we drove to the farmhouse. The boys are there now. I got here alone, quick as I could. I could ha’ sent one o’ the boys to call you up, but I didn’t want any o’ ’em to know where you was.”
“You’re aces up in a pinch, Pete,” said Cardigan, and he meant it.
“I did the best I could.”
“I’ll say you did. Did Monkey and his gang see you boys?”
“No. And Bat didn’t tell ’em. But they know, like everybody else, that Bat was buddies with Gats, and they’ll be huntin’ Gats. And Gats has gone wild. He wants to go out gunnin’ for them guys. He swears he’ll do it. And Gats is the best damn gunman I know about.”