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.
Outside, it was broad daylight. The house, he saw, was set far up on one of the hillsides north of Beverly. He walked down the long, curving roadway without seeing anyone. He walked for a long time, his head aching dully, the sun growing warmer on his back. Finally he reached a drug-store and called a cab.
11
The shine-boy looked up as Lennox came through the General gate.
“Morning, Mr. Lennox.”
“Hello, Sam.” He went on across the lot towards the executive offices. Steps sounded on the concrete behind him. Nancy Hobbs’ voice called.
“Oh, Bill!”
He turned and managed a grin. “How ’r’ you, Nance?”
She said: “I’ve been hunting for you since I heard you were out of here, looking every — Your face! What’s the matter? What happened?”
“I’ve been playing house with the boys.” He grinned. “Come in while I see Sol, if you want some fun. Then you can drive me to the station.”
She followed him towards Spurck’s office. “So you’re really going to pull out?”
“You said it. Just as soon as I see Sol.”
“I’ll wait out here,” she said, stopping in the reception room. “And, Bill, don’t let him talk you into anything.”
He stopped also, and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, sweet, I’m washed up.” He went through into Spurck’s office. Spurck’s secretary was beside the big desk taking dictation. Spurck came to his feet.
“Bill?”
“Mr. Lennox to you,” Bill told him. “Get Elva Meyer and that precious nephew of yours in here. I want to see them.”
Spurck said, “But — your nose!”
“Never mind my nose. Get them.”
Spurck swung on the secretary. “What is it you’re standing there for? Get them — can’t you? Must I do everything about this plant yet?”
“Yes, Mr. Spurck.” The secretary bobbed, and disappeared.
Spurck said: “Where have you been? All night, I don’t sleep, wondering.”
Lennox clipped: “Save it until Braun gets here.” He helped himself to a cigarette from the box on Spurck’s desk and stood, rolling it between his fingers so that the tobacco spilled out a little at each end. The door opened and Elva Meyer came in. “You wanted—” She stopped when she saw Lennox.
Bill said: “Sit down.”
“I... er—”
His voice snapped: “Sit down!”
She sank into a chair. Spurck looked at her, then at Lennox, started to speak, then changed his mind. Again the door came open and Braun entered the room. His face changed when he saw Lennox, losing its color; his lips grew almost pallid. “Hello, Bill?” he managed.
Lennox nodded. He crossed to the desk and tore the newspaper wrapping from the package. Money spilled out upon the desk. Spurck made a glad sound, deep in his throat. Braun and the girl exchanged quick, startled glances.
Lennox said: “There’s thirty-five grand there, Sol. You’ll have to take the rest out of Braun’s salary.”
Spurck, who had been fingering the money, looked up quickly. Braun made a strangled noise. “You can’t—”
Lennox said: “Shut up! Listen, Sol! This relative of yours has been bucking the wheel. He dropped plenty to French. French had his paper for fifty grand and was threatening to come to you. Someone got the bright idea of snatching Wayborn and soaking you fifty grand to get him back. They figured that you’d call Braun in and let him handle it, but you didn’t. You showed the letter to me.” He stopped and lit the cigarette.
“Meyer here has been playing around with Braun when people weren’t watching. He told her about his jam and the Wayborn idea and she put him in touch with Girkin. Girkin and Charley did the dirty work—”
“It’s a lie!” Braun was on his feet.
Lennox said, coldly: “See this nose?” He touched it with his finger. “The man that gave me that is dead. Shut up!”
Braun sank back in his chair with a sick look.
Lennox went on:
“Girkin thought that Meyer was still his moll. He didn’t know that he was washed up there. When he found out, he held up ten grand. I don’t know where it is. Neither did French. They grabbed Girkin and tried to make him talk. They searched his apartment and stuck a chiv into Charley’s ribs when he walked in on them. That’s about all.”
Braun said: “You can’t prove it, you can’t prove it.”
Lennox looked at him. “For the first time in your life, you’re right. French and Girkin are dead, but I don’t have to prove it. Sol knows.”
Spurck was looking at his nephew. “Loafer!” he shouted. “Loafer! Get out!” He waved his arms wildly. Braun tried to say something. Spurck moved around the desk towards him. Braun went out fast.
Lennox said: “That will be about all, Sol. I’m washed up here. It’s New York and some rest for me.”
Spurck said: “But listen once, will you? I—”
Nancy Hobbs had been waiting a long time. She looked at her watch again, just as the door opened and Lennox came out. She told him: “You’ll have to hurry. There isn’t much time.”
He didn’t meet her eyes. “I’m not going today, Nance.”
“Bill!” She was facing him, her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. “You’ve let Spurck—”
He shrugged wearily. “Sol’s got a new idea for a picture. All about an actress who has her leading man kidnaped to raise money for her boy-friend so that he won’t have to go to the big-house. Sol says that it’s the best idea in years. That it is ‘superb, stupendous, colossal.’ That’s just the usual bunk talk, of course, but I think that I’ll hang around and see how it turns out. A few weeks won’t matter, and this picture may be a little different.”
The Shrieking Skeleton
Charles M. Green
Charles M. Green was one of the pseudonyms of Erle Stanley Gardner. While most pulp writers struggled to earn a living, Gardner managed to leap into the big time very quickly. His first two fictional works were sold in 1921 to Breezy Stories. His third story, “The Shrieking Skeleton,” was sold to Black Mask in 1923 under the pen name Charles M. Green. He continued to use this byline to sell stories and articles to such publications as Life, Droll Stories, Mystery Magazine, Chicago Ledger, The Smart Set, TripleX, and, of course, Black Mask, for the next year.
Among the other Gardner pseudonyms are A. A. Fair, his most well-known, under which he wrote a long series of novels about Bertha Cool and Donald Lam; Carleton Kendrake, for a single novel, The Clew of the Forgotten Murder (1935), which has been frequently reprinted under Gardner’s own name as The Clue of the Forgotten Murder; and Charles Kenny, also with a single novel, This Is Murder (1935), also reissued under Gardner’s own name.
While Perry Mason is nearly a household name, Gardner created numerous other series characters for the pulps, including Ed Jenkins, known variously as “the Phantom Crook” and “the Gentleman Rogue”; Sidney Zoom, the master of disguise; Soo Hoo Duck, the “King of Chinatown”; Speed Dash, the “Human Fly”; Lester Leith, con man extraordinaire; Ken Corning, a lawyer in the Mason mold; Paul Pry, the brilliant grifter; and the Patent Leather Kid.