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.
Mike followed slowly up behind his partner’s quick legs. At the stairhead Flaherty tossed a quarter to a girl in a window, and was passed through the turnstile by a tall, pimply faced man with glasses. A small anteroom, lit dimly by wall clusters of frosted red bulbs, and furnished with stuffed lounges and wood-backed settees, opened before him; past this the larger space of the ballroom spread from side to side of the building.
Flaherty pushed his way slowly along the side, looking over the crowd. He came back to the door, went around a second time, a third. After he smoked a cigarette and danced once with a plump brunette he walked out to where Mike was waiting in a chair near the door.
“No luck,” he said. “Johnny and the Jigger aren’t showing. Maybe they will be in later. We’d better stick.”
Mike nodded. Time passed slowly. Now and again men came up the stairs and pushed through the turnstile, greeting the pimply faced guardian as they passed. Flaherty grew restless, lit one cigarette from another, took a few quick puffs and quenched them in the sand bowl at his feet.
They had been waiting almost an hour when a little sallow-faced man came up the stairs and went past them to the men’s room. Mike jerked his head.
“Joey Helton, Flaherty. We can give him a try.”
Flaherty nodded and followed him across the room to the door. Inside, the little man was washing his hands at the sink. He didn’t turn as they entered but jumped quickly when Mike said: “Hello, Joey.” The sharp rat’s eyes flickered from one to the other, narrowed and beady.
Flaherty said, smiling thinly: “Hello, Joey. We got some news for Johnny the Greek. Seen him lately?”
“I ain’t,” said the little man. “What’s the news?”
“He’s been left a dirty pair of socks,” said Flaherty. “We wanta see him about washin’ them up. Try to remember, Joey.”
The little man snarled suddenly. “To hell with you!” He stepped by them with a quick twist of his body for the door.
Flaherty’s arm yanked him back, thrust the small body against the sink. “Easy, Joey. Three months without a sniff would soften you up.”
Joey glanced at Mike’s stony face, licked his lips weakly. He said: “All right. I don’t know nothin’ about the Greek; he’s been comin’ here pretty often, and hangin’ out with that Polish skirt. That’s all I see.”
“That’s all I want,” said Flaherty. “You’re a good boy, Joey. When you go out step up to the Polack and say something. But nothin’ about this. Got it?”
“Yeh,” said Joey. He straightened his tie sullenly and went out. A second later they followed.
Flaherty reached the edge of the dance-floor a yard behind the little man. He watched him thread a way through the crowd, stop before a tall blonde girl near the front. She nodded, turned away, and Joey went on again.
Flaherty went back to Mike. “I’m gonna call Devine,” he said. “Stick here.”
“Okey,” said Mike. “I’ll wait.
Flaherty went past the ticket-taker to a phone booth at one side. He thumbed through the book, got his number, dropped a nickel in the box. When he announced himself a man’s voice said: “Just a moment, sir.” He was trying to get a cigarette from his pack with one hand when a quick, staccato voice broke metallically in the earpiece.
“Mr. Flaherty?” Flaherty grinned a little; there was no eh stuff this time. Devine’s voice quivered and ran up swiftly, like a child’s. “I’ve got another message — by phone. They threaten to kill me tonight. They found out about you. My! You must get out here at once. If they—”
Flaherty got out his cigarette and scraped a match against the side of the booth. He said: “Don’t get excited. We’ll have some men out there in ten minutes, maybe less. They’re trying to scare you into it. Don’t worry.”
He hung up. Scared as hell now, but tough enough this afternoon when the steam wasn’t on. No guts, that kind...
Mike was waiting for him. “Wanta hop out to Devine’s?” Flaherty said. “Pick up a man on your way. He’s got the jitters — thinks they’re gonna spot him tonight. I’ll stick here; maybe I can get something from the Greek’s girl. Call me when you get there.”
Mike said: “Okey,” and went out towards the stairs. Flaherty stepped on to the dance-floor and looked about. The girl Joey Helton had spoken to was off at one side, in a row of chairs reserved for hostesses. Flaherty walked across the floor and stopped before her. “Dancing this one?” he asked.
She nodded, looked up without interest. When the music started they glided out to the floor. She was as tall almost as Flaherty, with blonde, short-clipped hair, and a heavy sensuous mouth. Her eyes were dark blue, thick-lidded.
They danced on without speaking. When the number was over, Flaherty said: “Thanks. You can step, sweetheart. Have the next?”
She responded with a faint shrug of her bared shoulders. The lights dimmed down and a young man in the band laid aside his instrument, began to croon in a sleepy voice through a small megaphone.
She had a firm, supple curved body. She kept her head turned, eyes over his shoulder. He shifted, tightened his hold.
“You’re nice,” he said. “Me, I think so. Too nice to waste your time on greaseballs.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment; then she spoke from the side of her mouth, not turning her head. “Greaseballs?” she said.
“Sure,” said Flaherty. “You know who I mean. The little ginny I saw you dancing with last night.”
Her face swung up to his, whiffing with it a cheap reek of perfume across his nostrils. There was a faint mocking gleam under her mascaraed lashes.
“I was not here last night.” Her voice was low, husky, with a thin blur of accent.
Flaherty laughed. “Musta been the night before. I see you with him a lot. Steady?”
She shrugged, humming the song the band played, deep in her throat.
“I get breaks like that,” Flaherty said. “Any chance of ditchin’ him for dinner tonight?”
“No,” she said. “I got a sick mother.”
“I know the song,” Flaherty answered. “The old man ain’t so well and you’re keepin’ the kid sister in a convent. All right, girlie; I’ll see you again.”
When the music was over he let her go back to her seat. She was meeting someone, probably; he’d have to take a chance on that being Johnny Greco. He resigned himself to wait, looking at his watch. Twenty minutes past ten; Mike’s call would be due now.
He walked out to the anteroom and smoked a cigarette. When the phone in the booth tinkled he went across and into it before the pimply faced man could turn.
“Hello,” he said.
“Flaherty?” Under Mike Martin’s furred voice pulsed a ripple of excitement. “Better get out here quick, boy. Someone laid a pineapple in Devine’s car. The chauffeur and him was blown to hell not five minutes ago.”
Flaherty got a taxi at the corner and stared tense-eyed into the darkness during the ten-minute ride. What was coming off? Johnny Greco was no fool; neither was Jigger Burns. Bumping a guy was a dough job — they weren’t in it for fun. Devine hadn’t come through — they didn’t give him time. Force of example, so that the next heavy man they touched wouldn’t squawk? That, maybe. He wondered what Mike had seen.
The cab swung into the quiet darkness of Magnolia Avenue. Three blocks farther on, a knot of people huddled together under the pale glint of a street lamp. Lights gleamed from houses all about; hastily clad people grouped in doorways, called to each other in shrill tones from window to window.
Flaherty got out and paid the driver. “Wait ten minutes,” he said.
Devine’s house was set back from the road on a low terrace. Flaherty saw it as a large three-story building, with a curve of graveled driveway leading whitely up across the dark lawn. A thick hedge banked it on the street side; when Flaherty cut in through this on the driveway a uniformed figure stepped out before him. He was fishing for his badge when Mike Martin came out from the shadows.