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.
Donnegan called out, “Guess this is the wrecker.”
It was. The wrecking outfit from the garage rolled up, and two men in overalls got out.
“Hello, boys,” greeted MacBride. “Before you haul this piece of junk away, there’s a dead man inside. See if you can chop away some of the wreck.”
The two men pulled axes from their car and set to work and hacked away at the snarled mass of metal. MacBride stood at one side, sucking on his cigar, offering no suggestion to men who knew their business and were doing the best they could. Presently he saw them lay down their axes, and he stepped over to help.
Bit by bit they hauled out the broken, bloodstained body, and laid it down on the ground. MacBride bent down on one knee and taking Carlson’s flashlight, snapped on the switch. He grimaced, but gritted his teeth. A swarthy young face, the face of a boy in his early twenties.
“Hot diggity!” exclaimed Kennedy.
MacBride looked up. “What’s eating you?
“Don’t you know him?” cried Kennedy, his usually tired eyes alight with interest.
“Frankly, I don’t.”
Kennedy slapped his knee. “Duke Manola’s kid brother!”
“Hell!” grunted MacBride, and took a swift look at the discolored face.
“He was always a sheik with the ladies.”
“I’ve heard of him,” nodded MacBride. “Now what the cripes kind of a stunt did he try to pull?”
“Simple,” shrugged Kennedy. “Got fresh with some broad probably.”
“But how did the broad shake the wreck? I still say she wasn’t in the car when it hit. Man alive, there’d been no chance of her walking after that!”
“The crack reporter of the Free Press agrees with the astute captain’s common sense remark. But wait till Duke gets wind of it. You know these wops. Tweak the nose of a forty-eighth cousin and the whole shooting-match sharpens up their stilettos. Boy, don’t I know!”
“Well, if he started playing around it’s his tough luck. The trouble with a lot of these sheiks is that they’re so used to the yes-girls that when they meet another kind they get sore — and nasty.”
Kennedy rasped his throat. “Picture a decent gal trotting out with a marcelled sheik like Joe Manola! Don’t tell me!”
MacBride shrugged as he stood up. He took his flashlight and mounted the wreck, shooting the beam down through the twisted metal. A moment later he stood up and held a short, stubby automatic in his hand.
“One shot fired,” he said. “Not long ago, either.” He had rubbed his finger across the muzzle, and looked at the black streak it left.
A siren screamed through the night, and two headlights came racing down the road. It was the morgue bus, and it pulled up behind the patrol flivver.
“What kind of a gun?” asked Kennedy.
“Thirty-two,” shot back MacBride, and with a sudden movement crossed to the body and knelt down.
Kennedy trailed after him and bent over his shoulder. Then MacBride stood up, wiping his hands, a glitter in his eyes.
“He was shot, Kennedy. Shot through the right side.”
“And then he hit the tree!”
“Exactly.”
Kennedy whistled. “When the Duke hears this!”
MacBride turned to one of the man from the morgue bus. “You can take him. But there’s a slug somewhere inside. I want it after the autopsy.”
A few minutes later the bus shot off with its dead cargo, and MacBride turned to watch the wrecking-car tugging at the smashed machine. Its derrick hoisted up the front end, and thus the rear wheels were in a condition to move.
“Keep it in the garage,” said MacBride, “and I’ll take care of your bill.”
When the wreck had gone, with the rear red light winking in the distance, Kennedy made for the police car. “Well, let’s be going, Mac. This’ll be in the early editions.”
MacBride started to follow, but turned and retraced his steps to where the wreck had lain. His flash played on the gashed tree and down on to the gouged ground. His eyes narrowed and he bent over, picked up something that shimmered in the white light.
In the palm of his hand lay an emerald pendant, attached to a thin gold chain that had been broken. His lips parted in a sharp intake of breath, and his hand knotted over the pendant.
“Oh, shake it up, Mac,” called Kennedy.
MacBride turned and strode to the police car with hesitant steps. He climbed in and closed the door softly behind him. His hand, still holding the emerald pendant, slid into his pocket and remained there.
“Shoot, Donnegan,” he clipped.
3
On the way back through town, MacBride had the car stop in front of a cigar store.
“Want to get some cigars,” he told Kennedy, and strode into the store.
He bought half-a-dozen cigars, spent no more than a minute in a telephone booth, and then returned to the waiting car.
“Have one,” he offered Kennedy.
“You were always a good-natured Scotchman,” grinned Kennedy.
A couple of minutes later they walked into the station, and Kennedy made for the telephone, and shot the news into his office. Then he said, “Duty calls, Mac. Something tells me I’ll be seeing you often.”
“Don’t make it too often,” growled MacBride.
Kennedy waved and strolled out to catch a trolley back to the city.
MacBride tipped back his cap, revealing strands of damp hair plastered to his forehead by perspiration. His chiseled face looked a bit drawn.
He addressed Sergeant Haley huskily — “Call up the Nick Nack Club. Leave word to be delivered to Duke Manola that his brother was found dead at ten-thirty tonight—”
“Dead!” exclaimed Haley, who hadn’t recorded a killing in his precinct in ten years.
“Don’t butt in,” recommended MacBride, lazily, as though deep within him he was very, very weary. “Do that. Found dead in a wrecked car on Old Stone Road, near Pine Tree Park. Tell ’em the body’s at the morgue and may be reclaimed after the autopsy. No hint as to who shot him. No” — his teeth ground into his lower lip — “no clues. Make out your regular report and file it. Joseph Manola. We’ll get his age and other incidentals later.”
“Looks like murder, Cap’n!”
“Ye-es, it looks like murder,” droned MacBride, sagging toward his office.
Ted Kerr came in briskly from another room, stopped short in the path of the captain.
“In here,” said MacBride, and led the way into his office.
He sank into his chair, slammed his cap down on the desk and took a stiff drink.
“Hear you went out to investigate a wreck,” ventured Kerr.
“Ye-es. And ran into a murder.” MacBride’s hand was in his pocket fingering the emerald pendant.
“Well!”
“Don’t get worked up,” dragged out MacBride.
“You look all in,” said Kerr, seriously.
“Never mind me. What’s on your mind?”
“Well, nothing much. Kelly and I were out to the Blue River Inn. You know there’s been some complaints about raw parties being pulled off there. Pretty quiet tonight. Couple of drunken dames and a few soused college boys. And then... well...” He hesitated, and looked away, his lips compressed.
“Well, what?”
“Oh, nothing much. Just...” He paused again.
“Come on, Ted. Let’s have it.”
“Well, I just got a bit of a shock, that’s all.” His clean-cut face bore a vaguely hurt expression. “Well, Judith was there—”