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.
Lippy counted the money absently. “Considering what?”
“Considering you tried to frame me.”
Lippy’s cherubic face turned red. “Suppose you quit talking in circles and tell me what happened.”
“As if you didn’t know.”
“Look, Pete. I told you I’d give you five hundred bucks if you delivered the dough. You didn’t deliver the dough and you kept two thousand. You better have a story worth two grand or else hand it over.”
“You’re damn lucky you’re getting any of it back. If the cops had turned up there, you’d never have seen your money again.”
“Cops? What cops?”
“The blonde was dead. Strangled.”
Lippy looked up sharply. “Who did it?”
“You tell me. It just seems funny as hell that you sent me there, fat, dumb, and happy, and there was somebody waiting to kill her between the time the desk clerk called and gave her my name and the time I got up to the apartment. It smells bad to me. How does it smell to you?”
Lippy shook his head. “So help me, Pete, I didn’t have a thing to do with it.”
“What were you paying off for?”
There was a long silence. “Sorry, Pete. That I can’t tell you.”
I got up and walked to the window. “You better tell me, and it better be good, because I’m calling the cops in about two minutes and telling them why I was there.”
Lippy raised himself with a grunt. He took my arm. “Don’t do that, Pete. We’re friends. You know I can’t afford to get mixed up in anything like that. I’m on parole.”
I swung around. “What about me? Am I going to be the fall guy? Why was I there? ‘Well, I’ll tell you, Inspector, I was looking for my cuff link. I was passing the hotel and it fell off and rolled through the lobby and up the stairs.’ ” I paused. “What’ll I tell them?”
Lippy walked back to his chair and collapsed wearily.
“I don’t know, Pete. It’ll kill my wife. Ever since I got out, I’ve been clean. You know that. Most of the people here don’t even know I’ve served time. My kid’s in college — it’ll ruin her. When the papers get hold of it...” He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “I don’t know...”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Lippy. I don’t know who did it. Maybe you don’t either. But I’ve got to have a story when they pick me up, and it’ll have to be the truth.”
Lippy leaned forward intently. “You’re smart, Pete. You can find out who did it. Name your own price. Just keep me out of it.” His voice was desperate.
I looked out at the fog rolling into the bay. A foghorn moaned dismally. Lippy Fargo — reformed gambler. Worth sticking your neck out for? A good guy, a good friend, but...Finally I turned.
“OK. I’ll take a crack at it. But I can’t guarantee anything if the cops pick me up. And you’ll have to come clean with me.”
Lippy nodded. “OK, Pete. What do you want to know?”
“The pay-off. What was it for?”
Lippy took a deep breath. “Two years ago I was paroled. I wanted to get out of the gambling racket, and I was selling my clubs, one at a time. I went to Nevada to sell my Reno place — broke parole to do it. I was only there three days. I got in a game of stud with two other guys: Dude Wallon, a hood that used to work for me, and an Easterner named Wright.
“Dude was pretty drunk — he was just a gunman anyway — and he claimed this guy Wright was hiding an ace. Wright gives him some lip, so Dude pulls a gun and kills him. Just like that. Then he looks in his coat for the ace. He looks up at me and grins. ‘Wrong again,’ he says. There was a girl in the room — Dude’s girl. That was the blonde you saw.”
I nodded. “So you couldn’t report the murder without being caught violating your parole, and besides, Dude and the girl might have claimed you did it.”
“That’s right. Well, Dude got rid of the body, somehow, and headed for the East — and that’s all there was to it. Until I read this in the paper the other day.”
He walked to a desk and rummaged around. Then he handed me a clipping.
New York — May 10. The body of a man identified as John “Dude” Wallon was found floating in the East River today. Police believed that he was a victim of gang warfare.
“Well,” Lippy continued, “the other day the blonde turns up. She’s seen the clipping too, she says. She says that now Dude is dead it leaves only herself and me that know about Wright’s murder, and she’s awful broke, and could I spare twelve grand.”
I whistled.
“I told her I’d think it over. I thought it over, and decided to pay. I figured she’d be back for more, but I had to protect my family, and what the hell — twelve grand. I didn’t want to see her again myself, and you were the only guy I knew that I could trust with that kind of dough. That’s the story, Pete.”
I puffed at my cigarette. It sounded all right, but you never know.
“Can you think of anybody that might want to see the blonde murdered? Outside of you, that is?”
He shook his head. “No, not now.”
I looked up. “What do you mean, now?”
“Well, when Dude worked for me he was quite a ladies’ man. He dated this blonde you found dead, Sylvia Clinton, and a redhead named Flame Doreen that sang at the 411 Club, and I don’t know how many others. The redhead didn’t like the blonde, and vice versa. They had a fight once, right in my office. Dude stood there and laughed. But Dude’s dead now, and there wouldn’t have been any reason—”
I shook my head. “Were there any others?”
“Not that I know of. Of course, if she was using blackmail as a steady diet, anybody might have done it.”
I drove back to my hotel to get my stuff before the cops moved in. I cased the lounge carefully — there was no one there but the desk clerk and a few of the girls who hung out in the lobby. I opened my door and switched on the light.
“Hold it, Butler,” said a voice in the shadows. I looked down the barrel of a Police Special. A little old guy wearing horn-rimmed glasses stood behind the gun, and an overgrown kid in a police uniform stood behind the little guy. I stayed where I was.
“Search him, John,” said the little guy. The cop ambled over and went through my stuff. “This is him, Inspector,” he said, looking at my driver’s license. “He’s a private eye and a sheriff’s deputy and — say!” He whistled. “Two thousand dollars.” He handed me back my wallet.
“Does murder pay that well nowadays?” asked the little man. “Maybe I’m in the wrong racket.”
“Look,” I explained, “I was going to call you guys. I just wanted to check on something first.”
“Sure,” said the inspector. “Well, don’t bother to call. The desk clerk found the girl.”
“You’re making a mistake. I didn’t do it.”
“Nobody ever does it, mac. I’ve been working in Homicide for twenty years and I never found anybody that did it.”
“Listen,” I said reasonably. “You think I’d have left my right name at the front desk if I’d gone up there to kill the girl?”
“In a word, yes. It’s a very smart thing to do. It looks awfully good to a jury. That’s why you’d do it, especially if you might get caught anyway. To make it look better, though, you should have reported the crime. Yes, I think you did it, whether you left your name or not.”
“Well, you’re wrong.”
“OK, so I’m wrong. What were you doing up there?”
Well, now was the time. I thought of Lippy, sweating it out at home. I thought of his wife — not a bad old girl. I thought of his daughter in college. I knew I’d hate myself for turning soft, but what can you do?