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.
“Just a friendly call,” I said.
“OK, John, slip the cuffs on him.”
“Now wait a minute,” I said. “I can—”
The big cop moved over and clicked a handcuff onto my wrist, and that was that. A handcuff makes a very decisive sound. He put the other cuff on himself. I felt like tail-end Charlie on a chain gang.
“Take him down to the car. I’m going to look around.”
The cop marched me to the elevator. We stood behind the elevator boy, saying nothing, as we started down to the lobby. The cop towered on my right, a real tribute to American breakfast food: tall, broad, healthy. I eyed him speculatively. I thought of spending the next six months in the city jail with the prospect of graduating to a quiet grave in the municipal cemetery, and decided that it was worth trying. I never had much of a left, but if he had a glass jaw...
He did. I put everything I had into the blow, it went directly to the button, and he folded like a tired old man, almost pulling me down with him. The elevator boy turned, his face white.
“Mr. Butler, you shouldn’t oughta have done that!”
“OK, sonny. Don’t worry about it.” I pulled the gun out of the cop’s holster and the keys out of his pocket. I fumbled with the keys and tried two of them on the steel bracelet. The second one worked. “Let me out in the basement, and then let’s see this elevator head for the top floor, and I mean the top floor.”
I got out quickly, walked swiftly through the help’s quarters, and out the side door into an alley. I ran down the alley and on to the main street. I signaled a taxi and told the driver to take me to the 411 Club. I sat back and wiped the sweat off my brow. My hand was shaking. We’d gone three blocks before I heard the siren start to wail...
I sat at a table in the back of the 411 Club and ordered a shot of whiskey and a bottle of beer. The ten o’clock floor show was just coming on. I watched the girls swinging their legs, and listened to a refugee from a third-rate burlesque try to make like a comedian, and heard a washed-up tenor murder Mother Macree. Then the redhead walked from the shadows, leaned on the piano, and began to sing.
She had creamy white skin and shimmering long hair the color of burnished copper. And sea-green eyes, and a shape that couldn’t have been natural but obviously was. She was wearing a low-cut white evening dress that rippled when she moved and she had a low, husky voice. When she sang, she sang to every man in the place. When she stopped singing, a long, male sigh escaped the room, and then applause. She sang again. I called the waiter.
“Is that Flame Doreen?”
“Yeah. Oh, brother!”
“Tell her I’d like to see her. A friend of Dude Wallon.” I slipped him a five-dollar bill. He looked at it critically.
“OK, mac, but you’re wasting your time. Strictly no soap.”
“Tell her anyway.” The waiter moved off toward the wings of the stage.
In a few minutes she appeared out of a side door, looked over the audience, and crossed the dance floor. She slid into the seat opposite mine and looked me over coolly.
“Yes?”
Now what? I tore my gaze away from the green eyes. “Drink?”
She hesitated. “All right. Whiskey and soda.”
I ordered it and sat back.
“Miss Doreen, I’d like to find out what you know about Sylvia Clinton.”
Her face froze. “Plenty. Who wants to know?”
I flashed my wallet with its sheriff’s deputy badge, and put it back into my pocket. A shadow of fear crossed her face.
“What do you want to know?”
“When did you see her last?” I asked, watching her eyes.
She studied her drink. “The other day. I ran into her on the street.”
“She’s dead.”
The fear lingered in her eyes. She lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. Coolly she said: “I’m so sorry. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.”
“Murdered.”
“That I can believe. Well, is there anything else?”
“Where were you this afternoon?”
She hesitated. “Shopping.”
“What did you buy?”
“Clothes.”
“Where?”
She flushed angrily, her eyes sending out emerald sparks.
“You don’t think I killed her?”
“Maybe.”
“Look Sherlock, why would I do it?”
“Jealousy.”
“Don’t be silly. On acount of Dude? That’s all over with, and for your information, Dude is dead.”
“How do you know?”
She paused. “Maybe I read it in the paper — maybe somebody told me — I don’t know. Anyway, I heard that he was killed. Now if you’re all through...”
Something was wrong. I didn’t know what, but her story didn’t ring true. There was nothing I could do. I stood up.
“OK, sister. But for your information, I don’t believe you were shopping.”
I paid the bill and left the club, my hat down over my face. I hailed a cab and gave him Lippy’s address...
Lippy was still up. He looked as if he’d had a tough night. His eyes were shadowed and his face was drawn. He let me in quickly.
He said, “Pete, thanks.”
“Thanks for what?”
“Giving them the slip.”
“How’d you find out about that?”
“The radio. They’ve broadcast your description. They have a dragnet out for you.”
I sank wearily to the couch. “Oh, brother,” I moaned. Lippy poured me a shot of whiskey. I gulped it and handed him back the glass.
“Well,” I said finally, “I talked to the redhead. No soap.”
Lippy shook his head. “She’s the only one I can think of, Pete, and with Dude dead...”
I walked to the window. Lippy was right. With Dude dead, there was no reason for jealousy. That left Lippy. I began to wonder if I were getting the run-around. I turned.
“Listen, Lippy, I hope to hell you’re playing ball with me, because if you’re not, so help me, I’ll—”
There was a crash of breaking glass and the roar of a gun. Automatically I hit the deck, grabbing for the lamp cord. I got a hand on it and pulled. The light went out. Silhouetted in the glare from the street I saw a shadow on the fire escape. I waited and then crawled to the window. Cautiously I poked my head over the ledge. Two stories below I heard a movement. Someone dropped to the pavement and a dark shape flitted into an alley. In the apartment house across the street lights flicked on and people talked excitedly. I turned.
“You all right, Lippy?” I asked softly.
I heard Lippy grunt and the light clicked on. He was standing by the door, carefully inspecting a jagged hole in the stucco wall of the living room, a big hole with cracks radiating from it.
“Close,” he said wearily, “but no cigar. Reminds me of the old days.”
“Yeah.” I lit a cigarette. “Who do you suppose has you on his list?”
Lippy shrugged. “Lots of people, I guess. Just the same, that doesn’t happen every day. You suppose it’s tied up some way with the blonde’s murder?”
“I don’t know. I do know I gotta get the hell out of here before the cops come to see who lit the firecracker.”
The bedroom door opened and a tall, elderly lady with iron gray hair, still pretty, walked into the room in a negligee. Her face was a mask of fear.
“Lippy, are you all right? What happened?”
“It’s OK, honey. Go back to bed. And don’t worry. It’s all over now.”
I moved to the door.
“If you get any hot ideas, give me a ring at the Perry Hotel on Bush Street. I’ll be registered under the name of Jones. Needless to say, don’t mention I was here.”