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.
“I told you I didn’t try to cut no barge loose,” rumbled Nelson.
MacBride turned on Rigallo. “You’re sure he did, Riggy?”
“Ask Tim.”
“Sure he did, Cap,” said Doran.
MacBride put Nelson’s belongings in the desk and said, “Tim, plant him in a cell. I’m going down to the river. You come along, Riggy. There may be something in this, and there may not.”
2
It was cold and windy on the waterfront. The pier sheds loomed huge and sombre, and overhead the sky arched black as a cavern roof. And there was not a solitary star afield, not a vagrant moonbeam, not a patch of color against the black inverted bowl.
The river was a dark mystery moving restlessly toward the sea, and fringed sparsely with pier-head lights which probed its surface with thin, tremulous needles of radiance. And here and there, between the fringes, other lights — red, green, white — marked black shapes that moved through the thick gloom. The sound of bells, rung intermittently, skipped across the water with startling clarity.
MacBride and Rigallo strode down Pier Five and came to a barge moored at the end. Beneath them the water gurgled among the piles, and the barge thumped dully against the wharf. The tide was high, and they leaped to the barge without difficulty.
A man was standing in the doorway of a small, lighted cabin, smoking a pipe.
“Scoggins,” said Rigallo.
“Hello, Scoggins,” said MacBride. “Let’s go inside.”
They entered and Scoggins closed the door and leaned back against it. He was a small man, knotty in the framework, weather-beaten, steady-eyed.
MacBride said, “You know Nelson?”
“Yeah, years — from seein’ him around the docks and in the lunch-wagon sometimes. Works for the Harbor Towin’.”
“Ever have a scrap with him?”
“Nope.”
“Sure?”
“Yup. But I got a scare tonight, though!”
“You figure he tried to cut you loose?”
“Says he didn’t. I ain’t never had a line slip on me yet, and I been twenty years on the river.”
“Well, look here, can you think of anything that might cause him to do it?”
Scoggins frowned thoughtfully and rubbed his jaw. “Gosh, I dunno. Of course, Tate & Tate, the comp’ny I work for, had a split with the Union, and they ain’t hirin’ Union men ‘less they can help it. The Harbor Towin’’s all Union. Guys get in scraps over that sometimes. Day before yest’day Bill Kamp, who’s on Number Three Barge, got in a fight with a Harbor Towin’ guy. The guy called Bill a scab and Bill poked him.”
“What caused this split with the Union?”
“Dunno. Just know they split. Young Mr. Tate was sore as hell over some thin’.”
“Do you know what barge Nelson is on?”
“Number Three. Up at Pier Twelve now.”
MacBride turned to Rigallo. “Come on, Riggy, let’s snoop around.”
They left Pier Five, reached the cobbled street and walked north. Fifteen minutes later they turned into a covered pier, met a watchman, flashed their shields and passed on down the vast interior.
On the south side of Pier Twelve they found a lighter flying a metal pennant numbered Three. A light shone in the little cabin. They leaped down from the wharf, pushed open the door and walked in.
A girl sat on the bunk. She was a large girl — not fat, but large, broad in the shoulders, wide at the hips. Her skin was fair, her hair light brown; and her cheek-bones were high, prominent; her mouth wide with lips full and frankly sensuous. Her clothes were cheap and not precisely in the mode, and she regarded the two intruders with a dull stare.
Rigallo smiled. “Hello, girlie.”
“Hal-lo.”
“Where’s Alf?” asked MacBride.
“Ay don’t know.”
“H’m. We were supposed to meet him here tonight,” lied Rigallo.
“Yes,” nodded MacBride.
She shrugged her broad shoulders. “So vas I. Dat Alf iss neffer on time.”
“Ah, he’s a good guy, though,” said Rigallo.
She regarded him stolidly for a moment, then grinned, showing large white teeth. “Yah, Alf iss good fal-ler. Ay vait. You fal-lers vaiting for Alf?”
“Sure,” nodded Rigallo. “We’re his friends. Eh, Mac?”
“You said it, Riggy.”
“Alf’s some guy,” said Rigallo.
“Yah,” nodded the girl, shedding some of her nerves. “Alf iss good fal-ler.” She paused, meditated heavily, then laughed and slapped her knee. “Ay tal you, Alf is vun big guy. Dis Meester Braun he likes Alf much.”
“Sure,” said MacBride. “Mr. Braun’s a good guy, too. But he should treat Alf better.”
Still more of the girl’s reserve vanished, and she leaned forward, waxing confidential. “Yah, like Ay tol’ Alf. But Ay t’ank dis Meester Braun iss be sqvare by Alf. Alf he tal me he vill get lots dol-lars.”
“Well, it’s no more than right,” put in Rigallo.
“Yah. Alf vill be rich fal-ler some day.”
MacBride and Rigallo grinned at each other. Then they grinned at the girl, and MacBride said, “Gosh, miss, Alf’s been holding back on us. Never told us he had a nice girl like you.”
She dropped her eyes. “Yah, Ay t’ank Alf luffs me lot. Ay luff Alf lot.”
“He’ll invite us to the wedding, though, I hope,” said MacBride.
“Sure,” nodded Rigallo.
“Yah,” said the girl.
MacBride tried. “When did Alf say he would be back?”
“Vun hour ago. But Ay vill vait.”
“Yeah,” said Rigallo. “Alf said something about a job down on Pier Five. I wondered what he meant.”
“Vass it Pier Five?” asked the girl.
“Yeah,” said Rigallo.
“Ay vill go.”
“No. You stay here,” put in MacBride. “We’ll look him up and tell him you’re waiting. What did he say he was doing?”
“Alf didn’t say. Alf ain’t tal me much, but he say he be very busy dese nights soon.”
MacBride stood up. “Well, if we see him, we’ll tell him you’re waiting. What did you say your name was?”
“Hilda. Hilda Yonson. Ay come from Oslo two year’ ago.”
“See you again,” said MacBride.
“Yeah, see you again,” said Rigallo.
“Yah,” said Hilda Yonson.
MacBride and Rigallo climbed back to the wharf and strode through the pier-shed.
“Who is Braun?” asked Rigallo.
“Don’t know. Probably one of the bosses. We’ll ask the night watchman.”
In a little office at the far end of the pier they found the watchman, and MacBride asked, “Who is Mr. Braun?”
“Manager. Yeah, he’s the manager.”
“Good-night,” said MacBride, and steered Rigallo into the street.
“What now, Cap?”
“Nothing, until I see Braun.”
“It looks as if Nelson is somebody’s dope.”
“What I think, Riggy. Flag that taxi.”
MacBride went home that night, pounded his ear for eight hours and was back on the job at eight next morning. In plain clothes, he left the station-house and went down to the general offices of the Harbor Towing Company, which were located over Pier Nine.
Braun had evidently just arrived, for he was going through the morning’s mail. He was a fat, swarthy man, nervous and shifty, with a vague chin.
“Oh, Captain MacBride,” he said. “Ah, yes. Won’t you sit down? Won’t you have a cigar?”