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.
Yet there was the strain of the hard in his blood. To give up now, to fall in line with the long column of grafters, would be a tremendous blow to his conscience — and to his stubborn pride. Rigallo and Doran would razz him. And Kennedy! And a lot of other men who were aware of his single-handed struggle against graft and corruption.
No, there was no backing out now. He had built a structure of two-fisted justice, escaped death, release from the Force, by the skin of his teeth. The game at this stage was far too interesting. He had wiped out some of the most notorious gangs in Richmond City, had made the political racketeers squirm, had driven some right out of office.
But still he had not got to the roots. Had the Commissioner before his appointment, been the drive wheel in the racket? And now, being in a position of vital importance, would he rebuild all that MacBride had knocked down? How big was he? How far could MacBride push him? Why had he permitted Nelson’s release on such short notice?
Small change! Hell!
It was strange that a month should pass without an untoward murmur on the river. At times MacBride wondered if after all Nelson had been innocent. But then it wasn’t like Rigallo to make such a raw blunder. He was not a detective who usually went in for small game.
An interesting and significant bit of news drifted in one morning. Kennedy, the inevitable, walked in on MacBride and said:
“What do you think, Mac?”
“What?”
“A Tate & Tate barge sank last night. One of their oldest. Just foundered, so the report goes, off the coast. Sprung a leak. Went down with one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of copper wire. The barge captain was saved. The tug Annie Tate was towing, and saved him. Read what the News-Examiner says.”
He scaled a newspaper on the table, and MacBride conned a terse editoriaclass="underline"
Last night the Tate & Tate barge Number Two sank off the Capes. It is evident that this barge was sadly in need of repair. The sea was only moderately rough and the tug Annie Tate had good steerageway.
A cargo valued as $100,000 was lost in fifty fathoms, and the barge captain, Olaf Bostad, is in the City Hospital suffering from exposure. It seems to us that there is a deplorable lack of efficiency somewhere. Why the Number Two, one of the first barges built for Tate & Tate, was allowed to go to sea, is beyond us.
It seems incredible that a reputable company should place a man in jeopardy by sending him on a coastwise voyage in a barge of such ancient vintage. The company, of course, does not lose. The underwriters do. We no longer wonder why marine insurance is at such a premium, and why many underwriters refuse to insure coastwise barges.
“H’m,” muttered MacBride.
“I wonder who paid for that,” said Kennedy. “Tate & Tate are in hot water now, for sure. Watch the insurance company go into action!”
“And the waterfront bust wide open,” said MacBride.
Indeed, the first rumble came on the following day, when not a single tug or barge of Tate & Tate moved. Captain Bower, of Headquarters, boomed into the station-house with orders from the Commissioner.
“MacBride, you’ve got to patrol the river,” he said. “Use all your available men. Two cops on each pier where there’s Tate & Tate shipping. The insurance company has refused to allow Tate & Tate to move until every barge and tug has been inspected. The city is also sending its own inspectors, and there’s a complete tie-up.”
“All right,” nodded MacBride.
He called on his reserves, dispatched them to six different piers, and himself went down to the Tate & Tate general offices.
Young Hiram Tate was in high heat. “What do you think of this, MacBride? By God, can you beat it? That barge was overhauled only two months ago and the underwriters O.K.’d it. Now we’re tied up. Not a thing allowed to move. We’ve got thousands of dollars’ worth of freight that has to move — has to make trains, ships — and some of it’s perishable. Hell, we’ll go bankrupt!
“What happens now? Consignees and consignors are bellowing. But we can’t move. We lose our contracts, and the movement of freight is taken over by other companies. And what company mainly? The Harbor Towing. God, what a blow below the belt this is!”
“We’re putting men on the piers to prevent trouble,” said MacBride.
But trouble broke. When a Harbor Towing tug and three lighters warped into Pier Eight to move perishable freight from a Tate & Tate shed, a fight started. Fists flew, and then stones and canthooks. The police joined, and shots rang out, and one man was wounded before the outbreak was quelled.
But the feud had taken root and spread the length of the waterfront, and MacBride was here and there and everywhere, struggling for law and order.
The Commissioner called him and said, “Clamp the lid, MacBride. It looks as if Tate & Tate employ a lot of hoodlums. This can’t go on. Pitch ’em all in jail if you have to.”
MacBride had been up most of that night, and he was weary. “If you’d get the inspectors on the job and make that insurance company snap on it, this would stop. I’m doing the best I can.”
“Keep up the good work, MacBride!” was Stroble’s parting shot.
MacBride slammed down the receiver, whirled and stared at Rigallo. “Now I know why I’ve been shifted here! I’m getting a beautiful kick in the slats! I’m told to ride Tate & Tate, and, Kennedy, way down in my heart I believe Tate & Tate is the goat!”
“Mac, I’m with you, you know. So is Doran.”
“Thanks, Riggy. It’s good to know.”
Reports came in continually from the river. All the reserves were out. Fights occurred every few hours — uptown — downtown.
MacBride slept at the station-house that afternoon, awoke at six, had hot coffee and a couple of hamburgers sent up, and prepared for another night. Tate & Tate were at the breaking point. The inspectors were taking their time, and the first barge that was looked over was held up for some minor detail that was not yet settled among the inspectors.
On the other hand, the Harbor Towing Company was reaping a harvest, taking over all the freight that Tate & Tate could not handle. And the Union men of the Harbor Towing, old enemies of the non-Union crowd of Tate & Tate, took every opportunity to bawl insults at the men whom circumstances had forced to a standstill.
Hiram Tate called MacBride on the telephone and yelled, “Look here, MacBride! You’ve got a good name in this lousy burg. What am I going to do? These pups from the Harbor Towing are getting away with murder. You can’t blame my men for fighting. I’ve bailed twenty out already. If this keeps up, if my floating equipment isn’t allowed to move, we’ll go bankrupt. It’s dirty, MacBride. There’s some underhand work somewhere. I tell you, if it keeps up, I’m going out on the river myself and bust the first Harbor Towing bum that opens his jaw!”
“Sit tight, Tate,” said MacBride. “I’ve got to maintain law and order.”
“Law and order, hell!” exclaimed Tate, and hung up.
Rigallo asked, “What’s the matter, Cap?”
“Tate’s sore. Can you blame him?”
“No.”
“Riggy, this is getting worse. There’s big money in it, and between you and me it looks as if the Harbor Towing is trying to wipe out Tate & Tate, their biggest competitors. And how they’re doing it! That sunken barge was just what they needed. Graft all around. Ten to one the underwriters were bribed. The News-Examiner was bribed. The city is being bribed.”