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.
“D’ you ever stop to think, Cap, that the barge might have been monkeyed with?”
“You know, I wonder!”
The hours dragged by, with more reports coming in, and at midnight came a staggering report from one of the patrolmen stationed at Pier Fifteen.
“We just found a stiff, Captain.”
“Who?”
“Guy named Nelson. We heard a shot and ran down the dock and found him dead in his barge. Right through the heart.”
“Hold everything, Grosskopf. I’ll be over.”
MacBride hung up and looked at Rigallo. “Riggy, somebody plugged Alf Nelson of the Harbor Towing.”
“God help Tate & Tate!”
“Let’s go!”
4
Officer Tonovitz met MacBride and Rigallo at the entrance of Pier Fifteen.
“Grosskopf’s on the barge,” he said.
They strode down the covered pier, came out in the open, and saw Grosskopf standing outside the cabin door. MacBride and Rigallo jumped down to the barge. Nelson was lying on the floor, flat back, one arm flung across his chest, the other extended straight from his shoulder. A chair was overturned.
“Fight,” ventured Rigallo. “Maybe not,” said MacBride. “He might have been sitting on the chair, and jerked up when he was hit.”
“Door and windows were closed,” put in Grosskopf.
“Didn’t find anything?”
“No.”
MacBride went out and up to the dock, and found a knot of men hovering nearby, expectantly.
“You guys knew Nelson, didn’t you?”
Most of them did.
“See anybody around here tonight?”
One replied, “I seen Gus Scoggins.”
“Going or coming?”
“He must ha’ been goin’ to the barge. I seen him on this dock. Was about nine o’clock. He said, ‘Hello, Joe.’ And I said, ‘Hello, Gus.’ ”
“You didn’t see him go back?”
“Well, no. I didn’t hang around. I was on the way to my own barge when I saw Gus.”
“Who do you work for?”
“Harbor Towin’.”
“Sure you’re not tryin’ to frame Scoggins?”
“Who? Me? No. I’m a’ old timer. I know Gus for years. I don’t figger he did anything.”
“He might have,” said another voice. “Him and Nelson ain’t been good friends since Scoggins claimed Alf tried to cut him loose.”
MacBride left the group and called Grosskopf. “Ring the morgue and have them get Nelson. Tonovitz, you stay on this barge. Riggy, come with me.”
MacBride and Rigallo went to the float dispatcher for Tate & Tate and got from him the position of Scoggins’ barge. It was at Pier four, and ten minutes later they found it. No lights shone. MacBride boarded, tried the door, found it padlocked from the outside.
“He should be on board,” remarked Rigallo.
“He should,” agreed MacBride. “Cripes, if Scoggins did this, Tate & Tate will be swamped!”
They climbed back to the pier and accosted the patrolman on duty, O’Toole.
“You know Scoggins? Have you seen him?”
“Saw him about eight-thirty, Cap, leaving.”
“When he comes back, hold him and ring the station-house. If he doesn’t show up by the time you leave, call me and tell your relief to watch for him, too.”
“O.K.”
MacBride and Rigallo shot back to the station-house. Rigallo went home, and MacBride hauled out a blanket and curled up on a cot in one of the spare rooms.
By morning he had the medical examiner’s report. The bullet had gone through Nelson’s heart aslant and lodged in his spine. A thirty-two.
O’Toole had rung in with no word of Scoggins. MacBride called the patrolman at Pier Four, and found that Scoggins was still absent. He hung up, went down to the pier, picked up the harbor master for Tate & Tate, and had him open the door to the little cabin. Everything was in order. Scoggins’ suitcase, clothes, and other odds and ends, were still there.
MacBride went back to the pier, and found Hiram Tate, just arrived.
“What do you think about this killing, MacBride?”
“Looking for Scoggins. Somebody saw him around Nelson’s barge last night.”
“This is a rotten break, MacBride! Do you think it was Scoggins?”
“It looks as if it might be. He hasn’t showed up all night.”
They walked back to the street, and then MacBride made for the barge that had been Nelson’s home. Officer Pallanzo was on duty, and he was having his hands full.
“I can’t get rid of her, Cap,” he complained.
MacBride stood with arms akimbo and stared at Hilda Yonson, who sat on the dock beside the barge. Her hands were clasped about her knees, and she was rocking back and forth and moaning. Her yellow hair blew in coarse wisps across her hueless face. Her hat was askew.
“Alf... Alf...”
She was dazed. When MacBride spoke, it seemed she did not hear him. She rocked on — and on, staring with red-rimmed eyes.
“Look here, Hilda,” MacBride said, bending down. “Come on. Don’t sit around here. I’ll take you home.”
He shook her. She looked up, and her lips quivered. “You — you said you vass Alf’s friend. All de time you had Alf in de station-house.”
“Forget that. I was doing my duty. Come on, Hilda, I want to get the man who killed Alf. I want you to help me get him.”
“Ay vill keel him!” She doubled a fist and squared her jaw.
“No, you leave that to me. Let’s go.” He took her arm, urged her.
She rose and permitted MacBride to lead her from the barge. She walked with a steady, purposeful tread, her face grim.
MacBride found a room at one corner of the warehouse, and they entered it, Rigallo close behind.
“When did you last see Alf, Hilda?” asked MacBride.
“Ay see Alf last night.”
“What did he say?”
“Ay didn’t talk. Ay go down by de dock und Ay see Alf iss playin’ cards vit two fal-lers. So Ay don’t go in. Ay go home.”
“You know the men?”
“No. Vun vass dressed like vat you call sheik. Ay looked in by de vindow. De odder vun vas dat fal-ler Scoggins.”
“About what time?”
“Vas maybe half-past nine.”
MacBride turned to Rigallo. “This looks queer, Riggy — Nelson and Scoggins playing cards.”
“With another guy — yeah.”
“Ay vill keel him, whoever it vass dat keeled Alf. O-o-o-o, my poor Alf!” she moaned, rocking on the chair.
“Listen, Hilda,” put in Rigallo, “buck up. And don’t do any killing. Leave that to us. We’ll get this bum and he’ll burn for it.”
“Ay vill bet it vass dat Scoggins.”
They took her home, where she lived with an elder sister, and then went over to the station-house.
“The Commissioner’s been calling you, Cap,” said Sergeant Flannery. “Wants to talk to you.”
MacBride took the phone and called Headquarters, and the Commissioner said, “That Scoggins is a good lead, MacBride. Tail him and get him. He’s the guy we want, all right.”
“I’m not so sure,” said MacBride.
“Get him, MacBride. Grill young Tate. Maybe Tate knows a lot about it. Maybe he knows where Scoggins is.”
Hanging up, MacBride swore softly. “Riggy, they’re sure out to crush Tate & Tate, and making no bones about it.”
Sergeant Flannery knocked and came in. A little boy accompanied him.
Flannery said, “Kid, just came in with a note.”
MacBride took a rumpled piece of brown wrapping paper, and read: