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.
It was like dropping a bomb. MacBride swung on him. Braun shuddered, clenched his hands, pursed his lips. Rigallo tapped the floor with his toe. A long moment of silence enveloped the room. Kennedy smiled whimsically, one eyebrow slightly arched.
MacBride said to Rigallo, “Bring in those guys we hitched to the pipes inside.”
Rigallo grinned, entered the adjoining room, returned a minute later with the saturnine man and the man in the undershirt. The saturnine man had tightened his dark face, and his eyes were two black slots of malevolence, his lips were flattened against his teeth.
Scoggins said, “That’s the guy we played cards with. He’s the guy took me for a motorboat ride.”
“The guy that killed Nelson, eh?” put in Kennedy. “Know him, Mac?”
“Not yet.”
“He’s from Chicago, if I’ve got my mugs right. Pete Redmond.”
“Well, what about it?” snarled the man.
“Soft pedal,” said MacBride. “I’m going to plant you for a long while, buddy.”
“Like hell you are!” snapped Redmond.
“Sh!” put in Braun.
Redmond turned to him. “What’s the matter with you? You look yellow around the gills. Come on, tell this guy who we are. I can’t hang around here all day. I got a date. Call the Commissioner on the telephone.”
Braun turned a shade whiter. “Sh! Don’t be a fool, Redmond!” he gulped.
“Well, then, let’s go. He can’t hold us. Telephone the Commissioner. I tell you, I got a date.”
MacBride said, “Braun, do you want to make a telephone call?”
Braun shifted nervously, wore a pained look.
“Go ahead,” urged Redmond. “Call him up.”
Braun went over to the telephone, called a number. “Hello, George,” he said. “Listen, George... Huh? You know... Well, what are you going to do?... Yeah, Pete is here... Well, how could I help it?... Well, don’t bawl me out, George... All right.”
He hung up, said, “He’ll be right over.”
Kennedy licked his lips. “Hot diggity!”
Braun was pale. Redmond scowled under MacBride’s steady gaze and said, “Think you’re wise, eh? I get a great kick out of you, big boy. I didn’t think they came that dumb.”
“You’ll find how dumb I am,” said MacBride.
“Wait till the Commissioner comes,” smirked Redmond.
“Ah, just wait,” said Kennedy.
So everybody waited. Thirty minutes passed, and then an hour.
Braun said, “I wonder what’s keeping him.”
“He’d better hurry,” said Redmond. “I got a date.”
“Oh, damn your date!” cried Braun.
“Yeah?” snarled Redmond.
MacBride took a drink and said, “Pipe down.”
The telephone rang. Rigallo was nearest and took the call. When he hung up, he said, “We should all go over to Headquarters.”
“Now why the hell should we go to Headquarters?” snapped Redmond. “I’m not going.”
“Let’s go,” said MacBride.
“I don’t savvy this at all,” complained Redmond.
“It will be all right,” soothed Braun.
“It better be,” said Redmond.
MacBride called the morgue, said, “There are a lot of stiffs at 46 North Street. Better come up and collect ’em.”
He went into the next room, and told one of the policemen to remain with the dead until the men from the morgue arrived. To the others he said, “We’re taking the rest over to Headquarters.”
MacBride, Rigallo and Doran and the three policemen gathered the six gangsters together and marched them down the stairs. All were handcuffed, including Braun, who stumbled as he walked. MacBride hauled him along roughly. Scoggins walked beside Kennedy.
Below, a crowd of people swarmed on the sidewalk outside the door. MacBride chased them as he led the way. Rigallo and Redmond were behind him. They marched down the street, two by two.
“I don’t like this,” complained Redmond. “I don’t see why the hell we have to go to Headquarters.”
“Be quiet,” called back Braun.
“I tell you, guy, if—”
Bang!
7
Redmond sagged, belched blood.
Bang!
Braun stopped in his tracks, buckled, groaned.
“Duck!” yelled Mac-Bride, and dragged Braun into the nearest hallway.
Rigallo lugged Redmond into a fruit store.
Four shots rang out, and the four gangsters behind crumpled.
Kennedy and Scoggins dodged into a hardware store as a shot smashed the window beside them.
MacBride had disengaged himself from Braun. Braun was dead.
Rigallo joined the captain and said, “Redmond’s cooked, too. What the hell do you suppose happened anyway?”
“God knows, Riggy! Those shots came from that store across the way. Come on!”
He rushed into the street, blew his whistle. Doran came on the run, followed by the policemen. Doran said, “Every guy was picked off, Cap, and there was some straight shooting! That store—”
“Yeah. Let’s go,” clipped MacBride, and crossed the street on the run.
The store was empty, but they broke through the door and cascaded into the interior. The men bunched around MacBride.
“They’ve cleared out — through the back! Come on!” he said.
He led the way into the rear, and they found a back door open and thundered out into a yard. A fence barred the way, but they vaulted over it, crashed through the back door of another house and milled in a dark hallway.
MacBride rushed headlong, came to another door, yanked it open and looked out upon Jackson Street. He started to step out, when a machine-gun stuttered and the door frame splintered. Rigallo yanked him back, slammed the door.
“Don’t be a fool, Mac!”
They heard the roar of a motor. It diminished in a few seconds. MacBride again opened the door, stepped out, looked up and down the street, said over his shoulder, “Come on.”
His men came out warily. The street was empty — not a car, not a person in sight.
“Dammit!” muttered MacBride.
“Well, why worry?” asked a policeman. “One gang against another. That’s a good way of getting rid of rats.”
“It sure is,” said another cop.
MacBride grumbled.
Kennedy said, “Come on, Mac. I’ve got several ideas.”
“I’m going to Headquarters,” growled MacBride. “Riggy, you and Doran go back to North Street and see the morgue bus gets those bums.”
He turned on his heel and strode down the street. Kennedy fell in step beside him.
“Mac, we’re near the end. It won’t be long now. I figure you’re just outside the Big Guy’s doorstep.”
MacBride made no comment. His jaw was hard, and his eyes glittered.
They entered Police Headquarters. Kennedy lingered at the desk while MacBride went on to the Commissioner’s office. But the Commissioner was not in. MacBride rejoined Kennedy at the desk, prodded him and marched out.
“What’s the matter?” asked Kennedy.
“He’s not in.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Left no word.”
They stopped on the wide steps outside, and MacBride lit a cigar.
A big black limousine drew up, and Commissioner Stroble alighted. He stood speaking with someone who remained in the tonneau behind drawn curtains. Then he suddenly spun around and saw MacBride and Kennedy standing on the steps. He spoke hastily in an undertone and stepped back to the sidewalk.
The car started off. Kennedy ran down the steps, called, “Hey, how about a lift?”