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.
A dull monstrous boom, a roll of thunder in a confined space, crashed in one wave down the avenue. A golden flare burst up and expired in an instant behind the glass doors of the Commercial bank.
Flaherty raced up the street, bringing his gun loose. A block away he heard the shrill pipe of a police whistle, and closer at hand the rasping squeal of car brakes. He swung around to see Mike Martin hop off a taxi running-board and rush to him across the sidewalk.
“Take the front,” snapped Flaherty. “Don’t go in. They’ve not had time to scatter.”
He raced around the side of the building over the grass plot that rimmed it. A door gaped open in the rear, with the red bulb of a night-light on top. In its glow Flaherty saw that the yard, rimmed by a high stone fence in back, was empty. They had to get out the front way then, or around by the grass plot. And they couldn’t have, yet. They were bottled.
He got inside, keeping to the shadows. A heavy puff of smoke was rising slowly from the center of the building’s long room; as he advanced cautiously it thinned, faded slowly against the high stone ceiling. Between the bookkeepers’ desks in back and the glass partitioned cashiers’ cages in front there was a wide, iron-gated alcove. The gate was open now, with the sprawled figure of a man before it.
Flaherty was motionless in the shadow, listening. He could hear nothing. Queer, this— They must have known the explosion would be heard, must have known—
After an irresolute moment he stepped over the dead man and into the lighted alcove, automatic ready before him. The huge steel door of the vault was flung outward against the wall, the center of it torn and twisted like paper by the charge. Flaherty gave it a glance and then went back to the watchman, rolling him over. An old, wizened face, not much expression now, a bullet hole through the back of his head. Flaherty got up and went softly to the back door.
Mike stood in the shadows outside, dropping his raised arm when he saw Flaherty.
“The man on beat came up. I left him at the front. See anything, Flaherty?”
Flaherty took a second before answering. “The watchman’s stiff, Mike. He’s been dead at least an hour. And the vault’s been cleaned of cash.”
“Hell,” said Mike. “They couldn’t have cleaned it; they didn’t have time.”
“No,” said Flaherty. “They didn’t have time, Mike — that’s the funny part.”
After a second he continued: “We haven’t figured the thing right from the start. There’s something in back of this we’re not even sniffing. It don’t hang together the way it is. If they wanted to rob the bank what did they kill Devine for? He wasn’t in the way.”
“I don’t get you,” said Mike. “It’s open and shut to me. They bump off Devine but don’t get the money. All right — they figure they’re in and they might as well get somethin’ out of it, so they lam back here and blow the vault. Jigger’s opened ones a lot tougher than this cheesebox.”
Flaherty said: “That’s one way, Mike. But why did they clean the vault first and then blow it? That’s the only answer — we both know they didn’t have time after the charge went off. A guy would do that just for one reason; to make it look—” He stopped. After a breath he said: “Oh!” softly, and whistled.
Mike moved restlessly. “What the hell you getting’ at?”
“I was just wonderin’,” said Flaherty, “how tall Jigger Burns is.”
“He’s a little guy. Not much over five five.”
Flaherty grunted. “It’s beginnin’ to fit.” From his upper vest pocket he took a small slip of paper and held it out to Mike. After a minute Mike handed it back. “1934? Don’t mean nothin’ to me.”
Flaherty rapped out briefly the events of the night. When he had finished Mike said: “The secretary, hah? I’ll be double damned.”
“We ain’t got much time. What do you think that number means?”
Mike pushed back his hat. “A street number, d’ye think—”
“Yeh,” said Flaherty, “only there ain’t a street name on it. It might be a post-office box only there ain’t no key. Maybe it’s next year.”
Mike stirred uneasily. “Lay off,” he said. “Some day, honest to gawd, I’m gonna lay you like a rug.”
Flaherty said: “I found it on Barrett’s body. What’s he carryin’ it around for? Because it’s something important — something he mustn’t forget. Take it that way. Then he probably got to meet someone there tonight — they haven’t much time — at 1934. It wouldn’t be a street number; he’d know the house, and wouldn’t hafta mark the number down on paper. You can’t run out and hire a house in the middle of the night. Besides the getaway has to be fast, so it would be somethin’ they could hire any time and leave when they wanted. What’s left? A hotel room?”
“I was gonna say it,” Mike answered. “If it’s a hotel there’s only two in town high enough for a number like that: The Sherman and the Barrisford.”
Flaherty crushed the slip in his pocket. “There’ll be a squad along any minute. Stay till they slow, Mike. Let them go through the place — they won’t find anything. Then hop over to the Sherman; that’s the nearest and busiest. The clerk’ll know if I’m upstairs. If I’m not, try the Barrisford.”
He left Mike and walked swiftly to the corner after a word to the policeman in front. Three blocks up and two over he entered the lobby of the hotel Sherman. From the restaurant in back, swift syncopated strains of dance music floated out, but the lobby itself was almost deserted.
The clerk at the desk was a slight, superior-looking person with a pale face and exquisite hands. When Flaherty flashed the badge his lower lip dropped. He said: “Oh... oh! Really, I hope—”
Flaherty fumbled for the paper. “You have nineteen floors, haven’t you?”
The clerk looked relieved. “No,” he said. “There are only eighteen. Of course—”
Flaherty stopped searching; he cursed and chewed his lip while the little man eyed him apprehensively. “How tail’s the Barrisford?” he snapped.
“Sixteen, I believe. I know we’re the biggest in town. Eight hundred rooms—”
Flaherty got out the paper and looked again. No mistake: 1934. That settled that. Telephone number — safe deposit vault, maybe? But how—
The clerk cleared his throat nervously. “It’s funny,” he said. “I don’t know whether you— You see, we have to be careful, there are so many superstitious people. We haven’t a floor numbered thirteen — we skipped it. Thirteen is fourteen and so on. We really have only eighteen floors though our room numbers run up to nineteen. Now if you—”
Flaherty, turning away, whirled back. “Who’s in 1934? Get it quick. I want the key.”
The clerk jumped at his voice. He came back from the inner office holding a key, his eyes worried.
“A gentleman registered this evening for that room — a Mr. Walker. Is there anything wrong? I can’t let you have this without our man—”
Flaherty reached over and grabbed the key. “Who’s your house dick — Gilmour? Send him up as soon as you locate him. Tell him to be careful — it won’t be a picnic. There’ll be shooting.”
He headed across the lobby while the clerk said: “Oh... oh,” faintly.
At the top floor Flaherty left the elevator and stepped into a long red carpeted corridor, empty and brightly lit. He looked at the room numbers and swung to his left.
Nineteen thirty-four was near the end of the hall. He stood outside, listening. No sound... He fitted the key in the lock and twisted the knob an inch at a time, softly. A tiny line of blackness appeared at the crack and Flaherty bent double, slipped through in a flash, silently.