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.
This he pasted on the cover of the box, and said, “Dig down, Kennedy.”
He himself dropped in a couple of dollars, and Kennedy added another and some odd change. Then MacBride carried the box into the central room and placed it on the desk, where none might pass without seeing it.
Still in plain-clothes, he shook Kennedy, and walked down to River Street. He found the Colonial depot, and from a number of drivers learned that, on cold nights, they usually stopped at the Owl’s Nest, out beyond Bingham Center, on the pike, for a shot of rum. Reasoning that Saunders had lived, driven and drunk similarly, he took a trolley car to the outskirts of the city, alighted where Main crossed Farmingville Turnpike, and boarded an outbound bus.
It was a long ride, and they passed the shattered truck on the way. It still lay in the gully, but a derrick was at work, and one of the Colonial’s trucks was gathering up the remains. At four-thirty he left the bus, and stood regarding the Owl’s Nest. It stood well back off the highway, a low, rambling casino with many windows. The main entrance was decorated with colored light bulbs, but on one side was a sign, Delivery Entrance, and MacBride judged that this also was the logical entrance for truck-men in quest of a drink.
He pushed this door open and found himself in a hallway that turned sharply to the left. But directly in front of him was an open door leading into a small, shabby room containing two tables and a half dozen chairs, and a fly-specked electric light hanging from the ceiling.
MacBride sat down, and presently a man in shirt-sleeves entered.
“Rye highball,” said MacBride.
The man, large, beetle-browed, hairy-armed, looked him over, then shook his head. “No drinks here, buddy.”
“Tripe! I know.”
“Not here, buddy.”
“You the boss?”
“No.”
“Flag the boss.”
The man disappeared, and a few minutes later a short, fat, prosperous-looking man entered with a frown of annoyance. But the frown disappeared like a cloud and sunlight beamed.
“Oh, hello, Mac.”
“Didn’t know you ran this dump, Hen. Sit down.”
Hen sat down, cheerful, twinkle-eyed, and said to the hovering waiter, “Make it two, Mike.” And a moment later, to MacBride, “What you doing out this way, Mac?”
“Poking around.”
“I mean — really, Mac.”
“Trailing a clue. Hear about that truck smash-up?”
“Sure. Tough, wasn’t it?”
“You don’t know the half of it. And that’s why I’m up here, Hen.”
Hen’s eyes widened perplexedly. He started to say something, but the drinks arrived, and he licked his lips instead. The waiter went out, and the two men regarded each other.
MacBride jerked his head toward the door. “How long has that guy been working here? What’s his name?”
“A month. Mike Bannon.”
“He serves all the drinks?”
“Ye-es.”
“All the truck drivers stop in this room, I guess?”
“Sure.”
MacBride took a drink and let it sink in. “Good stuff,” he nodded, and then leaned across the table. “You’re a white guy, Hen, and you’re sensible. Fire that man.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Fire him tomorrow. If he gets sore, tell him the cops are tightening down on you, and you’re cutting out the hooch for a month or more. I’m doing you a turn, Hen. You want to keep your hands clean, don’t you?”
“Cripes, yes, Mac!”
“Then bounce him — tomorrow at noon.”
“Okey, Mac.”
MacBride was back in the precinct at seven. He picked up Rigallo and Doran and they all went over the Headquarters and sought out the Bureau of Criminal Identification. This was a vast place, lined with rows of card-indexes, and on the wall were several huge metal books, attached by their backs, so that a man could swing the metal pages back and forth and scan the photographs of those men who, having stepped outside the law, were recorded therein, with further details of their crimes recorded in the surrounding files. MacBride, turning page after page, suddenly grunted and pointed.
“There’s the guy, boys,” he said.
He noted the number, gave it to the attendant, and while waiting, said to his prizes, “Working at the Owl’s Nest.”
The attendant reappeared with a card and handed it to MacBride. MacBride scrutinized it. “H’m. Michael Shane, arrested for criminal assault against Rosie Horovitz, June 12, 1924. Indicted, June 13th. Acquitted July 2nd. Lack of evidence. And again: Arrested October 5, 1925. Charge, felonious assault with attempt to rob. Charge preferred by Sven Runstrom. Indicted October 6th. Sentenced October 15th, sixty days, hard labor.”
“Let’s go out and nab him,” said Rigallo.
“No,” said MacBride. “He’s working as Mike Bannon. Come on.”
They returned to the precinct, and in the privacy of his office, MacBride said, “This guy poisoned Saunders’ liquor, but I’m after bigger game. He’s a tough nut, and he’ll hold his tongue until some shyster, retained by the gang, gets him out of our hands on a writ. What we want to know is, who’s the boss of the gang, the mayor’s right-hand man. That is the guy we want. We’ve got more to do than apprehend the actual murderer of Saunders. We’ve got to grab the mob and their boss, and prevent further killings, and when we do this we’ll have the mayor against the wall. Shane is a stoical bum, and a rubber hose wouldn’t work him. We’ve got to get the big guy — the one with the most brains and the least guts.”
“What’s your idea?” asked Rigallo.
“Just this. At tomorrow noon Shane gets his walking papers from Hen Meloy. You go out there tomorrow morning in a hired flivver, and when this guy gets a bus headed for town, tail him. He’ll head for his boss, to report. Tail him that far and then give me a ring.”
MacBride went home early that night, slept well, and was back on the job at nine next morning. He took the cigar box from the desk in the central room, went into his office, and counted out forty-two dollars and fifty cents. This he shoved into an envelope, with the brief message, “From the bunch at the Second Police Precinct.” He called in a reserve, gave him the envelope and the Haggerty Alley address, and then, sitting back with a sigh, started his first cigar of the day.
Kennedy dropped in on his way to Headquarters, and said, “The municipal inspectors condemned two more Colonial trucks. Said Saunders death was caused by a faulty steering gear. Nobody knows the details? What did the morgue say, Mac?”
“Run along, Kennedy.”
“Keeping it under your hat, eh? It’s all right, Mac. I can wait. Here’s another tip. The Colonial people aren’t dumb, and there’s a guard riding on all their night trucks now. They’re die-hards, Mac. These guys liked Saunders, and they’re primed to start shooting first chance they get.”
Kennedy went out, and MacBride cursed him in one breath and complimented him in the next.
At two o’clock the telephone rang and MacBride grabbed it.
“Cap? Rigallo.”
“Shoot, Riggy.”
“Tailed him okey. Two-ten Jockey Street. I’m waiting in the cigar store on the corner. Come heeled.”
MacBride hung up, slapped on his visored cap, and strode into the central room. “Six reserves, Sergeant! Ready, Doran!”
A windy look was in his eyes, and his jaw squared.
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