The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories
- Автор: Adams Cleve F., Babcock Dwight V.
- Год: 2010
- Язык: английский
- Год: A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
- ISBN: 978-0-307-45543-7
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
Black Mask was the apotheosis of noir. It was the magazine where the first hardboiled detective story, which was written by Carroll John Daly appeared. It was the slum in which such American literary titans like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler got their start, and it was the home of stories with titles like “Murder Is Bad Luck,” “Ten Carets of Lead,” and “Drop Dead Twice.” Collected here is best of the best, the hardest of the hardboiled, and the darkest of the dark of America’s finest crime fiction. This masterpiece collection represents a high watermark of America’s underbelly. Crime writing gets no better than this.
“Oh.”
“Don’t you ever work?”
“Uh-huh. I just finished my column. Look, Philip. I’ve discovered the whereabouts of Margaret Burdick.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You’ve got to be. It’s terribly important.” She cleared a space for herself on his desk and sat down, swinging a most attractive leg.
“First I went over to the Glickman Company where Mr. Burdick — Teddy, that is — used to work. I smiled my prettiest and found out that Teddy wasn’t fired; he quit. He told them he had a better job offered to him in Boston. I deserve credit for that. The Glickman outfit is a big concern. They make chemicals and do a lot of work for the government. It took talent to go in there stone cold and come out with information.”
“I’m still very busy,” Edgerson muttered.
“So then,” she continued, “I went over to that little dumpy hotel where your little Plouffe lives. The clerk told me he was in, so I slipped into a phone booth and called him and talked the way you’d expect Margaret Arnold Burdick to talk — after reading that letter she wrote me — and I told Plouffe to come right over because I needed him. And he fell for it.”
Edgerson was not sufficiently surprised to show it.
“He fell for it,” Angel declared, “and when he left the hotel I followed him. He didn’t go far. He went to another grimy little hotel, the Lester, and that, Philip, is where Mrs. Burdick is hiding out.”
“You saw her?”
“No, but—”
“What about her husband? Is he living there, too?”
“After all,” she said, “I’m not the president of Trouble, Inc. I’m just an underpaid hireling. Don’t expect too much.”
“I can’t see that you’ve done too much.”
“But I haven’t confessed all. Not yet. I’ve been to the morgue,” she said.
That got him. His mouth sagged and he gaped at her.
“The newspaper morgue,” she explained softly, “to check on Dubitsky. Do you know why I did that?”
He said nothing.
“Because,” she went on, “I discovered over at the chemical company that young Mr. Burdick is a graduate of our nice big university here where Dubitsky taught. And when I found that out, I got to thinking about the foreigner who smoked the long black cigarettes, and so I went over to the university and did some snooping. Guess what I found.”
“If you don’t stop beating around the mulberry bush,” Edgerson said, “I’ll fire you!”
“Young Mr. Burdick was a student in some of Dubitsky’s classes.”
“You mean it?”
“It’s the truth. He was an honor student. One of Dubitsky’s pets.”
“I’m not,” Edgerson said, “as busy as I thought. Go ahead.”
“You mean it?”
“Go right ahead. I’ve always been intrigued with Dubitsky. The Christmas ditties can wait.”
“Well,” she said, “I’ve brought you some of the newspaper accounts of Dubitsky’s death.”
“I don’t need them. I know the details by heart.”
“Do you? Lead on, Macduff.”
“The great Dubitsky,” Edgerson said, “left his bachelor apartment about six-thirty that night, intending to drive to a little camp he owned on Loon Cry Lake, sixty miles north of here. It was a miserable night, and he was alone. He stopped in Midville for gas, and the attendant warned him not to try the Loon Lake road because it was inundated and dangerous, and an electrical storm was coming up over the mountains.
“He went, and was caught in the storm. His car went over a cliff and caught fire, probably struck by lightning before it went over. The charred remains of Dubitsky were identified by a watch and a couple of rings.”
“And I’ll wager my next year’s salary as nonpaid vice president of Trouble, Inc.,” said Angel calmly, “that you believe Professor Dubitsky is still very much alive. Now don’t you, Mr. Smith?”
Edgerson scowled at a tiny image of Santa Claus which sat on his desk. It was a birthday gift from Miss Miggsby. “Now why,” he insisted, “should a self-respecting professor of foreign languages, including the Malaysian, wish to plunge himself into oblivion?”
“What nationality is Dubitsky?”
“Darned if I know. German, Czech, Russian, Polish — he might be most anything.”
“The point is,” she said, “he’s not American. He came to this country six or seven years ago, to take up his duties at the university. No one knows much about him, except that he’s a mental giant. Put two and two together, Philip. Dubitsky. A mysterious accident. The Glickman Chemical Company. Young Burdick. It’s positively sinister; that’s what it is!”
“What,” Edgerson said, “do you propose to do about it?”
“Have a talk with Burdick’s wife. And you’re coming with me. This, Mr. Smith, is the biggest thing that ever fell into the lap of our little organization, or I’m a monkey’s uncle.”
“I think a better move,” Smith declared thoughtfully, “would be to call on Plouffe.”
“Plouffe?”
“The girl might be a bit difficult. Plouffe, on the other hand, would hardly dare to be. I know too much about him. I might still talk about him impersonating himself as a G-man.” He smiled, pushing himself out of his chair. “Trouble, Incorporated, is at work again,” he said.
Nick Plouffe, when not at his hotel, could generally be found between bottles of beer in his office or between martinis at the Andolf Tap. He was in his office this time, suffering from the heat. A cheap fan sent the hot air surging about the room and Plouffe’s handkerchief was sodden from face-mopping.
He peered suspiciously at his visitors and said: “Well, my, my! Look who is here!”
“You’re surprised,” Smith said.
“I am pop-eyed!”
Smith shut off the fan and eyed the half-empty bottle of beer on the detective’s desk. He sat down without awaiting an invitation. Angel followed suit. Nick Plouffe stood beside the desk, mopped his pleasant little face again and registered uneasiness.
“So what can I do for you?”
“You’re not going to like this, Nick.”
“I feel it in my bones.”
“What we’d like to know, Nick,” Smith said, “is how you got mixed up in this Burdick business.”
Plouffe sat down. His tie was askew and his striped shirt was open down to the third button, revealing a moist undershirt and a few chest hairs. He said plaintively: “On a hot day like this you should come here to ask questions! What did I ever do to you?”
“Give, Nick.”
“Give! Do I ask you to hand out professional secrets? Do I come barging into Trouble, Incorporated, and act like I was a partner?”
“You wouldn’t want to be a partner,” Angel said sweetly. “There’s no money in it.”
“Give,” Smith said.
“So why should I?”
“Must we go through all that again? About how unhealthy our local jails are, and how bad the food is? Nick, you surprise me.”
Nick Plouffe slumped lower in his chair. The desk hid most of him but his eyes were little gray bugs just visible over the rim.
“The Burdick girl is a client of mine,” he mumbled.
“How come?”
“You would not be interested. So help me it would bore you, I swear it.”
“I’ll risk it. Go right ahead.”
“Well, it is like this. It is very ordinary. The Burdick girl comes up here and says she sees the name of my agency in the phone book. Then she spills a sob story into my ears, and so help me, Mr. Smith, it is nothing that would interest you. It is like every other sob story you ever heard.”
“I’ll hear it again,” Smith said.
“But it will bore you stiff!”
“The food,” Angel chimed in gently, “is really atrocious, Mr. Plouffe. They feed you bread and mush three times a day, and sometimes the mush is maggoty. If it isn’t, I’m sure Mr. Smith can arrange to have them inject a few maggots, just for your benefit.”