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.
He saw, as he drew nearer, the narrow chalky face of Eggleson, the Deputy Medical Examiner. Eggleson was standing spread-legged, torchlight spraying upward over his gaunt body to his narrow face; and he was writing absentmindedly in a book. Patrolman Pflueger was in silhouette, arms akimbo, his back to MacBride. Moriarity and Cohen were kneeling, getting two lights from a match.
No one said anything as MacBride came up. He stopped, stood with hands thrust in overcoat pockets, slouching a bit, the torch-and lantern-light picking out sharply the bony irregularity of his face, the slitted eyes.
Then Kennedy’s quiet voice from behind: “You knew him well, huh, skipper?”
“Yeah.”
Patrolman Pflueger pointed: “There’s the gun, Captain — layin’ there.”
“Yeah.” MacBride’s voice had a dull flat sound. “Yeah. I can recognize it from here. I gave it to him. You can see on the barreclass="underline" ‘From Steve MacBride to Dan Rand.’ ”
Eggleson, the D.M.E., looked up from his notebook. “Suicide, Steve. Tough.” He shook his head profoundly. “Tough, tough. He got pie-eyed drunk and then did the Dutch.”
“Drunk, huh?”
“Pie-eyed. Can’t you smell it?”
“Yeah.”
Kennedy touched his arm. “Snap out of it, Steve.”
“I liked him, Kennedy. I grew up with him. It’s kind of swell to see a guy you grew up with make a name for himself. It ain’t exactly the nuts when you find him dead.” He wagged his bony head. “I never figured Dan would do the Dutch. He wasn’t that kind. Not him. But...” He sighed, moved his broad shoulders. Then he flexed his hands, his voice picked up: “Moriarity, get the lead out of your pants. Get the Morgue bus down... Hey, Pflueger, did you touch that gun?”
“Just by the barrel.”
“I trained you, didn’t I?”
“Yes, sir.”
MacBride looked at Kennedy. “Hear that?” He bent down, caught hold of the gun by the barrel and lifted it. He wrapped the gun in a fresh handkerchief and slipped it carefully into his pocket.
“Who trained you, skipper?” Kennedy said.
“Experience... Hey, Moriarity, I thought I told you—”
“Okey, okey!” Moriarity started off at a fast walk.
Eggleson scoffed: “Suicide! It’s as plain as the nose—”
“On my face.” MacBride nodded. “I know. But I also knew” — he leveled an arm at the dead man — “Dan Rand. I guess if I want to take prints off this gun I have a right to!”
“What a man!” Eggleson sighed; then said: “Okey, Steve. Well, I’ll be seeing you.”
Police photographers came and took flashlight pictures of the body on the floor.
MacBride roamed through the warehouse, picking his way with the help of a torch borrowed from Pflueger. He pushed through a small door and stood on the pierhead, in the wind, watching the lights of river traffic. Kennedy came out and huddled in his topcoat, using MacBride’s bulk to break the wind.
“Don’t be a sap, Cap,” he argued. “It was suicide plain and simple. You know Dan was in a bad way financially. Ever since he refused to let the Ricks-Gowanus boxfight take place in his Colosseum Cardiac boycotted him. It’s cost Dan a lot of dough. He couldn’t afford to lose it. Well, he lost it. And what happened?” He shrugged. “A Dutch out. He got drunk as hell and getting drunk either weakened or strengthened him to rub himself out. Depends on how you look at it.”
MacBride remained silent, staring at the river lights.
Kennedy raised a cigarette to his mouth. The wind whipped sparks from its red end. His tone was lazy, ruminative: “He had an expensive wife... his apartment at Tudor Towers set him back $500 a month... a front to keep up.” He shrugged. “A guy like Rand would have hated to take one backward step in the scale of living.”
“Yeah,” said MacBride. “He hated defeat. And he could take it. I’ve seen him take it before.”
“Sure. But a man can take it just so long, skipper, and then the lights go out. A short circuit in the nervous system.”
MacBride turned. “I know, I know, Kennedy. You’re using your head, you’re reasoning things out. Swell! But I can’t reason the same way because I knew Dan, I know he had guts. It’s not like him to pull a stunt like this. It’s all goofy! It’s a cap that don’t fit his head!”
Kennedy leaned back on his heels. “Listen, am I talking to a hard-headed cop or am I talking to a fat-head?”
MacBride growled, swung on his heel, yanked open the door and heaved into the warehouse. The lantern was swinging now in someone’s hand. The Morgue bus had come and they were carrying out the body of Dan Rand.
Kennedy caught up with MacBride and said: “So don’t make a horse’s neck out of yourself just because you happened to play at cowboys and Indians with this guy when you were kids.”
“I’m in the dark right now,” MacBride ground out. “In the dark, get me?” His eyes shimmered between narrowed lids. “In a dark house. But I’ve got a feeling that there’s a lot of doors around me in the darkness — and if I look hard enough, and take your wisecracks as just so much bushwha, I might find a streak of light — you know, at the bottom of a door.”
“Listen to the man!”
“Razz me, sweetheart. I could take the razzberry when you were just a hope in your father’s chest.”
Cohen was sitting on the desk, swinging a leg, flipping a coin in the air, when MacBride strode into the office next morning. The skipper removed his conservative blue overcoat, his conservative gray fedora, and hung them on a costumer in the corner. Crossing to the desk, rubbing his chilled hands smartly together, he stared down at the morning edition of the Free Press. Dan Rand Commits Suicide, the headlines said. MacBride looked at Cohen. Cohen continued flipping the coin.
“What’s that, Ike, a new kind of endurance contest?... Come on, come on — with six chairs in this office, do you have to park yourself on my desk?”
Cohen stood up. “So I dusted the town last night, Cap. Rand hit The Panama at 2:30 yesterday afternoon, stayed an hour drinking alone. At 3:40 he walked into Joe Paloma’s place, in Senate Street. Joe says he knocked off three highballs and left there about four o’clock. Plenty looking-glass drinking. At 4:30 he landed in Nick Raitt’s place, on Division Hill. Rye highballs again; three. Nick said he didn’t talk, didn’t say a thing. Just looked at himself in the mirror and took on the liquor. Nick says he bailed out at about 5:30.
“At about a quarter of six he walked into the Old English Grill and got himself a meal and Al says he drank rye there. He was pretty crocked when he came in, but the food kind of straightened him out. He left the Old English at a little past seven and went down to Elmo Street, to Mike Cahill’s place. He threw dice with Mike, but Mike says he kept his trap shut except to open it to pour in rye. He left Mike’s place at 8:30.
“Tony Gatto, down in Jockey Street, says Rand sloped into his joint between eight and nine. He was pretty drunk. He took two highballs fast and left at about 9:15. Tony says Rand said: ‘Well, Tony, I think I’ll go home to my wife. Listen, Tony; never give up ship. Stick to it.’ Tony didn’t know what he meant. ‘Some of us slide out, Tony,’ Rand said. ‘Some of us stick, hang on. I guess I’m that kind, damn my guts.’ And he went out.” Cohen shrugged. “So I guess Tony Gatto was the last guy to see him alive.”
MacBride said: “Good work, Ike. Did you mark those places and times down?”