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.
Darkness netted him in, diffused faintly by two windows at the far side. He made out the dim white splotch of a bed to his right — nothing more in the light-blurred focus of his gaze. Nothing happened. He stood motionless an instant, surprised and uneasy, before turning to the wall for the light switch.
The faintest flicker of darkness moved from his left — in the same instant he felt a thin rush of air, and something hard, sharp-edged, crashed viciously into his wrist, knocking his gun to the floor. He dropped, feeling for it, as the lights overhead snapped on. A woman’s leg flicked past his hand, kicking the revolver across the rug. Someone said in a soft, oily voice: “Hold it, Flaherty.”
Flaherty got up slowly to his knees, his lips pressed tight against the pain in his wrist. There were three people in the room: Anna, behind him and to his left, Johnny the Greek near the door, automatic in hand, and a slender small man in a chair, bound to it and gagged.
Johnny’s face, edged with a bluish bristle of beard, twisted in a leer. “Smart guy, Flaherty. Too bad we was expectin’ you. Next time you’re in a lobby look around. There’s telephones.”
“I shoulda thought of a lookout,” said Flaherty. “But this don’t help you, Johnny; I got the joint tied up in a knot. The outside’s lousy with cops.”
Johnny sneered. “Sez you. That stuff don’t go, dick — you came into the lobby alone. Your pals’ll be along, but that’ll be too late to do you any good. We’re about through here.” His eyes flickered to Anna. “Behind him, kid.” To Flaherty he said: “Get over to that chair, snappy.”
Flaherty went over slowly and sat down, watching his face. There wasn’t a chance. Johnny stared at him through narrow lids, his eyes small and hard like balls of black glass. Killer’s eyes...
“I’ll have to get some towels,” Anna said. “They’ll do for his arms.” She moved back of him towards the bathroom.
The little man made sounds under his gag. Flaherty looked at him and saw a large head with blond, oddly streaked hair, pale eyes, clean shaven upper lip.
“What you want?” snarled Johnny. The sounds continued. He dropped one hand and loosened the gag. “Spit it quick, fella.”
The little man breathed hoarsely once or twice before speaking. He looked at Flaherty and quickly away. His words were rapid, imploring.
“You’ve got the money — give me a chance to get free. I’ll leave you downstairs. If he knows who I am—”
“I know you’re Conrad Devine,” said Flaherty. He was stalling for time. Where the hell were Gilmour and Mike Martin? If he could keep them here five minutes — “You shaved off your mustache and blondined your hair — not a very good job, but good enough to fool anybody who thought you were dead. And who wouldn’t?”
The little man snarled savagely; he said to Johnny: “You see?”
“Sure,” said Flaherty. “Your bank was on the rocks and you didn’t have a nickel to save it. You thought you’d get what you could, so you framed this little racket with Barrett. The fact that you two birds got where you did in a bank is a laugh.
“Barrett knew Anna through going to the dance hall, and she got you in with Jigger Burns. You let Jigger in on it for a cut — you needed him for the bombs. You figured everything was as safe as Gibraltar—
“When I phoned tonight you made out you were scared, asked me to come right out. You cooked up some story for Jigger Burns — you were about the same size — and sent him out to your car when you saw the police flivver arrive. Fitted in one of your top hats, I was supposed to recognize your figger — I’d be too far away to see the face — watch you blown to hell, and give you a perfect alibi. Even the cops wouldn’t be dumb enough to suspect a dead man.
“You mentioned Jigger to me at your office so I’d be lookin’ for him. That made everything hotsy-totsy: you’d be livin’ in another town with enough dough to last you the rest of your life, the police would be lookin’ for a guy that was in a thousand bits, and I’d be left holdin’ the bag. Yeh—”
Johnny said: “That ain’t such a bad idea, Flaherty. I like to see cops holdin’ the bag. We’ll give you a start, Devine — but no breaks, guy! Let him loose, Anna.”
There was a sudden quick flicker in Devine’s eyes, instantly hid. Flaherty seeing it, said nothing. Anna came over in a moment with the towels and knelt behind Flaherty, pressing his arms together.
Flaherty continued to talk, while Devine stretched himself with a long sigh and went over to the bed, watched carefully by Johnny.
“I got the lead at your bank,” Flaherty droned on. “The vault was blown after the money was taken. Why? To make it look like a strong-arm job. Whoever pulled it got in the back door with a key, murdered the watchman, and opened the vault with the combination. Then they set the time bomb and beat it. I got to thinkin’ about you then, Devine. You had the keys and knew the combinations. There was talk your bank was crackin’; the body in the car couldn’t be identified. You didn’t have any notes to show me — you were too smart to rib them yourself—”
“Shut up,” snarled Johnny. “Got him fast, Anna?”
Flaherty laughed. “And at the end they gypped you, at that. When you got the dough and came back here to lie low for a couple of days before headin’ out, the girl friend and Johnny fix you like a baby and take away the candy. Hell—”
The banker’s pale eyes were slits of ice. His lips were frozen in a wrenched smile. “You’re very clever,” he said.
Anna yanked the toweling tight. As she began to fasten the knot Flaherty flexed his arms, pushing her backward to the floor. Johnny came forward a step, not watching Devine, his eyes vicious. “Once more and I drop you, guy.”
Flaherty got it then, watching the set, pinched-in face of Devine as his hand dropped to his overcoat pocket. Johnny had frisked him; had he frisked the topcoat on the bed? The damn’ fool — Flaherty got his weight on his toes, ready to leap.
“Yeh,” said Johnny. “Be a good boy. You ought—”
Anna screamed suddenly, seeing the sudden bulge in the banker’s pocket.
“Johnny! He—”
Johnny whirled, opening his mouth. The shot came before he could speak. He gave a puffy, choked grunt, fell flatly to the floor.
At the report Flaherty flung himself face downward behind the bed. Johnny was on the other side, moaning, his gun a foot away from his clenched hand. Flaherty wriggled forward, stretched his arm, grabbed the butt as darkness fell at a click over the room.
There was a rush of feet in the hall and confused shouts. Someone lunged furiously at the door; Flaherty heard Mike Martin’s bull voice roaring.
Devine fired twice. The bullets dug splinters from the floor, flung them in Flaherty’s face. Flaherty didn’t shoot; he crouched back, watching the far wall.
In the darkness Anna kept screaming shrilly, terribly. There was a rustle of motion, a scraping, a sudden rush, before the pale square of the window on the far side was darkened by a slender figure. Flaherty could see it very clearly. He fired once.
The door to the hall crashed back, and a slit of light melted instantly into the greater brilliance of the ceiling bulbs. Mike was by the switch, covering the room. In the doorway stood Gilmour, the house detective, his fat face pale and flabby. “What the hell!” he said.
Flaherty got to his feet. “It’s all right,” he said. “The party’s over, fella.”
In the center of the room Anna was on her knees over Johnny, sobbing. The Greek didn’t seem badly hurt; he sat up and stripped off his bloody coat, cursing sullenly under Gilmour’s revolver.