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 stepped back and surveyed the wreckage, highly elated. Luck, he realized, had been with him. He turned then and strode into the bedroom. It was empty.
Scowling, he walked through the bedroom into a kitchen. That was empty, too.
He went back to Vick and Max, sorry now that he had knocked them so thoroughly out. There were questions he wanted to ask. Questions concerning the whereabouts of Mr. and Mrs. Teddy Burdick.
He stared at them for a moment, undecided what to do; then, stooping, he went through their pockets. Both men were armed. He removed the weapons and placed them on the table, careful not to blur any finger-prints that might be on them. One of those guns, Smith was reasonably certain, had murdered McKenna.
In Vick’s pocket he found a slip of paper. Penciled words, written in a stiff, marching hand, said: “Fix up the girl tomorrow night, provided the papers are in our possession by that time. The following night take care of the husband. Carefully now — suicide.”
Smith read it twice, then pocketed it. An ugly fear took hold of him. Fear that he might have come too late. That the thing had already been done. He went into the kitchen, found an empty tin can and filled it with cold water. Returning, he knelt beside Vick and poured the water over his face.
Behind him a voice said quietly: “We will omit that, please. We will stand up and put our hands high and turn around very slowly.”
It was a familiar voice. Quite a famous voice, in fact. Smith had heard it several times on the radio, had heard it also at university lectures. He knew, therefore, even before he obeyed the command, that at long last he had come face to face with the supposedly dead Dubitsky.
It was not a pleasant sensation. He turned, raised his hands, and stared glumly at Dubitsky’s face. The hall door was open and the professor stood just inside it, tall and stoop-shouldered and grim. The automatic in his hand was small but deadly.
“Your name, please?” Dubitsky said curtly.
“It’sh Percy Smith, mishter.” It was worth a try, anyway, Smith figured. “These two men shaid I didn’ live here an’ I had a dishcussion.”
“We will omit that, also,” Dubitsky snapped. “You were not drunk when you came from the kitchen!”
Smith sighed. “I’m not drunk now, either,” he said, hunching his shoulders.
“Why are you here?”
“Vick’s an old friend of mine.”
“Explain, please.”
“Sure. Back in the old days, Vick and I used to work together. So when I met him on the street a while ago, he invited me up here, just to talk over old times. Me and him and this other guy here, we got into an argument. That’s all.”
“You are lying,” Dubitsky said.
“So help me, it’s the truth!”
“Is it? Suppose, then, you tell me Vick’s full name.”
“Huh?”
“I thought so,” Dubitsky said. “You are an agent of the government.” He came a step closer, his eyes flashing. “Well, my meddling friend, you are too late. Most of the papers are already on their way to an agent of my government. Except for minor details, my work is finished. And you, my friend, will not interfere with those minor details, I assure you.”
Smith did not answer. His gaze was on the door and he was frightened. His upraised hands trembled and perspiration gleamed on his face.
Dubitsky misunderstood. He smiled. “You have good reason to be afraid of me, my friend,” he said.
Out in the hall, Miss Angelina Copeland placed on the floor the shoes she was carrying. They were her own shoes. She had removed them before ascending the stairs. She looked like Little Red Riding Hood, except Red didn’t pack a gun. She measured the distance now between her outthrust hands and Dubitsky’s broad back, and, still in a crouch, she set herself. Then she lunged.
The threshold creaked as she went over it, and Dubitsky whirled. He whirled too late. Angel threw herself at his knees and bucked him off balance. Smith closed in and caught him.
Smith’s hands closed over Dubitsky’s wrist and twisted. He hadn’t used that particular twist before. It was dangerous. In the gymnasium where he worked out, it was outlawed. You could break a man’s arm with it.
Smith put all he had into it, and the arm snapped. He stopped then and threw Dubitsky over his head, and when the professor crashed into the door frame something else snapped.
Dubitsky shuddered to the floor and lay in a sprawled, unlovely heap. Smith straightened, gasping for breath.
“Lord!” he said. “That was close! Angel, you were marvelous! Why didn’t you shoot, though?”
“I was scared to,” she declared, picking herself up and still clinging to the gun.
“I told you to keep out of here!”
“I know you did. So I drove the car up and parked it just across the street. You didn’t expect me to stay in the bleachers when the ringside was vacant, did you? Then I saw Dubitsky walk in here, and my woman’s intuition told me I’d be needed.”
Dubitsky had not moved. Scowling a little, Smith knelt beside him.
“Is it bad?” Angel asked.
“Bad enough,” he said, holding a hand over the professor’s heart. “I suppose he’ll live, though. They usually do.” Then he turned to her. “Put that silly gun away.”
“You’ll be answering a flock of awfully embarrassing questions, darling, if he doesn’t live,” Angel said, letting the gun swing loose in her hand.
He stood up, glancing at Vick and Max. “Speaking of questions, I still want to ask a few.” Vick, he saw, was coming to. The cold water had begun to take effect.
He put a hand on Vick’s neck, groped for a moment with one finger and then pressed.
“Hey!” Vick choked.
“Nice, isn’t it?” Smith said quietly. “Hurts a little.” He pressed harder.
Vick jerked clear of the floor and fell flat again with a spongy thud. There was a nerve back there that was really sensitive.
“You’re killin’ me!”
“I will, too,” Smith promised solemnly, “unless you cooperate. Tell me now — what have you done with the Burdicks.”
“I never heard of no Burdicks.”
Smith tickled the nerve. Not gently this time, but strenuously.
“They’re upstairs!” Vick gasped. “For Gawd’s sake, cut it out!”
“See if you can find some rope around here, Angel,” Smith said. “If not, rip up a bedsheet. Now, Vick, it’s my turn. I’ll tell you what I know, or guess, and you can supply the rest.”
“The place for that,” Angel said, “is not here. Too much might happen. Let’s take him with us. First thing you know, someone will walk in here with a machine gun, and then where will you be with your Chinese wrestling?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“Yes, but even Steve Brodie didn’t try it twice, darling. I’m going upstairs and collecting the Burdicks.”
She walked out. Smith glared at Vick and said grimly, “One thing I do want to know. What’s so all-fired important about those papers?”
“You go to hell,” Vick snarled.
Smith found the nerve again. Vick shuddered to the tips of his fingers.
“It... it’s a formula,” he gasped. “It’s some screwy formula for a new high explosive. That’s all I know. I swear it!”
“I think,” Smith said slowly, “I get it. At least, I begin to. Our friend Dubitsky was sent here by a foreign government. He took his time. He planned things carefully. Through him, Burdick and one or two other students obtained jobs at the Glickman Company. Through Burdick, the learned professor obtained information on the whereabouts of the formula. But things were hot. He decided to vanish. As Professor Dubitsky he did vanish. How right am I, Vick?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Vick mumbled. “Lay off of me, will you?”