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.
Blood, Sweat and Biers
Robert Reeves
Robert Reeves (1912–1945) was born in New York City and raised on the south shore of Long Island. He received an A.B. in history, english, and anthropology from New York University and worked as a driver of an armored post-office department truck, carpenter, cabinet maker, candy maker, reader for Fox Films, and in various jobs for Broadway theaters, including casting director, play doctor, stage manager, and assistant producer. He moved to Hollywood in the late 1930s, probably hoping to break into the movie business, as so many writers of the time did. In 1942, he joined the army, serving in the air corps, and was killed a month before the end of World War II, being buried with four other soldiers in a common grave, suggesting they died together in a single plane.
His career cut short, he is less remembered today than some of his contemporaries, having produced only three novels and eleven short stories, nine of which ran in Black Mask and two in Dime Detective. He wrote three stories about “Bookie” Barnes — not a gambling nickname but one earned because he went to college and, unusual for pulp characters, actually read books. But most of his work — all three novels and seven stories, were about Cellini Smith, a private eye, most of whose cases take place in Los Angeles. The first Smith adventure was the novel Dead and Done For (1939); the last the posthumous story “Alcoholics Calamitous” (September 1945).
“Blood, Sweat and Biers” was published in the January 1945 issue.
The Bly-Wheaton fight lasted thirty-five seconds and ended in a one-punch knockout. Cellini Smith’s job was to find out if the fight had been fixed, but his talents were soon diverted by more important matters — Murph, strong-arm man for gambler Jerry Lake, Bly’s wrestler girl-friend, the Blond Bomber, “so round, so firm, so fully-packed,” and a three-time killer who felt equally at home using a .38 automatic, an andiron, and sulphuric acid.
Chapter One
Ringside for Murder
It was a good prelim. Two boys — one called Lopez, the other Sanchez — were trying to beat each other into a jelly, and with a marked degree of success.
It was a good fight because the boys were young, with strong biceps and backs, because they were evenly matched and because they didn’t mind getting hurt for the customers. They stood flat-footed, in the center of the ring, hammering away blindly on the theory that one of those hard-thrown punches would sooner or later connect for a knockout.
A good scrap, thought Cellini Smith as he watched from his aisle seat in the second row, but a lousy boxing match.
The customers, too, thought that each of the boys was earning his fifty bucks for the night’s work. Most of Hollywood’s sporting crowd had shown up at the stadium. The ringside seats were filled with sports jackets, low-cut gowns and a sprinkling of uniforms.
Stately young starlets, hiding behind sun glasses, screamed delightedly as Sanchez or Lopez would go down for a couple of counts and bounce back. Some of the girls shielded their faces with a program as the soggy gloves connected and threw out a spray of sweat. Others, as if they welcomed the spattering, didn’t bother with a program but sat forward on the edge of the seat, looking up into the ring.
As the bell was called on the final round, Cellini turned to his companion and asked: “What do you think, Duck-Eye?”
Duck-Eye Ryan shrugged gloomily and stared at nothing with those round, unblinking eyes. “Toss-up,” he finally replied.
Cellini Smith frowned. “What’s the matter with you? Did you get up on the wrong side of the whiskey bottle this morning?”
Duck-Eye merely shrugged again. He was a huge, powerful man whose limited mental gifts had been limited still further by a long succession of beatings received in prizefighting rings during his youth. He had followed Cellini to L.A., from the East Coast, with a blind devotion and loyalty that Cellini did not fail to appreciate.
Duck-Eye Ryan’s ring-scarred face relaxed for a moment as he sighted something, then returned to the grim task of concentrating on some inner problem. Cellini looked around to find the cause of Duck-Eye’s momentary interest.
Two women had just come down the aisle and taken ringside seats. The large, eagle-beaked one, who could have smoked a cigarette in the rain, looked as if she belonged on a broom. It was the other who must have caught Duck-Eye’s attention. She had a full, hard, youthful body, a round, full-lipped, clear-skinned face. She was small, very blond and her beauty was inviting and accessible — a relief from that of the gilded starlets.
Someone behind Cellini clicked twice with his tongue and murmured: “So round, so firm, so fully-packed.”
The referee lifted two tired arms. The fight was a draw. The crowd roared approval, Sanchez and Lopez began hugging each other and the seconds started arguing the decision. The lights went on for a fifteen-minute intermission.
Cellini turned to his huge friend. “Snap out of it, Duck-Eye. You’ll be out of here in an hour.”
“It don’t make no difference where I am, Cellini. I got a problem.”
“You stick to the problem I gave you,” Cellini advised him.
Cellini Smith made his way up the aisle as the customers stood up and stretched their legs before the main bout that featured Eddy Bly and Hank Wheaton. Bly and Wheaton were both newcomers to the City of the Angels and Cellini wondered how the betting was going.
It wasn’t going too well. The betting section was located high up in the back rows, next to the bandstand, and usually showed a lot of quiet activity before a main bout. There wasn’t much activity this time and Cellini found it strange.
Ordinarily, betting was pretty heavy on new boys because no one had seen them box locally and the odds had to be set on the basis of records that could be phony. It gave the suckers the idea that they might outsmart the gamblers.
A few bets were being made and some greenbacks were changing hands but it looked mostly like small fry. The big gamblers like Dan Turner or Jerry Lake sat back and waved away anyone who tried to place a bet. Cellini tried to catch Dan Turner’s eye and the gambler suddenly became interested in the label on his cigar.
Cellini approached Jerry Lake and asked, “Who you betting on in the next one?”
“I’m not having any,” was the reply.
“Why? Is it fixed?”
“I told you I’m not betting,” Jerry Lake said. Then he added: “Any more.”
“O.K., but what are the odds?” Cellini persisted. “Who’s the favorite? Bly or Wheaton?”
The gambler hailed a passing candy butcher and bought a bottle of pop. Cellini let the matter drop. Once again he tried unsuccessfully to catch Dan Turner’s eyes and then returned to his seat. Duck-Eye Ryan was still the picture of a man who had lost his best dope sheet.
“You shouldn’t eat so much chocolate,” Cellini said. “It’ll always stuff you up.”
“It ain’t that, Cellini. It’s my problem.”
“All right. Let’s have it.”
“I need money.”
Cellini extracted a five-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to his companion. “Now relax and watch this next clambake. I’ve got to know if it’s fixed.”
Duck-Eye moodily wound the bill around his fingers and said: “This ain’t enough, Cellini. I need a fortune of money. Two hundred bucks I need.”
“What would you do with it?”
Duck-Eye sighed. “Cellini, I’m gonna be a father.”
“Congratulations. I suppose you want all that dough for a Father’s Day card.”