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.
“Do you want all the money back?” asked Cellini with obvious sarcasm.
“No. Keep it.”
“That’s good, because I can tell you it wasn’t fixed. Eddy Bly’s a good boy. Wheaton doesn’t belong in the same ring with him.”
“It makes no difference,” the gambler said. “I was betting on Bly and I would have been interested only if he lost. Thanks anyway.” He nodded and walked away.
Cellini and Duck-Eye headed for the parking lot. They had gone not more than twenty yards when they heard a shot. It came from the direction of the stadium and a moment later they heard a woman’s full-lunged scream. It sounded like the big, homely woman.
As Cellini raced back, he wondered why the blond number hadn’t uttered a sound, hadn’t even moved an eyelid, when Duck-Eye Ryan suddenly threw a punch at Eddy Bly.
Chapter Two
Cold Meat
Cellini Smith, Duck-Eye Ryan behind him, pulled up short at the alley entrance to avoid colliding with a couple hurrying out. The two were Eddy Bly and his blond friend.
Cellini moved next to Duck-Eye to block their exit effectively and asked: “What’s the rush?”
“Get out of our way!” Bly’s fists were already in position to start swinging.
“Didn’t you hear that shot? That was a gun, and that screaming sounded as if someone got in front of it.”
“I don’t give a damn what it sounded like,” said Bly carefully. “Me and the lady are leaving. For the last time, get out of our way.”
“You’re good, Bly. But you’re not good enough to stop the two of us.”
There were others who had heard the scream behind Cellini now, trying to get into the back of the stadium.
Eddy Bly surveyed the crowd, shrugged and his arms dropped. “You know who I am and anyone knows where to find me if I’m wanted. I just don’t feel like hanging around here.”
“Get back in there, Bly. It’s a bad time to leave. I’m a private dick and I pack a gun.” Cellini didn’t add that this was one of the times he had neglected to do so.
For the first time the blonde spoke. She thumbed a carmine fingernail at Cellini and observed: “I don’t like that shtoonk.” Then she said, “What the hell! Come on,” and returned down the alley with Bly.
In the corridor, someone was shouting incoherently into the wall phone. They could make out the words: “Hurt...ambulance...police...”
Cellini shouldered his way through the crowd that overflowed Hank Wheaton’s dressing room. The little blonde, who had preceded him, fought her way to the middle of the room with sharp jabs of her elbow. When she got there, she took in the scene at a glance and put her arm around the convulsing shoulders of her large, homely friend.
“Come, Prunella,” she said calmly. “You can’t help him now. You better sit down.”
They moved aside, Cellini took Prunella’s place and examined the cause of the commotion. Hank Wheaton had lost for the second time that night. There was no need for an ambulance, for the bullet had been neatly placed, entering behind the fighter’s left ear. The body had been raised from the floor and put on a massage table and the onlookers gazed at it more in curiosity than in grief. Prunella’s sobs, which punctuated the babble at clock-like intervals, provided the only tragic overtone.
In a knowing, triumphant voice, someone suddenly shouted: “Don’t nobody touch anything till the cops get here.”
The reminder of the police created a sudden, uncomfortable silence. Cellini knew that within another minute there would be a stampede for the doors. He flagged Duck-Eye and went out into the corridor.
“Have you got any friends around here?”
“Sure, Cellini. There’s Sariola. He stopped me in the first round at an Elk smoker. And Rojo, there, fouled me below—”
“O.K. Get a few of them together and tell them to stop this gang from leaving. You take that exit and put someone at the other end. Have a couple of the others keep an eye on the windows.”
“This is sure a load offa my mind, Cellini.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You got a job now to work on this killing and you’ll make the two hundred skins I need for—”
“We’ll talk about it later, Duck-Eye. Get busy.”
Cellini wondered why he bothered saving suspects for Homicide. Ira Haenigson would probably answer a call like this and he held no love for Haenigson. It was the Homicide man who had talked up Cellini’s drinking at the induction station until they took ulcer-revealing X-rays that barred him from the army.
Cellini returned to the dressing room. The window which fronted on the outside alley was broken. A round hole centered the pane and lines, where the glass had cracked, radiated from it. A couple of splinters of glass lay on the inside window sill. The shade was rolled to the top. From the alley, Wheaton had no doubt been a clear and well-lit target.
Cellini walked outside and headed up the alley. When he was nearly abreast of the late Hank Wheaton’s dressing room, he found the object of his search. The gun, a flat .38 automatic, simply lay on the pavement where it had been dropped. The murderer had not even bothered to toss it over the brick wall that sided the alley.
“If the killer was in such a hurry to get rid of that, he’s probably still inside there.” The voice at Cellini’s elbow belonged to Dan Turner.
“I suppose,” Cellini replied. “But how did you get out here past the guards I posted?”
“That subnormal friend of yours, Duck-Eye Ryan, let me by. He said it was all right because you were working for me.”
“And?”
“And I just wanted to make it clear that you’re not.” The gambler reached into his flannel jacket for a cigarette case. “You’re not working for me, Smith, because I haven’t the faintest interest in who killed Wheaton or why.”
“So it’s as hot as all that,” commented Cellini.
The police cars, followed by the wailing ambulance, did not come too soon. Duck-Eye Ryan was having trouble. The men he had chosen to help guard the exits liked the implication that they were on the side of law and authority for a change and they didn’t bother being tactful about it. Several men were banding together to rush the guards when Detective-Sergeant Ira Haenigson strode in with his crew of men from the Homicide Division.
The police, Cellini had to admit, acted swiftly and competently. Within a few minutes, Haenigson had the broader details of the event and he had sifted out those who seemed to have a direct connection with the murder, dismissing the rest to an adjoining room.
A plainclothesman beckoned to Cellini and he entered Hank Wheaton’s dressing room. Duck-Eye followed in his faithful fashion. The photographers seemed to be finished, but a couple of fingerprint experts were wandering around with hopeless looks in their eyes. Prunella and her blond friend were still there, as well as Eddy Bly. Jerry Lake was absent but Dan Turner leaned against the wall in his indolent manner and took in the proceedings.
Ira Haenigson waved affably. “It’s good to see you, Smith.”
“Why?”
The detective-sergeant rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “There must be some reason. I hope you’re not still carrying a grudge against me on your notion that I kept you out of the Army. You’re over twenty-six anyway, so you wouldn’t have made it.”
“What do you want?” asked Cellini.
“I want to thank you for posting guards and saving this gang till I got here.”
“You’re welcome. Shall I leave now?”
“I also want to know whose axe you’re grinding.”
“Duck-Eye Ryan,” said Cellini, “is going to be a father and he needs money — but you wouldn’t understand.”
“Cut the doubletalk!” The Homicide man’s voice became less affable. “Look, Smith, this isn’t my birthday and I’d like to know why you went to that trouble for me.”