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.
Martindel felt the convulsive clutch of his wife. He turned his head and looked at the man who had drawn the window shade.
“Well, Gus Nuene! Since when have you and Sam gone into the kidnaping racket?”
The man addressed as Nuene gave his neck a nervous jerk. He was very tall and very thin like a giant crane and the angled bridge of his hooked nose made it seem as though he were perpetually sighting a shotgun. He was all straight lines and angles.
“This isn’t a snatch, Duke,” he announced. “We got a job for you.”
Martindel chuckled without pleasantry. “I maintain an office, boys.”
Sam Skuro made an impatient gesture with his gun. “Pile out, Duke,” he growled. “We’re in one hell of a hurry. This is on the level.”
Duke Martindel glanced at his wife and a thrill of pride suffused him. She looked very young and very cool lying there with her round blue eyes fastened on Skuro’s gun muzzle. Brown hair tumbling around her bare shoulders made her look like a school girl rather than a clever lawyer and the wife of a well known detective. Duke grinned in spite of himself.
“Phyl,” he said in an audible stage-whisper, “you’re the legal brains of the family. What would you advise in a situation like this?”
Phyllis Martindel was scared — Duke could tell that by the way the nostrils on her little turned-up nose quivered — but she prided herself that she could match her husband’s cool wit, so she tried it now. “Darling, they seem to be clients of yours.”
The detective’s quick laughter brought a dark scowl to the swarthy features of Sam Skuro. “Listen, Duke, this is no time for wise-crackin’. There’s big dough in this for you.”
Nuene took a step nearer the bed. “Ten gran’, Duke! That’s more than you private dicks can make in a year on a straight job.”
Martindel chuckled. “Straight job? Now that’s a word I didn’t think you boys included in your vocabulary; you, Gus Nuene, the slickest con-man in town, and Sam Skuro the veteran peterman! Why, Sam, you must be well over fifty! You were cracking cribs when I was in short pants.”
Skuro leaned over the foot of the bed. “Duke, you got a reputation in this town. Everybody that knows you at all knows you left the police department and went into private practice because the department went crooked.”
“Part of it did,” Martindel admitted.
Skuro nodded vigorously. “All right, then, part of it; the biggest part. Well, you wouldn’t sit by an’ see them frame an innocent man, frame an’ hang him, would you?”
The detective drew up his knees and locked his hands around them. “Sam, you old fraud, you couldn’t be innocent of anything.”
Nuene said: “You know Harry Washburn, Duke?”
Martindel nodded. “Sure. He’s the grand jury investigator. We teamed on the force when I was in harness.”
Sam Skuro’s gun sagged. “Listen, Duke, before my God, I didn’t kill Washburn!”
The detective stiffened slightly. “Well, who said you did?”
Skuro opened his mouth as if to say something, apparently changed his mind and, swivelling, walked over to a small radio near the bed. With trembling fingers he rotated the dial. Then he stepped back and listened as the cool, impersonal voice of the police announcer droned out of the instrument.
“... railway stations, apartments, rooming houses and small hotels. Repeating general order to all cars. Description of wanted men as follows: Sam Skuro, age fifty, six foot one, two ten, gray, close-clipped hair, bullet head, dark complection, scar running from right corner of mouth to right cheek-bone. Skuro is a three-time loser, dangerous criminal. Gus Nuene, confederate, probably holed up together. Nuene five eleven, thirty-eight, gaunt and angular,
dark and sleek, well dressed, thin hawk-face, cold gray eyes. Take no chances in arresting these men as they are wanted for murdering investigator Harry Washburn. All cars will patrol their—”
Sam Skuro switched off the instrument. Both men kept their eyes on Martindel’s sober features.
Duke spat: “Cop-killers!”
Skuro caught the bed post. “We didn’t, Duke! I’m tough, I’ve cracked a lot of cribs in my day, slugged a lotta guys, but before my God, Duke, I never drilled a guy.” He paused and amended the statement by adding, “I never drilled a guy in the back!”
Martindel’s voice was cold. “What did you come to me for?”
“We’re bein’ framed, Duke. With our records any jury in the world would sink us. We’re innocent, we need help.”
Martindel gave a dry laugh that lacked mirth. “What you birds need is a lawyer, not a detective. You better speak to my wife.”
Nuene shook his head. “No, Duke, a lawyer can’t help us out of this spot.”
“Have you got an alibi?” Martindel asked.
The two visitors exchanged glances. Nuene answered through tightened lips. “We can’t use it, Duke.”
Nuene shot another glance at Sam Skuro. The latter gave his head a perceptible nod. Nuene turned back to the detective.
“Duke, we’ll lay our cards on the table — cold. But first we want your word that under no circumstances will you tell the law.”
Martindel shook his head. “I can’t give my word on that. If they subpoena me into court, I’ll have to talk.” He smiled sardonically. “However, if you boys hired a good lawyer and told her your troubles, she would be able to protect your confidences by the laws of privileged communications.”
Phyllis swung around. “Darling! I don’t want—”
“Go on, boys,” Duke interrupted. “Tell the attorney your troubles.”
Nuene nodded to Sam Skuro; Sam began to talk. “Harry Washburn was diggin’ up a lot of graft dope—”
“Skip it,” Duke cut in. “We know all about Washburn’s activities.”
“Well, he knew too much so he got bumped at five minutes after twelve.”
“Ask him who bumped him?” Duke suggested to his wife.
Skuro answered before Phyllis had a chance to repeat the query. “I don’t know that. It was framed to look like Gus an’ me did it.”
“How do you mean — framed?” asked Phyllis.
Skuro shrugged helplessly. “Phoney evidence — I don’t know just what. A friendly stoolie tipped me off just in time to the raid or we’d have been—” He ended with a shudder.
“They want us — dead,” contributed Nuene.
“Where were you at five minutes after twelve?” Phyllis Martindel wanted to know.
Both men hesitated, then Sam Skuro heaved his shoulders. “In the main vault of the County and Suburban Bank!”
Martindel laughed harshly. His wife gasped.
“They were cracking the bank, darling,” the detective told her drily, “when Washburn was murdered.”
“Couldn’t you prove that?” Phyllis asked. “It would be better than being charged with murder!”
“Not much better,” Duke put in. “Sam and Gus are both old offenders, if memory serves me right they each have three convictions behind them.”
“That’s right,” Nuene admitted wearily.
“And that means they’ll get life even if convicted for cracking the bank.”
“It means,” Nuene corrected drily, “that unless you prove us innocent we’ll both be killed by the cops. We heard they don’t aim to make any arrests in this case; they don’t want to chance it to a jury in case anything slips up. It’s a frame, I tell you, Duke!”
“But how,” protested the charming lawyer, “can we prove you innocent when you are guilty of something else?”
Skuro bit his lip. “Your husband will know how to handle that, ma’m.”
“You tell me,” suggested Martindel.
Nuene spoke: “For ten gran’, Duke, we want you to frame us innocent!”