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.
“I like to turn the other cheek, Haenigson. Not the one on my face.” Cellini reached into his pocket and pulled out the gun which he had rolled into a handkerchief. “I found this outside the window and picked it up in case someone else took a yen for it. I marked the spot where it was with a pencil.”
“Better every minute. This may help a lot.” Haenigson passed the automatic to one of his men.
“I doubt it,” said Cellini. “This job looks like the work of a cool hand who probably knew it couldn’t be traced.”
The tall, eagle-beaked girl named Prunella had watched with fascination as the gun was being passed over. She suddenly screamed, “It’s your job!” and leaped for Cellini. Her hands caught his left wrist unexpectedly but firmly, her right shoulder went under his left armpit and he found himself sailing through the air to end up against the wall.
The blonde yelled: “Good for you, Pruney!”
Duck-Eye Ryan leaped for Prunella and wound his arms around her. Ira Haenigson began to roar with laughter.
Duck-Eye asked: “Should I hit her?”
“No,” said Cellini. He stood up unsteadily.
Prunella was suddenly composed and said to Duck-Eye in a lady-like fashion: “Take your paws off me, you big ape.” Then she returned to her seat beside the blonde.
Haenigson’s body still shook uncontrollably from laughter and Cellini snapped: “What the hell’s so funny?”
The detective-sergeant blew his nose and wiped the tears from his eyes. He turned to Prunella. “That wasn’t bad, madam, but would you mind telling me what it’s all about?”
She pointed to Cellini. “That last week’s garbage did it. He even had the gun.”
“Let’s start at the beginning. First, would you mind telling me exactly who you two girls are?”
“Do you want our professional names or our real ones?”
“Your professional names?” Haenigson arched an eyebrow.
Eddy Bly was quick to pick it up. “It’s not what you think, copper.”
“We’re wrestlers,” said Prunella hotly. She indicated the blonde. “She’s known as the Blond Bomber but her real name’s Juno Worden. I’m Prunella Wheaton, the... the” — she paused, then remembered the right phrase — “the wife of the deceased.”
“Lady wrestlers,” murmured Haenigson. “You’ve been thrown by a professional, Smith, so you don’t have to feel so badly. Now, Mrs. Wheaton, do you mind explaining your accusation?”
“That guy had the gun, didn’t he? And he was in here before, getting that big baboon to beat up on my husband.”
“It was only a friendly experiment like,” Duck-Eye explained. “We’re working for Mr. Turner and—”
“Nobody’s working for Mr. Turner now,” provided Dan Turner.
Haenigson threw up his hands. “Shut up, everybody! You, Duck-Eye, get out and find your intellectual equal to explain things to. And don’t take away his rattle!”
Ira Haenigson waited till the door had closed on Duck-Eye Ryan, then said: “Now, let’s have it, Smith.”
Cellini said: “Turner asked me to find out if tonight’s bout between Wheaton and Bly was fixed. As you may know, it ended so quickly it was hard to tell, so I came back here and matched Duck-Eye against Wheaton and then Bly. I decided that Wheaton was no good, but Bly was, and I told Turner the brawl was on the level.”
“What about it?” asked Haenigson of Turner.
“That’s right,” said the gambler. “I was taking a lot of bets and didn’t want to be caught with the short end.”
“What made you think it might be fixed?”
“Just some things I overheard. Nothing to do with the killing. Do you want me any longer?”
“Not right now, but stick around.” Haenigson watched Turner leave. The police usually left Turner alone, as he had carefully built up a reputation for honest dealing. The unofficial policy was to allow Turner and others like him to operate, in the open and honestly, in preference to crooked underground activity that could not be watched.
“Is there anything you can add to your statement?” asked the detective-sergeant.
“Very little,” Cellini replied. “Maybe you’d like to know that Jerry Lake was in here when I came in with Duck-Eye. Lake wasn’t acting too friendly toward Wheaton.”
“I would like to know that,” Haenigson replied. He nodded to one of his men. “Get Jerry Lake.”
When Lake came in, Haenigson asked: “What kind of an argument were you having with Wheaton?”
“I suppose Smith called it that,” the gambler said, “but it wasn’t an argument. Mrs. Wheaton was here all the time. I was just telling Hank he was asking for a knockout by leaving his chin stuck in the open the way he did.”
“Did you lose much on the fight?”
The shrug that Jerry Lake gave tried to indicate that money meant little to him.
“What else, Smith?” asked Haenigson.
“When I went out,” Cellini said, “Mrs. Wheaton and Lake were still in here. Eddy Bly and Miss Worden were in the corridor where Duck-Eye and I left them. I was out of the building when I heard the shot about a minute later.”
“You didn’t leave me anyplace,” Juno Worden snapped. “Right after you left I went to the toil — the powder room, so I have an alibi.”
“An excellent alibi,” was Haenigson’s gentlemanly observation to the Blond Bomber. “However, that leaves Eddy Bly in the corridor alone when the shot was fired.”
“No, it doesn’t,” put in the fighter. “Jerry Lake was talking with me just at the time the gun went off, so I couldn’t have gone into the alley to do the job — even if I wanted to.”
“Did you?”
“Why should I? I took care of him in the ring. Besides, we were old friends.”
Haenigson asked of the gambler: “Do you agree to all that?”
“Yes, I do,” replied Lake.
“You’d be stupid not to,” noted the Homicide man, “because if you claim you were talking with Bly at the right time, out in the corridor, it will not only alibi him, but also yourself.”
“Do me and Miss Worden have to stick around here any more?” asked Eddy Bly.
“I suppose not. I’ll probably want you again tomorrow.”
“You better make it the afternoon. I’ll be busy all morning.”
“If I want you in the morning you won’t be busy.”
As Eddy Bly walked out with Juno Worden, he said, over his shoulder: “In the morning I’m burying my sister.”
The detective-sergeant gazed speculatively at the closed door and asked: “Who knows anything about that?”
“I do,” replied Jerry Lake. “Some hit-and-run driver knocked over his sister. She died this morning.”
“When was she run down?” asked Cellini.
“Yesterday, on Wilshire.”
“What difference would that make?” asked Haenigson.
“I was wondering how long she was in pain.”
“You got a heart as big as all humanity, Smith. Now, suppose you beat it and don’t start messing in this case, because as far as I can make out, you’re not representing anybody. I’ll be quite capable of managing everything.”
Cellini said, “Bully for you,” and left.
Duck-Eye Ryan was waiting in the corridor. “Cellini, what am I gonna do for that two hundred smackers?”
Cellini said: “I recommend you marry the girl and borrow the money from her.”
“It’d be a hell of a life,” Duck-Eye Ryan pronounced. “I’m going out to get drunk five bucks’ worth.”
Chapter Three
Client Found
Cellini Smith looked at his watch. It was a few minutes after one in the morning, so there was still time before he had to show up for the two-to-eight shift at the aircraft plant in the Valley. He could make out Dan Turner at the other end of the corridor and decided to try his luck again.