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.
“How’d you get along?” asked the gambler.
“With Haenigson? Fine. We can’t stand each other from way back. I don’t think Jerry Lake or Eddy Bly approves of me, though.”
“I would watch Lake if I were you.”
“How about Bly?”
“I don’t know much about him,” the gambler said.
“I should think you did,” Cellini persisted. “You knew enough about him to win a lot of money on his fight.”
“I never said I won money on him. I just said I bet on him. Besides, it’s none of your business, Smith.”
“You’re right there. How’s your alibi for the killing?”
“I’m not worried.”
Cellini gave it up. Turner wasn’t using detectives today. He nodded to the gambler and went outside. On the street he paused to light a cigarette.
A figure stepped from the shadows and said: “Hold the match.”
As Cellini extended his arm to light the other’s cigarette he was wide open for the sudden, unexpected blow. The stranger’s right fist caught him on the side of the jaw and sent him sprawling. He leaped up, then stopped short. Maybe it was a pipe that the stranger was pointing through the pocket of his jacket — or maybe it was a gun. It wasn’t worth the chance to try and find out.
With an effort, Cellini controlled himself. He rubbed his jaw and looked at the other as if carefully memorizing every line and detail of the hard, shrewd face. Finally, he said: “What was that for?”
“I’m a meanie,” replied the other. “I send caterpillars up telephone poles.”
“Who are you?” asked Cellini. “I remember the smell but I don’t seem to recognize the face.”
“Now there’s no cause for personalities,” said the other. “You can call me Murph. All my friends do.”
“I still want to know what this is all about?”
“Oh, it’s kind of a message from Jerry Lake. He wants you should be more civil to him.”
“What are you, his strong arm?”
“In a way,” said Murph. “Lake’s made me a sort of vice president in charge of complaints. It makes me feel like a white-collar worker. It—”
“Stop drooling. What does Lake want from me?”
“I don’t know. Honest.” Murph sounded hurt. “He just told me to take you down a couple of pegs. By the way, I never got that light. Just throw them matches, if you don’t mind.”
Murph caught the match book and struggled with one hand against his body until he had produced the light. “Thanks, Smith. I guess I’ll toddle along. And don’t try stopping me, because I can draw this rod real fast.”
“It would never occur to me.”
“Fine. No hard feelings, is there, Smith?”
“No, Murph, no hard feelings.”
“It isn’t like I had anything against you, personally, Smith. It’s just like I was a surgeon with a job to do.”
“I said, no hard feelings.”
Cellini watched Murph disappear down the street. The night was cool but he could feel the beads of sweat on his brow. Being thrown at walls by a lady wrestler and hit by a gambler’s bodyguard was a little too much to take in one night’s work. Certainly too much for a twenty-dollar job with no prospect of more to come. Cellini looked at his watch. It was nearing one-thirty. Maybe, he thought, he’d have a chance to stick around this mess. For one thing, he was anxious to meet Murph again.
Cellini Smith did not reach his office till two the following afternoon. He sorted through his mail with bad humor. He had not had more than two hours of sleep and the events of the preceding night still stung him.
There was the sound of heavy footfalls in the outside hallway and three men entered. The sight of Ira Haenigson did little to make Cellini feel better. The other two visitors were Boggs, Haenigson’s beefy, young assistant, and Dan Turner. They found chairs and ranged themselves in front of the desk.
It was a long moment before the detective-sergeant spoke. “Smith, we haven’t got much use for each other but I’ve had the feeling that each of us respected the other in a way.”
Cellini frowned. When Haenigson talked in circles it usually meant trouble.
“That’s why,” the Homicide man went on, “I’m sorry I have to nail you on a thing like this. I know you, Smith, and I don’t trust you too much but I’ve always felt that there were some things even you wouldn’t do. Maybe I never liked the way you did things but you usually did them for the right reasons.”
“You give me something to live for, Haenigson. Go on.”
“This isn’t funny, Smith. If you lose only your license you’ll be lucky. Blackmail isn’t a minor offense.”
“Blackmail?” Cellini looked at each of the faces in front of him and his frown deepened.
Dan Turner said: “Ordinarily, I’d let a thing like this go by — especially with you, Smith — but the deal’s too big. In the kind of a spot I’m in, I can’t afford it.”
“Wait a minute.” Cellini enunciated each word carefully, as though he were speaking to children. “This is supposed to have something to do with blackmail. In the first place, what have Haenigson and the Homicide Department got to do with blackmail? In the second place, what blackmail?”
“Your letter happens to tie in with the murder of Hank Wheaton,” replied the detective-sergeant.
“Now we’re getting someplace. What letter?”
“Stop playing cat-and-mouse, Smith. Mr. Turner handed it over to me.” Haenigson reached into his pocket and tossed a sheet on the desk blotter.
Cellini picked it. It was a piece of his own stationery and bore the preceding day’s date. It read:
Dear Dan,
Apparently, you don’t fully appreciate the dangerous position you are in as a result of Hank Wheaton’s murder. Your biggest mistake would be not to hire a private operative to watch over your interests. To put it mildly, the police would be very interested to know of your share in the killing.
Naturally, when I recommend that you hire an operative, I’m thinking of myself but I’m also warning you as an old friend.
Underneath, in its broad, typical lettering, was Cellini Smith’s signature. Cellini tossed the letter back.
“It was a little too thick for me to let it pass,” said Dan Turner almost apologetically. “I couldn’t afford to ignore it.”
“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen it,” stated Cellini.
“That’s your signature, isn’t it, Smith?” asked Haenigson.
“I said I never saw it before.”
“Your signature and your stationery,” the detective-sergeant went on, “and Mr. Turner received it this morning in one of your envelopes. Now, what have you to say.”
Cellini said: “Your slip is showing.”
Haenigson sighed. He nodded to Boggs. The young cop went over to the typewriter, inserted a sheet, typed a few words and then passed the paper over to his chief. Haenigson started comparing the type with that on the note to Turner. Finally, the Homicide man asked: “Have you got another typewriter, Smith?”
“No.”
“Well, you didn’t type this letter on your machine. That’s obvious. Where did you?”
The knuckles on Cellini’s hands whitened on the edge of the desk. “Listen carefully, you animated septic tank, because I am repeating for the last time: I did not write that letter.”
“That’s your signature, isn’t it?”