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.
Cohen scaled a slip of paper onto the desk.
MacBride studied the memoranda, mused aloud: “What did Dan mean by that speech, Ike?”
“Hell, do drunks mean anything by the speeches they make? I read a book once—”
“Okey, okey. Suppose we don’t go into that. Here” — he pointed to the telephone — “call McGovern and ask him if he got the prints off that gun yet.”
Cohen telephoned the Bureau in the basement. Hanging up, he said: “In about half an hour.”
MacBride took a turn up and down the room; stopped, eyed Cohen darkly. “You’ve got an idea I’m nuts, haven’t you?”
“Well” — Cohen leaned on the desk — “it looks like suicide to me, Cap. Of course, if you want to make a case out of it, okey. I know about seventeen guys I could pick up, frame, box and deliver—”
“Do drunks mean anything by the speeches they make?... You asked me that, Ike. And I’ll tell you. They do! Dan would, anyhow. He was going home to his wife. He might have thought about doing the Dutch. But in the end, tight as he was, he changed his mind.” He leveled an arm. “When Danny Rand walked out of Tony Gatto’s he was going home to his wife. He might have been flat broke, up to his ears in debt — but he was going to stick, kid — he was going to stick.” He struck the desk with his fist. “Danny Rand didn’t commit suicide!”
Cohen was unimpressed. He shrugged. “Okey, skipper, okey. He didn’t commit suicide. Okey. Now tell me who bumped him off and I’ll go out and pinch the guy—”
“Cut it, Ike!” MacBride chopped in savagely. In a quieter voice he said: “Scram. I’ll call you if I want you.”
He crammed a pipe, lighted up. He had fought the Medical Examiner’s office tooth and nail for an autopsy. Halo Rand had sobbed. “An autopsy’s cruel on his poor dead body,” she had said. The Medical Examiner had chided, wheedled, opened a bottle of Napoleon brandy. But MacBride had stood his ground — grim-faced, obstinate, on a single track of thought and purpose.
He smoked out his pipe, knocked the ash into a tray. He sailed out of his office, went down to the central room, on down to the Bureau of Criminal Identification. McGovern, the fingerprint man, chewed a cigar beneath a brilliant light. The smoke foamed and rolled beneath the green eyeshade he wore, and he spoke laconically:
“No prints but Rand’s on this gat, Steve. Nice gun. I always did like a .32.”
MacBride muttered: “You’re sure of that, Mac?”
“That’s my business — being sure. But wait.” He picked up the gun. “Smell it.”
MacBride leaned down, sniffed. “What?” he said.
McGovern shrugged. “Smells — that’s all. Can’t you smell it?”
“I think I can. What’s that mean?”
“Oh” — McGovern shrugged — “nothing, I suppose.” He slapped palms softly together. “Suicide, Steve. You can’t get away from it.”
MacBride pointed: “Turn the gat over to Lewis. We ought to have that slug from the Morgue this morning.” He turned on his heel, strode away; stopped, returned to the desk and picked up the gun again. He sniffed along the barrel, along the butt; sighed, shrugged and walked away again, a puzzled frown shadowing his forehead.
In the central room, Otto Bettdecken lowered a half-eaten liverwurst sandwich behind the desk and called: “Cap, a guy just called up from 313 Diamond Street. His name’s Rossman. He said if you could come down there maybe he can tell you something.”
“About what?”
“Well, he said he’d read the paper this morning—”
“Okey. Thanks, Otto.”
The skipper hiked up the steps two at a time, barged into his office and saw Kennedy sitting at the desk. Kennedy was holding a glass in one hand, a bottle in the other; and he was grimacing painfully.
He said: “Honest, Cap, this last batch of liquor of yours is crummy — absolutely crummy.” He was indignant.
MacBride grinned tightly, nodded. “I know, sweetheart. You got it out of that lower left drawer, didn’t you? Swell! The good stuff is in the lower right — under lock and key. And I” — he thumbed his chest — “have the key!”
“Ah, my pal, my pal! Is it true that Rand was shot down by four Chinamen disguised as Princeton professors? I understand that there is a certain captain in Headquarters who insists that they were not four Chinamen; he says they were four dwarfs disguised as two dark, swart men wearing false hair eyebrows. This captain is principally known as an oboe player.”
MacBride slapped on his hat, shrugged into his overcoat, said scornfully: “I hope you choke, Kennedy. And I hope if you ever get married your kids’ll turn out to be saxophone players. In three words” — he reached the door, yanked it open — “nerts to you!”
In the central room he ran into Eggleson, the Deputy Medical Examiner. Eggleson’s chalky face wore a dry, broad grin. “I hear, Steve, that only Rand’s prints were on the gun. Tsk, tsk!”
MacBride said grimly: “You’re just breaking down with regret, ain’t you.” And he went on, red-faced, warm with chagrin.
Cohegan was waiting at the wheel of the shabby squad car.
MacBride said: “Down to 313 Diamond Street, Bert.”
“Okey.”
MacBride climbed in, slammed the door. “The razzberry market is cheap these days,” he rasped out.
“Me,” said Cohegan soberly, “I like blueberries. My wife, now, she likes strawberries; but take a good bowl of blueberries—”
“You take ’em.” MacBride sighed. He nipped savagely at the end of a cigar, cupped hands in the wind and lighted up.
The car purred across town, hit Broadway Avenue and weaved through traffic. It pushed westward past midtown hotels, shops, theaters. Its canvas top clapped and pattered in the wind, and the wind kept MacBride’s cigar at a bright glow, tore smoke from his nostrils and whipped it away, reddened the right side of his face. Winter sunlight glittered on plate-glass windows, automobile radiators, the shields and buttons of white-gloved traffic officers. Pedestrians hurried. Discarded newspapers skipped and planed and looped above the sidewalks.
Cohegan made a left turn into Diamond Street, a narrow thoroughfare that sloped downhill, walled on either side with food shops, noisy radio stores, cut-rate drug-stores, pawnshops, novelty stores, cheap haberdashers. Number 313 was a pawnshop.
“Park here, Bert,” MacBride said.
He climbed out, made a half-turn against the driving wind and strode into the pawnshop. Inside it was dim. Lights glowed dimly. Counters and showcases were cluttered with cheap odds and ends; and behind a brass wicket a small, pink-cheeked man was studying the inside of a watch.
“Your name Rossman?”
The little man was cheerful, bright-eyed. “Yes... yes, I’m Rossman.”
“I’m Captain MacBride—”
“Oh, yes!” The little man laid down the watch, turned and shouted: “Charley! Charley, come here and take care a minute.” And to MacBride: “Right in the back, Captain, if you don’t mind.”
MacBride strode to the rear of the store. Rossman met him at the end of the counter and bowed him into a small office where a coal stove glowed warmly. He closed the door quietly, changed spectacles and picked up a copy of the Free Press. A smile twinkled in his eyes, tugged at his lips.
“This,” he said, pointing to the Rand story. “I read about it this morning, and I thought it over. I saw your name connected with it. I remembered that once you were kind to my son-in-law, Benny Lisk, and I thought maybe this would interest you.” He paused, darted a shrewd, smiling look at MacBride. “I read here about the gun — the gun it says you gave him. I looked a long time at Mr. Rand’s picture here. Sit down, Captain.”