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 don’t give a damn what it is!” Cellini grabbed at the letter. The signature, he had to admit, did look like his. He held it up to the light of his desk lamp, and asked: “Do one of you Philo Vances sport a magnifying glass?”
Haenigson shook his head and Boggs said: “Never touch ’em.”
“You use reading glasses, don’t you, Haenigson? Let’s have them.”
“Sure, what’s mine is yours.” The detective-sergeant handed over a pair of spectacles.
Again, Cellini held up the letter to the light and examined the signature, using the lenses as a magnifier. A faint line, cutting into the surface of the paper, could be clearly discerned underneath the inked signature. Ira Haenigson, looking over Cellini’s shoulder, whistled softly. “So somebody traced your name.”
Cellini Smith leaned back and laughed mirthlessly. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence that was broken by the gambler.
“I’m sorry about all this trouble I made for you, Smith, but you must admit I had no other choice. Do we forget the whole thing?” Dan Turner extended a hand, which Cellini took.
“That goes for me, too,” Ira Haenigson said. “When I nail you, Smith, I want it to be on something clean and wholesome like grand larceny — not a chiseling blackmail stunt.”
“I’ll bet,” said Cellini dryly. “Only next time wait till you hear my side of a story before you start licking your chops. All right, we’ll forget it but there’s something else I want to know. Who faked my name and wrote that letter?”
Dan Turner nodded. “That’s what I’d like to know, too. I don’t care for its implications. Suppose you try your hand at finding the answers, Smith.”
Cellini shook his head. “We can assume that the letter was written by someone closely connected with the killing or by the murderer himself. In that case he wants to involve me in this deal, so I’d be playing into his hands by taking the job.”
“It’s more likely that he wanted me to go gunning after you, figuring he’d rid himself of two birds with one letter. In any event, I’ll give you five hundred dollars now to see how far you can get with this.” Turner took out a wallet and counted bills onto the desk.
After a moment of hesitation, Cellini reached for the money. “Whoever sent that letter, Turner, must have known I’d be able to prove it was a fake.”
With a casualness that fooled no one, Ira Haenigson said: “Maybe the signature was a fake and the rest of the letter wasn’t.”
“Meaning,” asked the gambler, “that perhaps I did have a share in the killing?”
“That’s right, Turner.” It was no longer Mr. Turner. “Where did you say you were when the shot was fired?”
“In front of the stadium, looking for a cab.”
The detective-sergeant tried to look mild and trusting and Cellini snapped: “Stop being clever, Haenigson. It’s out of character. You have plenty of others to work on before Turner.”
“What others?”
“Eddy Bly and that Blond Bomber of his, Juno Worden, were in a hurry to get away after the shot was fired.”
“Bly had to go to his sister’s funeral this morning and he didn’t feel like staying around. Besides, he was in the corridor when the shot was fired, waiting for the girl to come out of the powder room, and he was talking to Jerry Lake at the time.”
Cellini remembered Murph and said: “Lake might be lying.”
“Why should he? He’s only sticking his own neck out.”
“Besides,” Dan Turner added, “I happen to know that Jerry Lake was a friend of Hank Wheaton’s, so he’d have every reason to help find the killer.”
“Then Bly and Lake are in the clear,” admitted Cellini, “if all that is so. But that doesn’t clear the girl. Instead of going to the powder room she might have gone around to the alley. And what about Wheaton’s handler I saw hanging around there?”
“He’s out, too,” Haenigson replied. “He was in the middle of a crap game in the back.”
“Then that would leave Wheaton’s wife, Prunella, alone in the dressing room. The window’s on street level and she could have climbed out into the alley, closed the window behind her, shot her husband and then reentered the room the same way and screamed.”
“A woman as homely as all that,” Haenigson remarked, “would hold on to any husband. Besides, what excuse could she give Wheaton for wanting to go climbing out of windows?”
“Any number of excuses. They probably didn’t know why I had been in there with Duck-Eye, so she might have told Wheaton she was going out by way of the alley to follow me and find out.”
The detective-sergeant stood up. “All of which leaves us where it finds us. Don’t think that five hundred bucks and a client give you the right to pull any fast ones, Smith.”
“I won’t. What about the gun?”
“You were right there. No fingerprints and it doesn’t seem likely that it can be traced.” Haenigson lifted himself from the chair, said bitterly: “Nobody’s giving me five hundred dollars to work on this case,” and stalked out, followed by Boggs.
Chapter Four
Odds and no Ends
When the door had closed, Cellini Smith reached into a desk drawer and hauled out a bottle of some blended whiskey and two glasses. He poured, gave one of the glasses to Dan Turner and asked: “Was there any truth at all in that letter?”
“I didn’t kill Hank Wheaton,” said the gambler, “and even if I had, I expect you to play it my way. You’re working for me now.”
Cellini’s grunt was noncommital. “We’ll try it another way. Could you have had any reason or desire to kill Wheaton?”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me, Smith. If you have wax in your ears, don’t use a toothpick. The corner of a handkerchief—”
Cellini interrupted: “I’ll patronize my corner druggist for such advice. You claim I’m working for you and you’ve paid for it, so act like it. I’ve got to get some kind of lead to work on and if you’re not willing to cooperate, then—” Cellini caught himself. He had almost offered to return the five hundred.
“All right, Smith. I didn’t kill Wheaton and I had nothing against him. Happy?”
“Frightfully. You said, last night, that you bet on Eddy Bly but didn’t make any profit. How come?”
“A lot of Wheaton money suddenly showed up and I got scared. I covered my bets and played both sides.”
“Where do you think the Wheaton money came from?”
“I’m not sure but I know why it came. Bly’s sister was run over by a car and some of the boys must have figured that Bly would be too upset to know what he was doing in the ring.”
Cellini poured refills. “But that had nothing to do with your thinking the fight was fixed. You wrote asking me that I check on that two days before the fight, and that was one day before the girl was run over.”
“That’ll be your headache, Smith. Some friends dropped a few hints and I promised to keep them to myself. It’s a matter of keeping my word. I couldn’t stay in this racket if I didn’t.”
“So be it. Do you know a goon called Murph who tags after Jerry Lake?”
“I’ve seen him around. Lake picked him up a couple of days ago. The idea of having a bodyguard probably builds up his ego.”
“And what about this Blond Bomber?” pursued Cellini. “Do you think she might be married to Eddy Bly?”
“No, but she ought to be. She’s married to a milquetoast called Forsythe Worden. He’s well-named.”
“There might be something there. I’d like to meet him.”
“He’ll probably be over at my house with his wife tomorrow,” Turner said.
“I sleep late Sundays.”
“This is a party and it’ll keep going all afternoon. I throw them occasionally for the gang, to keep up with the latest gossip. If you want to come around, you’ll find me in the phone book.”