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.
McMain drew up before the sick bay and Dean ran inside. He came back in a moment, reporting that Doc Lucas had finished there and gone to the wardroom. They drove to the bachelor quarters and found Doc in his room getting ready for bed.
“Is that fellow going to live?” McMain asked without preamble.
Doc, a bit ludicrous in undershirt and shorts, nodded and said: “Without a doubt.”
“With a bullet through his brain?”
“The bullet didn’t touch the brain. It passed through the retrobulbar space, which is an area of fatty tissue behind the eyeballs. If a bullet goes through it, without touching the optic nerves, the patient usually suffers no permanent ill effects.”
“Has this fellow regained consciousness yet?”
“More or less. He’s still groggy.”
“Can he talk?”
“He can, but I won’t let you two men put him through any third degree. He’s lost a lot of blood and must have absolute rest. Who the devil is he, anyway?”
“Benson Clark’s chauffeur,” McMain replied.
“H-m.” Doc Lucas regarded the two men with narrowed eyes. “What’s happened?”
“Plenty. Tommy Glade killed himself — or was murdered — at the Strangers’ Club.”
Doc looked at Chuck Dean. “Not over—”
Chuck said unhappily: “I reckon Billie is mixed up in it. Tell him, Larry.”
McMain sketched briefly the night’s happenings.
“Strange about that perfume,” the doctor mused when McMain had finished. “Tommy Glade bought one of those square black bottles this afternoon to take to his sister up North. And he happened to mention to me that old Pete Adams had given him a bottle of the same perfume to mail, when he got to New York, to Pete’s daughter in Harlem.”
McMain sat down on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette. “I’m beginning to see a few things,” he said thoughtfully. “You know, the good-hearted naval officer who smuggles dutiable goods into the States, in order to do some friend a favor, is pretty much of a damned fool...See here, Doc. This chauffeur’s got to talk and he’s got to talk quick.”
“Tell you what I’ll do,” Doc offered. “I’ll go over to the sick bay and ask him a few questions. I know the situation pretty well from what you’ve told me and I may be able to get something out of him.”
“Good!” McMain said. “You don’t have to endanger the man’s life, but make him talk if you can. Chuck, let’s see what we can find in Tommy Glade’s quarters.”
Tommy Glade’s room still smelled of perfume.
“Where in the Lawd’s name does it come from?” Chuck muttered. “If Billie took the bottle—”
McMain gave the room and its scanty furnishings a swift survey. Then he grunted and pointed to a large irregular stain on the bare floor beside the heavy trunk.
“Never noticed it when I was in here before. Doc told us there were two bottles. And that’s where one of ’em went.”
McMain strode briskly to the metal waste-basket beside the small bare desk and hauled out a crumpled roll of damp paper. He smelled it, made a face and said:
“Whew! Here’s the wrapper. Tommy evidently broke the bottle.”
He spread the paper on the desk and smoothed out the wrinkles. He turned it over and found an address. The ink had run badly but he and Dean could decipher a box number, a station number and “New York, N.Y.”
“The bottle which Pete Adams gave Tommy,” McMain asserted, “was wrapped in this paper. You note, Chuck, there is no ‘U.S.A.’ in the address. That means Pete expected Tommy to mail it after he got up North — without the formality of a customs examination. Mailing it in the States would have saved Pete four or five dollars’ duty.”
Chuck took off his cap and scratched his head. He looked tired and baffled and disheartened. “But where are the pieces of the bottle?”
McMain started through the chiffonier. From the back of the bottom drawer he dragged forth a small parcel wrapped carelessly in newspaper. He took it to the desk and opened it, revealing a double handful of broken black glass.
“The pieces of the bottle!” Dean exclaimed. “Now why did he save pieces of—”
“Good Lord! Look!” McMain gasped.
He pointed a shaking finger at a gleaming object that, plainly, was not glass.
“A diamond!” Chuck Dean said in a dazed whisper.
McMain cried: “Why, there’s dozens of ’em!” He pawed through the pile of glass, spreading it over the newspaper. “And look at that. A ruby!”
“And that green one there! It’s an emerald!”
For the space of half a minute the two officers pawed over the jumble of glass and precious stones.
“See here, Chuck,” McMain said at last. “These stones represent a small fortune.”
“Yes, I reckon they do. And Tommy Glade was supposed to smuggle ’em into the States...Damn it, Larry. I cain’t understand how a fine young man like Tommy Glade could have been messin’ in a smugglin’ plot.”
McMain groaned. “Oh, you damned fool, don’t be so dumb!” he raged. “Don’t you get the picture? Tommy was the innocent go-between.”
“We-e-ell,” Chuck stammered. “I... I cain’t see—”
McMain caught him by the shoulder, shook him angrily. “Tommy, I tell you, was not in on this plot. Pete Adams gave him the bottle of perfume and asked him, as a favor, to take it into the States for him.”
“I get that part of it.” Chuck Dean nodded morosely.
“And somebody,” McMain rushed on, “has been using us to smuggle gems into the States. Pete Adams was their agent. Loyal, obliging old Pete, whom nobody would ever suspect and for whom everybody was willing to do a favor.”
“And that somebody you just mentioned—”
“One guess, Chuck,” McMain snarled.
“Benson Clark.”
“It’s a cinch! Look here!” McMain’s voice was brusque. “Tommy in some way broke that bottle. He was always awkward. He was always stumbling around and knocking things over. There’s his trunk. I know it’s half full of books and weighs a ton. It would have been just like him, in the rush of packing and getting ready for the dance tonight, to tip it over on the package Pete gave him.
“In cleaning up the mess, he discovered the bottle contained more than perfume. What would he do about it? Knowing Tommy, what would you say he’d do?”
Chuck smiled wryly. “I reckon you could count on the poor devil doin’ the wrong thing.”
“Of course you could. Would he come to me, or to the Old Man? Not Tommy! He went to Pete Adams. He forced Pete to tell him where the bottle came from. And then Tommy, full of the romance of adventure, went out to do some sleuthing on his own hook. Thought it would be a grand idea to run down, single-handed, a gang of gem smugglers.”
“And Clark got wind—” Dean began.
“More likely,” McMain broke in, “Pete Adams warned Clark by telephone. And Clark was all set to handle Tommy when Tommy got to the dance. He slipped something in his drink. He murdered him.”
Chuck Dean gave vent to his futile rage with a string of good Carolinian profanity. Then he asked: “But who, do you reckon, murdered Pete?”
“Pete wasn’t murdered,” McMain declared shortly. “Think a minute, Chuck. Pete was sixty years old and not too strong. Have you ever seen the inside of the Panama prison?”
Chuck slowly nodded. “I reckon I get it. Knowing Pete, it’s easy enough to see how the poor fellow felt. He thought he was trapped. He didn’t see any way out. He was an old man. So he cut his throat rather than face a term in prison.”
There was a brief and pregnant silence. And then Chuck, avoiding McMain’s eyes, said slowly:
“There’s only one thing I cain’t see.”