The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
- Автор: Anderson Lars, Barr Randolph
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Vintage Books
- ISBN: 978-0-307-28048-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps». Краткое содержание книги:
Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train — a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best.
“There she is — on the tug,” M’Gee said.
A low black tug crouched off the end of the pier. Something large and green and nickeled was on its deck in front of the wheelhouse. Men stood around it.
We went down slimy steps to the deck of the tug.
M’Gee said hello to a deputy in green khaki and another man in plain-clothes. The tug crew of three moved over to the wheelhouse, and set their backs against it, watching us.
We looked at the car. The front bumper was bent, and one headlight and the radiator shell. The paint and the nickel were scratched up by sand and the upholstery was sodden and black. Otherwise the car wasn’t much the worse for wear. It was a big job in two tones of green, with a wine-colored stripe and trimming.
M’Gee and I looked into the front part of it. A slim, dark-haired kid who had been good-looking was draped around the steering post, with his head at a peculiar angle to the rest of his body. His face was bluish-white. His eyes were a faint dull gleam under the lowered lids. His open mouth had sand in it. There were traces of blood on the side of his head which the sea-water hadn’t quite washed away.
M’Gee backed away slowly, made a noise in his throat and began to chew on a couple of the violet-scented breath purifiers that gave him his nickname.
“What’s the story?” he asked quietly.
The uniformed deputy pointed up to the end of the pier. Dirty white railings made of two-by-fours had been broken through in a wide space and the broken wood showed up yellow and bright.
“Went through there. Must have hit pretty hard, too. The rain stopped early down here, about nine, and the broken wood is dry inside. That puts it after the rain stopped. That’s all we know except she fell in plenty of water not to be banged up worse; at least half-tide, I’d say. That would be right after the rain stopped. She showed under the water when the boys came down to fish this morning. We got the tug to lift her out. Then we find the dead guy.”
The other deputy scuffed at the deck with the toe of his shoe. M’Gee looked sideways at me with foxy little eyes. I looked blank and didn’t say anything.
“Pretty drunk that lad,” M’Gee said gently. “Showin’ off all alone in the rain. I guess he must have been fond of driving. Yeah — pretty drunk.”
“Drunk, hell,” the plain-clothes deputy said. “The hand throttle’s set half-way down and the guy’s been sapped on the side of the head. Ask me and I’ll call it murder.”
M’Gee looked at him politely, then at the uniformed man. “What you think?”
“It could be suicide, I guess. His neck’s broke and he could have hurt his head in the fall. And his hand could have knocked the throttle down. I kind of like murder myself, though.”
M’Gee nodded, said: “Frisked him? Know who he is?”
The two deputies looked at me, then at the tug crew.
“Okay. Save that part,” M’Gee said. “I know who he is.”
A small man with glasses and a tired face and a black bag came slowly along the pier and down the slimy steps. He picked out a fairly clean place on the deck and put his bag down. He took his hat off and rubbed the back of his neck and smiled wearily.
“ ’Lo, Doc. There’s your patient,” M’Gee told him. “Took a dive off the pier last night. That’s all we know now.”
The medical examiner looked in at the dead man morosely. He fingered the head, moved it around a little, felt the man’s ribs. He lifted one lax hand and stared at the fingernails. He let it fall, stepped back and picked his bag up again.
“About twelve hours,” he said. “Broken neck, of course. I doubt if there’s any water in him. Better get him out of there before he starts to get stiff on us. I’ll tell you the rest when I get him on a table.”
He nodded around, went back up the steps and along the pier. An ambulance was backing into position beside the stucco arch at the pier head.
The two deputies grunted and tugged to get the dead man out of the car and lay him down on the deck, on the side of the car away from the beach.
“Let’s go,” M’Gee told me. “That ends this part of the show.”
We said good-bye and M’Gee told the deputies to keep their chins buttoned until they heard from him. We went back along the pier and got into the small black sedan and drove back towards the city along a white highway washed clean by the rain, past low rolling hills of yellow-white sand terraced with moss. A few gulls wheeled and swooped over something in the surf. Far out to sea a couple of white yachts on the horizon looked as if they were suspended in the sky.
We laid a few miles behind us without saying anything to each other. Then M’Gee cocked his chin at me and said:
“Got ideas?”
“Loosen up,” I said. “I never saw the guy before. Who is he?”
“Hell, I thought you was going to tell me about it.”
“Loosen up, Violets,” I said.
He growled, shrugged, and we nearly went off the road into the loose sand.
“Dravec’s chauffeur. A kid named Carl Owen. How do I know? We had him in the cooler a year ago on a Mann Act rap. He run Dravec’s hotcha daughter off to Yuma. Dravec went after them and brought them back and had the guy heaved in the goldfish bowl. Then the girl gets to him, and next morning the old man steams downtown and begs the guy off. Says the kid meant to marry her, only she wouldn’t. Then, by heck, the kid goes back to work for him and been there ever since. What you think of that?”
“It sounds just like Dravec,” I said.
“Yeah — but the kid could have had a relapse.”
M’Gee had silvery hair and a knobby chin and a little pouting mouth made to kiss babies with. I looked at his face sideways, and suddenly I got his idea. I laughed.
“You think maybe Dravec killed him?” I asked.
“Why not? The kid makes another pass at the girl and Dravec cracks down at him too hard. He’s a big guy and could break a neck easy. Then he’s scared. He runs the car down to Lido in the rain and lets it slide off the end of the pier. Thinks it won’t show. Maybe don’t think at all. Just rattled.”
“It’s a kick in the pants,” I said. “Then all he had to do was walk home thirty miles in the rain.”
“Go on. Kid me.”
“Dravec killed him, sure,” I said. “But they were playing leap-frog. Dravec fell on him.”
“Okay, pal. Some day you’ll want to play with my catnip mouse.”
“Listen, Violets,” I said seriously. “If the kid was murdered — and you’re not sure it’s murder at all — it’s not Dravec’s kind of crime. He might kill a man in a temper — but he’d let him lay. He wouldn’t go to all that fuss.”
We shuttled back and forth across the road while M’Gee thought about that.
“What a pal,” he complained. “I have me a swell theory and look what you done to it. I wish the hell I hadn’t brought you. Hell with you. I’m go in’ after Dravec just the same.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “You’d have to do that. But Dravec never killed that boy. He’s too soft inside to cover up on it.”
It was noon when we got back to town. I hadn’t had any dinner but whiskey the night before and very little breakfast that morning. I got off on the Boulevard and let M’Gee go on alone to see Dravec.
I was interested in what had happened to Carl Owen; but I wasn’t interested in the thought that Dravec might have murdered him.
I ate lunch at a counter and looked casually at an early afternoon paper. I didn’t expect to see anything about Steiner in it, and I didn’t.
After lunch I walked along the Boulevard six blocks to have a look at Steiner’s store.