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.
And there, not twenty paces away, was Benson Clark. The man stood in a half crouch, panting, waiting.
McMain dropped into a walk as he saw a knife gleaming in Clark’s hand. And yet he did not stop. Fighting for breath, he moved relentlessly towards the fugitive.
“Go back, you damned fool!” Clark snarled. “Do you want me to have to kill you?”
McMain plodded forward. “I’ll take a chance.”
“You can’t stop me,” Clark snapped. “Nobody can stop me. If you want me to slit your throat first, come and get it.”
The distance between the two men lessened until they were no more than three paces apart. Then Clark, nervous, screaming a curse that echoed through the forest, lunged at McMain.
As the lieutenant had hoped, and counted on, Clark misjudged his distance. McMain saw the knife coming. He knew what he must do and he had time to do it. Fancy footwork, in that jungle slime, was impossible. McMain threw his body to the left, falling on his hands with his right leg straight.
He felt a blow against his right calf and realized with a thrill, even before he heard the crash of Clark’s body, that his tactics had been successful. He was on his feet in a flash, whirling to where Clark had fallen headlong.
He leaped on him, caught his outthrust right arm at the wrist. He whipped it backward and over, viciously. The knife fell out of the hand. And all at once, as Clark screamed in agony, the bone snapped and the arm went limp.
McMain caught up the knife and rose. Clark did not stir. Flat on his face in the mud, his right arm twisted grotesquely across his back, he lay motionless.
McMain waited a moment, getting his breath. Still Clark did not move.
“Fainted,” the lieutenant muttered, and dropped to his knees. He tossed the knife into the jungle and reached out to roll Clark onto his back.
At that instant the man turned on McMain like a wounded jungle animal. He rolled onto his right side, oblivious of his broken arm. His left fist shot out with all the viciousness and inhuman power of desperation.
It caught McMain in the pit of the stomach; it struck him like a shot of high-voltage current. Flame danced before his eyes. Every muscle of his body was paralyzed. He knew he was on his back, his knees in the air. He knew he was helpless.
He saw Clark leap to his feet. He heard Clark curse. He knew what was coming but there was nothing he could do.
He saw Clark stand off a pace, like a place-kicker measuring the distance of the ball. He saw Clark’s useless right arm hanging limp. He saw the insane gleam of desperation, and of murder, in his eyes. And he saw Clark’s right foot go back, and then start towards his head.
Time slowed and all motion became slow motion. It seemed seconds that he lay there while Clark’s foot grew steadily larger. Then, summoning all his will, he jerked his head sidewise. He saw the boot go past his face, still in slow motion.
All at once his nerves began to function. Time speeded up. He caught Clark’s foot, while the man was off balance. He gripped it tight and rolled sidewise.
Clark’s weight crashed on him. He felt the futile tattoo of Clark’s left fist against his ribs. Still holding the foot, ignoring the other’s blows, he lurched to his knees and finally worked himself to his feet.
He stood there, legs wide, Clark’s ankle under his right arm.
“I can break this leg as easily as I broke your arm...Well, how about it?”
“Break it, damn you!” Clark cried.
McMain gripped the toe and started to twist, while Clark kicked at him futilely with his other foot. Then McMain heard the crashing of branches, a moment later voices. He dropped Clark’s leg and stood back.
“The jig’s up, guy,” he said quietly. “Why prolong the agony?”
Bridges and Chuck Dean came tumbling into the clearing.
“Got ’im, eh?” Chuck Dean cheered. “Nice goin’, fella.”
McMain grunted. “The next time you search a man, Bridges, look in his shoes. He had a knife.”
“Good Lord! Did he get you?”
“No, by the grace of God I got him.” McMain turned wearily towards the river. “Where’s Billie?”
“She’s somewhere behind us. We got the cayuco righted and came after you.”
Billie appeared at that moment, her yellow slicker hanging in ribbons, her hair awry, her face scratched and bleeding.
“Larry, are you all right?” she cried as she ran towards him.
“I guess I’ll do now.” He grinned and put his arm around her.
She didn’t draw away. She snuggled closer. “Me too, Larry — if I can stay this way.”
Arm in arm they walked back to the river, slipping between the branches and creepers, plowing through the mud. It would have been much easier if they had gone single file, sanely. Somehow they didn’t seem to think of that.
The Corpse Didn’t Kick
Milton K. Ozaki
Milton K. Ozaki (1913–1989) was born in Racine, Wisconsin, and lived much of his life in Kenosha, setting many of his books in Stillwell, a faintly disguised version of that city. His other books were set in Chicago, where he also lived for many years. Born of a Japanese father and Caucasian mother, he is probably the first American mystery writer of Japanese heritage. He lost a leg in a childhood accident, yet worked as a journalist, tax accountant, and owner of a beauty parlor on Chicago’s Gold Coast, though he claimed he mostly earned his living by playing bridge for money. His books were written in the smart-aleck school of private-eye or cop novel prevalent in the 1940s and 1950s. His first two books were set in Chicago and featured Professor Androcles Caldwell, head of the psychology department at North University, his young assistant, Bendy Brinks, and Lieutenant Percy Phelan of Homicide, who worked together in The Cuckoo Clock (1946), A Friend in Need (1947), and, a bit later, The Dummy Murder Case (1951). More than half of Ozaki’s twenty-five novels were written under the pseudonym Robert O. Saber (a pun on his name, as zaki in Japanese can be translated as “saber”), several featuring private eye Carl Good. Fast-paced and frequently sexy, the novels were also often humorous, though not always intentionally, as his mixed metaphors and peculiar similes were the subject of several pages in Bill Pronzini’s Son of Gun in Cheek (1987), an affectionate study of mystery fiction’s worst writing.
“The Corpse Didn’t Kick” was published in the November 1949 issue.
Slay-happy Henry put his wife in a triangle — to prove he was on the square.
Henry Ebbett had spent weeks perfecting his plan. He had considered it from every possible angle, and there was absolutely no flaw in it. It was complicated, of course, but the reward was worth all the trouble and patience required. Everything fitted together beautifully — and the timing was perfect.
It was too bad he had to kill Joe Carson, but Joe was the keystone of the whole idea. There had to be a fall guy — or Henry hadn’t a hope of getting away with the money. So Joe was the fall guy. It was as simple as that.
Henry soaped his hands carefully and rinsed them under the faucet. Removing his horn-rimmed glasses for a moment, he polished them thoughtfully, then replaced them on his small pudgy nose. They gave him an owlish look, but without them he would hardly have been able to see himself in the mirror over the washbasin.
“Contact lenses, that’s what I’ll get,” he thought fleetingly. “In some other town, I’ll get rid of these glasses and make a fresh start. A man can do anything with $20,000.”