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.
The thought of the money brought a smile to his lips. He had the money — all of it! — and no one would ever figure out where it had gone.
For weeks, he’d been purchasing traveler’s checks at various banks under a fictitious name. They were waiting for him in a distant city, mailed there in care of general delivery. When everything was settled here, he’d pick them up and cash them at his convenience. He chuckled as he dried his hands. “This will fix Bertha, too,” he thought, “once and for all. No matter what she says, no one will believe her!”
Bertha, of course, was his wife...
He walked from the bathroom to the bedroom, then went slowly into the living-room, pausing in the doorway like a stage designer inspecting a new arrangement. The lamp, the table, the chair — everything was perfect, even to the convenient ashtray, the bottle of bourbon, and the highball glass. Joe liked his bourbon with plain water. The glass and fixings were there, utterly devoid of fingerprints, waiting for him.
Impatient now that the critical moment was almost upon him, Henry walked to the window and looked down the deserted street. The cold had taken a sudden drop and the weather was freezing, but, fortunately, there hadn’t been much snow. He wouldn’t have to worry about footprints on the carpets, the back stairs, or the rear sidewalk. No one had seen him come in. No one knew he was here — except Joe Carson.
Inside the room, the steam radiator hissed cheerfully, spreading its warmth. Henry was anemic and he liked it warm.
“If Bertha were here,” he thought, “she’d have the heat turned off and the window open.” Involuntarily, he shivered at the idea. “As long as I pay the rent, I’m entitled to heat. This is the way I like it, and this is the way it’s going to be — from now on.”
As though in answer to his wish that Joe hurry up, a tall man in a heavy brown overcoat turned the corner and, his face lowered into the cold wind, made his way slowly toward the building. Henry nodded approvingly. Joe was on time. Everything was working out exactly as he had planned.
A moment later the downstairs door banged and Joe’s heavy feet ascended the stairs. Henry’s heart did an excited little dance as he waited for Joe to reach the landing. Then, moving soundlessly across the room, he unlocked the door and opened it. The smile he managed was perfect — pleasant, friendly, a little abstracted.
“Hi, Joe. Pretty cold, eh?”
“Sure is!” Joe came into the room, puffing a little and slapping his hands together. “That wind must have come straight from Alaska! You’ve got it nice and warm in here, though.”
“Throw your coat on the couch, Joe. Make yourself at home.”
Unconsciously, Henry kept his voice low, moving softly about the room in his old felt slippers so Mrs. Pettigrew, downstairs, wouldn’t hear two pairs of feet above her. She undoubtedly was sitting out in front on her glass-enclosed porch, watching the goings and comings of her neighbors, but there was no sense taking chances. Henry liked things to be perfect.
Waving Joe toward the chair beside the table, Henry said: “Pour yourself a drink, Joe. I knew you’d be needing one, so I got the fixings ready.”
“Thanks, Henry.” Joe sighed and stretched his legs comfortably. “Bertha get to the train all right?”
“You know Bertha. Always ready and always on time. This is the first time she’s been away in a coon’s age.”
“Uh-huh. You’re a lucky guy, Henry, having a wife like Bertha.”
“Don’t I know it?”
Once again, Henry surveyed the room. No, everything was perfect. The stage was set for death. With a confident smile, he went quietly into the bedroom and put on his overcoat, muffler, and hat. He buttoned the coat, drew on a pair of light flannel gloves, then went to his dresser and, removing two guns from a drawer, slid them into his coat pocket — the revolver on the right, the automatic on the left. Bending carefully, he picked up a pair of black oxfords from the floor and tucked them under his arm.
When he walked into the living-room, Joe was smoking a cigarette and sipping a highball. He raised one eyebrow in surprise as he saw Henry dressed to go out.
“Hey, going some place?” he asked. He set down his drink and started to get up, but Henry waved him back.
“Need a few things from the grocery,” Henry explained briefly, “and I want to drop these shoes at the repair shop before it closes. Won’t take a minute. Sit still and make like a guest, Joe.”
“Glad to go for you, Henry, if—”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
Henry wondered if Joe would notice he was wearing his felt slippers. Even if he did notice, of course, it wouldn’t make any difference. But Joe wouldn’t notice — and he didn’t.
As smoothly as an actor going through a well-practiced role, Henry walked to the door, snapped his fingers to show he’d remembered something, and came back. With one gloved hand, he picked up the telephone and dialed Mrs. Pettigrew’s number. The phone buzzed repeatedly, indicating that the phone was ringing. When it had buzzed four times, he set the receiver back onto its cradle. Mrs. Pettigrew would be on her way to answer it — and the phone was in the rear of her flat.
“No one home,” Henry said cryptically. He shrugged and started for the door again.
This time he opened the door and went quietly downstairs. At the foot of the stairs, he sat down, removed the slippers and put on the oxfords. In a matter of seconds, he opened the front door, stepped onto the porch, and closed the door. He stamped his feet loudly on the boards of the porch, opened the door, banged it shut, shuffled his feet in the hallway. Hesitating only an instant, he rapped on Mrs. Pettigrew’s door.
He heard her slow, dragging footsteps come from the rear of her flat. The slippers! With a whispered curse, he bent and snatched them from the hallway floor. With one swift jerk of his arm he tossed them up the stairs. What if he hadn’t remembered them? What if Mrs. Pettigrew had seen them? He shivered at the thought, and, when old Mrs. Pettigrew opened her door, he looked exactly like a man who’d tramped several blocks through freezing weather.
“Hello!” he said, smiling cheerily into the aged woman’s face. “Cold, isn’t it? Did my groceries arrive?”
“Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Ebbett. Winter’s here, all right!” The old woman nodded her head and peered at him over her spectacles. “Thought you’d forgotten the groceries, Mr. Ebbett, when I saw that friend of yours come and go right up. Thought you’d come home without my noticing and—”
“Friend?” Henry’s face as he stood in the cold, drafty hallway was a masterpiece of puzzlement. “You say one of my friends came — and is upstairs?”
“Sure is. The tall, thin one. Works the same place you do, I believe.”
“Joe Carson?” Henry shook his head. “Didn’t know he was coming.” Bending quickly, he picked up the large bag of groceries sitting just inside the door. He grunted as he lifted the bag. The flour was heavier than he’d expected. “Well, thanks for taking care of these for me, Mrs. Pettigrew. I’ll go right up. Perhaps Bertha returned, and—”
“No, she ain’t been back,” the old lady assured him. “I been watching for her.”
“Oh.” He mumbled a few words, then shook his head worriedly and started up the stairs like a weary little man whose wife had unaccountably left him and who now had to cook his own dinner. When he heard her door close, he sighed with relief.
At the top of the stairs, he shifted the weight of the bag onto his left arm and put his right hand into his coat pocket. A curious thrill trembled the length of his arm as his fingers closed about the hard steel of the revolver, and he stood there a moment, breathing heavily.
This was power. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. Death for Joe — but freedom and ease for him...