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.
Cardiac delivered a bland smile. “You’re steamed up about something.” An eyebrow went up. “Will a drink help?”
“No... I’m dumb,” he confessed. “When I look back, I see how dumb I am. The more I think of it, the funnier it seems... I mean the way all these enterprises — wrestling, bike races, hockey, smokers — the way they all slipped away from the Colosseum to outlying dumps. You’re the only man big enough in this town to’ve worked a racket like that, Cardiac!”
Cardiac looked bored. “Rave on, Skipper,” he said offhand, waving a cigarette languidly.
There was a thump — and the gun lay on the table. And there was MacBride’s blunt voice: “Ever see that?”
Cardiac folded his hands on his flat stomach, shook his head, said quietly: “No.”
“It’s the gat that killed Dan Rand.”
“So-so! H’m... nice-looking gun. Suicide’s queer—”
“Damn queer. So queer, Cardiac, that this time it’s not suicide.”
“Well, that is news!”
“Would you mind,” said MacBride, “letting me see that nice silk pocket handkerchief?”
Cardiac tensed, his eyes flickered. He flexed his lips, then shrugged, chuckled jerkily. “Sure! Here.” He tossed the handkerchief across the desk.
MacBride smelled it, making noises. Then he threw it back to Cardiac, rubbed his bony hand around the nape of his neck and sent a couple disgruntled smoke-puffs from one corner of his mouth. The skipper and Cardiac regarded each other for a long minute.
“Plan to get the Colosseum, don’t you?” MacBride asked.
“I plan to organize a holding company and try to do business with the executors of Rand’s estate.”
“You wouldn’t,” MacBride said, “by any chance have already formed this holding company?”
“I was just thinking about it.”
MacBride picked up a clipped sheaf of papers from a wire desk basket. “I’ve got good eyesight, Cardiac. It says here, ‘Prospectus of the Colosseum Holding Company.’ ”
Cardiac nodded. “Yes, I know. I was just playing around with the idea this morning. Got down to the office early and ran off my ideas on the typewriter before my secretary arrived.”
MacBride nodded, turned and went to the connecting door and opening it said to the blonde in the outer office, “Typewrite on a piece of paper, miss, one line — anything — and bring it in.”
Cardiac was annoyed. “Why all the horseplay, Captain?”
MacBride, reading the prospectus, made no reply. In a moment the blonde entered with a sheet of paper. MacBride took it, slowly read the single line.
“Miss,” he said, “how many letters have you typed since you arrived this morning?”
“Oh, about three.”
“Thanks. You can go.”
She went out, puzzled, a little frightened.
MacBride tossed the prospectus and the newly written sheet of paper on the desk.
“Take a look at them, Cardiac. You said you wrote that prospectus on the typewriter this morning. The girl said she’s written only three letters this morning. Yet — look close, Cardiac — the typewriting on your prospectus is in fresh, heavy black type made by a brand-new ribbon. The line the girl just wrote is very faded — the ribbon hasn’t been changed in weeks.”
“Oh, nonsense!” Cardiac scoffed.
“Nonsense your grandmother! That prospectus wasn’t written this morning, Cardiac. It was written weeks ago — maybe months ago. It was written because you had a good idea that pretty soon the Colosseum would be in the bag!”
Cardiac rose slowly, his mouth twisting, his pale eyes hard as chips of ice. “I’m getting tired of listening to a lot of hot air, MacBride!”
“You’ll listen, baby — and like it. You’re the only man big enough in this town to’ve wanted Rand’s scalp.”
Cardiac came around the desk, swaggering, a hard set to his spade jaw. “Watch those cracks, copper! I’m not taking dirty cracks from any cheap shamus.” He held his hands out, palms up. “These hands are clean, skipper. Suppose you tuck your tail between your legs and scram.”
The phone rang and Cardiac lifted it, growled “Hello” into the mouthpiece. Then his eyes blinked, he shook his head; clipped: “Call back. No, I’ll call you back when—... No... no, not now!” His face colored, he seemed uneasy; he shouted: “I said I’ll call you back!” He hung up violently. There were a few beads of sweat on his forehead.
MacBride said: “I’ll be seeing you oftener.” And went out.
MacBride dropped into Tony Gatto’s Jockey Street Club and found Kennedy drinking gin and Perrier at the bar. It was not quite noon, and Kennedy was the only customer. Tony Gatto stood behind the bar grinning, polishing a glass.
“No see you in a long time, Cap. How’s t’ings?” Tony said.
“Hello, Tony. Bottle of ale... You ever drink water, Kennedy?”
“Sure. But I always put liquor in it to kill the germs. It turns out they weren’t two dwarfs, Steve; just the Four Marx Brothers up to their old tricks—”
“Enough o’ that, honeybunch.” MacBride took a drink of ale; about-faced and hooked his elbows on the bar, his heel on the brass rail. “So all you mugs still think it’s suicide.” He clucked. “I’m continually grateful for the swell support I get from my friends. It just breaks my heart with gratitude. Some fine day I’m going to start out and systematically change the shapes of a lot of schnozzles in this man’s town.”
Kennedy also turned about, hooking elbows on the bar, a heel on the rail, and stood shoulder to shoulder with MacBride. Both stared at the blank wall opposite.
Kennedy said: “Ah,” and took another drink. “How about the woman?” he asked.
“What woman?”
“Halo Rand.”
MacBride said nothing. He took a long swallow of ale and cleared his throat; but still he said nothing.
“This gun business,” Kennedy said. “If it’s true that Rand bought a gun, that means his own gun wasn’t in his desk at home.”
“My, but you’re a thinker, Kennedy!”
“And yet the gun found on him was the gun that wasn’t in his desk and the gun he was supposed to have bought was — where?”
“So you still think it’s suicide?”
“Come over to one of the booths.”
They went to the rear of the bar, entered a small booth and drew the curtains. Kennedy flopped onto a chair, plunked down his glass.
“There’s no reason,” he said, “why a man would buy two guns to commit suicide. So we must believe that his own gun wasn’t in his desk.”
“It wasn’t there when I went over.”
“Right. We must believe that it wasn’t there when Rand came home. If we believe that, then it stands to reason that somebody removed it.”
“It was in the drawer on the day before.”
“That narrows down the time element. It was removed between then and the time Rand came home.”
“Why wouldn’t Rand have mentioned it to his wife?”
“Maybe he thought she’d removed it for fear he might use it. Guys about to commit suicide are very clever. So he said nothing about it. He just went out and bought another.” He dropped his voice. “What do you know about his wife?”
“Not much. I never saw Dan much in the home. I guess I met his wife only about three times. They seemed happy.”
“A lot of people seem happy.”
MacBride frowned. “Hell, I don’t think she’d—”
“Okey, okey. It was just a thought I had. Only the way you talked, it seems to me she tried hard to stick it into your mind that he was hard up financially.”