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.
From the door Irene Mayo cried out, “She killed him—”
“I did not!” the Leclair woman screamed, and jumped up. “What you doing here? What’d I kill him for? We were having a party — oh—” The blood on her hands sickened her again. She wiped them on her negligee. She thrust her hands behind her back, shut her eyes, rocked her head. “Get me a drink,” she whimpered, and fell into the chair.
“You had plenty, sister. What kind of party?”
“Just a party, McFee.” She tried to smile wisely. “Ranee dropped in to see me—”
Irene Mayo cut in, “That’s a lie!”
“You think so?” The Leclair woman spoke wickedly. “Kid, I never seen the buttercup I couldn’t pick. And I’ve picked ’em from Broadway west.”
McFee said harshly, “Got anything to say before I call the cops?”
“Wait a minute, Handsome.” The woman’s eyes took fright again, but she seemed to be listening, too. “Lemme tell you. Ranee was drinking some. Not much. I hadn’t touched it. Honest, McFee — well, mebbe I had a coupla quick ones, but I wasn’t lit. I’m telling you, McFee. I was standing in front of the dressing table. Ranee was standing beside me, next to the couch. He heard some’dy on the stage. The door was open — the backstage was dark. Ranee turned around. And that’s when he got it. Right in the chest. I saw the flash — that’s all. McFee, I’m telling you! He spun round — kind of. I caught him—” The woman shuddered, shut her eyes.
“Yes?” said McFee.
“He was bleeding—” She wrung her hands. “He slid out of my arms — slow. I thought he’d never drop. The look in his eyes knocked me cuckoo. I fainted. When I came to—” She covered her face.
“When you came to—”
“It was dark. We’d busted the lamp, falling. McFee, he wasn’t dead. He was groaning somewhere. I lit a match. He’d dragged himself out backstage. He wouldn’t quit crawling. I was scared to switch on the lights—” McFee’s cold eyes alarmed the woman. She reiterated desperately. “I’m giving you the straight of it. Ranee and me—”
“What you here for?”
“To phone the cops.”
“Did you phone ’em?”
“No. You came in. I was scared stiff. I thought it might be Ranee’s murderer coming back—”
“Phone anyb’dy?”
“No.” The woman stared at McFee, the listening look in her eyes. “I didn’t phone anybody.”
McFee said, “You’re a liar.” He picked up the desk telephone. The receiver was moist. Leclair stared at McFee. “Who’d you call?”
“Go roll your hoop.”
Irene Mayo leaned against the wall, a little to the left of the door. Her eyes were tragic and scornful. McFee was about to unhook the telephone when she gestured warningly.
In the foyer a man said, “Put that telephone down, McFee.”
Mabel Leclair laughed.
4
The man moved into the lane of light that flowed out of the office. It was Joe Metz, who ran the Spanish Shawl Club, a Melrose enterprise. McFee threw a glance at the red-headed girl. She seemed to understand what was in his mind.
McFee flung the telephone at the desk lamp. Glass shattered. The room went dark. Leclair screamed. McFee dropped behind the desk.
Joe Metz called, “You birds cover those exits. Smoke him, if you have to... McFee!”
The latter, feeling around for the telephone, said, “Speaking.”
“I’ve got three of the boys with me. Nice boys. Boys you’ve played ball with—” Metz was inside the room now. “They don’t wanna hurt you—”
McFee answered, “You’ll have me crying pretty soon.” Prone on his stomach, he found the instrument, put the receiver to his ear, his lips to the mouthpiece. “Tell me some more, Joe.”
Central did not respond.
Mabel Leclair ejaculated, “He’s got the telephone, Joe!”
“That’s all right,” Metz drawled. “I’ve cut the wire. How about sitting in a little game, McFee?”
“Speak your piece,” McFee said, and then: “I got a gun on the door.”
“Handsome, it’s this way,” Metz said. “Sam Melrose has named the next district attorney — Claude Dietrich. Now the Gaiety’s a Melrose house and Sam don’t want a deputy district attorney dying in it two months before election. So we gotta get Damon away. But that’s not the half of it.” Metz spoke with a careful spacing of his words. “Damon was in a position to get Sam something he hadda have, election coming on. So Sam turned Blondy loose on the boy — Sam has more swell ideas than a tabloid editor. Damon was a nut for the frills. He fell for Leclair like a bucket of bricks. Blondy makes a deal with Damon. The boy’s taken money before. Taking five grand from Blondy is duck soup—”
McFee said, “Five grand for what?”
“Oh, some photographs, an affidavit, a letter Melrose wrote, a coupla cancelled checks, some testimony from a lad that died — the usual junk.”
“Grand Jury file on the Shelldon blow-off?” McFee asked.
“That’s right — you’re a good guy, McFee. The Grand Jury turned it over to the D.A. Melrose thought it ought to disappear.”
“Lemme see,” McFee said. “There’s a murder tied up with the indictment, isn’t there?”
“Sam’ll beat that. But you know how it is, election coming on.”
“Well, I haven’t got it.”
“Now, look here, McFee, you aren’t in any shape to stand off me and the boys. Melrose wants that Grand Jury indictment.”
McFee had begun to creep noiselessly towards Metz and the door. “Who give you the notion that I got it?”
Metz said coldly, “You gotta have it — or know where it is. Damon had the money and the Shelldon file in his hands when that .32 bumped him. He flopped into Blondy’s arms. She threw a faint—” Metz interrupted himself to say, “There’s places where women is swell, but a jam like that ain’t one of ’em.”
The Leclair woman cried, “You got your nerve! After what I been through—”
Metz laughed. “I’ve said there are places where women is swell.” He proceeded swiftly. “When Blondy woke up Damon had the five grand in his fist, but the file was gone. She give me a bell at the Shawl. McFee, you got that Shelldon file, or you know where it is. Better play ball.”
McFee said softly, “I’m covering you, Joe.” And then, “You mean, I killed Damon?”
Metz answered carefully, “Damon don’t count now. He isn’t going to be found here. It don’t matter who killed him. There’s plenty boys Melrose can plant when Dietrich is in. If you killed Damon, swell! You know your business. But you better not try bucking Melrose.”
McFee moved some more.
He was in a spot. If Metz was bluffing, a Melrose heel had killed Damon, and the Melrose crowd had the Shelldon file. That would mean McFee knew too much and must become casualty No. 2. If Metz was not bluffing, he probably was convinced McFee had done the job and copped the file. Bad, too. And it left the question: Who shot Damon?
McFee asked, “Where’s Melrose?”
“Aboard Larry Knudson’s yacht,” Metz answered smoothly.
McFee crept forward again.
The Leclair woman shrilled, “Joe! He’s coming at you—”
5
Rising straight from his heels, a little to the right of Metz, McFee threw his left to where he thought the man’s chin was, landed. Metz’ head snapped back. The rest of him followed it. His gun spat flame. McFee steamed past. Metz cracked against the foyer wall.
Metz howled, “Watch those fire exits!”