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.
“To my office,” I answered quietly. “Any objections?”
“No — but I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Francis. Save your sympathy for Suds.”
With that I moved on. It seemed like old times again to have somebody worrying about my safety. But it wasn’t unusual. I pride myself on picking men who are loyal to me through thick and thin. And Francis was proving me right.
Once out of sight of the crowd in the main room I got the gun from the holster on my leg. Then with the comforting feel of steel in my palm I moved quickly down the corridor.
At the door of my office I paused for a moment and listened. Little sounds of movement came from the room, but there was no talking. Suds was apparently looking over the place before he settled down to wait for me. I didn’t give him time to get impatient.
Turning the knob with my left hand, I opened the door a few inches, and slipped silently into the room. The next moment I had the door closed again, my gun up at my hip, and my back to the wall.
“Looking for me, Suds?”
The three men whirled at the sound of my voice. At the moment I had entered the room they had been crowded around my desk with their backs to the door.
None of them had their guns out. But as I spoke one of the bodyguards, a young fellow with a smooth, beardless face, raised his right hand toward an armpit holster.
“I wouldn’t!” I snapped, and the youngster froze.
“What’s the meaning of this?” demanded Suds.
I narrowed my eyes slightly while I smiled at his weak attempt to bluff my play. His tall, thin body was stooped in a half-crouch as though he was going to leap across the room at me. His black eyes were expressionless, but the sight of my gun had caused the blood to drain from his ruddy face, leaving his skin the color of dirty milk.
“Sit down, all of you,” I ordered. “You, Garland, squat at the desk, hands on the glass where I can see them. Snap into it!”
Suds Garland didn’t argue. He seated himself in the chair in front of the desk and flattened his hands, palm downward, on the top like I’d ordered. The two bodyguards flopped into a couple of chairs along the wall at the right of the desk.
“Hands on your knees — and keep them there!” I continued.
They didn’t need to be told twice. My smile broadened as I looked at each of the three men for a moment in silence. Then abruptly I wiped the smile from my face, bent slightly, replaced my gun in the holster on my leg, and then straightened.
“Think you’re pretty tough, eh?” I sneered as the three held their poses. “Dealing with a woman is usually soft pickings for hard guys like you. Well, here’s your chance to prove how tough you are. Reach for your gats!”
For perhaps all of ten seconds none of the three men moved a muscle. Maybe they knew I wasn’t bluffing when I put my gat back on my leg. I knew I could beat them to the draw and none of them wanted to take the chance. Where I only had inches to move my hand they had feet, and covering distance in split seconds counts on the draw.
Finally Suds Garland shifted his eyes to the men along the wall and shook his head slightly. I laughed harshly.
“Bright guy, Suds,” I snorted. “Telling the boys not to draw when they’ve already made up their minds to be good. I guess my reputation isn’t so bad!”
Suds spread his lips in a sickly smile. “We’re just making a friendly call, Queen. You beat up Johnny’s brother and—”
“Who’s Johnny?” I wanted to know.
Garland nodded toward the beardless fellow who looked like a kid alongside the other muscle man who had a scarred lip and a broken nose.
“Okay,” I said. “Go on with your song and dance.”
“Well, you beat up Johnny’s brother and — well, I just wanted to know what the idea was,” Suds finished lamely.
“And I’ll tell you,” I returned in a harsh voice. “Dope peddling — or planting — is out at the Club Bijou. Get that straight! The next time I catch one of your punks around here you pick him up at the morgue. See?”
“But, Queen, I thought we were friends?” whined Garland.
For a moment I didn’t know whether to laugh or call Francis and the boys and have the three of them thrown out. But I did neither. I just nodded slowly.
“I’m going to talk straight,” I said quietly. “I think I was right when I guessed that you thought you were going to have an easy time fighting a woman. Now, I’m going to tell you something, Suds, and your two trained seals can listen in for future reference.”
I paused a moment, but Garland had nothing to say. So I went on.
“A month ago when we were both fighting Buzz Mallon we played ball together. But if you got the idea we were friends you were mistaken. I told you then I didn’t like dope and wouldn’t join your racket. You, Suds, came into power after the cops wrecked my old mob and I had to leave town. You only know Queen Sue from what you’ve heard about her. If you were bright, you’d have learned something from what I did to Mallon.”
“Didn’t I help you get rid of Mallon?” Suds asked in a thin voice.
“You did, but I also helped you and that squared our account,” I shot back quickly. “And from now on you’d better watch your step, or you’ll think Mallon had an easy time of it. Maybe I’m not running a big mob like I used to, but I’m still Queen Sue. That’s not boasting. That’s a fact. Remember it.”
“Ah, you’re just nervous about something, Queen,” shrugged Garland.
“Not half as nervous as you,” I pointed out, smiling at the way Suds and his henchmen were holding the pose I’d given them. “You’re walking out of here like good little boys, unless you want a skinful of lead. Move!”
The three of them got slowly to their feet. Keeping their arms at the sides they moved slowly towards the door. I backed off to one side, kept my back to the wall, ready for anything. But nothing happened that time.
Suds paused at the door and the other two crowded around him.
“Sorry we can’t be friends, Queen,” he said.
“I’m not,” I replied. “Just because you had an easy time of rubbing out one woman you don’t have to think all of them are that easy. And don’t try to plant any more kills on me.”
Suds arched thin eyebrows in feigned surprise. “Me — tried to plant a kill?”
I laughed again. “Forget it, Suds. It didn’t work. But don’t make the same mistake twice. By the way, better get a couple of guys with nerve. Bodyguards that let a woman bluff them don’t amount to much.”
Garland didn’t reply to my taunt. He swung open the door and ran smack into Francis in the corridor. The other two crowded out after him and I smiled at my head waiter who looked at me for instructions.
“Take them out the front way,” I said. “Just a little friendly call, but give them the works if there’s any funny business. Scram.”
Suds gave me a parting glare. My little talk hadn’t accomplished much, but I knew it would serve to bring matters to a head. And it did, even sooner than I expected.
Chapter IV
Foolish Business
Dawn was breaking when I finally left the night club. I hadn’t given Suds Garland and his mob a second thought since I’d seen him go down the corridor with Francis and the boys.
There had been no trouble at all about their leaving. But the moment I stepped out of the Club Bijou into the first faint light of a new day I had the uneasy feeling that something was going to happen. Perhaps it was just the every half-light between night and day that affected me that way, but I was taking no chances.
A slight fog had settled over the city and now hung in shifting ribbons that swirled along the street like ghosts hurrying to escape the rising sun. I noticed those little details unconsciously because I wasn’t interested in the beauties of a new day at the moment.