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.
So I paid off on that job and when the club opened for business at midnight Francis and the boys were on deck as usual.
Everything went along quietly that night for the first hour or so, and then in the midst of the floor show, shortly after one-thirty, Suds Garland pulled the most foolish stunt of his career.
I was standing at the doorway of the corridor that led back to my office when it happened. The orchestra was playing a snappy little number and the chorus was cavorting across the floor when suddenly there was a stunning roar of an explosion.
Instantly the lights went out. Glass crashed at the front of the club and was lost in the crescendo of splintered wood, hurtling bricks and falling plaster. One guess was enough to know what had happened.
Suds Garland’s mob had tossed a pineapple into the entrance hall!
Chapter V
The Queen Acts
Fighting my way blindly through the darkness and the crush of the mob that tried to rush the front entrance, I finally gained the main door. By that time tiny flames were crackling in the wreckage of what had been a hall, and were gaining headway fast.
The crowd of diners and dancers didn’t get far. The whole front corridor was a shambles. Then over the shouts of the crowd sounded the bellowing voice of Francis, directing them to the rear corridor which led to an alley in the back.
With one accord the crowd rushed the narrow hall. It didn’t take five minutes for them to jam themselves out of the main room. By that time I’d found a fire extinguisher in the darkness and was trying vainly to stem the tide of the flames.
Francis and some of the boys were lighting the place as best they could with flashlights. Other waiters were working more fire extinguishers and making no progress. Then suddenly in the distance I heard the clang of fire bells and the wail of police sirens.
“No talking, boys,” I ordered, shouting to make myself heard. “I’ll deal with the cops.”
A chorus of agreement came to me out of the semi-darkness of what a few minutes before had been a brilliantly lighted spot of night life. I thought of the checkroom girl and wondered whether any guests had been caught by the blast.
For the first few minutes the battalion chief and the sergeant in charge of the emergency squad of cops had their hands full with the fire and the crowds that gathered in the street. Then when the flames were under control both the chief and the sergeant looked me up.
“Well, young lady,” began the grizzled fire fighter, “what have you got to say for yourself?”
“Who tossed the bomb?” shot in the sergeant, another veteran of bulldozing tactics which were usually effective.
“One at a time,” I said quietly. “Suppose we go back to my office. It’s still in one piece.”
When I had a cigarette going in the back room and had rubbed most of the sweat and grime from my face and hands, I looked the two men in the eyes. They’d been firing questions at me continually, but they hadn’t been able to break down my pose of ignorance.
“Listen,” I said finally. “If I knew who did this, I’d tell you. Right at the moment this night club happens to be my only means of making a living. It’s going to cost money to make repairs, but that’s my worry. That’s all I know. The blast get anybody?”
The two men exchanged a quick glance. Then the sergeant cleared his throat and said:
“Killed the checkroom girl and injured a man. That’s all we’ve found so far.”
“Who was the man?”
Why I asked that question, I don’t know. Right at the minute I really wasn’t interested in who the man might be, but the question popped out before I could stop it. A moment later I was glad I’d asked.
“The man was a private detective,” said the sergeant. “Name of Sid Lang.”
I didn’t move a muscle as I heard those words, but my brain was working hard. What had Sid Lang been doing at the Club Bijou? Had he suspected that I’d had the two men, Suds Garland’s bodyguards, rubbed out? I didn’t know.
So I kept my face expressionless while I said:
“That’s tough. Tell the guy I’ll stand good for his hospital expenses and those of anybody else who was hurt. I don’t want to have it said that Queen Sue doesn’t take care of her friends. Tough about the checkroom girl. She was a nice kid.”
“And you don’t have any idea of who might have tossed that bomb?” persisted the battalion chief.
“None at all. You might scout around and see whether any of the neighbors saw anybody they’d recognize just before it happened. I wasn’t paying anybody protection and wasn’t asked to. I just don’t know who might have wanted to ruin my business.”
“That’s a lie, Queen Sue!”
I opened my mouth to deny that accusation, but I didn’t speak. The voice had sounded strangely familiar, but had not come from the sergeant or the fire chief. Suddenly I caught my breath as I looked past them.
Swaying in the doorway, big hands braced doggedly against the jambs, his head swathed in bloody bandages, was Sid Lang!
“What are you doing here?” demanded the sergeant. “You ought to be—”
“That’s — all right,” gasped Lang, waving the sergeant’s objections down while he crossed the room unsteadily and stopped in front of me.
For a moment none of us spoke. Hovering outside the door, I could see the dim form of Francis. Then I looked up and met Sid Lang’s boring gaze.
“Get out, you,” mumbled Lang. “I want to talk — to the girl — alone.”
Slowly the two older men moved to the door and closed it after them. In the light of the flash that was propped up on one corner of the desk Lang’s blood-streaked face was ghastly. I expected him to collapse any moment, but when I placed a chair for him he merely shook his head and remained standing.
“Sorry, Queen,” he said slowly with a great effort, his voice nothing but a hollow whisper. “Didn’t mean — to spoil your play.”
“You didn’t,” I assured him. “You ought to be in the hospital.”
“Going there — soon.” He paused, laboring for breath. Finally he went on. “Listen, Queen. I’m out of this — for a while. I’m going to tell you something. I didn’t give it to you straight — on Kate Travers.”
“I know you didn’t,” I responded. “Come clean this time.”
“Yes, do that. Kate was an undercover agent. Wasn’t working for the agency — just for me. She thought she could get more than I could. I told you straight about — what she meant to me. I’m hired to bust Suds for some rich guy. Garland made a snowbird out of his son. And so far Suds has made a bum — out of you. Get it?”
“Better rest up in the hospital,” I said quietly. “You’re off your head.”
“Want me to — tip your play to the cops?”
“Spill and be damned!” I snapped. “I’m taking orders from no dick — not even a private flattie! Beat it!”
My heart stopped as Sid Lang turned slowly,
laboriously toward the door. I wasn’t fighting his battles, and he knew it. He had hoped to enlist my aid against Garland by giving me the straight story on Kate Travers.
Perhaps under ordinary circumstances I might have been impressed. As it was, I was fighting my own battles. I had a lot to settle with Suds Garland and his dope racket, but I wasn’t giving Sid Lang any definite indication of what I was going to do to Garland. After all, Sid Lang was on the side of the law. I wasn’t.
I’d played a lone hand this far, but as Lang started towards the door I thought sure he was going to spoil my play. Then I sighed with relief as he opened the door and said: