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.
“I was wrong, sarge. The girl’s okay. God — I’m tired.”
As he finished speaking in a hoarse whisper, Sid Lang stumbled. Only the strong arms of the sergeant and the battalion chief kept him from crashing to the floor. Instantly I was at his side.
He opened his eyes for a moment. A faint smile wreathed his pallid lips as he looked up at me. Then he relaxed and lay still.
“Just fainted,” grunted the sergeant. “Hey, somebody! Give us a light!”
I caught up the flash from the desk and led the way down the corridor to the alley. Silently I paid tribute to the sheer nerve that had kept Sid Lang on his feet until he had set me straight on the Kate Travers business. Perhaps that was what he had come to the club to do in the first place. It didn’t make much difference now.
When Lang had been carted away in an ambulance the sergeant turned to me.
“A real man, that one,” he said with genuine admiration. “He did great work while he was with the D.A.’s office.”
“I know it,” I said softly, and let it go at that.
The sergeant looked at me hard for a moment. Then he nodded.
“I guess you do,” he agreed, remembering how Sid Lang had smashed my old mob. Then he added, “Well, I’ll leave a police guard here, young lady, till morning. If you hear anything about who did this, let us know.”
Thanking him quickly, I made my way back into the club and found Francis. By some strange means he had managed to avoid ruffling even a hair of his shiny head, and his dinner clothes were still as immaculate as though he had just come on duty. That suited me fine.
I’d been doing a lot of headwork in the spare moments I’d had between arguing with the sergeant and the battalion chief. I meant to pay my debt to Suds Garland in no uncertain way, but first I was going to play havoc with certain parts of his racket. So I gave Francis his instructions quickly.
“Get four or five of the boys who are still presentable. I’ll meet you a couple of blocks away, corner of Severn and Leistner, in twenty minutes. We’ve got a lot to do, so make it fast.”
Watching my chance, I slipped out the back way again. A few minutes later I was at an all-night garage, renting a sedan. I drove the car myself and picked up Francis and the boys right on schedule.
During the time Suds and I had been fighting Buzz Mallon, Suds had made the mistake of showing me what he called “spots of gold.” In reality they were nothing but high-class apartments in the swankier districts of town where those who could afford to pay plenty were privileged to indulge their dope habits unmolested.
Suds furnished protection for the places and maintained them for his high-class clientele. I meant to smash at least three of the places that I knew existed.
Perhaps this bit of sabotage sounds like a childish prank, but it wasn’t. Suds had struck at my pocket-book through bombing the Club Bijou. I meant to cut into his bankroll by smashing his expensive joints. Loss of money in a racket hurts worse than having a couple of punk gunmen killed.
So when I picked up Francis and the boys I explained the situation to them rapidly. They were all for the idea immediately and were in high spirits as I started uptown.
For my part, I wasn’t exactly light-hearted. Anything can happen when you start out on a job like that, and right at the moment I didn’t want anything to happen to me before I got to see Suds Garland personally.
He had a lot to answer for, and I meant to make him do it. Still, I’ve never been able to send my men into a place that was too tight for me to go myself. And I always lead the way when there’s work to be done.
This time was no exception. When I pulled up at the corner above a tall apartment house twenty minutes later I cautioned the boys to go easy with the gats, and then piled out of the car.
Francis had a gun equipped with a silencer so I had him follow close behind me while we walked down to the entrance of the building, a half block away. The four other men paired off behind us.
Only one mug was on duty in the lobby. I gave him a bright smile as I walked towards the elevators, and then as I passed him I turned quickly, slipped out my gun, and jammed it against his back.
“Quiet!” I warned, and the guy wilted. Suds didn’t seem to have luck in picking gunmen.
Francis pushed the signal bell at the elevator and a moment later the car stopped at the ground floor. It was one of those automatic affairs and it crowded us considerably as we all piled into it. I didn’t take my gun from the mug’s back for a moment.
On the way up to the tenth floor Francis relieved the guy of his rod and turned him over to the boys. Then as the elevator stopped, Francis and I stepped out while the rest of the boys held back. So long as the door was open the elevator couldn’t be called to any other floor.
Walking towards the rear of the building, we didn’t see anybody in the corridor. When I came to the door of apartment 1014 I pushed a bell button.
Almost immediately the door opened. Francis jammed his foot in the opening and followed it with a massive shoulder as he dug his gun into the belly of a guy with a long, thin face. After that there was no trouble at all.
I signaled the boys in the elevator and they came trooping back to the apartment. Half a dozen couples and two unattached men were lounging around the lavishly furnished rooms in various stages of helplessness. There had been a larger crowd earlier in the evening, I knew, because of the heavy reek of opium smoke that was still in the air.
We had a little trouble herding the people into one of the back rooms with the guards. Two of the women had to be carried, but after that the boys had the place to themselves. In less than ten minutes it was one sweet wreck. Then we left.
We visited the other two places before we called it a night. At the third one Francis had to put a bullet through one guard’s belly before he’d listen to reason, but there was no other trouble. Then I felt better.
Back in the car again, I told the boys to call at my hotel the next day for their pay, and then promised them a vacation while the Club Bijou was being remodeled. I let them out at one of the better hot spots, and then returned the car to the garage.
It was only a few minutes past three when I left the garage. I had intended to return to the hotel and catch up on some sleep, but after I’d caught a cab I decided to drop around to my apartment and get another dress. Crawling through that wreckage hadn’t helped the looks of my evening gown much.
After that bit of work I figured Suds Garland would be plenty busy for a few hours, listening to the stories his guards would tell. I didn’t know then that he still had another card up his sleeve.
I’d been dragging on a cigarette, very much pleased with myself, but when the cab came in sight of my apartment house I got a shock. Several cars were parked along the curb and a large crowd was gathered around the entrance of the building.
A crowd at that time of night meant just one thing. The cops were staging a raid, and something told me they were looking for me.
Chapter VI
In the Bag
Quickly I leaned forward in the seat, rapped on the glass partition, and told the driver to swing around the next corner and stop. While he followed those instructions I did some fast headwork.
By the time the cab halted alongside the curb I’d decided to see for myself what all the excitement was about. So I paid the driver and let him go. Then I started down the street towards the crowd.
If the cops were looking for me, I knew it wouldn’t be a bad idea to find out what I was wanted for before they found me. There was enough of a crowd in the street to give me a chance to look around and ask some questions without being too conspicuous. And that’s just what I did.