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.
“Have you seen the police?” Collins asked.
“No,” said Mrs. Martin.
“Why not?”
Mrs. Martin looked down at her hands. “Perhaps Myra doesn’t want — to be found.”
“Oh,” said Collins.
“I don’t want to bother Myra,” Mrs. Martin said in a low strained voice. “If she doesn’t want me... If I just knew she was safe and all right, if I just knew... Will you help me, Mr. Collins?”
“Yes,” said Collins. “Of course. I’ll try. I’ll do all I can.”
Mrs. Martin opened a shiny black purse. “I can pay you something now—”
“No,” said Collins. “Never mind that. I have lots of money.” He actually had five dollars and seventy-three cents, and the rent was two weeks overdue. “Where is this place that Myra had been living?”
“At 1271 Sales Street. It’s a boarding house.”
“Yes. And where are you staying?”
“At the Fortmount Hotel.”
“All right, Mrs. Martin. You go back there and wait. Don’t worry more than you can help. You’ll hear from me soon.”
“Thank you,” she said. She got up, breathing a little unevenly. “Thank you very much. I didn’t know where to turn. If I can just be sure Myra is all right, but I’ve had such a terrible empty feeling...”
“Yes,” said Collins absently.
He showed her to the door and came back and sat down at the piano and stared at the worn keyboard. With one finger he began to plunk out a little tune to the words “Myra Martin.” He couldn’t remember the name at all, but then he met a great many people in a great many places, and he never paid very much attention to people’s names.
He noticed suddenly that his one-finger tune was the first bar of a funeral march. He stopped playing it and shivered. It was cold in the apartment and dark in the corners where the light didn’t reach. Mrs. Martin’s drear, sad little story had left an ugly and chill echo behind it. It was nothing you could touch, nothing you could see, but it was there. It was black and twisted and wickedly mirthful, and John Collins didn’t like even the thought of it.
He unearthed a half-empty bottle of gin from under the chesterfield, took a big swig, and then got his hat and went out of the bungalow.
Sales Street was like quite a few others you can find in the back-washes of Hollywood if you care to look. It didn’t have any tinsel or glitter or rackety-rax. It was dark and narrow and a little bit crooked, and the tree branches over it moved in the wind and threw sharply jagged shadows that danced dangerously back and forth across the bumpy sidewalk.
Number 1271 was a big brown house with a bulging bay-window and a discouraged sag in its roof. The front steps creaked under John Collins’ feet, and the floor-boards of the porch moaned in protest as he crossed to the door and punched a bell under the feeble night light.
There was a discouraged jangle somewhere inside, and then slippers flip-flopped on bare boards, coming closer, and the door opened.
“Vell?”
Collins stepped back to take a good look. The man in the doorway was over six feet tall and as thin as a pencil. He stooped forward a little, as though the weight of his mustache was pulling him off-balance. It could have easily. It was a wonderful mustache. It ran as straight across his face as a ruler and turned up in sharp points at either end. Behind it, the rest of the man’s face was dingy and nondescript. He was wearing a conical fez with a tassel on it, sharp-pointed red leather slippers, and a red sash.
“Going to a costume party?” Collins asked.
“Vet you vent?”
Collins said: “I’ve played in joints in Istanbul and Port Said and Cairo, but I’ve never heard a Turkish accent like that. Where’d you pick it up?”
“In books,” said the man in an injured tone. “What’s the matter with it?”
“Let’s step inside,” Collins suggested. He put a thick finger in the center of the man’s chest and pushed him back into a narrow dimly lighted hall that smelled faintly of fried onions and cheap perfume. At the foot of the stairs there was a rickety little table that served as a desk, and there was a telephone on the wall above it.
“What’s the matter with my accent?” asked the tall man again. “And say, who are you pushing, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” said Collins. “What do you call yourself these days?”
“Ali Singh Teke.”
“Now, now,” said Collins.
The tall man wiggled his mustache. “Well, all right. That’s my picture name. That’s the way I’m listed at Central Casting. My real name’s Alfred Peters. I play Turkish parts in the movies. I got to keep in practice, don’t I? What’s the matter with my accent?”
“I couldn’t begin to tell you. Where’s Myra Martin?”
Something dark and sullenly secretive closed over Alfred Peters’ face. “She ain’t here no longer.”
“I didn’t ask you where she ain’t. I want to know where she is. Give.”
“She moved out without givin’ no address.”
“Did you throw her out?”
“What?” said Alfred Peters, startled. “Why, I never! It’s a lie! Whoever told you that? Say, who are you, anyway?”
“Never mind. Let’s talk about Myra Martin. She just walked out one morning and didn’t come back, is that it?”
“Yes,” said Alfred Peters.
“No.”
Alfred Peters’ mustache wiggled again. “Huh?”
“I said, no.” Collins took his right hand out of his pocket and opened it to reveal the coin lying on his broad palm. “Know what that is?”
“Sure. It’s a half-dollar.”
Collins spun it on the bare scarred top of the desk. “Does it look all right to you?”
“Why, yes,” said Alfred Peters, puzzled.
“Watch.” Collins picked the half-dollar up and closed it in his fist. The big cords in his wrist bulged out thickly, and the blood drained from his knuckles until they looked like bulging white knobs. He opened his hand again and dropped the half-dollar back on the table. It didn’t spin now. It rocked rapidly back and forth in the same spot, glittering. It was bent nearly double.
Alfred Peters stared at it in unbelieving fascination.
“Now,” said Collins. “Let’s start all over again. Where’s Myra Martin?”
“Say, I never saw anybody do that—” Alfred Peters raised his eyes slowly to Collins’ face. “I told you she didn’t leave no address when she moved out. I don’t know where she is. You doubtin’ my word?”
Collins nodded slowly. “That’s right.”
Alfred Peters puffed himself up. “Where do you get comin’ in my house...”
Collins picked up the bent half-dollar and flipped it up in the air and caught it again.
Alfred Peters swallowed. “You can’t come in my house and get tough! You get out of here now, or... or—”
“What?” Collins asked.
“Well... well, you ain’t got any right... Anyway, I told you the truth. She didn’t leave no forwardin’ address. She just up and went. Only it wasn’t in the mornin’ like you said. It was at night. It was real late at night. She pounded on my door and woke me up and said good-bye.”