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.
Collins smiled at him. “A friend of mine. Very amusing fellow. He plays practical jokes.”
The clerk stared at the remains of the brown bottle and then turned his head slowly to look at the starred round hole in the drugstore’s front window.
“Oh, no!” he said shakily. “No, sir! That wasn’t any joke! That was a bullet—” He dodged around the counter and pelted for the front door, shouting: “Police! Help! Police!” in a thin falsetto wail.
Collins went quietly through the back room and out the door into an alley.
Collins arrived on Hollywood Boulevard a half-hour later after a series of zig-zagging detours through dark side streets and darker alleys. The Boulevard was crowded thickly with its usual pack of idly chattering, aimless strollers, and Collins drifted slowly along with them.
He was an expert at this. He had the trick of blending into a throng of people and becoming as hard to keep track of as an individual wave in the ocean.
After three blocks of sauntering and stopping to window-shop and sauntering again, he knew that he wasn’t being followed, and he cut out of the crowd and entered another drugstore. This one was big and busy and brilliantly lighted. Collins located a row of phone booths and shut himself up in one of them.
A consultation with the directory informed him that Blakely was a Brentwood exchange, and he invested fifteen cents in a call to 7-6222. The telephone at the other end rang three times, and then the line clicked, and a precisely courteous voice said: “Yes?”
Collins reflected that they were no longer giving away information as freely as they had when Alfred Peters had called, and then he said casually: “I’d like to speak to Mr. Van Diesten, please. This is Mr. Fulham from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It’s urgent.”
“Yes, sir!” said the precise voice. “Just one moment, sir! I’ll call him at once!”
Collins waited, whistling softly to himself. There was another click on the line, and a hoarse baritone voice said: “Yes? Hello, hello? This is Van Diesten. Who is calling from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, please?”
“I’d like to speak to Myra Martin,” Collins said.
“What? What is it?”
“I’d like to speak to Myra Martin.”
The hoarse voice vibrated with anger. “You are not from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer! I will report you!”
“I’d like to speak to Myra Martin, please.”
“I do not know her! I do not know anybody by that name! You will stop calling and annoying me! You must be crazy!”
The receiver cracked in Collins’ ear, and then the line was dead. Collins sat still for a moment, whistling softly and thoughtfully to himself. He was frowning a little, and he no longer looked friendly. He opened the door of the booth and went out of the drugstore and headed west on Hollywood Boulevard.
The Fortmount Hotel was tucked away on a side street off Vine. It had been all modern and shiny and Spanish once upon a time, but it was a little tired now. The shrubbery in the patio entrance was more ragged than luxuriant, and the lobby was as depressingly gloomy as a nightclub on Sunday morning. There were a few people sitting around and looking as though they wished they had somewhere else to go.
Collins crossed to the desk in the arched setback beside the elevators and spoke to the clerk.
“Will you call Mrs. Martin’s room and tell her that John Collins is here?”
The clerk had shiny hair and a shiny round face. He put one pale hand up to his lips and coughed sharply. His eyes were blank with malicious little flickers of interest deep back in them.
“Did you hear me?” Collins asked impatiently.
“Yeah,” said a voice in his ear. “So did we.”
There were two of them — heavy-shouldered men with a solidly official weight behind their movements. They crowded close against Collins, pinning him against the desk, and one took him by each arm.
“Just take it easy,” said the one who had first spoken. “This is a pinch, and you’re it. Don’t start a beef.” He was taller than his companion, and he had a mangled cigar in the corner of his mouth. His eyes were the same color as the cigar.
The second one felt Collins’ pockets with rapid patting hands. “He’s clean.” He had a sagging, surly face and black eyebrows that met in a bar above his eyes.
“Come along,” said the tall one. “Nice and quiet now. Just like we’re pals.”
They still each had one of Collins’ arms, and the three of them turned in unison, like a drill team, and started toward the elevator.
“Hey!” said a voice behind them. “Hey, wait a minute, guys!”
The detectives kept right on going with Collins between them, but the man darted around ahead of them and faced them excitedly, arms spread wide, as though he were trying to shoo some refractory chickens. He was thin and blond and a little hungry-looking. His eyes glinted eagerly behind horn-rimmed glasses.
“Hey, guy!” he said to Collins. “You! What’s your name?”
“Scram,” said the tall detective.
The little man waved his arms. “Aw, have a heart! Come on, let him tell me his name! Give me a break!”
“Beat it,” said the tall detective.
The little man ignored him. “Listen, guy. I’m a reporter, see? Give me your name, and I’ll—”
The surly detective stepped forward and put his meaty hand in the middle of the little man’s face and shoved hard. “One side, louse!”
The little man went flapping backwards like a damp rag. He hit a chair and went over it with a clattering thud, and the last Collins saw as the detectives pushed him into the elevator were his two feet waving helplessly over the top of the tipped chair.
“That was mighty brave of you,” said Collins conversationally. “I guess you’re a couple of pretty hard guys.”
“Shut up,” said the tall detective.
The elevator was a self-operated one, and the door clanged shut as he pressed the button for the third floor. The elevator rose wearily and stopped with a sudden jump.
“Right down the hall,” said the surly detective.
One on either side, still holding his arms, they marched Collins the length of the dingy hallway and stopped at the end door. The tall one rapped on it.
“Come on in,” a voice ordered.
The surly one opened the door, and they boosted Collins through it and stopped him short just inside.
There was one man standing all by himself in the center of the room, scowling. “Well?” he said. He was short, and he had a paunch and the beginnings of a double chin. He was wearing a green polo shirt and a yellow straw hat with a wide green-and-red band on it. Also, for contrast, he was wearing a brown sport jacket and brown checked slacks. His nose was flat, and his eyes were shot with reddish veins.
“This guy,” said the tall detective. “He give the name of John Collins. He was askin’ for the old lady.”
“That true?” asked the man in the yellow hat.
Collins nodded. “Yes. Would you like me to show you something funny?”
“Sure,” said the man in the yellow hat.
Collins suddenly spread both of his legs wide and then bent forward and brought his arms violently together in front of him. The two detectives couldn’t have done it more neatly if they had rehearsed. They were jerked forward, off-balance, and they each tripped over a different one of Collins’ legs. They hit the floor with a jar that jingled the chandelier.
“Yeah,” said the man in the yellow hat, not at all startled. “That was funny. Grimes! Craig! Quit that! Get up off the floor and get the hell out of here! Go on out in the hall and wait there. You two clowns give me the pip.”