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.
Slipping my automatic back into the holster on my leg, I quickly wiped the butt of the .38 with a corner of my dress and tossed the gun down beside Suds. I didn’t try to remove all traces of fingerprints. It would look more natural if they were only smeared so they couldn’t be recognized.
One look was enough to know that trying to get a confession from Garland was useless. He was still alive, but that slug had ripped a lung wide open. Already bloody froth bubbled to his lips.
I didn’t wait to see the end. Less than a minute had passed since I’d fired that first shot, but voices in the corridor told me that I didn’t have a moment to spare.
Moving swiftly, I passed through the dining room and into the bedroom. Another moment and I had the window up, and stepped out on the fire escape. A police siren moaned plainly as my feet touched pavement again, and I was a block away when the cops rushed into the building.
Yes, Suds Garland thought he was pretty tough. Maybe he was. But all men — and women, for that matter — look alike to a hunk of lead.
The cops put Suds Garland’s death and that of Gus down as a duel over gang affairs, and I didn’t tell them any different. On the advice of my lawyer I gave myself up and stood trial on the dope charge.
But I didn’t stay snowbound long. Sid Lang’s testimony about the dope ring resulted in my acquittal, and I wondered what Suds thought of me beating the rap with the aid of a dick.
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
Randolph Barr
Not Too Surprisingly, the author of this rather formulaic story is unknown, as Randolph Barr was a house name, used by many of the hacks willing to work for one of the Spicy publications. Published by Culture House (perhaps named ironically), the minor empire included Spicy Detective, which was issued from April 1934 to December 1942; Spicy Adventure (July 1934-December 1942); Spicy Mystery (July 1934-December 1942); Spicy Western (November 1936-December 1942); and Spicy Movie Tales (one issue only in October 1935). Because of the racy covers and interior illustrations, plus the content of the stories, public pressure caused the publisher, now Trojan Publishing Co., to change titles to Speed Detective, Speed Mystery, etc., and reduce the provocative nature of its contents. But don’t get your expectations too high. What was racy, spicy, snappy, and saucy in the 1930s will seem rather tepid today. “The Girl Who Knew Too Much” is one of the better stories to be found behind the garish covers of the Spicy books, which does not make it Shakespeare, or Chandler, either, since the magazine paid much less than its contemporaries. While Black Mask and Dime Detective were paying two cents a word, and lesser periodicals half that, Spicy paid only a half cent a word — the bottom of the barrel for writers struggling to pay the rent. As is true of most of the stories in Spicy, we meet our heroine with her dress ripped down to her waist. This is what passed for titillation in April 1941, when “The Girl Who Knew Too Much” was first published.
He shoved the girl back and brought up his gun
There wasn’t any particular reason for my being way down on the East Side. It was a warm Spring night, and I was taking a walk, not paying much attention where my feet strayed. It was nearly two o’clock when I looked at my watch, wondering if I shouldn’t be turning back and thinking again about going to bed.
I looked around. Deep in thought, I’d wandered all the way to Second Avenue and Second Street. That part of town was, curiously, almost deserted.
Then from up a side alley I heard the clicking heels of a running girl. I turned. She came like a miracle of beauty out of that dingy cul-de-sac of warehouses and manufacturing lofts. Her skirt was bunched in her hand above her knees to facilitate her speed, and white flesh gleamed in the dim light.
I stood stock still, just around the corner of the building where she’d come out on the avenue. Her black dress had been ripped to her waist, and the remnants of a pink silk slip barely held together at one shoulder.
She reached the mouth of the alley and I stepped suddenly in front of her, blocking her way. I studied her in the winking lights of the Little Albania, Louis Russo’s third-rate night club. I said, “What’s the hurry? Something scare you?”
Her breasts were heaving from her running, and she fairly panted when she spoke. “Let me alone! Look out! For God’s sake!” She darted suddenly to the side and tried to compress herself into a doorway.
I didn’t know what it was all about, but she hadn’t been fooling when she spoke. I squeezed in beside her and followed suit in trying to keep out of sight.
Then there were other footsteps coming up the unlighted alley. This time they were made by a man, a man who was trying to move soundlessly.
I chanced a look.
There was a black shape creeping around the corner of the building to the street. It hugged the wall.
Out of the alley came a flash of orange flame. There was the report of a gun that was like a sharp cough, and the crouching figure tumbled in a heap, legs in the alley, head and outflung arms on the sidewalk of the avenue.
The girl and I remained flattened in the doorway — even when unseen hands caught the ankles of the fallen man, and we heard the gruesome sound of his body being dragged over the rough cobblestones back into the darkness.
My forehead had an uncomfortable clammy feeling as I peered out again and saw the little pool of blood and the man’s hat near the curbstone. As a newspaper man, I’d seen my share of violent death, but this was giving me the jitters.
The street itself had become morgue-quiet. The only sound was the faint sobbing of violin strings, the occasional pulse of a drum, and the wail of a saxophone from the Little Albania’s shuttered windows.
The girl came to life. She said, “You’d better scram fast, mister!” She caught up her skirt again and started to run north up Second Avenue, sticking closely to the shadows. Automatically I followed.
A couple of blocks up, she halted in a vestibule and confronted me. “Will you keep out of this? Haven’t you seen enough? Do you want to be laid out on a slab beside that other man back in the alley?”
I caught her arm. “I’m a newspaperman, sister. Give!”
Her eyes widened. “You’d better not print anything you’ve seen tonight! Russo’s mob doesn’t like reporters. Anyway, I’m in a hurry!”
“That’s okay with me,” I told her. “I’ve got a lot of time. And I’m sticking with you.”
She smiled wanly. It looked as if she were going to lose the slip when she shrugged, but she caught it and pulled the tatters of her clothes together. “If I can’t shake you, let’s go. The farther we get away from here, the better!”
At the next corner I whistled for a cab. I asked, “Where do you live?”
“Not far away. But I’m not going home tonight! It might not be healthy.”
She shivered against me as I helped her into the cab. I slid an arm around her, and she didn’t object. Speculatively, I gave the driver the address of my own Grove Street apartment.
She didn’t demur, even when we pulled up at my place and I asked her in for a drink.
The first sip of her highball went far in helping her to relax. We sat side by side on my divan, and she smiled when I put an arm around her shoulders. “Feel like loosening up?” I asked her.