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.
The two detectives picked themselves up, red-faced and panting. They stumbled out of the room and closed the door very quickly and quietly behind them.
“Am I arrested?” Collins asked.
“Hell, no,” said the man in the yellow hat, resuming his scowling survey of the room. “You wanta go home? All right. Good-bye.”
“I think I’ll stay.”
“Suit yourself. My name is Tilwitz. I’m a lieutenant of detectives — Homicide.”
“Has there been a murder?”
“How do I know?”
Collins said: “Well, are you going to talk to me, or are you going to stand there and sulk?”
“I got a headache,” said Tilwitz glumly. “I got two headaches — both of them out there in the hall. What do you want to talk about, as if I cared?”
“About Mrs. Della Martin. Is this her room?”
“That’s what they tell me, but people are liable to tell a cop almost anything.”
“Where is she?”
Tilwitz sighed and went over to the bed and sat down on it. “You got a cigarette?” He took one out of the pack Collins extended and accepted a light. “I don’t know where she is, but if you gave me a guess, I’d say she was dead.”
“What happened?”
Tilwitz blew smoke in a long plume. “What kind of cigarettes are these? I don’t like ’em. Well, about an hour ago the people on this floor heard a scream and then a shot. So they called up the clerk and told him he’d better scout around a bit. So he came up here with one of the bellboys and knocked on a few doors. Results: zero.”
“Then what?” Collins asked.
“Crash of glass from inside this room. Thump-thump-thump — mysterious noises. So the clerk raps a while and calls a while and finally gets up nerve enough to unlock the door with the passkey.”
“What did he find?”
Tilwitz pointed to the window. “That — upper pane broken.” He pointed to the rug in front of the bathroom door. “That — bloodstain on the rug. That’s all.”
“Nothing else?” Collins said incredulously.
Tilwitz took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at it distastefully. “These are awful. No. Nothing else. No body, no burglars, no Mrs. Martin — and no clothes.”
“What?” Collins said.
Tilwitz nodded. “It’s nuts, or I am. There wasn’t — and isn’t — one sign of Mrs. Martin in this room. She had a traveling bag and a suitcase when she came in. They’re gone, and everything that was in ’em is gone. Barring a couple of dirty towels and sheets, this room is exactly the way it was when it was rented to her three days ago. Nothing in the wastepaper basket. Nothing in the bureau drawers or closet. Just plain damned nothing.”
“What do you think happened?”
“If I could think, I wouldn’t be a detective. But it looks to me as if somebody doubled a rope around that radiator — it’s out of line about six inches — and let the rope out the window — there’s a scoured place on the sill — and lowered Mrs. Martin and all her baggage down into the alley. Whoever it was broke the window in the process of getting in or out or something.”
“What are you going to do about it?” asked Collins.
“Do?” said Tilwitz sourly. “Not a damned thing, son. There’s no law that says people have to keep their luggage in a hotel room and no law that says they can’t use the window to go out of it. It’s not a crime to have a nose bleed or even bust a window, if it’s an accident. So there you are.”
“You said you thought Mrs. Martin was dead.”
“That was my unofficial opinion. Don’t quote me. Have you got another cigarette?”
“I thought you said you didn’t like them?”
“They’re better than nothing,” Tilwitz said. “Not much better — but some. Thanks. That was a nice little juggling act you pulled on Grimes and Craig. You’re not supposed to be a detective unless you can read and write and count up to ten, but those two slipped through some way.”
“Yes,” said Collins absently.
“If I’m boring you, you can leave any time now. I’ll have Grimes and Craig follow you, but that shouldn’t cramp your style much. Just make faces at them if they should bother you too much. They’ll run.”
Collins looked up. “Did you know that Mrs. Martin had a daughter here in Hollywood?”
“Sure,” Tilwitz answered. “She made a lot of inquiries and calls — talked about it to other people at the hotel.”
“She asked me to find her daughter.”
“Go ahead,” Tilwitz invited. “Who’s stopping you?”
“You’re not going to do anything else about this?”
“Not now. I should run my legs off and have the old lady pop up and give me the bird and maybe sue me for invasion of her privacy. There’s been no complaint filed by anybody — there’s no concrete evidence that any crime has been committed. I haven’t got any right to go prying around — even if I had the ambition.”
“Do you mind if I do?”
“Me?” said Tilwitz blandly. “Mind? Hell, no. Fly right at it.”
“I’ll tell you if I find anything.”
“Don’t bother,” Tilwitz advised. “Just keep it a deep dark secret.”
“Do you want my address?”
“If I want you,” said Tilwitz, “I’ll find you.”
Collins watched him thoughtfully. “No use giving your two stooges sore feet. I’m just going home now.”
“What’re you going to do when you get there?”
“Play the piano.”
“That’ll be nice. Play real pretty.”
Collins smiled a little. “Good-bye.”
Tilwitz nodded solemnly. “So long. I won’t have the two dopes follow you. Tell ’em to come in here.”
Collins went out into the hall. The two detectives were leaning against the wall, side by side, opposite the door. They glowered at Collins in grim silence.
Collins jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Your master is calling.”
“We won’t forget that little stunt you pulled,” the tall one promised. “We’ll be seeing you again, baby. Don’t think we won’t.”
Collins grinned. “Any time at all.”
The shabby little man with the horn-rimmed glasses was waiting for him down in the lobby.
“Hey, guy,” said the little man. “Wait a minute — please. Look, I’m a reporter. Name’s Rick Preston. I used to work for U.P., but I got boiled and got a couple of press dispatches mixed up, and they canned me. I can get back on again if I have a story to bring in with me. How about a break, guy?”
Collins shrugged. “I haven’t got any story.”
“There’s one around here,” Preston insisted. “I can smell ’em. What’s Tilwitz doing upstairs?”
“Tilwitz is here because an old lady by the name of Mrs. Della Martin disappeared under rather mysterious circumstances.”
“I know that,” Rick Preston said. “What about the daughter she was looking for?”
“I don’t know,” said Collins.
“Aw, come on,” said Preston. “Give me a break. What’s your name?”
“John Collins. I can’t give you a break, because I don’t know anything to tell you. Mrs. Martin’s daughter stopped writing, and Mrs. Martin was worried. She came around to see me because she’d heard I met a lot of people here and there. I told her I’d look for her daughter. I didn’t find her.”
“Daughter disappears,” Preston muttered. “Then the old lady disappears. But, hell, there’s nothing you can put your finger on!”
“No,” said Collins. “Well, I’ll give you a ring if I hear anything.”