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.
She misunderstood me and snuggled closer, but I didn’t mind. I kissed her warm, moist, inviting mouth. But a minute later I laughed. I said, “I really meant do you feel like telling me what it’s all about?”
She reddened prettily. “You mean about Dick Tobin’s shooting. He wasn’t really a bad guy—” She stared straight ahead as if deciding how much to tell me. “Both Dick and the big fellow—”
“You mean Russo?”
“Yes. They both wanted me. The mob considered me Dick’s girl. Louis intended to bump Dick anyway. I’m not sure just why he had it in for Dick, but he used me as an excuse to get rid of him.”
I pointed to the silk dress which hung in jagged strips. Through the tatters her flesh was pink and smooth and warm-looking.
She colored again, and tried to cover herself better. “Russo did that. He had me in his office, and was getting rough. I managed to fight him off, and slipped out the back way. He sent Dick Tobin after me—”
I nodded. “And then he himself came out—”
“Yes. And I’m scared! I know he wants me now, but he’ll kill me when he tires of me! I know too much about his mob.”
She seemed as pitiful as she was lovely, sitting there in my living room. I looked into her great dark eyes, and wondered what I could do for her. I said, “You’ve got a hell of a good story, but it would be dynamite to handle. At least, without a lot of substantiation.” She was cuddled against me so that I could feel the vibrancy of her slender, exquisite form. I hugged her against me so tightly that her breasts flattened on my chest, but she strained even harder...
Breathless, she pushed away. She said, “Now that you’ve got me here, what are you going to do with me? I don’t dare go home.”
“What about a hotel?”
“At this time in the morning? And looking like this?” She indicated her ruined dress.
I said, “Well—?”
“You haven’t even thought of inviting me to stay here?”
I grinned. “It’s okay with me. It ought to be safe enough.”
She caught my arm when I picked up the telephone. “What are you going to do?”
“My job, baby.” I brushed her arm off and dialed the Courier. I talked to the desk briefly, then turned back to the girl. “That’s that,” I said. “Tomorrow the paper will carry a short paragraph saying that a gangster named Dick Tobin was killed near the Little Albania. By the way, you haven’t told me your name.”
“Polly Knight. And where can I sleep?”
I pointed to the bed. “Such as it is, it’s all yours. I’ll see if I can find you a pair of pajamas.”
When I turned back from the bureau, she was seated on the edge of the bed, peeling off her stockings. The picture was tempting, but I forced myself to think of my job. I should be reporting at the office. I picked up my topcoat.
“Where are you going?” Polly asked, her eyes showing panic again. I told her, and she caught at my arm. “No! No! You can’t leave me! You’ve already called in. If there was anything important for you, they would have told you!”
I studied her. And her terror wasn’t faked.
She said, “I didn’t like the way that taxi-driver stared at me. He might be one of Russo’s men. Please don’t go!”
I hung up my coat. While she watched me, I got my automatic from my desk and put it in a hip pocket. I saw that the key in the lock was turned so that it wouldn’t easily fall out. For extra precaution I wedged a chair under the knob. I said, “That ought to cover everything.”
Much calmer, Polly slipped out of her torn dress. While she got into the pajama jacket, I fought to keep from sweeping her into my arms. All that saved her, I think, was her atmosphere of utter helplessness.
She said, “You’re being awfully decent. And me, I’m just a gangster’s girl! Funny, isn’t it?”
I took off my coat and vest and shoes and sprawled in the morris-chair. When I looked at Polly again, she was under the covers.
Her voice was a gentle murmur. “I feel like a heel — chasing you out of your bed.”
I knew how I felt, but I didn’t tell her. I said, “Don’t worry. In case we should have visitors—” I switched off the lights, and tried to make myself comfortable.
It seemed like a long while, but couldn’t have been more than half an hour, when I heard the shuffling footsteps outside down the corridor. I was wide awake in an instant. I got silently to my feet. I tiptoed to the bed.
A small soft hand caught mine. Polly was sitting up in bed, trembling.
The steps came nearer. I took out my automatic, and stared through the gloom toward the door. But the footsteps shuffled past and grew fainter.
Relieved, I stuck the gun back in my pocket. “It was a drunk, trying to find his room,” I whispered. I patted Polly’s shoulder.
“Stay here beside me for a little while,” she pleaded. “When I can’t see you or touch you, I get the willies.”
Tired and sleepy, I leaned back...
It seemed like ten seconds, but it was daylight when I opened my eyes. Dressed in my over-size pajamas, Polly was seated in the morris-chair, examining her ruined dress. She smiled ruefully. “I don’t suppose you’d have a needle and thread?”
I wouldn’t and I told her so. I had a better idea. “Tell me where you live, give me your key, and I’ll get you something to wear. None of Russo’s crowd knows me.”
She assented. “Before you go,” she said, “I’d like to tell you that, in spite of what they all said, I never really was Dick Tobin’s sweetheart. None of Russo’s crowd ever actually touched me.”
She was a little wistful, and I don’t think she really expected me to believe her. Curiously, I did, and my heart was strangely light as I fitted her key into her door.
The apartment was nicely furnished, done with restraint and in good taste — not at all the sort of place you would have expected a gang girl to have.
I headed for a closet, had a sudden apprehension of danger, turned, and caught the full weight of whatever it was that hit me squarely on the head...
Coming back to consciousness was an agonizing experience. My head had bells in it, and was all but cleft in two, anyway. Then I discovered that my hands were tied behind me and that my ankles were roped together. I was in Polly’s apartment. Louis Russo sat in a chair across from me.
He leered at me. “So you tried to butt in!” he sneered. “I was waiting for Polly. If I keep on waiting, she should be along anyway. I’m in no hurry.” He blew smoke in my face.
I recognized the truth of what he said, but there was nothing I could do about it.
He grinned. “I’ll take care of you later,” he said. “When I get through with Polly, I’m not going to leave you where you can talk about it.”
There were icicles in my blood.
Russo must have heard the step outside before I did, for he jumped up suddenly, caught me by the collar, and literally dragged me across the floor to the bathroom. He left the door open a crack — probably due to his haste — and I could see into the other room without being easily seen.
The knob of the door to the corridor turned, and the door opened. It was Polly Knight. Her mouth made an explosive gasp as Russo suddenly appeared from behind the door. He jammed the muzzle of a gun into her side.
Without a word he reached out, caught her torn dress at the neckline and ripped it all the way down. Then he stood off and surveyed her. He said, “Get into another rig! That thing might attract too much attention where I’m going to take you.”
While she, helplessly, took another dress from a hook and slipped it over her shoulders, he said, “I thought you’d be along when your boyfriend didn’t come back to you.” All the time, his eyes were licking at her alluring loveliness.