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.
“Look’s like our company ain’t here yet, but we can’t be sure. Eddie, you go back into this alley and wait ’til I call you. Cops are too dangerous for you.”
“Listen, old girl,” whispered another one of the figures, “if you’re going to mess up with cops...”
“Who said I was going to mess up with cops? Come along, Ben Todd. Keep your hand off that gun and don’t get any bright ideas of your own.”
Sarah Watson moved down to the mouth of the alley. She surveyed the street, then charged swiftly out of the alley and up the front stoop of the tenement, with Ben Todd behind her. A long, sleek car was just turning the corner.
Sarah and Ben went through the vestibule door and into the hall. A cop sitting on the bottom step of the stairs roused suddenly, stood up.
“Quick, officer!” Sarah yelled. “Get inside and turn the lights off in that flat. Eddie Danville’s on his way here. Sergeant O’Reilly sent us...”
“The hell he did!” roared the cop, reaching for his holster. “Sergeant O’Reilly is inside that flat...”
Sarah Watson lurched suddenly. The cop staggered under the onslaught and sat down again on the bottom step with Sarah on his lap. Sarah’s stubby fingers gripped the cop’s right wrist.
“Move, Bennie. Take his gun,” she ordered.
Ben Todd snatched at the gun, backed with it in his hand. The cop heaved suddenly, throwing Sarah back, sprawling. The cop charged at Ben Todd. Sarah got to her knees, straightening her hat.
“Officer,” she warned, “if you don’t behave, I’ll tell Sergeant O’Reilly a woman disarmed you.”
The door to Eddie Danville’s flat swung out. Sergeant O’Reilly stood framed in the dim light from the swinging lanterns beyond.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Misunderstanding,” Sarah answered. “Get those lights off in there, O’Reilly, and get this competent cop stowed away somewhere where he won’t be seen. Eddie’s coming home.”
Sarah pushed by O’Reilly and into the room beyond, reaching up and switching off the hanging lanterns as she went. O’Reilly remained rigid a moment, then crooked a hairy finger at Ben Todd and the cop and followed Sarah.
Sarah was at the window, the heavy curtains parted in her stubby fingers.
“Two,” she whispered. “One of ’em coming up the stoop. One of ’em going around the back way. Lord! Eddie’s out back, I’ve got to...”
She wheeled, saw the dim forms of the three men.
“All of you hide,” she commanded. “Somewhere... anywhere, and don’t move, whatever happens... Get in back of those curtains hanging on the wall, the three of you...”
“Say!” O’Reilly’s voice was husky. “Who’s giving the orders around here, anyway?”
“I am,” said Sarah. “And if you know what’s good for you, O’Reilly, you’re taking ’em.”
Sarah strode out of the room and through the kitchen, which was dark. She poked her head out of the window and called softly:
“Eddie!”
No answer. A faint scuffling, a deep groan. Sarah got on the fire escape, peered down.
“Eddie!”
Two forms in the shadows below, struggling. Sarah went down swiftly. The two wrestling figures fell, rolled on the asphalt at her feet.
“Eddie! Which is you?”
A groan answered her. She bent, caught hold of a slippery garment which gleamed faintly yellow in the darkness.
“I’d like to watch a good battle, but there ain’t time,” she said, smashing the butt-end of her gun down on the skull of the man straddling Eddie.
Sarah and Eddie dragged a recumbent figure through the kitchen window, laid it on the floor in the darkness. Sarah whispered:
“Which one, Eddie?”
“Jake, I think.”
“Leave Jake lay. I’ve got to see what Tony is up to...”
Sarah stole to the door which led into the front room, and inched the door open. The room on the other side was dark and still. Dimly, Sarah could discern bulges in the dark stuff which curtained the walls, three bulges. In the silence there came a faint clicking of metal against metal. It seemed to come from the door to the hall.
Sarah turned back into the kitchen.
She whispered a warning. “Eddie, you stay here.”
“No. That’s Jake at that door, Sarah. He’s a killer.”
“You stay. No nonsense. Wait a minute! Where’s that white nightgown of yours...?”
Sarah stepped into the front room and closed the kitchen door firmly behind her. She moved silently in the darkness, reached up and switched on a lantern which hung directly over the crystal ball. The dim rays of the lantern revealed her swathed in a white robe and wearing a white turban well down over her bushy brows. A snort came from one of the bulges in the curtains. Sarah looked at the bulge.
“O’Reilly,” she whispered, “I’ve got one of the Courtwell killers in the kitchen and the other one is coming through that door. You stay put and don’t snort...”
Sarah walked to the hall door and threw it open. The man outside straightened suddenly, reached for his hip.
“Why didn’t you ring the bell?” Sarah asked. “I don’t often look into the crystal this late, but if you want a consultation...”
Sarah backed into the room. The man followed, shutting the door with his foot. He kept his hand on his hip.
“Where’s this guy Chariot?” he rasped.
“Chariot? I don’t know. At least, my conscious mind don’t know, mister. Maybe if I looked in the crystal I might see him. Of course, it’s late, and my fee would be double...”
The man shoved his face close to Sarah’s, stared at her under the eerie rays of the lantern.
“So that’s it? How much?” he asked.
“Twenty,” Sarah replied. She stalked to the table which held the crystal globe and sat down.
The man hesitated, then lowered himself into the seat opposite.
“Come on now,” he ordered. “No use stallin’ with the fortune tellin’ stuff. You know where Chariot is and you’re willin’ to spill for twenty. Spill, or...”
He drew his hand from his hip and showed the gun in it to Sarah. Sarah glanced at it, then bent her head over the crystal globe.
“Chariot!” she muttered. “I can almost see him. I can see him! He’s near, very near. Wait! There’s something else swimming into the crystal...”
“Can that stuff! Where’s Chariot?”
“In a minute. It’s coming clear. I see a man’s figure... lying down... very still... there are cat-tails swaying over him... there’s a dark stain on his breast... there’s something in his breast...”
The man with the gun jumped out of his chair, then sat down again. He ran his left hand over his forehead. “You can’t pull that. That’s a lot of—”
“Ah!” Sarah went on. “I see it now. It’s sticking out of his heart. It’s still quivering in his heart. It’s a knife, a bone-handled knife...”
“Hey!” cried the man on the other side of the table.
“Wait! It’s going. Chariot! I see Chariot. Something is between his face and mine. Something black with two sparkling circles in it. Ah! A ring, an onyx ring with two diamonds...”
The man with the gun leaped up again. His gun arm came up. He said:
“O.K. You know everything. I don’t know whether you see it in that ball, or whether you don’t. You know it. You know about the ring I took off Honest Jim Carson’s stiff and lost the night I croaked Courtwell. You know it, and it’s just too bad for you! Look into your damned crystal and see if you see yourself with wings, lady, because you’re going—”
Two guns spurted fire — one from the curtained wall, one from the gun in front of Sarah Watson. At the same moment, Sarah pitched the crystal ball through the air. It struck, splintered, crashed. The man who had shot at Sarah crashed with it.