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.
The girl said nothing. McFee ran the car up to the filling station oil pumps. Behind them, the brakes of the pursuing car made a high wailing sound and the car — a rakish black sedan — rocked to a standstill. It had not crossed the intersection.
“What’s the street this side of Avalon?”
“Hawthorne.”
“Trees on it?”
“Yes.”
To the white-uniformed, freckle-faced lad who came running up, McFee said, “Gimme a five-gallon can of crankcase oil — Eastern. Step on it.” McFee took out a jacknife, opened a blade. The lad reappeared, lugging the can of oil. McFee placed it on the seat, between himself and the red-headed girl. “Throw in five gallons of gas.” He added to the girl, “Just to fool those birds,” and drove his knife blade into the top of the can. Ripping around the edge, he muttered, “This is going to be dirty.”
The girl’s eyes became spheres of green light.
Oil slopped onto McFee’s clothing, over the girl’s wrap. The lad came back, McFee threw ten dollars at him.
“Keep the change, kid. And do this—” McFee impaled him with an oily forefinger. “Hop your telephone. Call police headquarters. Tell ’em, there’s an accident on Hawthorne, north of Grand. Tell ’em to send a riot squad. Tell ’em McFee told you.”
The boy blurted, “Anybody hurt?”
“There’s going to be,” McFee said as he jumped the car into the boulevard.
They hit fifty. The sedan behind them zoomed across the intersection, then settled down to tailing the coop from two blocks back.
Irene Mayo said tersely. “Avalon — three blocks.”
McFee dropped to thirty. The car behind picked up. McFee made the right hand turn at Hawthorne. The street was narrow, a black tunnel of peppers and eucalypti.
McFee drove half a block, dropping to fifteen. He shifted off the crown of the street. He placed the red-headed girl’s right hand on top of the wheel. She stared at him, her mouth a red gash in her white face. McFee bent back the top of the can. He caught the ragged edge nearest him with his left hand, thrust his right under the bottom of the can. The lights behind made a wide arc as the sedan swung crazily into Hawthorne.
Before the lights had quite straightened out, McFee heaved the can over the wheel and dumped the oil onto the crown of the road.
The oil ran in every direction. McFee flung the can into the trees. The sedan came roaring down Hawthorne, huge and devastating behind its tremendous lights. McFee shot the coupe ahead. He abruptly turned into a private driveway, shut off the lights.
The brakes of the big sedan screamed. The car staggered, ploughed towards the wet smear that oozed towards either curb of the narrow street. Someone in the car shouted thickly, hysterically.
The locked wheels of the sedan skidded into the oil.
McFee and Irene Mayo saw a big sedan slide sidewise on tortured rubber. Twice the car cut a complete circle at terrible speed, its lights slicing the darkness; then it leaped the opposite curb and snapped off a street light standard. Glass shattered. A wheel flew somewhere. The huge car lifted itself in a final spasm and fell on its side.
McFee said softly, “Very swell.”
8
Windows were going up as McFee backed into Hawthorne. He turned on his lights. Somebody yelled at him. At the corner, he made a left hand turn; then a right hand at Avalon. He drove two blocks, and saw the St. Regis, a green light over its entrance, at the next corner. It was a fairly exclusive, small, three-story house with garages. He drove into an open garage.
“Not bad.” He laughed and looked at the girl. She was leaning against his shoulder, very white. “Oh,” said McFee. “Well.”
He took out the ignition key. There were five keys on a ring. Sliding out of the coupe, he lifted the girl into his arms and carried her around to the front entrance. No one was about. The trees in the parking threw long shadows after him. A police siren wailed somewhere.
The letter-box directory indicated that Miss Mayo’s apartment was No. 305. He carried her upstairs, reminded of an Olga Nethersole play he had seen at the Gaiety years ago. Heavy, wine-colored carpet covered the stairs and halls. Some potted palms stood around and looked at him.
At No. 305, McFee tried three of the keys before he got the door open. A little light from the corridor came in with McFee — enough for him to see a divan in the middle of the living room into which the small entrance hall opened. He laid the girl on it, snapped a floor lamp switch. The room had dim lights, soft rugs, lots of pillows, some books and a couple of pictures. A swell little shack for a lad to hang up his hat in.
One of the girl’s green snakeskin slippers had become unbuckled. It fell off. McFee saw a long manila envelope fastened to the lining of her wrap with a safety pin. He chewed his knuckle, then unpinned the envelope. “Shelldon File” was pencilled on its upper left-hand corner. The envelope was sealed. McFee stared hard at the girl. Her eyelashes rested on the shadows beneath her eyes. Slitting the top of the envelope, he looked into it. His expression became astonished. He smiled crookedly and put the envelope inside his waistcoat.
In the kitchen McFee got a glass of water. When he came back the girl was sitting up.
“How’s it coming?” he asked.
“Nicely.” Her eyes were amused but a little cold. “You must have done a gorgeous Sappho.” She looked at her hands, at her wrap and gown. “That oil made a horrible mess. Do you suppose they are hurt?”
“You can give the hospital a bell in ten minutes.”
She laughed uneasily. “Make yourself comfortable while I get into something else.”
McFee was in a mess himself. He lit a cigarette. He began to walk up and down.
An ornamental mirror hung on the wall opposite the bedroom door. The girl had not closed the door and he saw her reflection in the mirror. She stood beside a table, a framed photograph clasped in her hands. Her expression and attitude were tragic and adoring. She pressed the photograph to her lips, held it there. Her slender body drooped. She put the photograph down but continued to stare at it, her fingers pressed against her mouth. The photograph was of Ranee Damon.
Irene Mayo slipped out of her green gown, when she reappeared some minutes later her eyes were subtle and untragic, and she wore lounging pajamas of green silk with a flowing red sash. She dropped onto the divan and laid her red head against a green pillow.
“You’d better use the bathroom, McFee,” she told him.
The bathroom was finished in green and white tile and much nickel. He used a mono-grammed hand towel on his oil splashed clothes. He washed his hands and face and combed his hair. Stared at his automatic meditatively, then stood it on its nose in his right hand coat pocket.
When McFee showed himself again, Irene Mayo had a bottle of gin and a couple of glasses on a small table.
“Straight is all I can do.”
“You couldn’t do better.”
McFee sat down on the girl’s left. The liquor made a gurgling sound. She poured until McFee said “yes,” which wasn’t immediately.
As he occupied himself with the glass, a blunt object jammed his ribs. He finished the liquor.
The girl said coldly, “Your own gun.”
McFee asked, “What do you want?”
“That envelope.” Her eyes were cold, too. “McFee, I went through Ranee’s pockets just before you came back and found me kneeling beside him. He had the Shelldon file. I took it. You have it. I want it back.”