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.
“Warty Capruccio! He’s been up for murder before, and slipped clear.”
“The same, Captain. Well, Captain, you’ve got my card and you can reach me if you want to, though you won’t have a smidgin of trouble convicting Warty without me, I’m sure. I’m in a hurry now, Captain, because I’m on a job, and it ain’t finished yet.”
Sarah Watson and Ben Todd emerged from the building which housed the local police. Ben Todd was not only perspiring, he was gnawing his nails.
“Sarah, here comes a cab. I don’t know what in hell’s name you were up to in there, wasting time, setting the cops on that guy’s trail.”
“Time,” said Sarah, sententiously, “is never wasted when it’s used to bring a criminal to justice.”
“You should talk about criminals! Listen, you imbecilic old battle-axe, we may have time yet to repair the damage you’ve done. If we hire a plane, we can get there before the cops get there... Sarah, stir your stumps! We’ve got to get that necklace...”
“Bennie,” said Sarah, “you can go hire a plane if you want to. But it ain’t worth it, especially as we couldn’t charge it to Mr. Hecker’s expense. The necklace that dummy took down to earth came from the five and ten, Bennie, and it cost me a dollar. It ain’t worth retrieving, because it’s already charged to Mr. Hecker, anyway. I had it ready to drop in that poor girl’s purse, in case I managed to steal the string she had.”
“Sarah! Do you mean to say you fumbled getting the imitation string from the murderer?”
“I never fumble anything, young man,” said Sarah, and opened her purse.
Ben Todd stared down at the coiled, glittering thing in the bottom of Sarah’s purse. He had put his hand out toward the purse. Sarah snapped the purse shut. She advanced to the curb and signalled a taxi. She said: “The thing to do now, Bennie, is to get the first train out of here for home. I’ve got a date with Mrs. Adolph A. Hecker.”
“Mrs. Hecker! Why you damn, double-crossing old...”
“Mrs. Hecker,” said Sarah, “is a very fine woman, even if she is married to Mr. Hecker. Mrs. Hecker has promised me ten thousand dollars for this necklace, Ben Todd.”
Sarah Watson stepped into the cab. Ben Todd stepped after her and flopped on the seat. Ben Todd took his head in his hands. He said:
“My head, my poor, poor head! I knew before this thing was over you’d have us tied up in a mess of double-crossing, triple-crossing knots!”
“Bennie,” said Sarah, firmly. “You wrong me. I engaged to do a job for Mr. Hecker and I intend to do it. Of course, Mr. Hecker shouldn’t have lied to me. If you had eyes in your head, Bennie, you’d have seen him lying. Ten per cent seemed excessive to him, Bennie, until he happened to remember that the necklace he wanted to recover was paste, nothing but paste. Oh, well, all men are alike! Let’s see now... Ten thousand from Mrs. Hecker, and two hundred from Mr. Hecker, and expenses from both of them.”
“Sarah Watson! How in hell are you going to collect two hundred from Mr. Hecker when you haven’t got a necklace to turn over to him — when you’re turning the necklace over to his wife?”
“Simple,” said Sarah. “Mrs. Hecker is turning the imitation over to me, Bennie, when she pays me the ten thousand. The imitation has been in Mrs. Hecker’s wall safe ever since Mr. Hecker put it there, after Dolores Flores — poor girl — stole the real necklace under Mr. Hecker’s eyes. Let’s see now... ten thousand and two hundred and...”
The doors of the Citizens’ Savings Bank swung open, letting in morning sunshine. A woman in rusty black strode across the tiled floor and halted at a depositors’ window. A long legged young man entered behind her and strode to another depositors’ window. With perfect timing the two shoved bank books and sizeable wads of bills under the wickets of their respective windows.
A door at the side of the banking room slammed. The slam echoed against the vaulted ceiling. Sarah Watson turned, leaning her elbow on the sill of the window. Her bristling brows lowered over her eyes as she watched the pompous figure of the bank’s president come toward her across the tile floor.
The president came very close. His pale eyes lifted and regarded Sarah bleakly. He said:
“Mrs. Watson, that necklace you returned to me an hour ago — that necklace for which I’ve already paid you two hundred dollars and an exorbitant expense account — that necklace, Madam, is nothing but—”
“Nothing but paste,” said Sarah. “A clever imitation, but paste. Well, Mr. Hecker, that’s what you asked for, and that’s what you got.”
The clerk shoved Sarah’s bank book through the wicket.
He peered around Sarah’s bulky figure and addressed himself, in a loud and cheery voice, to the president of the bank.
“Mr. Hecker,” he said, “I thought you’d like to know. Mrs. Watson has just made a very nice deposit, very nice indeed. Mrs. Watson must have put over a very shrewd piece of business this time, I think.”
Gangster’s Brand
P. T. Luman
Like most of the authors who worked for Gun Molls magazine, nothing is known of P. T. Luman, except in the negative. He never published a novel, his name appears in no reference book, and no information could be gleaned from the Internet, where there were numerous references to P. T. Barnum, with whom it seems unlikely that there was a connection.
His pulp publisher did think enough of his story to feature it on the cover of the magazine, where it also is first in the table of contents.
While it would be untrue to compare its literary quality to that of Hammett, Chandler, Woolrich, or the other great pulp writers of the era, “Gangster’s Brand” has a narrative that never slows for an instant. Since the author presumably was paid the standard rate for this lower-rung magazine, which was a quarter-of-a-cent a word, he may have been tempted to do a little padding to earn just a little more (as Charles Dickens, in another era, was famous for doing), but, if so, he obviously resisted the temptation.
“Gangster’s Brand” was first published in the August 1931 edition of Gun Molls magazine.
Two small, trim feet, then shapely legs in sheer silk, swung below the fire-escape in the dim light of the area way. They swung only for an instant and then dropped, ten feet to the concrete pavement below. The girl staggered from the shock, and then, picking herself up, swung back into the shadow of the big apartment building, hugging the wall as she regained her breath. A wicked-looking gat glistened in her right hand as her snapping black eyes riveted on the iron door above her through which she had reached the fire-escape and safety.
Carlotta Wynn, active member of “Mort” Mitchell’s mob, waited expectantly for the opportunity to plug the guy or guys who had spoiled one of the prettiest lays the gang had had for many a month.
A shadow moved behind her, far back in the areaway in which she stood. The gat in the girl’s hand swung around like lightning.
“Stick ’em up,” she said through gritted teeth, or I’ll—!”
“Out of here, quick, kid,” responded a guarded but agitated voice, and Mort Mitchell himself motioned the girl to his side. With Mort leading, the rod and the moll stole through the shadows to a doorway in the wall surrounding the court and slipped through as Mitchell threw the door open cautiously.
They were in the alley behind the big apartment. A half-block away was their getaway car, planted there a half-hour before with “Needle” Sam Schwartz at the wheel and with the engine running. They hustled to the corner of the alley and looked around the protecting wall cautiously. The car was there, and Barry Crandall, the fourth of the mob, was stepping into the front seat with the driver.