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.
“What you want it for?”
“That’s my business.”
“Maybe I want it too.”
“Don’t be a fool.” Her cheek bones began to burn. “I’ll kill you if you don’t give me that file.”
“What’d the coppers say to that?”
“I’d tell them you wouldn’t go home.”
McFee smiled charmingly and unbuttoned his waistcoat. Still smiling, he handed her the envelope and said, “You better look at the catch.”
Suspicious, she jumped up, backed to the other side of the room, still covering him with the .38, and shook the envelope. Sheets of folded paper slid out, fluttered onto the floor. They were blank.
The girl said furiously, “McFee, I’ll give you just three seconds—”
“Use your bean,” McFee said harshly. “You saw me unpin that envelope. You know where I been since — the kitchen, the bathroom. I haven’t got anything in my clothes. “If you like, I’ll take ’em off. Some’dy’s give you the run-around.”
She stared at him, the cold fury in her eyes turning to mortification. “I didn’t look — I took it for granted— What an idiot you must think me!” she wept. And then, stamping angrily, “How do you explain this?”
McFee said, “I can think of a coupla answers.” He helped himself appreciatively to the gin. “Number One: Leclair’s putting the buzz on Melrose. She killed Damon, picked the meat out of the envelope, and left those blanks behind. Number Two: Damon had showed Leclair the file, but was trying to sell her the blanks.” McFee set his glass down. “Here’s another one: Mr. X, as the book writers call him, shot Damon and worked the switch. Don’t ask me why. There’s only one answer, sister.”
“And Sam Melrose knows it!” Irene Mayo declared passionately.
She came towards McFee, her red sash swaying as she walked. Laughing a little, she sat down beside him, handed him the pistol. McFee took the cartridge clip out of his coat pocket, opened the magazine, shot the clip home. He set the safety.
Irene Mayo said, “Oh! You knew what I would do? You are clever—”
“Just an agency dick trying to get along,” McFee answered softly.
She laid her head on the green pillow, her red mouth smiling.
“I didn’t mean to,” she murmured. And then, “Is your wife home, McFee?”
“Visiting her sister,” he said.
After a while, McFee went away.
Down below McFee hopped the taxi he had called from Irene Mayo’s apartment. He told the man to take him to the Manchester Arms, on Gerard Street. It was daylight.
At the Manchester, McFee paid the fare and went into the house, feeling for his keys. They were gone. “Metz!” he muttered, and explored his other pockets. Some letters and a note book he had had were gone. “I owe those lads a couple,” he muttered.
McFee got a spare key off the building superintendent and walked up to his apartment on the fourth floor. He let himself into the entrance hall and pushed into the living room.
Joe Metz sat in a chair in front of the door. He had a .38 in his hand.
Metz said, “Hello, McFee.”
McFee stood quite still. Metz’s left cheek was strapped in adhesive tape from eye to mouth. His bulbous forehead was wet. Art Kline came out of the bathroom in his shirt sleeves. He was swart and squat, a barrel of a man. His nose and right forearm were plastered. The door behind McFee closed. Steel prodded his kidneys.
“Don’t make any break, sap,” said whispering Monty Welch.
McFee answered, “I thought I put you lads on ice.”
“You bust Tony Starke’s neck,” Metz said.
Welch drove McFee forward. Metz stood up. The whites of his eyes showed. Art Kline shuffled across the room. He carried his hands as if they were paws. His eyes were fixed, reddish, minute.
Metz said, “Sit down.”
McFee stared at the empty chair. It had wide wings. The three closed in upon him.
“Sit down, McFee.”
The latter whirled quietly and crashed his right into Kline’s swart jaw. The blow made a dull chopping sound. Kline hit a sofa against the wall. If he’d had anything less than a horse shoe in his jaw he’d have stayed there, but as the other two jumped McFee he bounced up, shook his head, dived in. McFee took a beating before they slammed him down into the chair. He rocked a moment, then threw himself forward and up. They slammed him back.
Art Kline smashed him terrifically in the mouth. McFee fell against the back of the chair. Metz began to go swiftly, thoroughly, through his clothes.
He said harshly, “McFee, what you done with that Shelldon file? What we just handed you is pie crust to what you’ll get if you don’t play ball.”
“I haven’t got it,” McFee whispered.
Kline hit him again. McFee’s mouth became bloody. He sat very still.
Metz said, “What you holding out for, goat? This is Melrose’s town. You can’t buck Sam. Come through, or I’ll turn this coupla bear eaters loose.”
Sick and raging, McFee blurted, “You bat-eyed kite, d’you think I’d be sitting here if I had it? I’d be down at the Trib spilling a story to Roy Cruikshank that’d put you gophers in your holes.”
“Not if you were saving it until you thought you had enough to put the bell on Melrose.” Metz unfolded a handkerchief, wiped his wet forehead, said slowly, “McFee, you must have that file. And if you have it, you’re holding it with a notion of putting the bell on Sam. Nob’dy in this town’ll live long enough to do that — I mean it both ways. But Sam wants that indictment killed, election coming on. Ten grand, McFee?”
“Go paddle your drum.”
“Lemme work on him,” Art Kline said. An impediment in his speech gummed up his voice. “I owe him a couple for Tony.”
He went behind McFee’s chair. He laid his tremendous hands on the top of it, flexed his powerful fingers. Whispering Monty Welch sat on the right arm of the chair. His patent leather-shod diminutive feet swung clear of the floor. Welch placed a cigarette between his lips, ignited it with a gem-studded lighter.
McFee waited.
Metz said, “They got no use for dicks in heaven.”
McFee’s mouth twitched. There was sweat in his eyes, on his cheekbones. He suddenly threw himself out of the chair and at Metz. The latter smacked him lightly across the head with his gun. McFee wobbled, fell back.
Metz said, “I’m waiting.”
McFee did not answer. Welch dragged on his cigarette. The detached expression of his puckish face was unchanged as he held the red end a half inch from McFee’s cheek. McFee slowly lifted his head. Art Kline laughed and slapped adhesive tape over McFee’s mouth; then he caught McFee’s wrists and began to bend his arms over the back of the chair.
Metz said, “Blow your whistle when it’s plenty.”
McFee threw himself around in the chair, but the steam had gone out of him. Metz and Welch held his legs. Kline leaned heavily, enthusiastically, on his arms. A seam in McFee’s coat shoulder burst. His sinews cracked. His eyeballs came slowly out of their sockets.
Metz said, “Well?” anxiously.
McFee mumbled defiantly behind his taped lips.
“Funny about a guy’s arm,” Art Kline said.
To his downward pressure he added a side-wise motion. Welch drew his cigarette across McFee’s corded throat. McFee’s face turned green. His eyes rolled in a hot, white hate.
“This oughta do it,” Art Kline said.
Someone knocked at the door.
McFee fell sidewise in his chair, his arm limp. Welch squeezed out his cigarette. Metz held up a hand, his thin white face oddly disconcerted. The other two nodded slowly. The knocking set up a reverberation in the room.
A soprano voice said lazily, “This is Roy Cruikshank, McFee. Pete Hurley’s with me. The superintendent said you came in ten minutes ago. We are coming in with a pass key, if you don’t open up.” Placatingly, “Now be reasonable, Handsome — we got to get out the paper.” Pete Hurley added querulously, “I wanna talk to you about that wrecked sedan on Hawthorne. Open the door!”