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.
Rocco Pace waved to Firpo and walked toward the barrier. The hostesses made a beeline for him. They liked this smiling, pleasant racketeer who gave big tips and who really came to dance.
Firpo Cole saw the stranger in the corner stand up and nod a farewell to Ruth Bailey. He didn’t hand her any tickets. Firpo waited till the man got near him, then stood up and blocked his path.
“Well?” asked the stranger. He was middle-aged and asthmatic.
Firpo Cole said: “What are you trying to get away with?”
“Anything I can,” replied the stranger pleasantly.
“Well, I’m here to see that you don’t, mister.”
“Get out of my way, son.”
“Not till you pay her, chiseler.”
“Pay Miss Bailey?” The stranger sounded puzzled. “Maybe you got me mixed up with Santa Claus.”
“You owe her ten tickets,” said Firpo, figuring the extra two as a tip. “That’ll be one buck.”
“For the last time, get out of my way.”
Firpo Cole knew it was coming but he did nothing to prevent it. Ruth Bailey was worth a beating any day in the week. It never occurred to him to draw the flat automatic in his pocket.
The stranger’s arm came around in a wide arc that sent the frail Firpo spinning over the floor for fifteen feet. Firpo saw the stranger leave with unhurried steps, then a sudden attack of vertigo seized him and he passed out.
Firpo Cole came to on a couch in Ephraim Tuttle’s office. Mona Leeds, the torch singer, was swabbing his forehead with a damp rag and, from behind his desk, the business manager regarded them sourly.
Tuttle said: “Firpo, for a guy who couldn’t lick a butterfly you certainly like to throw your weight around.”
“Stop riding him,” snapped Mona Leeds.
The door opened and Ruth Bailey came in. “Firpo, they told me you were in a fight. Are you all right?”
Firpo Cole struggled into a sitting posture. “Nothing happened. I’m fine.”
Ruth seemed to notice the torch singer for the first time. The corners of her mouth twisted. “Well, well, if it isn’t our little thrush trying to cut in on Firpo.”
“Now, Ruth,” said Firpo weakly. “She was just trying to help me.”
Mona Leeds stood up and walked over to the hostess. The two women faced each other: Mona Leeds, in all her beautiful, slithering, scented allure, and Ruth Bailey, refreshing and young in a simple gown with a gold brooch at the neck. The one, a night life beauty with a duco finish, the other, a breath of fresh air too rare in a taxi-joint.
Ruth Bailey’s voice had a faint hint of hysteria. “Why aren’t you satisfied with Jugger? You got him solid — why do you want more? Firpo would be a pretty miserable addition to your collection. Why don’t you leave him alone?”
“You—,” said the torch singer.
Ruth’s hand snapped out and slapped Mona Leeds squarely over the face.
Ephraim Tuttle’s warning shout was lost as the torch singer sprang for Ruth Bailey, her claws spread like a cat’s. Mona’s hands tore into Ruth’s face and hair and the hostess clutched at the singer’s dress. In a moment they were on the floor, scrabbling in mute fury. Paralyzed with the fascination of the spectacle, the two men simply watched.
With a yank, Ruth ripped apart the front of Mona’s dress and the torch singer sank sharp, white, translucent teeth into the hostess’s shoulder. Long, lacquered nails clawed, fists pummeled, slipper-shod feet kicked. The wildcats rolled over the floor and, with squeals of rage, tore at hair, face, clothing.
The door opened and Rocco Pace appeared. He said, “What the hell,” and leaped to separate the fighting girls.
Their fury subsided as suddenly as it rose and they stood up, appraising the damage they had done each other.
“That’s a lousy way to act in my office,” complained Ephraim Tuttle.
“Oh go add up some numbers,” said Mona Leeds calmly. She pulled her torn dress together and left.
Ruth Bailey anxiously scanned her face in a compact mirror.
“Girls will be girls,” philosophized the racketeer. “I used to have one who tried to kill me every time I went to sleep.”
Ruth Bailey picked up the brooch that had been ripped from her gown. It was a simple item of jewelry, with what seemed to be a pale-blue piece of glass set in the center.
“Say, don’t that belong to Mona?” asked Tuttle.
“Even if it did,” replied Ruth Bailey smoothly, “I wouldn’t give it to her.” Then she walked out.
“There’s life in those girls,” said Rocco Pace. He turned to Firpo Cole. “I came for my persuader.”
Firpo returned the automatic. The racketeer tossed him a half dollar and bade them good-bye.
Tuttle snorted and hunted for a cigar. “This place is getting to be a regular nuthouse. First somebody steals my letter opener and now this. Did you hook that opener, Firpo?”
Firpo Cole was feeling a little better. The stranger hadn’t hit him very hard. He said: “Don’t bother me.”
Ephraim Tuttle’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Listen, you lousy pickpocket, I’m just asking nicely if you took it. It was pretty valuable. It had an onyx handle with silver edging.”
Firpo said, “The hell with you and your letter opener,” got up and left.
It was after one already and the customers had gone. On the bandstand, Jugger Callahan and his boys were putting away their instruments, though Monkey Harris, a drummer, still banged on the skins as if to relieve his pent-up weariness.
Firpo Cole made his way to the back, entered a large dressing-room and sat down in a corner to wait for Ruth Bailey. The hostesses were hanging their gowns in a closet and changing into street clothes. Some sat quietly and rested their swollen feet in pans of hot water. None paid the slightest attention to Firpo.
Ruth Bailey changed her stockings, which had snagged during the fight, and touched up a blackened eye with powder. Ephraim Tuttle came in and asked whether anyone had seen his letter opener. No one had and he left. Ruth Bailey finished making up and she and Firpo Cole quit the dressing-room and went out to the street.
These nightly walks, when he took her home, were usually full with the talk and gossip of the Tango Palace, but tonight, it was some time before Ruth Bailey finally broke the heavy silence between them.
“Firpo, I’m afraid.”
“Forget it, Ruth. Mona won’t get you fired. She’s too white for that.”
“I’m not talking about the fight,” she said. “I just forgot myself when I saw her by you and she was mad about this.” She touched the brooch at her throat.
“What has that got to do with it?”
“Well, you remember the night the old ballroom burned down? I went back for my purse which I’d forgotten and there was a light in Jugger’s office. I went inside and there was no one there but I saw a jewel case on his desk. It had this inside of it.”
“You shouldn’t of taken it.”
“Maybe, but all I knew was that Jugger bought it for Mona and I guess I got jealous. I started wearing it a few days ago. Jugger’s seen it but he’s too much of a gentleman to say anything. But Mona knows it belongs to her and that’s what she was really fighting about with me.”
“You’ve got to give it to her, Ruth.”
“I will. Tomorrow. She’s beautiful — I don’t blame Jugger for preferring her to me.”
“Jugger may be a nice guy but he’s a damned fool for wanting Mona Leeds instead of you.”
They reached her rooming house and halted.
“You know, Firpo, it’s funny how I’m sick about Jugger and you about me. It seems like such a damned shame that life never—”