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.
“I know all about it,” he cut in harshly. “You didn’t tell me what you’re afraid of.”
“Firpo, someone — I don’t know who — put five hundred dollars in my purse tonight.”
He whistled. “That’s a lot of money.”
She reached into her coat pocket. “This is what the money came in.”
He took a plain, white envelope from her hand and read the typewritten line on it: This better be enough.
Under a lamplight, Firpo Cole’s prematurely weazened face was lost in thought. After a while he returned the envelope to her and said: “You better hold on to this and the dough. You didn’t see anyone messing around with your purse tonight?”
“No — but of course anyone could have gotten at it in the dressing-room.”
“Has anything like this happened before?”
“No.”
“Well, all I can figure, Ruth, is that someone’s mixing you up with somebody else. I’ll try and check tomorrow.”
“There’s another thing, Firpo. You know that man you had a fight with today?”
“What about him?”
“He said not to tell anybody but he’s a detective from an insurance company. They think that fire wasn’t an accident. He knows I came back that night after everyone was gone and he asked me a lot of questions about it.”
Firpo Cole shrugged. “If that fire’s faked it’s Jugger’s worry — not yours. He got the insurance dough from it.”
“I know Jugger wouldn’t do a thing like that. Something’s wrong, Firpo. I’m afraid.”
“Forget it, Ruth.”
She leaned over and kissed him full on the lips. “You’re swell, Firpo. I’m sorry we don’t hit it off together.”
“Sure,” said Firpo Cole. “I’m swell.” He turned abruptly and made for his own lodgings.
Chapter Two
Dead Feet
There was hard and insistent rapping on the door panel. After some time, the steady pounding had its effect. Firpo Cole stirred uneasily in his sleep, then awoke with a start.
He groped for the light chain above his bed and the light revealed a small, unkempt, five-dollar-a-week room. He knuckled his eyes, then peered at a clock on the dresser but found that he had forgotten to wind it. Through the window he could see the first streaks of dawn. The pounding on the door did not let up.
Firpo Cole disentangled himself from the bed covers, worked his feet into straw slippers and opened the door. Two men entered. He knew one — a plainclothes police dick named Simms. The other was a uniformed cop.
Simms said, “Go to it, Max,” and the uniformed cop began a somewhat perfunctory search of the room. The dick sat down on the bed. “How you getting along, Firpo?”
“Fine,” replied Firpo Cole. “And you?”
“Just dandy, thanks. Have you been picking pockets lately, Firpo?”
“No.”
“That’s swell. Your record ain’t so good on the blotter, is it?”
“I lost once.”
“I remember, Firpo. Meatball rap. Two years in college, wasn’t it?”
“One year. What is this, Simms — a frame?”
The police dick shook his head. “Nope. I’ve just been checking on you, Firpo. I’m glad you’re going straight. What time did you check in last night?”
“I came home around two or a little after.”
“Go out again?”
“No.”
“How do you pay for your room and grits, Firpo?”
“I do odd jobs around the Tango Palace.”
Simms nodded sagely. “So I hear. I also hear you’re carrying a torch for one of the dames that works there — a Ruth Bailey — and that she won’t give you a tumble because she got a yen for Jugger Callahan.”
“What are you driving at, Simms?”
Max was finished with his cursory examination of the room. “Nothing,” he grunted.
Simms shrugged. “There’s nothing to find anyway. It’s open and shut.” He turned to Firpo again. “I’ll tell you what I’m driving at. That Ruth Bailey of yours was murdered a couple of hours ago.”
“If you’re being funny,” said Firpo Cole tonelessly, “I’ll kill you, Simms.”
Simms said: “Sure I’m being funny. Me and Max come here only to have tea and crumpets.”
Firpo’s eyes searched the police dick’s face. He saw that Simms was speaking the truth. Suddenly he felt sick. He got up and stumbled through the door, across the hallway, to the washroom. He kneeled over the bowl and the fleshless body shook and strained convulsively.
Simms cautioned, “Don’t let the guy pull any fast one,” and Max walked over to the open door and watched till Firpo returned.
Simms said: “I figure it this way, Firpo. Tell me if I get the details wrong. You were after Ruth Bailey but there was no sale because she was hot for this Jugger Callahan. So you got fed up with the whole business and went and killed her.”
“I didn’t kill her.” He began to tremble and a fit of coughing seized him. He covered his mouth with a towel and when he took it away there were flecks of blood on it. “I didn’t kill her,” he repeated.
Simms said: “It probably just slipped your mind, Firpo. I guess we can make you remember again. Get some duds on that gorgeous torso of yours and come along.”
The prowl car stopped at the rooming house of the late Ruth Bailey. The sun was already showing itself and supplanting the coolness of a Los Angeles night with a dry desert heat.
Simms, Max and Firpo Cole went up the two flights of groaning steps and entered Ruth Bailey’s small apartment. The place had already been dusted and photoed and the few department men who remained sat around yawning and wishing they were home in bed. A couple of bored reporters were handicapping the Caliente races and exhibiting a complete disinterest in this murder of a taxi dance hall hostess.
The body lay on the floor where it had fallen. Simms yanked off the bed sheet that covered it and said: “Come here.”
Firpo Cole walked over and stared down on Ruth Bailey. He thought he would be sick again but the feeling passed. She wore the same dress, and the brooch that Jugger had bought for Mona Leeds was still clasped at her neck. The steel point of Ephraim Tuttle’s stolen letter opener was buried deep in her heart.
But Firpo was looking neither at the brooch nor the murder weapon. His eyes were fastened on the dead lips and the heavy coloring of lipstick over them — and on the strange shading of tangerine.
As if from a great distance, Firpo heard Simms’ matter-of-fact voice saying: “Take a good look at what you done and then see if you still got the crust to deny it.”
Firpo Cole gave a queer, strangled gasp and sank down on his knees beside the body. His hand went out and caressed Ruth Bailey’s neck and he bent over and kissed her on the forehead. Behind him, a flashlight bulb exploded.
After a while, Firpo stood up. His eyes were dry and had a strange glint of understanding in them and the white, unhealthy face was set with rocky determination.
Simms said: “You did a pretty messy job, didn’t you? Do you feel like talking about it now?”
“I didn’t do it.”
“No? Then who did?”
Firpo Cole was sure he knew. Jugger Callahan! It couldn’t be anyone else. But his face gave no inkling of his thought. He would get at the truth — and when he did, no one but he would have the pleasure of dealing with the murderer. He said: “I didn’t do this, Simms. I would of killed myself for even thinking of doing it.”
Max gave a yell and pointed at the body. “It’s gone!”
They followed the cop’s fingers. The brooch that had been clasped at Ruth Bailey’s neck was missing.