The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories
- Автор: Adams Cleve F., Babcock Dwight V.
- Год: 2010
- Язык: английский
- Год: A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
- ISBN: 978-0-307-45543-7
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
Black Mask was the apotheosis of noir. It was the magazine where the first hardboiled detective story, which was written by Carroll John Daly appeared. It was the slum in which such American literary titans like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler got their start, and it was the home of stories with titles like “Murder Is Bad Luck,” “Ten Carets of Lead,” and “Drop Dead Twice.” Collected here is best of the best, the hardest of the hardboiled, and the darkest of the dark of America’s finest crime fiction. This masterpiece collection represents a high watermark of America’s underbelly. Crime writing gets no better than this.
Harmon whirled upon me. “You’re a damned liar! You went out like a light!”
I grinned in his face. He started, saw that his slip was fatal. He wheeled, ran toward the door. Sam Peterson casually thrust out his foot. Harmon tripped and fell sprawling. The two headquarters men dragged Harmon ignominiously to his feet. He was blubbering as they took him out.
“So you held out on me again?” said Keever. “How am I going to cure you?”
“You don’t have to. I didn’t hold out this time. Harmon was right — I’m a damned liar. I passed out like a light.”
Keever shook his head. He smiled at Louise Harmon, who looked stunned.
“Don’t feel so badly about it. Your brother will get off with life — his murder of Waxman was only second degree because it was not premeditated but done in anger. As for the will, I must say that Waxman was really trying to make a sucker out of your brother. It isn’t any will at all. Evidently your father didn’t know he was supposed to have witnesses to his signature. Anyway, there are none, so you’ll each get half of your father’s estate, though Jimmie won’t get much of a chance to spend his share unless he spends it on lawyers.”
Louise Harmon didn’t seem at all relieved. She looked first at Mickey O’Hara, who was quietly sobbing, then at Peterson. She turned to Keever.
“Must this man be prosecuted? Will he have to go to the penitentiary for life?”
Keever hesitated. Peterson spoke up.
“Thanks for your sympathy, Miss Harmon, but I don’t need it. You see, I had quite a talk with Mr. Waxman before he was murdered. He told me something about my trial for the robbery of your brother’s safe. I was tried both for breaking and entering and grand larceny, but when the jury returned a verdict of ‘guilty as charged in the indictment,’ they didn’t specify which offense I was guilty of. Mr. Waxman said that though grand larceny is an offense listed in the Habitual Criminal Act, breaking and entering isn’t. He says the jury’s verdict would have to be strictly construed in my favor, so I’d be shown to be guilty only of breaking and entering, which isn’t a crime in the eyes of the Habitual Criminal Act. Is that the McCoy, Mr. Keever?”
“That,” said Keever, “is the McCoy.”
Murder in One Syllable
John D. MacDonald
John D(ann) MacDonald (1916–1986) was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, moved to Utica, New York, received a B.S. from Syracuse University, then an M.B.A. from Harvard. He worked as a businessman without much success, then joined the army, serving from 1940 to 1946, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel in the OSS. When he returned to the United States, he began to write full-time, selling sports, adventure, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery stories to pulp magazines and such slicks as Liberty, Cosmopolitan, and Collier’s. His 1949 move to Florida gave him access to the water and boating, which served as the background for many of his novels, notably those about Travis McGee, who lives on a houseboat named The Busted Flush, which he won in a poker game. One of the great characters of mystery fiction, McGee is a combination private detective and thief who makes his living by recovering stolen property and, while living outside the law, victimizes only criminals. He is not a private eye in the Raymond Chandler sense of being a knight, though he fills that role more often than not as an avenger, coming to the aid of (invariably) beautiful women who fall for the rugged outdoorsman. There are nineteen McGee novels, mostly paperback originals, beginning with The Deep Blue Good-by (1964). His suspense novel The Executioners (1958) was filmed twice as Cape Fear (in 1962, with Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, and Polly Bergen, and in 1991, with Nick Nolte, Robert De Niro, Jessica Lange, and Juliette Lewis).
“Murder in One Syllable” was published in the May 1949 issue.
Bullets for breakfast were on the menu for thrill-hungry Cynthia Darrold — when she picked up the right guy in the wrong tavern.
Chapter One
Paul January
In childhood there had been a sentence, a trick sentence, to punctuate. That that is is that that is not is not that that is. “That that is, is.” The sodden handkerchief, growing crusty furthest from the wound, was an actuality. It was wedged under his belt, just above the watch pocket of his gunmetal gabardine slacks.
Nor could the existence of a small bit of lead be denied, though its presence within him was more the result of circumstantial reasoning. There was a hole for entrance, yet no discernable hole of exit.
Though conscious of the absurdity of his reasoning, he tried to tell himself that the handkerchief was where it belonged, crisp and fresh, in the left-hand pocket of his rayon cord jacket. Not tucked under his belt at all.
And that, of course, meant corollary reasoning. The bullet was still in the gun. Possibly the gun was still in a pawnshop. It had looked to be that sort of a gun.
And it also meant that the girl was somewhere other than on her back in the cerise and white kitchen where he had left her, with a bullet in her head.
He swallowed hard and wondered whether his nausea came from the memory of the girl, or from his own weakness.
The sun was very warm and it was remarkably difficult to walk, as though there was no hole in the taut belly muscles just over the watch pocket, no sticky handkerchief balled and wedged under the gray and white belt against the white mesh fabric of the shirt.
It was easier to think that the handkerchief was in his pocket, the bullet still in the gun, the girl out riding in a convertible, the wind in her hair, her eyes half shut, a warm and secret smile on her lips.
Try as he might, it was almost impossible to swing his right arm gracefully and naturally. He kept wanting to press the inside of his arm against the lump of the handkerchief.
He realized he was heading toward a rather shoddy section of the strange city, but wisdom dictated that he continue. It would be rather suspicious to be looking around to see if he were followed. To stop and retrace his steps would court suspicion.
A candy store was directly ahead of him. The buildings all reached to the edge of the rather narrow sidewalk. Two narrow-faced little children came whooping out of the candy store, sucking on ice cream sticks. They stopped dead and stared at him.
“Whacha walkin’ like that for, mister?”
Apparently I am not walking properly. Straighten up, Paul, old man.
He gave them a peaceful smile, wondering if it looked more like a grimace. The effort required to straighten up was surprisingly great. He felt as though his flesh and bone had been doubled over, crimped or stapled in place, felt as though it tore him to straighten up.
The children solemnly sucked the ice cream and regarded him coldly. He went on and did not look back.
His feet had begun to feel as though they dangled inches above the hot pavement, as though by no effort could he stretch them down to an intimate contact with reality. He walked over and got into a parked cab.
As they neared the station he gave the driver a wise smile and said, “Look, old man, there’s a woman waiting in there for me and I want to avoid her. Here’s my check for two suitcases. Would you mind awfully?”
The driver winked at him. “I know how it is, mac.
Ten minutes later the taxi driver let him off at the bus station. He overtipped the man. The sun was getting low. His suitcases made long solid shadows on the dusty sidewalk. He knew it was going to be one of the most difficult things he had ever attempted. As he lifted the two bags, the sweat jumped out on his forehead and the world darkened around him. His shoulder struck the doorframe and he knew his mouth was drawn down in an absurd grimace. After he had sat on the hard bench for a few moments, his breathing quieted and he could see clearly once more.