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.
“Halfway to the back door, she collapsed. I got her inside, found the lights, made coffee for her. The house was deserted. After she had the coffee, she locked herself in the bathroom and took a long shower. Then she joined me in the kitchen and we drank coffee and talked. It was a strange talk. We covered psychological and philosophical concepts that were way over our heads. We were impersonal with each other, if you can believe that.”
“I can believe it,” Doris Logan said quietly.
“In the small hours of the morning she went to bed. I slept on a couch in the front room, with her permission. It was all very platonic. In the morning she was going to drive me down to the center of the city and I would find a hotel, clean up and make my appointment.
“She was worn out, I guess. She slept very late and I didn’t want to disturb her. I was up about nine and I debated leaving quietly. I guess I should have. But, I liked Cynthia, and I wanted to say goodby to her properly.
“It must have been close to noon when she got up. She came out in a coral housecoat, and she looked years younger than she had the night before. We kidded around about the rejuvenating aspects of turning over a new leaf. I asked her while we were eating breakfast whether she would find a job. She said that she had enough money to keep herself for some time, and that most of all she wanted to go to some quiet place.
“After we ate, I helped her carry the few dishes to the kitchen sink and she washed them. I was on the far side of the kitchen.
“There was a sound, and I thought that she had pushed a book off the kitchen shelf and that it had fallen flat on the linoleum. It was that sort of sound. I looked over at her and she was bending over the sink, her face almost touching the faucets. I thought that very strange. There was a funny smell of fireworks in the air.
“As I watched her, her knees bent and she slid down, falling over onto her back. My mind was working slowly, but when I saw her face and her eyes, I knew she was dead. There was a faint sound off to my right. I turned quickly and something hot and small and hard hit me just over the watch pocket. I staggered back and my heel caught in a throw rug and I fell heavily. Something clattered on the floor.
“The thing which had hit me gave me cramps. Gasping, I got to my feet. I was bleeding. I looked at the small ugly hole in myself and balled my handkerchief and wedged it under my belt against the hole. The thing which had clattered was a gun. It was nearly under the kitchen table. I walked to the window. The curtains blew in the breeze. There was no one outside.
“I draw a blank for the next few moments. I was walking toward the city. I can remember funny little snatches. Kids sucking on ice cream. An old guy with a pint bottle. Telling a lie to a cabdriver. I bought a bus ticket to some place called Rockwarren. Now I know that I was silly to run. If you’ll drive me into town...”
Doris Logan’s wide and generous mouth had a set look about it. “Wait a minute, Paul. This is an illogical world which feels itself to be supremely logical. Let’s play cop for a little while. Man goes home with Cynthia. Cynthia dies. Man leaves. Just for a moment let us assume that there are no prints on the gun, that the gun is not traceable. Also assume that whoever killed the fair Cynthia has a very solid alibi. The newspapers will try you before the court does. It won’t be pretty. And the average person would find it a bit hard to think of you and Cynthia having a good old-fashioned bull session, all very palsy.”
Paul January felt all the comfort drain out of the morning. He listened to his own story from the viewpoint of a policeman — and found it thin indeed. Thin and more than a bit ridiculous. He saw for the first time that even had he remained at Cynthia’s house and phoned the police, he would have come in for more than a trace of suspicion. And having run away made it far, far worse.
He glanced at Doris. Her capable hands were resting on the arms of the porch chair, but they were not relaxed. The knuckles were white.
She got up suddenly and went into the cabin. “Right back,” she said.
He waited. The morning was quiet. He heard a gasp of pain from inside the cabin. He stood up and went in.
Doris Logan stood by the kitchen sink, her face pale. Blood ran down her arm from a deep gash just above her elbow.
“What happened!” he cried.
She managed to smile. “It was a shade deeper than I wanted to cut,” she said. “Stop jittering for a minute and help me. Pick up that gauze pad by the corner and put it lengthwise along the cut. Fine. Now tear off an adhesive strip three inches long. Right across here. Now another. Three ought to hold it.”
With the cut bandaged, she cleaned the blood from her forearm.
Before he could ask her, she said, “Look here, Paul. I left the bus station and went to a drugstore. I bought a few things. If they traced you to the bus, they might connect the two of us. And that means I need a reason for the purchases I made. Infected arm. See?” She grinned and held out the bandaged arm.
He took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. Her odd red hair fell across her eyes and she blew it out of the way with a protruding underlip.
“Fine!” he said. “The boss takes charge. You decide that I’m going to keep right on running. Wouldn’t it have been nice to let me know?”
Anger faded as he grew conscious of the warmth of her bare shoulders under his hands. He was suddenly impressed with her unusual loveliness. He pulled her close and kissed her.
He released her, feeling extremely shy. She did not meet his glance. Awkwardness was between them, like the faltering lines in a poor play.
She broke the tension by saying, “Pretty rigorous stuff for the walking wounded, Mr. J.”
He reached for her again. She put her hands against his chest and pushed. Firmly. “Don’t let my self-mutilation go for nothing. We are going to make you a woodsy nest. You and your suitcases. Off in the brush. And then I am going into town and find out the current status.”
Chapter Six
De Wolfe Haggard
When he thought of himself, which was frequently and with delight, he became the lean, suave and sober district attorney who not only shows the humble police the error of their ways, but concocts a courtroom boomerang that fells the mighty. The big trouble was that the police, notably that vulgar Lieutenant Krobey, insisted on treating him as though he were a frail substitute trying to make the first team.
Whenever De Wolfe thought of Krobey, he flexed his muscles and imagined a series of violent gestures ending in Krobey falling backward across a table to lie huddled and silent on the floor. It was too bad that there was no way to prove Krobey guilty of a crime. Also it was too bad that Krobey was so — muscular.
Take the way Krobey had acted with that beautiful Doris Logan. Anyone could see that she was not, of all things, a liar. What if someone had seen her talking to the suspect on the bus? Was Doris Logan the type to make a cheap pickup the way Cynthia Darrold did? Of course not!
It was infuriatingly stupid the way Krobey had made her repeat her story over and over again. When De Wolfe shut his eyes he could still see her intent face.
“Yes, Lieutenant, I spoke to him on the bus. He asked me how long it would take to get to Rockwarren. He was quite drunk. No, his face was shadowed. I really couldn’t tell you what he looked like. He was young and I think his face was plump and his hair was blond.”
“But Mrs. Morgantine said the man had a lean face and dark hair.”