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 told him I thought it a very good idea... and I did the same. I figured there’d be plenty of time to tell it later.
It ended right there. The Captain in charge, Chick Williams, grumbled to Miss Conklin: “And what can I do about it? I tell you I’ll take your crew down to the station for questioning and you tell me that you’ll have ’em out on a writ of habeas corpus as soon as you can get in touch with your lawyer. What can I do, lady? — You tie my hands.”
“I know very well what would happen to them at the station,” Miss Conklin said primly. “They would be brow-beaten, if not physically beaten. They have told you what they know.”
“Every damned one of them has stood in front of me and lied by the clock.”
“Can you prove that, officer?”
Williams admitted he couldn’t. Miss Conklin said: “Then I certainly wouldn’t make the statement. These people look to me for protection and I intend to see they have it.”
Williams went away, growling about making a check on everybody in the place and on the dead girl’s past life. And as soon as he left I told Miss Conklin what Toomey had told me. She gave me a queer stare and said:
“But you didn’t tell the police?”
I said that I hadn’t as yet...
“Give me a couple of days, Mr. Shay. If I don’t think of a plan by that time, you and I will go together, taking Toomey with us, and see he tells his story to the police. I naturally don’t want my nephew in jail if he’s innocent, though if he’s guilty that’s the place for him.”
I said: “Will you tell me honestly what you think about it?”
“I don’t think George is guilty — I can tell you that much,” she said, pursing her lips and looking like a grandmother making up her mind about how many jars of pickles to put up. “No, I really don’t.”
“Why not?”
“He hasn’t the nerve, Mr. Shay. He’s too dependent on me to do a thing like that. Rather than kill the girl, he’d have come to me and made a clean breast of the matter.”
“He did — once. When he beat the girl up and you went to the front for him and kept her from calling in the cops.”
“Toomey told you that, too?”
“You bet.”
She smiled then. “Doesn’t that support my theory, Mr. Shay? If he’d had murder in his mind, wouldn’t he have committed it then, rather than just abuse the girl? He knew then I’d find it out.”
“People can change,” I told her. “Sometimes a man can be driven just so far. And then he’ll back up.”
She admitted that maybe I was right and that she’d get in touch with me at my office in a day or so. And I left, wondering why I didn’t tell the cops what I knew and have them take the young punk down to the station and sweat a confession out of him.
He was my customer for the killing and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind about it. And the only thing holding me back from turning him in was the old lady. In my business, a client’s always right, at least until proved a mile wrong. She was a client and so I went along with her on the two days of grace she asked for. I couldn’t see it, but there was an outside chance of somebody else having done the killing — and it was just possible that she had an idea who it was.
And, after all, the cops could pick up young Lawrence just as well two days later as then.
She came in two days later, looking even smaller and more fragile. She gave me her pretty, anxious smile and said:
“I have thought it all out, Mr. Shay. There is absolutely no way to prove who killed that girl. Nor who took my money.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I told her. “The cops could take the whole bunch down to the station, and they’d have a confession in twenty-four hours. You know that.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to the ones that didn’t do it,” she said stubbornly. “I have a deep feeling about such things. Now I have worked out a plan and I’m sure it will be successful. But I need your help.”
I said I was still working for her, as far as I knew.
So then she told me what she wanted — and I finally said I’d do it. I’d argued two hours and hadn’t won a point, before I caved.
“Then I’ll depend on you,” she finished. “I’m supposed to be playing bridge this afternoon, and I’m not expected back until around eight. As I told you, I told George and Toomey that I knew who’d killed Mary Morse and that I intended to tell the police about it tomorrow. I can depend on Toomey telling the others about it.”
“They’d think it was funny you not telling the police right then,” I said.
“Oh no! I told them I was waiting for certain proof,” she said. “And that I’d find that out tomorrow. But that there was no doubt in my mind right then. So you see I’ve thought of everything.”
“I’m beginning to think you have,” I said.
I got into the house easily enough... She’d given me the key to a side door that opened into the library, and it was just a question of making sure no one was in the room and then walking in. I moved a couch, at the corner of the room, far enough out to climb behind it, then got it back in place. It made a snug little nest. If I sat down naturally, the thing was just low enough for me to see over, and if I ducked my head a little, I was entirely out of sight.
And then I waited.
Miss Conklin came in a little after nine and never even looked toward where I was. She had that much will power. She was humming to herself, as though she hadn’t a care in the world. She got a book from a shelf and sat down in a big chair that almost hid her. Her back was to the door. I could hear pages rustle as she turned them... Then there was a knock on the door, and she called “Come in!” without looking around.
It was young Georgie. And he looked bad with the black eye I’d given him. I slid my gun out of its clip and got ready to go into action. He passed around in front of her and stood.
“Aunt Alice,” he said, “I’ve got to talk to you.”
“Go ahead, George.”
And then I got a shock. “I heard what you told Frances,” he said, “and she told me you’d told Toomey the same thing. That you knew who killed Mary.”
“That’s right,” she said. “I intend to notify the police tomorrow. As I told Frances, there’s one little detail I want cleared up and I can’t do that until tomorrow.”
Then came the pay-off. The kid said: “I’m going to stay right here with you, Aunt Alice. Don’t you realize that you’re in danger? The same person who killed Mary knows by now that you know who he is. He’s liable to try to silence you. I’m going to stay right here with you.”
Miss Conklin said: “No, George. I’m perfectly all right. But I thank you for the thought. Now run along — don’t waste your time talking to an old lady.”
“I’m going to stay, Aunt Alice.”
The old lady didn’t raise her voice, but it now had a snap in it. She just said: “George!”
“All right, Aunt Alice, you know best.”
He marched out of the room, just barely giving me time to duck out of sight. Then the old lady said, as if she were talking to herself:
“Nice boy, George.”
So there was my number one suspect cleared... I was just getting over the shock of that when there was another knock and the niece came in. Looking like a million dollars! She bounced over in front of her auntie and knelt down and said:
“Oh, Aunt Alice! Aren’t you afraid? You know this is Toomey’s night off.”
Miss Conklin said: “Yes, I’ve thought of that.”
“But aren’t you frightened, Aunt Alice?”
I didn’t hear what Aunt Alice said because I was too busy ducking back out of sight. The hall door was opening — very quietly and softly — and I wanted to be out of sight until whoever it was had passed me.