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.
“Now this,” I said, “is a fine welcome home.”
“Home?” Perry said, and gulped. “You’re back for good?”
“That depends on business prospects.” Over his shoulder I looked into the living room. There wasn’t anything in sight to make him bar my way, though from where I stood I couldn’t see into the bedroom.
“You going to keep standing in the door?” I demanded.
“Oh,” he said, and stepped back so that I could get into the apartment.
The place looked pretty good after eight months of west coast rooming houses. A decent-sized living room, an adequate bedroom, a tiled bathroom, a kitchen you could practically turn around in. The furniture was mostly bleached oak except for the daybed and the brown leather chair.
A couple of years ago I’d bought that furniture after I’d picked up some change by selling half a dozen letters to a married banker which he’d written to a woman who wasn’t his wife. The lady didn’t give me the letters. I sort of borrowed them without her knowing it, and prevented her from using them dishonestly by returning them to the author for only five grand. A couple of days later I dropped the money in a crap game at Lou’s, less what I’d paid for the furniture I’d bought meanwhile. If I hadn’t made that purchase, I would have dropped that part of the money too, so I always figured I’d got the furniture for free.
“Where are you going to stay?” Perry Pike asked gloomily.
“Here in my apartment,” I told him.
I put down my bag and looked in the other rooms. Nobody else was in the apartment, hiding or otherwise. I returned to the living room.
Perry was sitting on the daybed, with his hands dangling forlornly between his bony knees. “Maybe you’ll be more comfortable in a hotel,” he suggested.
“Listen, pal,” I said, getting sore. “We rented this apartment together. The furniture is mine. I’ve come home, and I’m staying here even if I could afford a flophouse, which I can’t at the moment.”
“Broke, eh?”
“Flatter than the treasury of a European country,” I said. “Last month I hiked a couple of checks, but on the way home to New York I dropped the dough in a crap game.”
“You and your crap games,” Perry said disgustedly. He lifted his head. “You’re not hot, Willie?”
“Me hot!” I laughed. “The California bulls are looking for a small, dark foreigner around sixty years old.”
I was a big guy. I was blond. I could trace my family back to the Revolution. I hadn’t seen thirty-five yet.
“I’m kind of broke myself,” Perry said unhappily.
Well, I was home, so I decided to make myself at home. I took off my coat and went to the closet to hang it up. I’d glanced in there a few minutes ago to see why Perry Pike wasn’t giving me a rousing reception, but now as I searched for a hanger I had a good look at what hung there. The hanger rod was crowded with a couple of overcoats, a couple of topcoats beside the one Perry was wearing and seven suits. There were four hats on the shelf. Everything was expensive and his size.
I turned to him in surprise. “What’d you do, rob a bank?”
He got pale around the mouth. “Those clothes?” he said. “A fella gave them to me.”
Perry Pike could lie as smoothly as a diplomat, but he’d lost his touch. Or maybe he hadn’t had time to prepare a convincing story. But that wasn’t all of it. The topcoat he was wearing wasn’t fit for a rummage sale. His hat was battered. His shoes were scuffed and needed new soles. His suit had been old a couple of years ago.
Yet there in the closet were all those new suits and coats and hats.
“How’s about telling Papa?” I said.
He shoved his arms deeper between his knees. “Tell what?”
The best cops in New York hadn’t been able to make him talk on the two or three occasions they’d tried, so what chance had I? I went into the bathroom to wash up.
When I came out, Perry was still sitting dejectedly on the daybed in his hat and coat.
“Don’t let me keep you from going anywhere,” I said.
He seemed to wake up. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, and stood up, removed his hat and coat and sat down.
I sat in the brown leather chair and looked at him.
After a while Perry said: “There’s no food in the house. Aren’t you going out to eat?”
“You going with me?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Neither am I,” I said, though I was. “Think I’ll hit the hay.”
Perry jumped up. “You take the bedroom. I’ll sleep here on the daybed.”
He was too generous. “The way I barged in on you,” I said graciously, “I wouldn’t think of taking the bed.”
He didn’t argue. I opened the daybed, fetched sheets and blankets, got into pajamas, stretched out. It was only nine p.m., the beginning of the evening, but Perry didn’t leave the apartment, though he’d been all set to a few minutes ago. He hung around the living room for a while and then went into the bedroom.
Time passed. A radio next door was turned on to the Giants game, and I lay listening to it. After the game, soft music came through the wall.
It wasn’t until an hour or two later that I heard Perry snore. I slipped out of the daybed.
Enough light came in from the street lamp five floors below the window to show me what I was doing. There wasn’t anything in the mattress or among the springs. The frame of the daybed was upholstered. I moved my fingers over the material.
When I straightened up to go to the other end of the daybed, my head turned, and Perry Pike in faded blue pajamas was standing in the bedroom doorway.
For a moment we just looked at each other. Then I said with a very small laugh: “I was hunting for bugs.”
“There aren’t any,” Perry said woodenly.
“That’s good.” I climbed back into the bed. “Good-night, pal,” I said.
Without a word he returned to the bedroom. A couple of minutes later I was fast asleep.
I awoke with the sun in my eyes. The moment I stirred Perry Pike came into the room. By the looks of him he hadn’t slept a wink all night.
“Fine morning,” I said heartily.
“Yeah,” he said glumly, and sat down in his pajamas.
He sat while I shaved, showered, dressed.
“Anything in the kitchen to make breakfast?” I asked him, though I knew the answer. I’d looked and found a bulging refrigerator.
“Not a thing,” he said. “I’ve been having all my meals out.”
“So dress and let’s go down for breakfast.”
He wriggled his bare toes. “I’m not hungry. I guess I’m not feeling so good.”
It would have been fun keeping up the torment, but I was getting almost as impatient as he was. I put on my hat, said, “I’ll be back in an hour,” and went.
I went as far as the self-service elevator. When it came up to my floor, I sent it down without me; then I returned up the hall, walking on my rubber heels. I listened through the door. In the apartment there was a heavy, scraping, dragging sound, like furniture being moved — the daybed, no doubt. Then a minute of silence, then a thinly harsh sound, not at all loud.
After listening to that for a while, I decided that a floorboard was being ripped up. But I couldn’t quite believe it. I couldn’t see a hiding place under a tongue-and-groove hardwood varnished floor in a modern apartment.
Silence returned to the apartment. I waited a full minute by my watch. He had, of course, locked the door, but I still had my key. I unlocked the door and entered.