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.
McFee exclaimed, “Now, you don’t tell me!”
“Joe said he hadn’t much use of a .32 and he sold it to Damon in the Press Club, couple of weeks ago. Ranee wanted it for someone, Joe said. Joe’s got all the witnesses he needs — Carl Reder, Fred Pope, Wade Fiske. They say they saw Damon buy the gun, take it from Metz. Damon paid him fifteen dollars—” Littner smiled coldly. “Maybe he did.”
McFee said abstractedly, “Maybe he did, at that.” And then, “What do you think of this notion Damon’s murderer bumped off O’Day because the old girl saw him leave the Gaiety?”
“We have that smear of grease paint.”
“Grease paint isn’t easy to clean up,” McFee said, thoughtfully. “If it’s on cloth — any sort of fabric, I guess — it isn’t. Now if I’d killed some’dy and stepped in a mess of grease paint, I’d throw my shoes away.”
“Where’d you throw ’em, McFee?”
“Well, I might throw ’em in some’dy’s trash barrel. How’s that?”
“Not bad.” Littner made a note on a memorandum pad. “I’ll put a detail on trash collection.” He pulled his long jaw down. “McFee,” he asked, “what about that red-headed girl?”
“Nice little number.” McFee stood his hat on the back of his head. “A go-getter, and no better than she ought to be, maybe. Littner, if Leclair had dropped instead of Damon, I’d say Mayo could have done it. But she wanted Damon; she had a notion she could make him governor. Mayo wouldn’t have shot Damon.” Littner nodded, and McFee proceeded. “I got another idea. The vice detail’s going to knock over the Shawl tonight — twelve p.m. Melrose’ll be there — Metz, Leclair. The Mayor’s billed to tell a bedtime story. How about it, Mr. Littner?”
Captain Littner said, “Beans!” He opened a cupboard in his desk. “What’ll you have, McFee?”
“Rye,” said McFee. “The trouble with you, Littner, is you don’t wisecrack ’em enough. Lookit the Chief now—” He took the glass Littner handed him, pushed his forehead up, pulled it down. “Littner,” he asked again, “how’d you like to be Chief?”
“The pay’s good.”
“You’d need plenty drag.”
“Yes.” Littner stared at McFee with a flicker of warmth in his eyes. “Yes, I’d need plenty of drag.”
“Luke Addams is going to be District Attorney,” McFee said. “We got to elect Luke first.”
“Luke’d be a big help,” Littner admitted.
McFee leaned close again. “Here’s a question: If that Shelldon file should happen to be found in the Spanish Shawl tonight, what’d the Shelldon-Damon tie-up do to the Melrose organization?”
“Everything,” Littner answered drily. “But it won’t be.”
McFee handed Littner the “Mr. Inside” notes. He told him where he’d got them and watched Littner over the end of his cigarette.
Littner said carefully, “Maybe I’ll drop in at the Shawl around twelve.” And then, “Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” said McFee.
It was five o’clock. McFee’s car was in a garage on Fourth. He walked up to Carter, crossed Second. The cop was still on duty in the Gaiety alley. One of the lobby doors of the theater was open. A man with wide ears and a thick neck came out.
McFee said, “Hello, Harrigan.”
“A swell dish you canaries handed me last night,” the house manager said sourly.
“Lookit the publicity,” McFee told him.
“What the hell! You pull a murder on me and the coppers close the house. I could have sold out at two bucks a seat if they’d give me a break.”
“Why’n’t you talk to Melrose?”
Harrigan muttered uneasily and put a cigar in his mouth. “Guess it ain’t my picnic.” McFee followed him towards the door and Harrigan said, “The show’s closed, mister.”
“There’s a couple of points I want to check up.”
“Go read a book.”
McFee said, “There ought to be money in this for the house. If I give you a slant on what happened you ought to be able to hang an act on it when the coppers give you the go-sign. It’d sell big.”
Harrigan looked at the end of his cigar. “A guy’s gotta be careful,” he mumbled; and then, “All right.”
The backstage was dark. In Leclair’s room, McFee turned on a wall bracket lamp. Light flowed out into the backstage. The couch stood against the wall. McFee stared at the crosses Hurley had chalked on the floor.
“Leclair was standing farthest from wall and couch,” McFee muttered. “Damon was close against the couch—”
Harrigan cut in obliquely, “Leclair was out to the Shawl when Damon — if it was Damon — rubbed out.”
“Oh, sure,” McFee said solemnly. “Joe Metz and the boys said so. It was just a couple of ghosts I saw. Well, Mr. and Mrs. X, then. Mr. X flopped into Mrs. X’s arms. They went down. Got a ball of string, Harrigan?”
The latter found string.
“Stand here,” McFee said, and Harrigan set his No. 10’s on the Mr. X cross. “Hold this against your chest.”
McFee gave Harrigan the loose end of the string. Unrolling the ball as he went, he walked some twenty feet into the backstage, stopped and held the ball of string chest high. He stood on the south edge of the lane of light. The darkness of the backstage partly concealed him.
“The bullet must have traveled pretty well along the line of the string,” McFee said. He added drily, “If there was any bullet—”
Slackening the line, McFee inspected a shallow horizontal groove, about an inch long, in the door jamb. The string had been level with the groove and about six inches to the right of it. McFee stared hard at the groove, twirled a match in his ear.
Backing up again, McFee said, “Put your dogs on the other cross.”
Harrigan did so and the string grazed the groove. McFee said, “Swell!” and threw the ball at Harrigan. “Buy yourself a drink on me.”
“Hey, wait a minute, fellah,” Harrigan yelled. “You got me on by toes. What’s the rest of it?”
McFee said, “Read it in the papers,” and went out.
At Cato’s, McFee ordered a Porterhouse steak smothered in onions. After his third coffee, he drove to his apartment. It was now eight o’clock. He looked up Irene Mayo’s number and dialed Spring 2341. There was no response. McFee waited a little, then hung up.
He walked around the room, glaring at the Evening Tribune. The Trib said two killings in twenty-four hours was plenty and something ought to be done. McFee made a ball of the sheet. He carried the breakfast tray in to the kitchen. He put away the card table and poured himself a drink. He tried Irene Mayo’s number again. No good.
McFee took a shower and got into his dinner clothes. He had wrecked four black ties when his telephone rang.
“Hello,” McFee said. No one answered. “Hello, there — McFee talking.”
He heard voices, vaguely familiar, but detached and distant and apparently not addressed to him. He embedded his ear in the receiver and waited, a fixed, hot look in his eyes.
The indistinct muttering continued until a voice suddenly cried, “You can’t keep me here! I know where we are. We are in a house on Butte Street — I saw the name — Butte Street. Butte Street!”
It was Irene Mayo’s voice that had ended on that desperate shrill note. Her voice had been thin and distant, but clear. McFee heard that muttering again.
And then, hysterically, “Don’t touch me! I haven’t got it — McFee—” A man laughed. A woman laughed.
McFee waited. His forehead was wet. He wiped it with a handkerchief. Gently replaced the receiver, and stood up. At his desk, McFee looked at a city map. He put a gun in his jacket pocket, and went down into the street.
As he got into his car, McFee said softly, “A house on Butte Street.”