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.
“No reason else,” he agreed reluctantly. He looked at his watch. “Six forty-five. Nearly ten hours I questioned that guy.”
“Learn anything at all?”
He shook his head. “Only that he’s got a motive. The best there is. Money.”
Reswapping his cigar butt for the one he had originally, he struck a match, then shook it out without lighting up and dropped the dead stick on the floor. “Ninety percent of the stock in Rex Amusement Corporation was owned by three guys. Willard Longstreet, George Carmichael and Marden Swope. Ostensibly Swope is president, but actually they were equal partners. They had some kind of a business contract leaving their stock to the surviving partners. So Longstreet inherits half Carmichael’s interest in the business. On top of that Carmichael carried a fifty-thousand-dollar insurance policy with Willard Longstreet as beneficiary.”
“How much of a business is it?”
“Tremendous, according to Longstreet. They handle coin machines, juke boxes, cigarette vendors, pinball games and one-armed bandits.”
I raised my eyebrows. “One-armed bandits, eh? Illegal, aren’t they?”
“Not for private clubs. There’re a hundred and fifty private clubs in town, according to Longstreet. About a hundred own their own machines, and Rex Amusement Corporation supplies the others for forty percent of the take. The clubs average about twelve machines and take in about fifteen hundred a month each. I did some arithmetic and the company’s share comes out to over a quarter million dollars a year. On top of that they service the machines owned by clubs for fifty dollars a month per club. Just that part brings in sixty thousand dollars a year, and two men can handle the servicing. And all this is only one phase of the business.”
He stopped and stared bitterly at his dead cigar, probably thinking about an inspector’s salary. “No wonder Longstreet can say ten thousand dollars like you or I would say ten cents.”
I rose. “You through with me?”
“Yeah. Go on home to bed.”
At the corridor fountain I mouthed a swig of water to clear the fuzz from my tongue before going back to Longstreet’s cell. There, in the center of the hall, I found a uniformed cop seated on a chair facing the cell door.
The sun had risen, and light streaming through a small, barred window set high in the wall showed me Longstreet stretched flat on a drop-down bunk, his right wrist and right ankle cuffed to the wall as Warren Day had ordered.
“Allowed to go in there?” I asked the cop.
“Sorry,” he said. “Lieutenant Hannegan’s orders.”
“Can I talk to him?”
The cop scratched his head. “The lieutenant didn’t say anything about talking through the bars.”
Longstreet turned his head in my direction. “That you, Moon?”
“Mister Moon.”
“O.K... Mr. Moon. Why the formality?”
“I like to keep murderers in their place.”
His tufted eyebrows rose. “That doesn’t include me.”
“We’ll still keep it ‘Mister.’ I’ll apologize if you turn out innocent.”
He pursed his lips in an expression of grudging acceptance. “Taking my proposition, Mr. Moon?”
“Maybe. What is it?”
“Simple enough. Solve Carmichael’s murder within twenty-four hours and I’ll pay ten thousand dollars.”
“Why twenty-four hours?”
“I want it solved before I leave here.”
I considered this answer from all sides without growing any wiser. My prospective client was a man hard to understand and, I suspected, not anxious to be understood.
“Why don’t you leave now?” I asked. “All you have to do is post bond.”
Gazing up at me blandly, he handed me one of the screwiest answers I have ever gotten from a client. “Want to catch up on my sleep.”
For a moment I watched him speculatively, forming new questions in my mind. But having a hunch that even a thousand well-phrased questions would get nothing more from him about why he stayed in jail, I changed tack.
I said: “Suppose I take the case and you turn out to be the murderer?”
“Would I hire you if I were?” he asked. “I could get out of here in ten minutes by posting bond. And with my alibi I could bust Warren Day right out of a job if he booked me for murder. He knows it, too.”
I thought this over and saw the logic of it. “All right. I’ll go along. But I can’t work in the dark. I want better answers than you gave the inspector.”
He glanced at the guard. “Not with a cop listening in.”
I turned to the cop, who was silently taking down everything we said in shorthand.
“Oh, a spy!” I said. “Run down the hall where you can watch without hearing. I want a confidential talk with my client.”
His head moved back and forth sidewise. “The lieutenant said keep my eyes on him.”
“Gonna make me get a lawyer?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I told Longstreet.
Warren Day was still in his office, morosely puffing on an actually lighted cigar.
“Thought you went home,” he said.
“Been talking to Longstreet. He’s willing to tell me things if you move the big-eared cop from in front of his cell.”
“Yeah?” His eyes narrowed. “You take his ten-thousand-dollar proposition?”
“Depends on what he has to say,” I evaded.
“If I move the guard, will you tell me what he spills?”
I shrugged. “That’s up to him. He has the right of confidence as my client, if I listen to him.”
Day shook his head. “No sale. Go home and go to bed.”
I took out my check book. “You said five hundred, didn’t you?”
The Inspector’s nose, which was the barometer of his blood pressure, whitened at the tip, indicating that he was irked. When the whole organ paled, it meant he was boiling.
“You post bond,” he said, “and I’ll charge him with murder!”
Spreading the check book on his desk, I reached for his desk pen. He slapped aside my hand.
“Put it up, damn you! I’ll give you five minutes.”
He slammed back his chair and made for the door. By the time we reached Longstreet’s cell, the inspector’s nose was dead white.
“You!” Day growled at the guard. “Post yourself at the end of the hall and keep your eye on this excuse for a private detective. He gets five minutes. If he passes anything through the bars, shoot him. Kill him and I’ll make you a sergeant.”
He wheeled and marched back to his den.
“You certainly get your way around here,” Longstreet said admiringly. “How’d you swing that?”
“Stow the blarney,” I said. “We’ve got five minutes. Spill it fast.”
With his free hand he fumbled at his shirt front and drew out a locket on a chain.
“See this?”
I nodded.
“A girl gave me this when I was seventeen. Twenty-seven years ago. It’s the only thing in the world I got any sentiment about.”
“Your wife?”
“I’m a bachelor.” He paused to peer down at the locket as it lay on his chest. “This locket got me a local reputation. Ask my partners... or the one who’s left, Marden Swope. Ask our secretary, Marie Kincaid. Ask anybody knows me well. They’ll all tell you when I swear on this locket, it’s God’s own truth. I’d cut off my nose before I’d tell a lie on this locket.”
“All right,” I said. “Get to the point.”
He put his hand over the locket. “On the memory of her who gave it to me, I swear I didn’t kill Carmichael.”
“I’m deeply impressed,” I said. “We have three minutes left.”
“Ask anything you want.” He pushed the locket back in his shirt.