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.
“Take that!”
But even as she fired, the dancer had flung herself sideways behind the desk. Then the hall door crashed down, and two uniformed police rushed in with drawn weapons. One of them covered the crouching girl, while the other hurried to the fallen detective.
“They got Sergeant Conley,” he said.
“You’re a liar!”
At the drawling words, the policeman bent over and looked into the twinkling eyes of the detective. Then he smiled with relief.
“Don’t stand there,” said Conley. “Lift this dam’ dead wood off of my chest.”
The next moment he was on his feet, and as he pressed a hand to his side he winced with pain. The girl ran to him.
“She shot you! I saw her,” she cried. “Are you hurt bad?”
“Naw! I got a bullet-proof vest on,” grunted Conley. “Just knocked me out for a while. Where did that dam’ killer go?”
“She took it on the lam out the window, just as these cops broke down the door,” said the dancer. “Threw a shot at me from the sill, but I did a dive behind the desk-top, and she missed. I think she went over the roof.”
“She knows the way,” said Conley. “She came over that same roof when she did for Brandon.”
At his words the girl began to sob. He patted her shoulder with clumsy gentleness.
“There now,” he comforted. “We will be catching her soon, and I’ll see to it that you have a seat right up in front when they spring the trap under her.”
He picked up the telephone and reported to Headquarters. Ten minutes later the net was set to tighten about the fleeing killer, and the apartment of the slain gangster chief was once more deserted and silent.
A day and a night went by, and Clerical Clara had not been taken. A score of gangsters and politicians had been questioned about their connection with Mugs Brandon, but they denied any knowledge of his activities, and Detective Conley was about ready to throw the little account book away as worthless.
He was idly thumbing its pages when he came upon a notation on the last page which aroused his interest. He looked closer, and then cursed himself silently for not having recognized the significance of those few penciled words before.
“C.C.,” it read. “Terry T is heavy.”
It came to him like a flash. So far as he could learn, Clerical Clara had no man in her life. Trust a man like Brandon to know, he ruminated. Brandon’s notation meant that Terry T. was her man.
That was funny, too. He knew that Terry Train was a gunman, but had never been able to pin anything on the dapper gangster. It was a well-known fact that Train had no moll, and here was Brandon’s notation that Train was heavy with Clara!
Conley called to Dick Trent, his running mate, and after explaining his latest hunch, they started for the building where Train leased an apartment. He knew that the gangster would not be expecting a call from the police, but once in the squad car he looked carefully at his gun, and advised Trent to do the same.
Arriving at the apartment building, they walked quickly through the ornate lobby and entered the elevator. Conley turned to the colored operator and snapped his number before the other could voice the protest that showed on his ebony face.
“Fifth floor, and keep your mouth shut!”
As the car stopped, he threw open the door and ran quickly to Apartment 36, with Trent close at his heels.
“Take that window, and watch that no one ducks through to the roof,” he told Trent.
As Trent posted himself at the window which commanded the roof, Conley rang the buzzer of Train’s apartment. After a brief pause he rang again.
“Open up!” he called.
The knob was turned slowly, and just as the door swung back, a shot sounded from the roof, and Trent fell to the floor. Like a flash Conley stepped in, his service gun in his hand.
“Get ’em up!” he snapped.
The slender, well-dressed man before him raised his hands, and lifted his eyebrows in simulated surprise. He was evidently just about to leave the apartment when Conley rang his bell.
“Well, what’s it all about?” he asked in a quiet voice.
Conley stepped in and clicked a pair of cuffs about the upraised wrists.
“Get in there,” he ordered gruffly. “I want to see who fired that shot.”
Herding the prisoner before him into the back room, he ran to the closed window and quickly raised it. Leaning out, he scanned the roof which ran just under the windows along the entire side of the building. No one was in sight, and as he turned back into the room, Trent entered from the hall.
“Get you?” asked Conley.
“Just a bare scratch,” said the other detective. “It was a woman,” he added.
“So Clara has been hiding out here,” said Conley.
“I don’t know any Clara,” said the prisoner.
“You better come clean,” said Conley. “We know that Clerical Clara was your moll. You both kept it pretty shady, but Mugs Brandon knew it, and left word where it would do the most good. One of his cards said you were mixed up in that Toad Wilson killing.”
“The dam’ double-crossing punk.” The exclamation seemed to explode from the lips of the dapper gangster before he could control himself. Then he bit his lip and turned furiously on the detective.
“Don’t kid me,” he snarled. “I know you bulls, and you haven’t got a thing on me.”
Conley was smiling as he turned to Trent.
“Take him down and book him on suspicion,” he said. “I’ll be down in an hour, so wait for me.”
As Trent drove away with the prisoner, Conley hailed a taxi and gave the address of Carmen Ryan. He phoned to her from the house phone in the hall, and she pressed the buzzer that admitted him.
“You working tonight?” he asked without preamble.
She nodded without speaking. Her eyes were swollen as though she had been weeping, and in their sullen depths he could see the same hatred that had been there the day of Brandon’s funeral.
“You’d like to see this Clara get hers, wouldn’t you?” he asked.
“If the cops don’t get her soon, I’ll get her on my own,” snapped the girl. “Mugs Brandon might not have been so much, but he was good to me, and I loved him. She shot him while he was asleep, like the lousy rat that she is!”
“He left fifty grand that comes to you as his common-law wife,” said Conley.
“The Club is in my name,” said the girl. “I’m going to run it myself.”
“If you will do what I tell you, I think we can land this Clara dame tonight,” said Conley.
“What can I do?” asked the girl. “I should have burned her down when I had her under my rod.”
“And you’d have got the hot seat,” reminded Conley. “I got a hunch that she will be paying you a visit tonight, and my hunches have been working lately.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked the girl.
For twenty minutes Conley talked earnestly, coaching the girl in the part she was to play. Then he left her and hurried to Headquarters.
The “Club Brandon” was having a formal reopening. The interior had been decorated according to the whims of the new owner, and was a combination of silver and old gold, with panel bands of somber black contrasting the two.
On a raised dais at the far end of the main room, a ten-piece orchestra was playing the latest dance arrangements. Unlike most orchestras, each man was carrying an automatic under the perfectly fitting dinner coats. They were called “Brandon’s Army.” And Carmen Ryan had seen them in action and had decided to keep them.
Huge bouquets of flowers stood along the walls, representing the good wishes of her friends, and those who would like to be. The tables were well filled with guests, and the waiters moved constantly about with silent efficiency.