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
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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.
“Black Legion” was first published in the October 1936 issue of Saucy Romantic Adventures.
Chapter One
Threatened
Ellen Patrick, radiantly youthful and possessed of that intangible something which lends allure to some fortunate women, rose from the crimson chaise longue.
Pink-nailed fingers patted her perfect sun-touched coiffure and straightened the blue silken kimono that she wore. She smiled up into the dark, good-looking features of a man.
“You must be very careful, Paul,” she breathed softly, “I’m afraid this is more than a mere threat. That Black Legion wouldn’t hesitate to kill you, you know.”
She laughed nervously, stepped closer to his side. The man could see the tiny fires of interest blazing deep in her great brown eyes, and he laid a caressing hand upon the heated velvet that was her rounded shoulder.
Paul Cathern flashed white teeth in an engaging grin. He was of medium height, slender, wiry, and possessed more than his share of vibrant magnetism. Astutely fearless, he was known as one of the most successful special investigators working out of the sheriff’s office. His deep voice was low, passionate.
“You’re sweet, Ellen!” he told her, his gray eyes frankly admiring her sensuous figure, set off as it was by the filmy kimono. Lovely bosom, lithe thighs, slender calves, trim ankles, dainty feet.
His grin widened.
“Of course, I’ll be careful, honey. It’s part of my job. But they can’t scare or bluff me off! I’m out to get the goods on this outfit, and I’m not quitting cold when success is in sight! Why, the information on the Obispo rendezvous alone gives me a swell chance of rounding up some of the ringleaders.”
Ellen quivered within the depths of her being. Paul Cathern had long been an intimate friend, and more. She admired him greatly, loved him not a little. Now, the mysterious Black Legion threatened his life because of his activities as investigator into their atrocities along the Pacific Coast! Theirs was no idle threat.
Already two detectives had been cruelly tortured by black-hooded creatures. Another had mysteriously vanished without a trace. And judging from their cowardly ultimatum delivered to Cathern’s apartment a few hours previously, the young sleuth was to be next on their list!
Ellen’s brown eyes were filmed with worry as she walked to the door with her caller. There, she lifted her moist, red lips for his goodnight kiss. As Cathern bent his dark head to the pale oval of her face, he clasped her in his arms. She laughed softly at his hungry zeal.
“You’re sweet, Ellen!” he repeated, huskily, gazing into her eyes. The little adventuress thrilled to the touch of his hands and the caress of his long fingers.
She couldn’t resist liking the possessive embrace of his arm about her pliant waist as Cathern drew her close to him. Her ductile curves were flattened against him, and she experienced an emotion that was strangely new to her! She returned the kiss as his lips were pressed to the ripe contours of her cerise mouth.
“I’ll be seeing you in a couple of days, Ellen,” he whispered as he reluctantly released her, and opened the door.
“As soon as I’ve investigated that hide-out a bit further, I’ll have some good news for you, I hope. Keep sweet, honey.” And he was gone.
Ellen did not move for a little while. Her agile brain was clicking rapidly over the details of the disclosures concerning the Black Legion which Paul Cathern had given her.
Her piquant face was grim as she moved sensuously over the deep-piled rug, procured a cigarette from a black and silver box which stood on an end table, and lighted it. Filling her lungs with the fragrant smoke, she began to pace back and forth with feline grace, her racing mind sorting and filing the information she had obtained.
Ellen Patrick, known in certain circles through California as The Domino Lady, was nearing twenty-three.
Just tall enough to be majestic, with a figure whose curves set men’s pulses hammering, her beautiful rounded features, crowned by a coronet of silky, golden curls, often graced the rotogravure supplements of the Sunday newspapers as one of the Southland’s prettiest debs. Yet no one connected Ellen Patrick with the notorious Domino Lady!
Her father, Owen Patrick, had been the czar of California politics at one time.
A murderer’s cowardly bullet had cut him down in his prime some three years before. Rumor was that the killer had been an employee of the state political machine. A small trust fund, and a wealth of wit and courage, had been his bequeathal to his lovely, orphaned daughter.
Previous to her father’s brutal slaying, Ellen had lived a life of comparative ease as befitted the only child of Owen Patrick.
She had graduated at Berkeley, spent several glorious months in the Far East, and then an assassin’s slug had robbed her of the one who meant more to her than life itself! Small wonder that her life had been dedicated to a campaign of vengeance against the murderers of her parent!
Ruthless, roguish, Ellen at times accepted almost impossible undertakings simply for the sake of friendship and an inordinate craving for adventure! For example, her recent exploits in Santa Anita, in which she had matched wits and daring with the notorious Kilgarlin gang, and emerged victorious.
At other times she was coldly involved in hazardous schemes, aimed at the discomfiture and embarrassment of the authorities whom she blamed for her father’s death, at the same time earning a princely income, most of which was donated to a worthy charity.
Oft-times, her adventures were so arranged as to encompass both the friendship and vengeance angles, and those were the ones in which she gloried, particularly.
Only a short time ago, she had retrieved a packet of compromising letters for a friend in a daring raid upon the penthouse apartment of Rob Wyatt, aspirant for political honors, and at the same time had bluffed the big game hunter and politician into a state of oblivion!
A unique black and white, or white and black ensemble was widely recognized as The Domino Lady’s costume, and mention of it in certain circles was always productive of inward shudders! No vulpine politician or unscrupulous crook in all California wanted any part of The Domino Lady!
Now, as she moved back and forth about the beautifully-furnished apartment, Ellen was prodding her keen mind, searching for some method by which she could aid Paul Cathern in his struggle with the Black Legion, and perhaps save his life.
The special investigator had confided in Ellen, never dreaming that he was betraying secrets to the formidable Domino Lady! Without a doubt, leading politicians (some of them Ellen’s sworn enemies) were members of the feared organization, according to Cathern, and especially was he convinced that this was true in the case of J. Riggs Saint, the district attorney.