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.
11
McFee drove towards the foothills that threw a possessive arm around the town, on the north. Here the streets went up and down like stair carpets and lost themselves in tangles of oaks and eucalypti. This neighborhood had been built up years before, then forgotten while the town grew westward. Most of the residences were scattered, set in small acreage, and exclusively hedged about. Street lights were few.
Butte, a tag-end street, one block long, ended in a canyon. McFee drove up, then down the street. There were only three houses on it. Two were dark. The third, at the end of the street, was a secretive-looking, one-story, rambling, redwood place. A cypress hedge enclosed the grounds. A side window glowed.
McFee left his car at the corner, across the road from the street lamp, and walked back.
He went up a cinder driveway, saw a garage, half filled by a dark-colored sedan. The lighted side window shone dimly in the black expanse of house and mantling trees. Curtains screened the windows. McFee could not see into the room, but he heard voices.
He heard Joe Metz’ voice. He heard Joe Metz say, “Sister, we just begun to work on you—”
McFee found the back door locked. The house was built on the slope of the canyon. He saw a basement window on his left, below the level on which he stood. The light was on the other side of the house; the wind made a melancholy rustling in the trees. He came to a decision. Holding his soft felt hat against one of the small square panes of the cellar window, he struck the felt sharply with the nose of his gun. The brittle glass broke with a tinkling sound.
His arm inside the window, McFee found the hook. The window swung upward on hinges. McFee threw the beam of his flash inside the cellar room, let himself down into it. He saw a stair, went quietly up it, came to a door. It opened when he turned the handle and pushed against it. He left his shoes on the top step.
McFee found himself in a dark, square hall, redwood timbered. He heard voices, saw an open door with light somewhere beyond it. Through the door he entered a living room with a huge stone fireplace. The light and the voices came from a partly opened door, opposite the one through which he had just come.
As McFee approached this door, Monty Welch whispered, “Lemme at her, Joe—”
This room was the library. McFee saw Mabel Leclair in a black velvet gown, curled up on a divan, eating chocolates. Metz and Welch were bent over an arm chair in which Irene Mayo strained away from them in an attitude of terror. Joe Metz held her by the arm. Her eyes were enormous, frantic. She whimpered faintly. Her lips were taped. Welch burned a cigarette.
McFee said, “Quit that, Joe.”
Monty Welch must have heard McFee first. He spun on his heel, white violence bursting through his professional calm. As McFee said “Joe,” Welch fired from the pocket of his dinner jacket. He fired again, lurching toward McFee. The latter aimed, let go. Welch’s shoulder bunched up, he screamed and went down. He threshed about, buried his face in the carpet.
Metz stood erect, his hands at his sides. McFee went towards him. Metz did not move or speak. His bulbous forehead gleamed. His lip muscles twitched. McFee took a long stride, a short one, and struck Metz a terrible blow in the mouth. It made a crunching sound and Metz hit the carpet. McFee pulled the adhesive tape from Irene Mayo’s lips.
“McFee—” the red-headed girl sobbed. She rocked in the chair, began to rub her wrists.
“Sure,” McFee said. “Take it easy.”
Welch dragged himself across the floor. McFee toed his gun under the divan. Metz lay groaning. His mouth and the plaster strap on his cheek were a crimson mess. He held a handkerchief against it. Suddenly, he jerked out an automatic. McFee’s unshod toe caught his wrist before he could fire. The gun shattered the glass front of a bookcase. McFee raised Metz by his lapels and flung him onto the divan, alongside Mabel Leclair. The Leclair woman screamed and covered her face.
McFee searched all three of them for other weapons, found none.
“What give you the notion Miss Mayo had the Shelldon file, Joe?”
Metz blotted his wet lips, whispered, “She knows where it is — you, too — one of you—”
McFee cut in softly, “The gun killed Damon was yours, Joe.”
“I sold it to Damon.” Metz’ bruised lips distorted his speech. “The boys saw me hand it him. I told Littner—”
“How about Damon handing it to Leclair?”
The blonde woman opened her mouth, but as McFee looked at her she closed it again with a gasping sound. McFee proceeded. “You went to Miss Mayo’s apartment, I s’pose. That’s kidnapping. We’ll give Littner a bell.”
The telephone stood on the table. McFee backed towards it. Metz stared after him, his eyes haggard above the red-spotted handkerchief against his lips. The blonde woman wept. Holding his shoulder, Monty Welch struggled to a sitting position, his lips gray.
The telephone was a dial instrument. Several magazines had been inserted under the receiver, so that while the receiver was on the hook, the hook was up. McFee laughed a little and looked at the red-headed girl. She nodded, her eyes hot with hate. As McFee seized the telephone, she got control of herself and caught his arm.
“What’s on your mind, sister?”
“McFee, it’s our turn now.” She spoke feverishly. “These people aren’t important. Mel-rose — Sam Melrose is. He’s at the Shawl. The Leclair woman is opening a dance act there tonight. Well, she isn’t—”
“What’s that?”
Irene Mayo said deliberately, “Metz is going to phone Melrose that Leclair is too ill to appear. Shock — anything! And he’s going to tell Melrose her red-headed friend, Zella Vasquez, is on her way out to take Leclair’s place. Melrose — no one at the Spanish Shawl has seen me. If Metz telephones Melrose I’m coming he’ll accept me as Leclair’s friend. Why shouldn’t he?” Irene Mayo hammered on the table. “McFee, you’ve got to make Metz telephone him—”
“Swell!” McFee said.
“I won’t!” Metz shouted thickly. “By God, if you lay a hand on me—”
McFee jerked him up and shook him into a shivering silence. He walked him backwards, slammed him down beside the table.
He said, “Metz, since half-past one this morning, you’ve been rocking the cradle. It’s my turn now. Do as I tell you, or I’ll spatter you over that wall. Grab that phone and tell Melrose Leclair is sick. Tell him Zella Vasquez, her redheaded side kick, is on her way out. And make it stick!”
Metz’ Adam’s apple ran up and down his throat. He rubbed his wet palms together, pulled the telephone towards him. He dialed Thorn 99238. He had to do it twice and then, huskily, “Mr. Melrose — tell him Metz calling.”
McFee stuck his gun into the back of Metz’ neck. He didn’t say anything. Melrose helloed, and Metz began a pretty good job of doing as he had been told. When he weakened, McFee leaned on his gun and Metz picked up again. Melrose put some question about Zella Vasquez.
Metz answered carefully, “I dunno, Sam. Leclair says she’s good — that oughta be plenty—” The blonde woman made blasphemous noises but subsided when McFee looked at her. Metz proceeded, “She’s on her way, Sam...” Metz hung up. “What Melrose won’t do to you for this, mister—”
McFee gave Irene Mayo his gun, said, “Watch him,” and cut out a length of the telephone cord. He bound Metz’ hands and corded them to the straight back of the chair in which he sat. Metz did not resist. His ankles McFee fastened to the legs of the chair with Metz’ belt and a couple of handkerchiefs. Metz dripped sweat but said nothing. At the back of the house McFee found some clothesline. He sat Monty Welch on another straight backed chair and roped him to it. Welch had fainted. McFee slammed a third chair down in front of Mabel Leclair.