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.
Without instruction he wheeled the car through traffic toward the south edge of town. He kept the speed moderate until we reached the river road, then opened up and we rolled along at highway speed.
Anton spoke only once during the trip, when we reached a long, straight stretch and bullet-head pressed his foot to the floor.
“Cut the horses,” Anton said curtly.
Our speed immediately dropped to a sedate fifty-five.
A few miles later we slowed and turned onto a dirt road. We passed a farmhouse, went on about two miles without seeing another and the road began to grow rougher. Now entirely away from public view, Anton uncovered his gun and put his hat back on his head. I glanced down at the gun and got my second shocking surprise of the day. Only this one was pleasant.
They say that every criminal eventually makes some stupid mistake which ends his career. Anton Strowlski had just made his and it exceeded the criminal’s prerogative of stupidity. His neat and deadly little automatic had the safety tightly on.
Selfishly I kept the secret to myself. My right hand slashed sidewise and the hard edge of my palm caught him directly between the eyes. I had learned that blow with the Rangers, and twice used it on German sentries. It worked just as effectively on Polish-American gunmen. I felt the bone crunch and he was dead before his automatic dropped to the seat between us.
Quietly easing him back in the far corner, I picked up the gun, flipped off the safety catch and settled back to enjoy the rest of the ride.
The road grew rougher and rougher, finally becoming nothing but two weed-choked ruts. Bullet-head halted the car alongside a dense growth of bushes.
“This O.K.?” he asked, peering out at the tangled cluster of undergrowth.
“Just fine,” I said.
Startled, he spun in his seat and gaped at me and my lifeless seat-mate. Then his hand dove toward a shoulder holster. I let him bring his gun as far as the top of the front seat.
Anton had told the truth. It made a hole like a saucer.
The doorman at the Drake Hotel gave me a more courteous greeting than I deserved after parking a Buick containing two dead men at his curb. The elevator operator remembered my previous visit too, and shot to the fourth floor without waiting for instructions.
I had recovered my P-38 from one of Anton’s pockets and found his key to four-seventeen in another. Approaching Tattersall’s door with the former in my right hand and the latter in my left, I unlocked the door, kicked it open and charged in.
My dramatics were unnecessary. Howard Tattersall sat in the same chair I had occupied while enjoying my cigar. But he wasn’t smoking, because a bullet had left too little of his mouth to hold a cigar.
He slumped sidewise with one arm hanging over the edge of the chair so that fingertips just touched the floor. The other hand lay in his lap, gripping the Army automatic.
Kneeling next to the body, I sniffed the gun muzzle. It had been fired.
Rising, I entered the room from which Tattersall had phoned and found the telephone standing on a desk by the window. I dialed Homicide and asked for Inspector Day.
“Moon,” I said, when he finally came to the phone. “I’m at suite four-seventeen in the Drake Hotel. Dead lawyer here named Tattersall.”
Day asked: “Murder?”
“Can’t say. Either suicide or framed to look like it. Unless you want an unscientific opinion.”
“Give it,” the inspector said.
“Murder, then. No evidence. Just a hunch.”
Day was silent for a minute; then he said: “I’ll send Hannegan. Got to take a nap before I drop dead.”
As though bringing up an afterthought, I said casually: “There are also two bodies in a Buick parked in front of the hotel. License 207–309.”
“What!” Day yelped. “What you got there? A massacre?”
“Just a rough party.” I gave him a quick sketch of what had happened.
When I finished the résumé he asked: “Think Tattersall bumped Carmichael?”
“Possibly.”
“Wish you hadn’t eliminated all the witnesses,” he complained. “Complicates things.”
“If they were still alive, I wouldn’t be.”
“That’s not a bad idea either,” he growled, and hung up.
Glancing at my watch, I was surprised to discover it was only a quarter of eleven.
Beginning to feel the effect of only three hours’ sleep, I found a sidestreet barroom and took on a rye and water. I was the only customer at that time of day, and as I dawdled over my second drink, the bartender dropped a coin in the record machine to play a Phil Harris number. When it played out, I picked a nickel from my change on the bar and started over to play another. Then I noticed a pinball game against the wall. Right next to it stood a cigarette vendor.
I changed my mind and went back to my stool. Three coin machines in this small, neighborhood bar had started a train of thought. I began visualizing various stores I had been in recently, trying to remember whether or not they were equipped with coin machines. The drugstore near my flat had one pinball game. The confectionery next to it had one. I thought of two filling stations and a barbershop where I had noticed them, and suddenly the tremendous size of the business registered on me. I could not think of a single tavern, restaurant, drugstore, grocery, filling station or barbershop I had been in during recent months which was not equipped with one or more coin devices. I motioned to the barkeep.
“You own this place?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he admitted.
“Where you rent your coin machines?”
He rubbed his chin. “Why?”
“Because I want to know.”
“You a cop?”
“No.”
“What are you?”
I said: “I’m the guy just asked you a question. Get up an answer before I kick your teeth in.”
He widened his eyes at me, sucked in his breath and said: “Fellow named Sartt.”
“Tiny?”
“That’s the guy.”
I said: “Next time he’s in, tell him to take ’em out. My company’s taking over this territory.”
The bartender paled. “Listen, mister. I can’t tell Sartt that. I’d end up in the gutter.”
“You’ll end up in the gutter if you don’t.”
He ran a hand over his forehead. “Geez, mister. I’m just trying to make a living. I don’t want any damn machines in here at all. But I want trouble less than I don’t want machines. If you guys start squeezing me between you, I lose no matter which way I jump. Why don’t you talk to Sartt, and I’ll take whichever machines the both of you say.”
I grinned at him. “Relax and have a drink. I was just fishing for information. Now I’ve got it.”
Some of his color came back, but now he looked worried. “You are a cop, ain’t you?”
I shook my head. “Just a guy who doesn’t like Tiny Sartt. Forget it. You won’t get in trouble.”
I had the final segment of the puzzle.
Chapter Five
Close-In
I went home and shaved, ate a quick breakfast and took a cab to police headquarters. I found Warren Day asleep on the cot in his office. I shook him awake.
“Go away,” he said.
“Get up. I’ve got your case solved for you.”
He sat up and rubbed his eyes, groped over to the desk and found his glasses. “What time is it?”
“About noon.”
Sinking into his chair, he took a pint bottle from a bottom drawer, swished a slug around in his mouth, swallowed and started to put it back.
I said: “Do I drink alone when you come to my house?”