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.
“Is Marden Swope the killer?” he demanded.
“I doubt it,” I said, enjoying myself. “Can’t tell yet.”
He peered at me sourly over his glasses. “Damn grandstander,” he muttered.
A knock sounded and Day said: “Come in.”
It was Marden Swope, followed by Hannegan.
I said to Swope: “You’ve met Inspector Day, haven’t you?”
“Yes. Yesterday.”
Day grunted something unintelligible, then said begrudgingly: “Have a chair.”
Another knock sounded and Day said: “Come in.”
It was Willard Longstreet, flanked by two bluecoats. He looked the group over without speaking, then moved over and took a chair next to me. Apparently he had gotten some sleep, for he looked rested. But his clothes were in terrible shape and he needed a shave.
In a self-conscious voice Marden Swope said: “Hello, Willard.”
Longstreet nodded at his partner gravely, no sign of humor in his eyes.
“Swope suggested you might be an impostor,” I told Longstreet. “We brought him down to identify you.”
A mischievous twinkle replaced the serious expression in Longstreet’s eyes. “What made you think that, Marden?”
Marden Swope said embarrassedly: “It’s Willard, all right, Mr. Moon.”
“What made you think I wasn’t?” Longstreet asked.
Swope remained silent, so I said: “He couldn’t understand how you got in jail. Weren’t you supposed to be up at your camp yesterday?”
“Planned to be. Changed my mind.”
“Why?”
Longstreet eyed me quizzically. “No law against it, is there?”
“None I know of. Especially since you had a good idea of what awaited you at the camp.”
Swope asked: “You through with me now?”
“Not quite,” I said. I turned back to Longstreet. “I have the case solved.”
There was a sharp click as Longstreet’s upper plate dropped and was snapped back in place by his tongue. Swope licked his lips and watched me curiously.
“Funny thing about this case,” I said to Warren Day. “Longstreet hired me to find out something he already knew. That probably sounds silly, and it was in a way. But Longstreet couldn’t figure any other way to handle the impossible situation he found himself in.”
I paused to let tension build up in the room. The only reason I occasionally grandstand is because Day hates me for it. He was glaring at me now.
“Another peculiar thing about the case,” I went on, “was that all of the evidence was false. So to solve the case, you had to ignore the evidence and depend on pure reason. That’s why the police fell down.”
Glancing sidewise at Day, I noted his nose now shone pure white against the inflamed background of his face.
I said: “The first premise I worked on was that Longstreet here couldn’t possibly have committed the murder. The police should have decided that at once also, but they preferred to play around with weird theories about his pulling a Houdini jail break and then breaking back in again. My second premise was that Longstreet deliberately got himself jailed.
“Combining these two facts, you immediately get some inevitable conclusions. First, Longstreet knew someone was after him, and the forces involved were too much for him to fight. So he chose jail as the only safe place to be. Second, he had been framed for Carmichael’s murder. Luckily for Longstreet, his being in jail not only made him temporarily safe, but gave him an iron-clad alibi and upset the framer’s applecart.
“The third inescapable conclusion is that the testimony of Marie Kincaid was a lie from beginning to end. There never were any phone calls. Her story was prepared in advance of the crime. If I hadn’t, out of pure cussedness, pointed out a gunman named Anton Strowlski to a cop, which prevented him from phoning Marie and telling her the plot had gone sour, she never would have told the story she did. And after finally learning too late that Longstreet had been safely in jail all the time, she tried to wriggle out of her sworn statement by inventing another story which never happened.
“And the last obvious conclusion is that from the moment Longstreet learned Carmichael had been murdered, he was able to figure out exactly what had happened.”
Marden Swope was gazing at me in wide-eyed amazement. Longstreet’s face, directed at his partner, contained an expression of unholy glee. Warren Day had half risen, and glared at Longstreet.
“If you knew the answer all along,” he rapped, “why’d you keep quiet?”
“That’s the silly part of the whole affair,” I answered for Longstreet. “He has a sacred locket he takes oaths on. Before Mrs. Swope warned him he was on the spot, she made him swear on the locket that he’d never repeat a word. That left him in the peculiar position of being framed for a murder and unable to say anything in his own defense. He was literally between the devil and the deep blue sea. So he hired me to expose what he already knew.”
Day said: “He chose the devil,” guffawed ferociously and suddenly stopped when no one else smiled.
Ignoring the inspector, I went on: “In a desperate effort to keep his oath, he gave me twenty-four hours to solve the case. If I hadn’t made it, I suspect he would have talked anyway. Keeping the oath was worth ten thousand dollars to him, but I doubt that he wanted to gamble his life on it.” I looked at Longstreet. “Right?”
He merely grinned without answering.
Swope, suddenly coming to life, rose from his chair. “What was that about my wife?” he demanded.
I said: “Shut up and sit down.”
He looked at me whitely, his eyes narrowed to slits. Hannegan crossed the room, put his hand on Swope’s chest and pushed him back in his chair.
Warren Day snarled at me: “If you’re through grandstanding now, spill the works. Is this guy the killer?”
I took him out of his misery. “No. It was a good old-fashioned gang killing. Swope ordered it and Marie Kincaid was an accessory. If Longstreet had received the warning earlier, he’d probably have skipped town. But when he got it, Anton Strowlski was already on his tail. And when he couldn’t shake Anton, he got himself arrested.
“What gave me the first steer was that even after his alibi was established, Longstreet insisted on staying in jail until the case was solved. The only reason I could see for that was that he was afraid of something, and I learned what he was afraid of by a visit to the Rex Amusement Corporation and a conversation with a bartender. The corporation’s salesmen are the finest bunch of professional extortionists and killers you ever saw. They’ve spread coin machines all over town by delivering them and telling proprietors to keep them. You can pass that to the rackets squad.
“So it was all of them Longstreet was afraid of. He’d been put on the spot in typical gangster fashion. Swope here was tired of splitting three ways, so he had Carmichael killed and framed Longstreet. Howard Tattersall, who had access to Longstreet’s room, obtained the gun, probably on Swope’s promise that he’d be made a partner. But Swope wasn’t splitting with anyone. After Tattersall served his purpose, he conveniently committed suicide.
“Swope picked a time he knew Longstreet would be at his river camp alone and without an alibi. Undoubtedly one of Swope’s killers was waiting at the camp to arrange Longstreet’s suicide in remorse for having slain his partner.
“Marie was merely a tool. She’s probably Swope’s mistress.”
Swope said: “I want a lawyer.”
Paying no attention to him, Warren Day said: “So after all this circus, we still don’t know the name of the actual killer. I’m going to find out right now!”
It turned out to be Tiny Sartt. The state rewarded him with a free trip to another world. Swope got life, Marie five years, Longstreet my apology and permission to call me “Moon,” and I got ten thousand dollars for eleven hours’ work, which is nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five more than my standard day rate.