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.
Paige led me toward a dais at the far end. A thin, mystic-faced Oriental was seated cross-legged at one corner of the dais, head thrown slightly back, eyes closed as his hand beat out that lazy, irregular rhythm from a small drum.
And then the huge, white-bearded, patriarchal old man who stood up on the dais caught all my attention.
He had been sitting on a backless couch talking to a small group of men and women. They remained seated as he drew a flowing white toga close and stepped down off the dais to meet Paige. His voice was a dreamy rumble.
“Brother, we have been waiting for you. Is this the troubled one you went to greet?”
Paige gestured solemnly toward me. “Come from the shadows to seek the Truth, Master.” And to me Paige said: “Where there is truth, there is peace. Father Orion greets you.”
So I mumbled: “Ahhhhh...”
The drummer had paused. Voices had lowered as those near us took a gander at the newcomer. And I stood there in my bare gams and wondered what one did next.
He looked older than the hills and wiser than the Encyclopedia. A big arched nose like a beak came out of the center of the beard and his eyes had a dreamy fixed stare.
He held out a hand as if expecting it to be kissed. I shook it. The big fingers were long and supple, and they returned to toy slowly with the fringes of the beard.
In that dreamy rumble which made you wonder what his shout was like, Father Orion said: “Welcome, Brother, to the House of Truth.”
“Truth,” I breathed, half-closing my eyes.
He rumbled: “Your name is?”
“The name hasn’t been remembered yet,” Paige answered for me.
A big hand lifted in a benign gesture.
“Wordly names are put aside here anyway. We shall call him Brother Rudolph.”
I started to protest and he cut me off in a dreamy chant.
“Brother Rudolph, you come seeking the great Truths of the past. The old forbidden secrets of the sacred lamas of Lhasa and the teachings of the sages long lost amid the blindness and ignorance of men. You have been seeking that which could not be found. What is it, Brother, for which you grope?”
I looked away for a moment. His manner had almost made me dizzy. I should have known that anyone who could run a show like this had something on the ball.
“My name,” I told him meekly. “I want to know my name and where can I find my deposit box?”
Father Orion looked at me like a sleepwalker. “The Truth will be opened up to you. In your heart will be peace. Join our Circle of Felicity now, Brother, and open your heart to Peace.”
Neat, eh, but not obvious. Paige didn’t help it any by turning to the crowd and saying:
“I give you Brother Rudolph, a new seeker of Truth. Surround him with Felicity.”
The drumming started again. They surrounded me, long ones, and fat ones, old ones and young ones, pushing heads at me from the togas and robes, clapping me on the shoulder, beaming, smiling, calling me Brother, giving me great bunches of Felicity as I edged through and kept a hand of Brophy’s eight grand inside my toga.
And suddenly I gritted my teeth and swore under my breath as a foot kicked my bare shin bone. Then I froze as a voice cooed sweetly at my elbow.
“Welcome, Brother. Welcome, Brother Rudolph.”
You can’t guess! But I knew. Only one soft cooing little voice in all the world could set my nerves quivering like this. I looked and I was right.
Trixie Meehan stood at my elbow with a leer on her lovely little face. The others probably thought Trixie was smiling. They didn’t know the gal. They didn’t know Trixie Meehan.
And who is Trixie Meehan? Brother, Trixie Meehan also works for the Blaine Agency. Pert and sweet, soft and cuddly, harmless as a kitten and luscious-looking to all big strong men — that’s Trixie if you don’t know her.
But I knew her. Trixie was smart, shrewd, fearless and tireless on a case. And her temper would make a scorpion blush and her little tongue could peel the hide off a brass-bound monkey. And when Trixie and I crossed trails on a case, it was usually my hide that took the peeling.
Under her breath Trixie said: “Brother! Oh, Brother!” And behind her hands she giggled: “If I could only get your picture, Brother!”
A fat lady was pouring garlic-scented Felicity in my ear and inviting me to sit on a couch.
“Madam,” I said, “the young lady will tell me about Truth — and nothing but the Truth.”
She forgot Felicity and Father Orion long enough to give Trixie a dirty look and crack back: “Where I come from, they don’t call it Truth!”
But I already had Trixie’s arm and was shoving her toward the other end of the patio.
“Listen, Ape, you’re twisting my arm off!” Trixie said angrily under her breath. “And someone will see that we know each other!”
“I’d like to twist your little neck off!” I gritted. “Where did you come from?”
“We’re on the same case, Mike.”
“Who said so?”
“Lew Ryster sent me.”
“I’ll kill that doublecrossing so-and-so! He didn’t say anything about you.”
“And why should he? Let go my arm or I’ll scream.”
She would have too. The things Trixie Meehan would do if pushed hard enough would curdle your blood. I released her arm.
Trixie snapped: “Lew didn’t say anything because he knew you’d have a spasm. And if you think I cried for the chance to work with the world’s greatest ego, they haven’t slipped you the proper dose of truth yet!”
Trixie glared at me — and in the midst of it suddenly began to giggle again. “Mike, have you looked in a mirror yet?”
“I have not,” I said. “You’d fit in a Roman bath scene yourself. How long have you been here?”
“Since yesterday,” says Trixie, ducking over to a couch where we could have a little privacy. “And Mike, I’m scared.”
Trixie looked at me soberly. And I looked back, thinking that she was one of the few women in the place who looked appealing and sweet in the graveyard uniforms they issued.
“Afraid of what?” I asked.
Trixie shrugged slightly. “Nothing — and everything. This place is guarded like a prison farm.”
“So I noticed.”
“Look at them,” said Trixie. “They’re fanatical. They’ve turned their minds over to that old man.”
“How many of them had a mind to start with?”
“Scratch deep enough,” said Trixie, “and you’ll find that most of them have a bank account. They weren’t swept up out of the gutter to be loaded with Truth and Felicity.”
“Somebody has to pay for the overhead,” I said. “Look at me. I brought eight grand cash money along, and I’ve got more in a safe deposit box if I can ever recover from my attack of amnesia and think where it is.”
“Does Father Orion know about the money?” Trixie asked quickly.
“Sister, the Master — knows all!”
“I’m trying to be serious, Mike!”
“Eight grand is always serious,” I grinned. “What’s wrong with the Master?”
“I’m afraid of him,” Trixie said without hesitation. “Mike, these people believe in him!”
“Does Paige?”
“I don’t know.”
“Both of us are foggy then,” I admitted. “The more I see of all this, the less sure I am—” I broke off, staring across the patio, and whistled softly in amazement.
“Don’t mug,” I said under my breath. “But get a load of that thin fellow with the black hair moving along the wall over there? He was looking at us.”