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.
One of the Homicide men finished tying a tag to the third finger of a skeleton hand. “All we’re sure of, it was an adult female.”
His partner stripped off a pair of rubber gloves. “That’s all you’ll ever establish, for certain. Person who hacked this woman up was pretty tricky.” He indicated the cracked and flattened end of the finger bones. “Mashed the tips to prevent any print-work.”
Meyer tongued around his stub of cigar. “Wasn’t really necessary, though. The rats took care of that.”
The uniformed man spoke up. “All this mess had been dumped under the shore end of that Ninety-eighth Street pier, Lieutenant. There was a loose plank there, somebody must of ripped it up. It was near covered by muck, but we shoveled it out and used the hose on it, well as we could.”
“Including that thigh bone, we got everything but one foot now,” the first Homicide man said. “But it wouldn’t do any good to try a reconstruction. All the teeth were hammered out of that head, before it was dropped in the mud.”
Teccard bent over the yellowish skull, stained with dirty, grayish mold. “Parts of some fillings left. Jaw still shows where she had some bridge-work done. We can check the dentists, up around Tannersville.”
Captain Meyer exclaimed: “You got a line on her, already?”
“Yair. Schoolteacher who thought she was coming to town for her wedding ceremony. ‘Till death do ye part.’ It parted her, to hell and gone, didn’t it?” He turned away. “How about letting me have one of your men who knows the Eighty-eighth Street beat? In the nine hundreds.”
Meyer and the uniformed man looked at each other. The captain gestured. “Patrolman Taylor, here, had that beat up to a month ago. How long you need him?”
“Depends. Bird we’re after may have flown the coop already.”
“O.K. You’re relieved, Taylor. And if you have any trouble when it comes to putting the arm on the crut who did this,” the captain jerked his head toward the table, “do me one favor.”
The policeman touched the rim of his cap. “Yuh?”
“Shoot him a couple times where it’ll really hurt. All he’ll feel, if he goes to the chair, will be a few seconds’ jolt. Way I feel, that’d be letting him off easy...”
Out in the car, Taylor pulled a folded-up newspaper from his hip pocket. “That kid who found the leg this morning squawked all over the neighborhood. We warned him to keep his puss shut — but the papers got it just the same.”
Teccard didn’t read it. “They can’t print much, if they don’t know any more than we do, Taylor. What you know about number 971?” He pulled up half a block away.
The patrolman craned his neck. “Nine-seven-one? The old brick house? Nothing much. Just four- or five-buck-a-week furnished rooms. No apartments.”
“Who runs it?”
“Old dodo named Halzer. Him and his wife. They got 969, too — operate ’em together. He’s harmless, stewed about half the time.”
“Yair? You ever hear of a guy, name of Harold Willard, in this parish?”
“Harold Willard. Harold Willard. I don’t recall it, Lieutenant. What’s he look like?”
“Dark, about thirty-five years old. That’s all we’ve got to go on. My guess is he fancies himself for a double of one of the movie stars. Likely to be a flash dresser.”
“I can’t seem to place him. Maybe he’s just moved in. They keep coming and going in a joint like this.”
“Yair. If he happens to be in now, we’ll keep him from going.”
“We can do that, Lieutenant. There’s no rear doors on this side of the block.”
“You go on ahead, then. Go into 969. Find out from Halzer what room Willard has. When you know, stand in the door of 969 and wait for me to come past. You can give me the high sign without anyone watching you from one of the windows next door,” Teccard explained.
“Check.”
“And after I go in, nobody comes out. I mean nobody. Until I say so.”
“Got you, Lieutenant.” The patrolman strolled away, idly twisting his night-stick.
Teccard stood on the curb, tamping out his pipe. He gazed curiously up at the lighted windows of 971. What kind of murderer could it be who took such care to hack his victim to pieces — only to attempt to hide all the remains in one spot? There had been other instances of dismembered corpses in the records of the Criminal Identification Bureau but, so far as Teccard could remember, limbs and head and torso had invariably been strewn far and wide, to prevent any reconstruction of the body. Was he up against one of those unpredictable, pathological cases of sadism — where mutilation gives the killer a diabolical satisfaction? That didn’t seem to match up with the carefully planned disposition of the victim’s funds...
Taylor’s club showed, in the areaway of 969. The lieutenant walked along, briskly.
“Third floor rear,” the policeman whispered hoarsely. “Room J.”
Teccard didn’t turn his head, or answer. He marched up the steps to 971. The front door was unlatched. There was a row of battered, black-tin mailboxes. He paused just long enough to make sure one of them bore a piece of paper with the penciled scrawclass="underline" Harold M. Willard. Then he went in.
The hallway smelled of cooking grease and antiseptic, the carpeting on the stairs was ragged. Somebody was playing a radio. A baby squalled. There was a sound of running water from a bathroom somewhere on the second floor.
Over the sill of room J was a thread of yellow light. Someone was moving about in the room, but Teccard, with his ear to the panel, heard nothing else. He transferred his gun from his left armpit to the right pocket of his coat, kept his grip on the butt.
He knocked and, without waiting, raised his voice.
“Telegram for Mister Willard.”
The movement behind the door ceased. There was a pause, then: “Slide it under the door.”
Teccard kept his voice high. “You got to sign a receipt, mister.”
“Shove your receipt book under, too. I’ll sign it.” The answer came from halfway down the door — the man inside was evidently trying to look through the keyhole.
“The book won’t go under. You want the telegram, or not?”
Another pause.
“Wait a second. I’m not dressed.”
“O.K.” Teccard tried to make it sound weary.
“Where’s the wire from?” The man had moved away from the door, but the tone was strangely muffled.
“We ain’t allowed to read telegrams, mister. If you don’t want to accept it—”
The door opened.
The man was in his underclothes. He stood sideways, so Teccard couldn’t get a good look at him. His black hair was rumpled, he held a towel up over his mouth and the side of his face, as if he’d just finished shaving.
“Is there anything due—” He reached out with his other hand.
The lieutenant stepped in, fast.
“Yair. You’re due, mister. Put down—”
There was a faint “Hunh!” from behind the door, the uncontrollable exhalation of breath when a person exerts himself suddenly.
Teccard whirled.
The blow that caught him across the top of the head knocked him senseless before his knees started to buckle!
Chapter Three
Murder in Room J
Taylor poured a tumbler of water over Teccard’s head. “Take it easy, now. Amby’ll be here any second.”
The lieutenant rolled over on his side. “Quit slopping that on my head.” The floor kept tilting away from him, dizzily. “Lemme have it to drink.”