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.
Teccard waited until the doctor growled: “Kind of a patchwork job, Lieutenant. You’d be smart to take a couple days’ sick leave. That’s an ugly gash.”
“If that stuff about the stitch in time is on the up and up, you must have saved about ninety-nine of ’em. Thanks. I’ll be around, for you to rip them out again.” He picked up the keys. “I might use these, Cap.”
“Want Taylor to go with you?”
“No.” Teccard examined his hat. There was a right angle cut where the brim joined the crown. He smoothed the felt thoughtfully. “You might let me have a gun, though. Mine’ll have to go to Ballistics.”
Meyer brought out an automatic. “You can take Betsy, if you don’t mind a big caliber.”
The corners of Teccard’s mouth curled up. “A forty-five is just the ticket.”
“You after big game?”
“Yair.” Teccard checked the magazine to make sure it was loaded. “You ever go after moose, Cap?”
“Moose? Hell, no. Duck is my limit.”
“Well, when a guy goes after moose, he uses a horn that makes a sound like a female moose. The bull comes a-running — and the hunter does his stuff.”
A puzzled scowl wrinkled Meyer’s forehead.
“I’m going to get me a horn, Cap. But there’s nothing in the book says for the rest of you to stop hunting.”
He went downstairs.
The night elevator man in the building housing the Herald of Happiness regarded Teccard coldly. “Who you want to see on the third, mister?”
“Just giving the premises the once-over.” The lieutenant held his badge out on his palm. “Snap it up. I haven’t got all night.”
“Ain’t anyone up on that floor.”
“That’s why I’m going up. Do I push the lever myself?”
The car started. “I can’t have people going in and out alia time. I’ll lose my job.”
“Don’t worry about it. Everything’s strictly copacetic.”
The elevator door clanged loudly. Teccard swung around the corner of the corridor into the ell where Helbourne’s office was located — and stopped short. Somewhere ahead of him a light had been suddenly extinguished. He stood still, listening. There were none of the noises to be expected when an office is being closed for the night. No door opened.
He balanced the heavy automatic in his left hand, held the keys in his right, tightly, so they wouldn’t rattle. Quietly, on the balls of his feet, he moved to the Herald‘s door. Still he heard nothing, except the faraway roar of Broadway. He tried the key which showed the most signs of use. The latch turned. He stepped aside swiftly to the right, kicked the door open.
If there was anyone inside, the only target would be Teccard’s hand, holding the pistol. He snaked his wrist around the jamb of the door, fumbled for the light switch he knew must be there. It clicked. The office flooded with brilliance.
There was a laugh.
“Kamerad!”
He swore under his breath, stepped out into the doorway. She was sitting back in Helbourne’s chair, her feet cocked upon the desk. There was a pile of letters in her lap, a flashlight in one hand and a short-barreled .32 in the other.
“Imagine meeting you here,” he said dryly. “I phoned the Policewomen’s Bureau for you. They knew from nothing!”
Sergeant Dixon took her high heels off the desk. “I’ve been using the super’s passkey every night for the last two weeks. How’d you get in?”
He jangled the keys. “Property of T. Chauncey Helbourne. For the evidence clerk.”
She looked at him sharply. “Evidence? Is Helbourne... dead?”
Teccard sat down on the edge of the desk. “That’s what happens when you take a slug under the fourth rib.”
“Who shot him, Jerry?” The sergeant tossed the letters on the desk, stood up.
“There seems to be a general impression I did. The bullet came from my Regulation, all right. But I’d say the killer was the same one who did away with Ruby Belle.”
She saw the bandage on the back of his head. “Jerry! You were in it! You’re hurt!”
“Yair.” He managed a lop-sided grin. “That was no love-tap. Somebody dropped the boom on me, but good.”
She reached up, lifted his hat off gently. “That was close, Jerry.”
“They meant to kill me, at first. Changed their minds when they fished through my pockets, found my badge.”
“They? Were there two of them?”
The lieutenant nodded. “One K.O.’d me while I was putting the gun on the other one. I went bye-bye before I got a square look at either of them. They both scrammed. Now they know we’re closing in, they’ll be foxier than ever. If they’ve got anything on fire, they may try to pull it off before they do the vanishing act. But we’ll have to move fast, if we’re going to catch up with them. That’s why I came down here, to see if there might be any other poor boobs readied up for the kill.”
“You might have asked me. Just because I spent two years putting fortune tellers out of business and running around to disorderly dance halls, doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how to use my mind.” She held up a sheet of pink notepaper. “I dug this out of Helbourne’s private postoffice, there. It has all the earmarks. Box KDD. A Miss Marion Yulett, seamstress of Algers. Thirty-three. Possesses certain means of her own. Has a cheerful, homeloving disposition, yet is full of pep. Miss Yulett encloses five dollars to secure the address of a certain Peter Forst who’s apparently been giving her a buildup about his charms.”
“He live in New York City?”
“Can’t find any folder for Mr. Forst. Peculiar. Not even any letters to him — or from him.”
Teccard chewed on his pipe-stem. Was Forst another one of Willard’s aliases? Had Helbourne been putting one over when he claimed to know nothing about other letters from the mysterious individual who always wrote from Manhattan? “When did this deluded dame come through with Helbourne’s fee?”
“Week ago today.”
The lieutenant reached for the phone. “Hustle me through to your super, pal. Supervisor? This is Lieutenant Jerome Teccard, New York Police Department, Criminal Identification Bureau. Talking from Bryant 3-2717. Yair. Get me the chief of police of Algers, New York, in a hurry, will you? Algers is up near Whitehall. Yair... I’ll hang on...”
While he was waiting, Teccard tried the only flat key, from Helbourne’s bunch, on the locked middle drawer of the desk. It fitted. In the drawer was an empty cigar carton, some paper matchbooks, an overdue bill from one printer and a sheaf of estimates from another, a half-full flask of Nip-and-Tuck Rye, and a torn, much-folded plain-paper envelope, addressed to the Herds of Happiness, Box KDD!
The envelope was postmarked three weeks ago, from Station U, New York City.
Helen looked up Station U. “East One Hundred and Sixth Street, Jerry.”
“Same precinct as the bones. And friend Willard. One will get you ten that’s where we find brother Forst, too.”
There was a voice in the receiver. Teccard held it to his ear, muttered “Yair” a few times, added “Much obliged, Chief,” racked the receiver.
“Too late. Sucker Yulett left Algers on the morning train.”
Helen punched the files with her fist, angrily. “For New York?”
“Didn’t know. Southbound, anyway.”
The hurt look came into her eyes again.
Teccard shoved his hands into his pockets, gloomily. “All he did know — she had her suitcase, and the station agent said she was wearing a corsage.”
She showed teeth that were clenched. “Those damned flowers again!”