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.
“Come along,” Freed said, “and we’ll see what we can learn.”
Spade stood still shaking his head.
“I don’t want to show in it,” he said.
Freed nodded his sleek head and went out of the alcove. In the lobby he halted suddenly and returned to Spade.
“Barriman was the house detective on duty last night,” he said. “He’s sure to have seen Archer. Shall I caution him not to mention it?”
Spade looked at Freed from the corners of his eyes.
“Better not, Freed. That won’t make any difference as long as there’s no connection shown with this Wonderly. Barriman’s all right, but he likes to talk, and I’d rather he didn’t think there was anything to be kept quiet.”
Freed nodded again and went away.
Fifteen minutes later he returned.
“She came here last Tuesday, registering from New York. She hadn’t a trunk, only some bags. There were no phone calls charged to her room, and she doesn’t seem to have gotten much mail, if any. The only visitor I could learn about was a tall dark man of thirty-six or so. They seem to have been together a lot. She went out at half past nine this morning, came back an hour later, paid her bill, and had her bags carried out to a car. The boy who carried them says it was a Nash touring car, probably a hired car. She left a forwarding address: the Ambassador, Los Angeles.”
Spade said: “Thanks a lot, Freed,” and left the St. Mark.
When Spade returned to his office Effie Perine stopped typing a letter to tell him: “Your friend Dundy was in. He wanted to look at your guns.”
“And?”
“I told him to come back when you were here.”
“Good girl. If he comes back let him see them.”
“And Miss Wonderly called up.”
“It’s about time. What did she say?”
“She wants you to come to see her.” The girl picked a slip of paper up from her desk and read the memorandum penciled on it: “She’s at the Coronet, on California Street, apartment 1001. You’re to ask for Miss Leblanc.”
Spade said, “Give me,” and held out his hand. When she had given him the memorandum he took out his lighter, snapped on the flame, applied it to the slip of paper, held the paper till all but one corner was curling black ash, dropped it on the linoleum floor, and mashed it under his shoe sole.
The girl watched him suspiciously.
He grinned at her, said, “That’s just the way it is, dear,” and went out again.
Chapter IV
The Black Bird
Miss Wonderly, in a belted green crepe silk dress, opened the door of apartment 1001 at the Coronet. Her face was flushed. Her dark red hair, parted on the left side, swept back in loose waves over her right temple, was somewhat tousled.
Spade took off his hat and said: “Good morning.”
His smile brought a fainter smile to her face. Her eyes, of blue that was almost violet, did not lose their troubled look.
She lowered her head, and said in a hushed, timid voice: “Come in, Mr. Spade.”
She led him past open kitchen, bathroom and bedroom doors into a cream and red living room, apologizing for its confusion: “Everything is upside down. I haven’t even finished unpacking.”
She laid his hat on a table and sat down on a walnut settee. He sat on a brocaded oval-back chair facing her.
She looked at her fingers, working them together, and said:
“Mr. Spade, I’ve a terrible, terrible confession to make.”
Spade smiled a polite smile, which she did not raise her eyes to see, and said nothing.
“That... that story I told you yesterday was all — a story,” she stammered, and looked up at him now with miserable frightened eyes.
“Oh, that,” Spade said lightly. “We didn’t exactly believe your story.”
“Then—?” Perplexity was added to the misery and fright in her eyes.
“We believed your two hundred dollars.”
“You mean—?” She seemed to have no idea of what he meant.
“I mean that you paid us more than if you’d been telling the truth,” he explained blandly, “and enough more to make it all right.”
Her eyes lighted up suddenly. She lifted herself a few inches from the settee, settled down again, smoothed her skirt, leaned forward, and spoke eagerly: “And even now you’d be willing to—?”
Spade stopped her with a palm-up motion of one hand. The upper part of his face frowned. The lower part smiled.
“That depends,” he said. “The hell of it is, Miss — Is your name Wonderly or Leblanc?”
She blushed and murmured: “It’s O’Shaughnessy, Brigid O’Shaughnessy.”
“The hell of it is, Miss O’Shaughnessy, that a couple of murders” — she winced — “coming together like this get everybody stirred up, make the police think they can go the limit, make everything and everybody hard to handle, and expensive. It’s not—”
He stopped talking because she had stopped listening and was impatiently waiting for him to finish.
“Mr. Spade, tell me the truth.” Her voice quivered on the verge of hysteria. Her face had become haggard around desperate eyes. “Am I to blame for — for last night?”
Spade shook his head.
“Not unless there are things I don’t know about,” he said. “You warned us that Thursby was dangerous. Of course, you did lie to us about your sister and all, but that doesn’t count: we didn’t believe you.” He shrugged his sloping shoulders. “I wouldn’t say it looked like your fault.”
She said, “Thank you,” very softly, and then moved her head from side to side. “But I’ll always blame myself.” She put a hand to her throat. “Mr. Archer was so — so alive yesterday afternoon, so solid and hearty and—”
“Stop it,” Slade commanded. “He knew what he was doing. They’re the chances we take.”
“Was — was he married?”
“Yes, with ten thousand insurance, no children, and a wife who didn’t like him.”
“Oh, please don’t!” she whispered.
Spade shrugged again. “That’s the way it was.” He glanced at the watch on his wrist, and moved from his chair to the settee beside her. “There’s no time for worrying about that now.” His voice was amiable but firm. “Out there a flock of policemen and reporters and assistant district attorneys are running around with their noses to the ground. What do you want to do?”
“I want you to save me from — from all of it,” she said in a thin, tremulous voice. She put a hand timidly on his forearm. “Mr. Spade, do they know about me?”
“Not yet. I wanted to see you first.”
“What — what would they think if they knew about the way I came to you, with those lies?”
“That wouldn’t mean anything to the police except guilt. That’s why I’ve been stalling them till I could see you. I thought maybe we wouldn’t have to let them know it all. We ought to be able to fake a story that will rock them to sleep, if necessary.”
“Mr. Spade, you don’t think I had anything to do with — the murders — do you?”
He grinned at her and said: “I forgot to ask you that. Did you?”
“No.”
“That’s good. Now what are we going to tell the police?”
She squirmed on her end of the settee and her eyes wavered between heavy lashes, as if trying and failing to free their gaze from his. She seemed smaller, and very young and oppressed.
“Must they know about me at all?” she asked. “I think I’d rather die than that, Mr. Spade. I can’t explain now, but can’t you somehow manage so that you can shield me from them altogether, so I won’t have to answer their questions? I couldn’t stand being questioned, Mr. Spade. I would rather die. Can’t you?”