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.
Then Captain Clyde Barnaby began to speak.
“Greeves,” he addressed himself to the little man, “we believe you are merely a fool, not dishonest. Like a lot of business men, you think you can dabble in politics with no experience whatever, trusting to your limited judgement of men to carry you through. We brought you here for two reasons, first, to use you for the ends of justice and because we believe you really would do the thing we are going to do if you had the knowledge and the strength. You keep your eyes and ears open and you’ll learn more about politics in the next thirty minutes than you ever dreamed of knowing. If you play smart, you can have the glory of this clean-up and perhaps get to be governor of the State on the strength of it; who knows? However, you have little choice; if you interfere, we’ll...” He paused significantly, fixed his steely eyes on the slack-jawed Greeves.
“I won’t interfere!” promised Foreman Greeves.
Barnaby swung towards the jurist. “An’ you, you graftin’ old scoundrel, we ought to send you to the Federal pen. We got enough evidence already to do just that, but we feel we can use you more profitably. That’s your luck just so long as you obey orders. When we’re finished, you, like Greeves, will be regarded as a civic benefactor.”
“What,” shivered Tweedie, and not from the cold, “do you want?”
“In the first place,” Barnaby went on, “we want you to declare this a real court of law.”
“But... but jurisdiction...” protested Tweedie.
Barnaby nodded. “We got the answer to that one. This place is within the city limits; a city goes down as well as up. You declare this a legal court and hear testimony and admit evidence. The first thing we want are some nine or ten subpoenas and a dozen or so blank warrants of arrests. That will erase any possible charges cropping up later.”
“You... you damned blackguards!” choked Tweedie. “I refuse!”
Barnaby sighed. He glanced at Duane. “Sergeant, will you take the judge into the next chamber and... well... talk to him privately!”
Duane grinned pleasantly, unlimbered a short length of rubber-hose from under his coat and strode forward. Tweedie gulped, shrank back against his chair.
It was Greeves who made him pause.
The little foreman sat on the edge of his chair, eyes bulging. “Just... just a minute!” he begged with a courage that must have surprised even himself; it would assuredly have amazed his wife. “Just what are you men trying to do?”
Barnaby frowned, squinted with one eye. He stopped Duane’s advance with a motion of one hand, then he studied William Greeves for a full three minutes of absolute silence. At length he spoke:
“All right, Greeves, that’s a fair question. This city up above has been slowly worked into the hands of grafters, hoodlums, mobsters and professional killers: in a word, the machine has it by the throat. Chief of Police Grogan — we have him a prisoner, by the way — takes his orders from Coxy Swarm, our local Al Capone. Tweedie here, heads the Grand Jury, tells you fellows what he wants done, but he gets his orders from much the same source. The whole mess is so rotten it stinks, yet the way it’s tangled, there’s no way of unraveling it except by cleaning it out wholesale. Since it would be impossible to do that by any known regular means, we’ve improvised our own system. We’ve got the key man of every crooked outfit in the city, got ’em here under chains and handcuffs. We’ve got Hymie Croker, the mouthpiece of Swarm and the other mobs; we got Grogan, head of the police department; we got Tweedie, senior judge of the bench and head of the local bar association.”
“What good will that do you?” Greeves asked in a strangely awed tone.
“Plenty. When Tweedie declares this a legal court of law, we’ll issue search-warrants, go through the homes, the offices and the safe deposit vaults of these grafters. We’ll find enough evidence so that the courts up above will have to act to save their own faces; if they refuse, we’ll step into a Federal court and indict the whole outfit with a Federal Grand Jury.”
Greeves was very white of face. “Is... is that the true state of affairs?” He looked from one grim face to the other and his shoulders came back.
“I see it is,” he declared harshly. “I’ve been a fool, a... a... damn’ fool! You show me some proof of your statements, something I can act on, and you won’t need to go before any Federal Grand Jury!”
Barnaby grinned. “We’ll show you,” he promised.
Greeves looked sternly at Tweedie. “Judge, as Foreman of the Grand Jury, I demand that you sift the evidence these officers produce!”
Tweedie’s skin was yellow. “These men are renegades,” he stormed. “They are no longer officers of the law!”
Barnaby snorted. “Dennis,” he commanded, “bring Grogan in, will you?”
Hallahan vanished, to reappear a few minutes later with Chief Grogan in tow. Grogan was indignant, to say the least, and tough.
Barnaby looked at him. “Grogan, take your choice; you either reinstate the four of us to our commands, or we’ll produce the contents of your safe deposit box to the Federal District Attorney.”
Grogan tensed himself. “What do you know about my safe deposit box?”
Barnaby grinned. “Which’ll it be?”
Grogan glanced furtively at Greeves, winced and looked at Tweedie. What he saw there failed to reassure him.
“Okey,” he agreed reluctantly, “you’re back.”
Hallahan shoved him over to the table. “Put that in writing, Grogan.” As Grogan reached for a pen, Barnaby suggested:
“You might add that we are conducting a special investigation into municipal graft at the instigation of the Grand Jury and Judge Alexander Tweedie.” He turned to the two men at the table. “How about that, Greeves? And you, Judge?”
“Excellent!” snapped Greeves, wiping his face. “If you can only prove...” His voice trailed, died.
Tweedie swallowed, combed his white mane, and nodded. “You may use my name, Captain Barnaby,” he agreed with a sigh.
Grogan glanced from one strained face to the other. Then he bent over the paper and wrote rapidly. When he finished, Barnaby picked up the document, read it with a growing smile, and nodded to Hallahan.
“Take the Chief out, Dennis, and bring up the shyster.”
As Hallahan went out with Grogan, Barnaby said to the others:
“You’ll listen to the conversation to come. If you feel we have a case, you can act; if you don’t, you are at liberty to refuse. This may not be strictly admissible testimony, but I wager you’ll feel justified in voting for an indictment and in giving us warrants to proceed with our investigations.”
Hallahan appeared at the doorway and thrust Croker into the center of the room. The little lawyer stumbled, caught his balance and glared at Barnaby. He opened his mouth to speak, then, apparently for the first time, saw Tweedie and Greeves. His jaw sagged, his eyes bulged and he looked sick. Before he could recover his surprise, Barnaby took over the command.
“Croker, you’re in a court of law. You know these gentleman at the table with me, so I can skip the introductions and get down to business. You are not only a criminal lawyer, you are a lawyer-criminal! The present charge against you is conspiracy to commit murder.”
“You’re crazy!” screamed the attorney. “What kind of a frame-up is this?”
“This is no frame,” Barnaby went on smoothly. “The day before yesterday, Swarm sent three of his boys out to gun a rat from the Antecki mob. You were in on that plot and advised the men to drop the machine-gun into the river at the completion of the crime. Instead of the hood, however, a little kid was murdered, an innocent bystander. You’ve got that crime on your hands, as well as others, Croker. What have you to say?”