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.
“I say you’re nuts!” shouted Croker, waving his arms. “You can’t prove a damn’ thing!” He swung on the white-haired jurist. “You can’t get away with this, Tweedie! I’ll have...”
The Honorable Tweedie was caught between two fires, but he scented the direction of the wind and proved his diplomacy.
“Are those things true, Counselor?” he demanded heavily.
Croker gasped. “You can’t get away with this!” he reiterated, but his tone was beginning to lack conviction.
Greeves asked: “Can you prove...?”
Barnaby grunted. “One of the guns — a hood named Rieg — confessed to the whole thing. He told us Swarm ordered them out after a conference with Croker.”
“You tortured Rieg!” Croker interrupted hysterically. “You can’t use that kind of testimony...”
“He talked,” Barnaby went on grimly. “After they killed the baby, they threw the machine-gun over the West bridge so that it couldn’t be traced and then went back with a sawed-off riot-gun to complete the job. Well, we fished the machine-gun out of the river. We can now definitely tie up that job to Swarm and Ritter with the help of a ballistician — the guy that can tell which gun fired which bullet.
“Now that dead baby stands over this whole proceedings. Rieg’s testimony isn’t enough to circumvent a lot of legal red-tape, but he did tell me where to find evidence. Croker’s got a safe deposit box in the First National Bank under the name of Peter Hoople. I want a search warrant, or better still, a forthwith subpoena and have the contents of that box brought before you men. That will supply us with priceless data to continue our work. What do you say?”
Croker became shrieking. “You can’t do this!” he wailed. “It isn’t legal! I’ll bring charges against you that will...”
Barnaby made an imperceptible motion with his hand. Hallahan stepped up and drove his fist against Croker’s jaw. The lawyer folded like a carpenter’s rule.
Tweedie daubed his face. “This is irregular...” he began helplessly.
Greeves’ features were tense. “I demand that you issue the subpoena as Captain Barnaby requests, Judge Tweedie! And have you any more witnesses, Captain?”
Barnaby nodded. “Plenty,” he promised; then to Hallahan. “Take Croker away and bring on another.”
Tweedie gulped. “Where is this going to end, Captain?”
“It’s going to end, Judge, when I get enough evidence to smear over every court in this county; when you and the rest of the judicial trained-seals have to act to save your own hides; when I have the necessary evidence to get a warrant and go legally gunning for Coxy Swarm and Dave Antecki. Not that I care for your flimsy warrants; I just don’t want those rats to die martyrs. It’ll soon be daylight, Judge, and when the banks open, I want my boys there with warrants and subpoenas signed by you.”
Skipper Barnaby had his wish. In a variable night of hell, a scared jurist and a dumfounded juror listened to the whines and sobs, the lies and ratting of gunmen and thieves. And later, when Forsythe, Hallahan and Duane began to bring back the evidence they claimed by search warrants, the work began in deadly earnest. In the case of Croker’s safe deposit box, claimed by a forthwith subpoena, a representative of the bank came with the evidence. He was amazed and terrified when Hallahan steered him into the subterranean courtroom, but after a talk with Greeves, he fell into the spirit of the thing. Barnaby commandeered him to examine accounts.
It was late afternoon when the work was finally completed. Gaunt, haggard, weary, but very game, Greeves pushed aside the papers before him and looked at Barnaby.
“This is incredible! It will shake the city to its very foundations! At least a score of the biggest names in local politics will go to the penitentiary!”
Barnaby nodded heavily. “And now for the real job.” He turned to Hallahan. “Bring in ‘The Scourge.’ ”
Rieg was brought in to stand in fear before the grim board. All his bravado was gone, leaving a spineless, trembling rat.
Barnaby glared at him for a full minute before speaking. Then he began:
“Rieg, I’m turning you loose!”
Greeves burst out: “But he’ll warn the gang...”
“That’s just what I want him to do,” Barnaby stopped him, and continued speaking to the startled gunman, “I want you to tell Coxy Swarm that Clyde Barnaby, Dennis Hallahan, Sam Duane and Louis Forsythe are coming to get him. Tell him we have warrants for not only his own person, but for every man in his gang. You can assure him from me that if he submits peaceably to arrest, we will take him alive... and hang him later. Now get out!”
Rieg bolted, uninterrupted. He left behind him a void of startled silence. Greeves broke in:
“You deliberately warned Swarm! You’ve provoked a fight!”
Barnaby pushed himself erect. “I hope I did,” he growled savagely. “I can still see that little kid!”
Dave Antecki was a mobster of the old school. He was built close to the ground, with a flat face to match his figure. He was called Dave the Ape, but never in his presence; he had a blow-torch personality.
Dave the Ape made no pretension as to his headquarters. Where Swarm picked the quiet seclusion of the city’s finest residential quarter, Antecki preferred the section that spawned him. As a thin front, he ran a small beer-parlor. It was a tough joint, with a tough clientele; the music was discordant, but it was loud; the food came in quantity rather than quality.
Antecki was seated at his favorite table, in the lee of the trap-drummer, eating a raviola dinner in company with a flousy blonde. She was as loud as the music and as coarse as the food, but she was young and big-chested and that was all that interested Dave the Ape. He had unbuttoned his vest in anticipation of some heavy eating, when one of his trusted henchmen came up to the table.
“Dave, Coxy is on his way over here!”
Antecki gagged, belched and sat very stiff. “Him...? Comin’ here?” Assured that his man was in earnest, he shouted, “He wants trouble, eh? All okey. Call in the boys...”
The informer shook his head. “He don’t want no trouble, Dave. He’s in a jam... we all are. Somebody’s snatched Chief Grogan...”
“Grogan?” Antecki gasped.
“An’ Judge Tweedie an’ Hymie Croker, an’ Ritter an’...”
Dave the Ape stopped him. “Somebody’s crazy!” he growled, “but if this is a frame, we’ll be ready. Get Tony an’ Perez to get behind them palms on either side of the dance-floor with the choppers. I’ll meet Swarm right here.”
The blonde with the big chest and the willing way started to get up. “Well, thanks for the salad, Dave, an’ so long. I just remembered I got to see a man about a dog some place.”
“What’s the matter, Amy, scared?”
“Uh-huh,” demurred the charmer, “just my stomach. I can’t stand the taste of hot lead.” She tossed him a kiss and moved away. Antecki might have stopped her, but at that moment, a stir near the entrance attracted his attention.
Swarm stepped into the big room, followed closely by five men. Their hands were all in plain sight, obviously so. Swarm took his bearings, glanced around the place and saw Antecki standing beside his table. He raised his right hand like an Indian and walked quickly across the room. As his men fell in behind him, a half dozen of Antecki’s boys converged from various parts of the room.