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.
Swarm paid no attention to them, nor did he offer to shake hands with Dave the Ape. He said:
“Hello, Dave. Can we talk some place?”
Antecki’s eyes strayed casually in the direction of his machine-gunners, and nodded.
“Sure, sit down; we’re as good here as any place. These are all my boys.”
Swarm dropped into a chair and motioned his men to do likewise. They all sat down and carefully placed their hands on the tables.
Swarm spoke again.
“Do you know Captain Barnaby and Sergeant Duane?”
Antecki nodded. “Sure. Cops. I heard you got ’em fired.”
“They quit,” Swarm corrected him. “Well, they’ve snatched about five of my best boys and killed at least one.”
“You want me to take my hair down an’ have a good cry, perhaps?”
“The only reason I came to you, Dave,” Swarm snapped pointedly, “is because we’re in a spot. It ain’t only my boys, but Croker, Tweedie, every key man in the machine is snatched. Maybe the Federals are behind this, but we got to find that out.”
‘We...?”
“Yes, we! Maybe it’ll interest you to know that Grogan’s gone, too. That leaves you in a hole, Dave.”
Antecki made no admissions. He massaged his heavy jowl thoughtfully, a little stupidly. He had paid well for protection and it never occurred to him that any force on earth could disrupt the whole machine. His own lawyer had advised him he was safe from prosecution as long as he paid his tribute.
Rieg came stumbling into the place at that moment.
Swarm swore. “Rieg...?” and the others just stared.
Rieg picked up a glass of red wine that still stood in front of Antecki’s plate, emptied it down his throat and stared wild-eyed at the group.
“Barnaby is comin’ for you, Coxy!” he choked.
Swarm smiled grimly. “Where you been?”
In halting, broken phrases, “The Scourge” mouthed out the story of what had happened to him from the moment big Clyde Barnaby had snatched him from the table in La Parisienne until his release. He told them about Tweedie, about Greeves and about Hymie Croker. He choked out the story of the warrants, of the bank secrets and of the work of the bank’s representative.
“It ain’t legal!” shouted Dave the Ape.
Rieg gave him a sour glance. “He’s got enough to send us all to the gallows!”
Swarm reached over and caught “The Scourge” by the throat. “You ratted, Rieg! You must have...!”
Rieg’s protestations of innocence did him no good. At a sign from Swarm, two men rose and grabbed Rieg by the arms.
Swarm nodded his head towards the door. “He ratted, boys,” was all he said, but that was sufficient. The pair started out, dragging the snivelling gun-man between them.
At that moment, a man appeared at the door.
“A coupla cops!” he shouted. “A guy named Barnaby says he’s comin’ in after Swarm an’ you, Dave!”
Antecki stood up. “There ain’t no damn’ cop alive what can take me outa my own place! You can beat it out the back way, Swarm. I got two tommy-guns in this room...”
Swarm smiled a little thinly. “Just two dumb flatfeet and no witnesses. We’ll see this out right now, Dave.” He gestured for his boys to spread out.
In a great semi-circle they lined the end of the big room facing the double entrance-doors. Antecki took out his gun and held it under a napkin atop the table. Swarm slid his automatic into a side pocket and kept his hand glued to the butt.
In silence they waited.
And abruptly the silence was broken by the voice of Captain Barnaby. He was calling from beyond the doors.
“I got warrants for you muggs,” came the unseen voice. “Come out with your hands in the air.”
Antecki and Swarm exchanged glances. Swarm answered for them both.
“Come in and take us, flatfoot!”
As though operated by unseen hands, the wide, double-doors swung outward. The waiting audience tensed themselves for sudden action... then stared unbelievingly at the apparition that met their slitted eyes.
About fourteen men came through the door in one thick mass; not fourteen coppers, but men they knew well, all handcuffed together in a giant ring, backs to the middle. Ritter, Miller, Hymie Croker, Grogan... and about eight more ace-mobsters. Like children playing ring-around-the-rosy, their hands were joined in a protecting band, a human barricade...
And in the middle of this trembling stockade, stood Captain Barnaby and Dennis Hallahan with riot-guns in their hands.
“Drop those guns, Coxy, an’ you too, Dave!” commanded Barnaby coldly.
Croker cried like a burnt child. “Don’t shoot, Coxy! We’ll all be killed!”
Barnaby and Hallahan advanced with terrible finality, prodding the human fence ahead.
“Come an’ get in the game, boys,” Barnaby jeered. “We’ll have a good dance.”
Antecki glanced around the room. “Stop where you are!” he yelled. “I got machine-guns on you!”
Barnaby mocked him. “Don’t shoot, Dave! You’ll cheat the State out of a hangin’! Put down your guns an’ come out with your hands in the air. Do what I tell you! We’re comin’ for you!” He advanced slowly, grimly.
The mobsters stood, uncertain. Swarm was backed up against the slight rise of the orchestra dais; Antecki waited in front of the bass drum. At the first indication of trouble, the colored musicians had vanished.
Swarm tried guile. “You can’t take us, Barnaby. We won’t be bluffed!”
The circle drew closer, Barnaby hurled a taunting laugh. “I could kill you from here, Coxy, but I want you alive. I want to see you sweat in death row, I want to see you dance on the gallows and watch them open you up in the morgue. I want...”
It was Antecki that gave way first. He screamed a foreign oath, threw aside the concealing napkin and shouted to his gunners:
“Tony, Perez! Let ’em have it!” Then he fired point blank into the approaching mass...
All hell broke loose! With the deafening chatter of the twin machine-guns came the screams of stricken men. And then it seemed that the stuttering crash of the Tommies was double in volume. Barnaby and Hallahan dropped in unison. Croker, his head almost torn away by the stream of lead, fell across Barnaby. But Hallahan had time to send Antecki into eternity before the corpse of Miller pinned him down.
The chaos of sound ceased as abruptly as it had started. No gun thunder now, only gurgling sobs and low, throaty curses. And then Sam Duane’s voice filled the hall.
“Are you all right, Skipper?”
Barnaby pushed the body of the lawyer off him and lifted his head. The place was in shambles. He glanced back at the doorway. Duane and Forsythe loomed in the opening, each with a smoking sub-machine-gun in their hands. He rose, looked down at Hallahan.
Hallahan sat up, pulled himself erect.
Duane and Forsythe, white of features, came over. “It went off on schedule,” Sam Duane said through clenched teeth. “I never want another experience like that, though.”
Barnaby shrugged. “It saved the State a lot of money an’ the taxpayers have earned a little consideration. That’s literally getting’ two birds with one stone.”
Forsythe put his gun on the table and wiped his face. “We didn’t have much to do,” he told Barnaby. “Those two gunmen of Antecki’s went crazy. They cleaned the decks of everything that was standing and then we finished them.”
Barnaby walked over to the dais. Antecki had fallen backwards and was sitting in the middle of the giant bass drum.
Duane said: “Look, Skipper, seems like Swarm was tryin’ to run away.”
Barnaby turned. Coxy Swarm lay across the edge of the dais, feet and knees on the dance-floor, tuxedoed torso flattened on the dais itself. There were three welling holes across his back and blood seeped over the polished floor.