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.
“Don’t you know when you’re being kidded?”
Tom Polhaus’s face grew red and shiny. Dundy’s face, still darkening, was immobile, except for his lips moving stiffly to say:
“No, but we’ll let that wait till we get down to the Hall.”
Spade rose and put his hands in his pockets. He stood erect so that he might look that much farther down at the lieutenant. His grin was a taunt, and self-certainty spoke in every line of his carriage.
“I dare you to take us in, Dundy,” he said. “We’ll laugh at you in every newspaper in San Francisco. You don’t think any of us is going to swear to any complaints against the others, do you? Wake up. You’ve been kidded. When the bell rang I said to Miss O’Shaughnessy and Cairo, ‘It’s those damned bulls again. They’re getting to be nuisances. Let’s play a joke on them. When you hear them going, one of you scream, and then we’ll see how far we can string them along before they tumble.’ And—”
Brigid O’Shaughnessy bent forward in her chair and began to laugh hysterically.
Cairo started and smiled. There was no vitality in his smile, but he held it fixed on his face.
Tom, glowering, grumbled: “Cut it out, Sam.”
Spade chuckled and said: “But that’s the way it was. We—”
“And the cut on his head and mouth?” Dundy asked imperturbably. “Where’d they come from?”
“Ask him,” Spade suggested. “Maybe he cut himself shaving.”
Cairo spoke quickly, before he could be questioned, and the muscles of his face quivered under the strain of holding his smile in place while he spoke:
“I fell. We intended to be struggling for the pistol when you came in, but I fell. I tripped on the end of the rug, and fell while we were pretending to struggle.”
Dundy said: “Horse feathers.”
Spade said: “That’s all right, Dundy, believe it or not. The point is that that’s our story and we’ll stick to it. The newspapers will print it whether they believe it or not, and it’ll be just as funny one way as the other. What are you going to do about it? It’s no crime to kid a copper, is it? You haven’t got anything on anybody here. Everything we’ve told you was part of the joke. What are you going to do about it?”
Dundy put his back to Spade and gripped Cairo by the shoulders.
“You can’t get away with that,” he snarled, shaking the Levantine. “You squawked for help, and you’ve got to take it.”
“No, sir,” Cairo spluttered. “It was a joke. He said you were friends of his and would understand.”
Spade laughed.
Dundy pulled Cairo roughly to him, holding him now by the nape of the neck and one wrist.
“I’ll take you along for packing the gun, anyway,” he said. “And I’ll take the rest of you along to see who laughs at the joke.”
Cairo’s alarmed eyes jerked sidewise to focus on Spade’s face.
Spade said: “Don’t be a damned fool, Dundy. The gun was part of the plant. It’s one of mine. I’ve got all the licenses you want.”
Dundy released Cairo, spun on his heel, and his right fist clicked on Spade’s chin.
Brigid O’Shaughnessy uttered a short cry.
Spade’s smile flickered out at the instant of the impact, but returned immediately, with a dreamy quality added. He steadied himself with a short backward step, and his thick sloping shoulders writhed under his coat. Before his fist could come up, Tom Polhaus had pushed himself in between the two men, facing Spade, encumbering Spade’s arms with the closeness of his barrel-bellied body and his own arms.
“No, no, for — sake!” Tom begged.
After a long moment of motionlessness, Spade’s muscles relaxed.
“Then get him out of here quick,” he said. His smile had gone away, leaving his face sullen and somewhat pale.
Tom, remaining close to Spade, keeping his arms on Spade’s arms, turned his head to look over his shoulder at Lieutenant Dundy. Tom’s small eyes were reproachful.
Dundy’s fist was still clenched in front of his body, and his feet were planted firm and a little apart on the floor, but the truculence in his face was modified by the thin rims of white showing between green irises and upper eyelids.
“Get their names and addresses,” he ordered, “so we can get hold of them when we want them.”
Tom looked at Cairo, who said quickly: “Joel Cairo, Hotel Belvedere.”
Spade spoke before Tom could question the girclass="underline" “You can always get in touch with Miss O’Shaughnessy through me.”
Tom looked at Dundy, who growled: “Get her address.”
Spade said: “Her address is in care of my office.”
Dundy moved forward, halting in front of the girl.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
Spade addressed Tom:
“Get him out of here. I’ve had enough of this.”
Tom looked at Spade’s eyes that were hard and glittering and mumbled:
“Take it easy, Sam.” He buttoned up his coat and turned to Dundy, asking, in a voice that aped casualness, “Well, is that all?” and taking a step toward the door.
Dundy’s scowl failed to conceal indecision.
Cairo suddenly moved toward the door, saying: “I’m going too, if Mr. Spade will give me my coat and hat.”
Spade asked: “What’s the hurry?”
Dundy said angrily:
“It was all in fun, but just the same you’re afraid to be left here with them.”
“Not at all,” the Levantine replied, fidgeting, looking at neither of them, “but it’s quite late and — and I’m going. I’ll go out with you if you don’t mind.”
Dundy put his lips together firmly, but said nothing, though a light was glinting in his green eyes.
Spade went to the closet in the passageway and fetched Cairo’s coat and hat. Spade’s face was blank. His voice held the same blankness when he stepped back from helping the Levantine into his coat and said to Tom:
“Tell him to leave that gun of mine that he took from Cairo.”
Dundy took Cairo’s pistol from his pocket and put it on the table. He went out first, with Cairo at his heels.
Tom halted in front of Spade, muttered, “I hope to God you know what you’re doing,” got no response, sighed, and followed the others out.
Spade went after them as far as the bend in the passageway, where he stood until Tom had closed the corridor door.
Chapter IX
The Liar
Spade returned to the living room and sat on an end of the sofa, elbows on knees, cheeks in hands, looking at the floor and not at Brigid O’Shaughnessy smiling weakly at him from the armchair. His eyes were sultry. The creases between brows above his nose were deep. His nostrils moved in and out with his breathing.
Brigid O’Shaughnessy, when it became apparent that he was not going to look up at her, stopped smiling and regarded him with some uneasiness.
Red rage came suddenly into his face, and he began to talk in a harsh, guttural voice. Holding his maddened face in his hands, glaring at the floor, he cursed Dundy for five minutes without break, cursed him obscenely, blasphemously, repetitiously, in a harsh, guttural voice.
Then he took his face out of his hands, looked at the girl, grinned sheepishly, and said: “Childish, huh? I know, but, by God, I do hate being hit without hitting back.” He touched his chin with careful fingers. “Not that it was so much of a sock at that.” He laughed and lounged back on the sofa, crossing his legs. “A cheap enough price to pay for winning.” His brows drew together in a fleeting frown. “Though I won’t forget it.”
The girl, smiling again, left her chair and sat on the sofa beside him.
“You’re absolutely the wildest person I’ve ever known,” she said. “Do you always carry on so high-handed?”