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.
“Which paper?”
“The Call. Then I went on out Sacramento, and just after we’d crossed Van Ness she knocked on the glass again and said take her to the Ferry Building.”
“Was she excited or anything?”
“Not so’s I noticed.”
“And when you got to the Ferry Building?”
“She paid me off, that was all.”
“Anybody waiting there for her?”
“I didn’t see them if they was.”
“Which way did she go?”
“At the Ferry? I don’t know. Maybe upstairs, or toward the steps.”
“Take the newspaper with her?”
“Yeah, she had it tucked under her arm when she paid me.”
“With the pink sheet outside, or one of the white?”
“Hell, cap, I don’t remember that.”
Spade thanked the chauffeur, said, “Get yourself a smoke,” and gave him a silver dollar.
Spade bought a copy of the Call and carried it into an office-building vestibule to examine it out of the wind.
His eyes ran swiftly over the front-page headlines, and over those on the second and third pages. Then paused for a moment under SUSPECT ARRESTED AS COUNTERFEITER on the fourth page, and again on page five under BAY YOUTH SEEKS DEATH WITH BULLETS. Pages six and seven held nothing to interest him. On eight, 3 BOYS ARRESTED AS S. F. BURGLARS AFTER SHOOTING held his attention for a moment, and after that nothing until he reached the thirty-fifth page, which held news of the weather, shipping, produce, finance, divorces, births, marriages, and deaths. He read the list of dead, passed over pages thirty-six and thirty-seven — financial news — found nothing to stop his eyes on the thirty-eighth and last page, sighed, folded the newspaper, put it in his coat pocket, and rolled a cigarette.
For five minutes he stood there in the office-building vestibule, smoking and staring sulkily at nothing. Then he walked up to Stockton Street, hailed a taxicab, and had himself driven to the Coronet.
He let himself into the building and into Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s apartment with the key she had given him. The blue gown she had worn the previous night was hanging across the foot of her bed. Her blue stockings and slippers were on the bedroom floor. The polychrome box that had held jewelry, and had been in the dressing table drawer, now stood empty on the dressing table’s top.
Spade frowned at it, ran his tongue across his lips, strolled through the rooms, looking around, but not touching anything, then left the Coronet and went downtown again.
In the doorway of the building where Spade had his offices he came face to face with the boy he had left at Gutman’s. The boy put himself in Spade’s path, blocking the entrance, and said: “Come on. He wants to see you.”
The boy’s hands were in his overcoat pockets. His pockets bulged more than his hands need have made them bulge.
Spade grinned, and said mockingly:
“I didn’t expect you till five-twenty-five. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long.”
The boy raised his eyes to Spade’s mouth and spoke in the strained voice of one in physical pain: “You louse! Keep on riding me and you’re going to be picking iron out of your navel.”
Spade chuckled. “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter,” he said cheerfully. “Well, let’s go.”
They walked up Sutter Street side by side. The boy kept his hands in his overcoat pockets. They walked a little more than a block in silence. Then Spade asked pleasantly: “How long have you been off the... lay?”
The boy did not show that he had heard the question.
“Did you ever—?” Spade began, and stopped. A soft light began to glow in his yellowish eyes. He did not address the boy again.
They went into the Alexandria, rode up to the twelfth floor, and walked down the corridor toward Gutman’s suite. Nobody else was in the corridor.
Spade lagged a little, so that, when they were within fifteen feet of Gutman’s door, he was perhaps a foot and a half behind the boy. He leaned sidewise suddenly and grasped the boy from behind by both arms, just beneath the boy’s elbows. He forced the arms forward so that the boy’s hands, in his overcoat pockets, lifted the overcoat up before him.
The boy struggled and writhed, but he was impotent in Spade’s grip. The boy kicked back, but his feet went between Spade’s widespread legs.
Spade lifted the boy straight up from the floor and then brought him down hard on his feet again. The impact made little noise on the thick carpet. At the moment of impact Spade’s big hands slid down and got a fresh grip on the boy’s wrists.
The boy, teeth set hard together, did not for a moment stop straining against the man’s hands, but he could not tear himself loose, could not keep Spade’s fingers from crawling down over his own hands.
The boy’s teeth ground together audibly, the sound mingling with the noise of Spade’s breathing, as Spade crushed his hands. They were tensely motionless for a long moment. Then the boy’s arms became limp. Spade released the boy and stepped back. In each of Spade’s hands, when they came out of the boy’s overcoat pockets, there was a heavy automatic pistol.
The boy turned and faced Spade. The boy’s face was a ghastly white blank. He kept his hands in his overcoat pockets. He looked at Spade’s chest and said nothing.
Spade put the pistols in his own pockets and grinned derisively.
“Come on,” he said. “This will put you in solid with your boss.”
They went to Gutman’s door and Spade knocked.
Chapter XIII
The Emperor’s Gift
Gutman opened the door. A glad smile lighted his fat face. He held out a hand and said: “Ah, come in, sir. Thanks for coming. Come in.”
Spade shook the hand and entered. The boy went in behind him. The fat man shut the door. Spade took the pistols from his pockets and held them out to Gutman.
“Here. You shouldn’t let the lad run around with these. He’ll get himself hurt.”
The fat man laughed merrily and took the pistols.
“Well, well,” he said, “what’s this?” He looked from Spade to the boy.
Spade said, “A crippled newsboy took them away from him, but I made him give them up.”
The white-faced boy took the pistols out of Gutman’s hands and pocketed them. The boy did not speak.
Gutman laughed again.
“By Gad, sir,” he told Spade, “you’re a chap worth knowing, an amazing character. Come in. Sit down. Give me your hat.”
The boy left the room by the door to the right of the entrance.
The fat man installed Spade in a green plush chair by the table, pressed a cigar upon him, held a light to it, mixed whiskey and carbonated water, put one glass in Spade’s hand, and holding the other in his own, sat down facing Spade.
“Now, sir,” he said, “I hope you’ll let me apologize for—”
“Never mind that,” Spade said. “Let’s talk about the black bird.”
The fat man cocked his head a little to one side and regarded Spade with fond eyes.
“All right, sir,” he agreed. “Let’s.” He took a sip from his glass. “This is going to be the most astounding thing you’ve ever heard of, sir, and I say that knowing that a man of your caliber in your profession must have run across a lot of things.”
Spade nodded politely.
The fat man screwed up his eyes and asked:
“What do you know, sir, about the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, later called the Knights of Rhodes and other things?”