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.
Cohen said, “Chew on that, Mory.”
“And,” said MacBride, “we want Dominick before Chibby or one of his guns nails him. They’re after him; you can bet your shirt on that. He knows something, and they’re after him.”
“At least,” said Moriarity, “it crimps Kennedy’s idea that Dominick killed Barjo. I still say it was the broad.”
Cohen snapped, “Hey, you, it was me first had the idea it was the broad.”
“All right, grab the gold ring, guy — grab it.”
“My idea may be crimped,” said Kennedy, a new voice in the doorway. “But if it was the broad, why the hell should Chibbarro be going to such great pains to keep Dominick and the three girls and himself out of sight?”
“Now you’ve asked something, Kennedy!” chopped off MacBride.
Kennedy strolled in and said, “All right, Mory. I was wrong, let’s say, on picking Dominick as the killer. I was wrong. Now, you bright young child, why is Chibbarro playing hide-and-seek?”
Mory put on a long face. “Well, if the broad was his friend—”
“Bologney!” chuckled Kennedy. “She was just a broad. Chibby wouldn’t waste a sneeze on her if there wasn’t a reason. If she killed Barjo, and there wasn’t a good reason for his trying to hide her, that bum would have come right out and told Cap what she’d done. But he had to save her — for a reason. That’s how much you know, Mory.”
MacBride had to chuckle, and he looked at his right-hand men. “Boys, you’re both good cops. In a fight, you’re the berries. But take my advice and don’t try to figure things out too closely. Not when this wiseacre Kennedy is roaming about.”
“I’ll put your name in the paper twice for that tomorrow,” said Kennedy. “But get Dominick, and make him talk. I’m not saying the broad killed Barjo. I’m saying that if she killed him, then there’s something bigger behind this job than just a ham welter getting a knife in his gizzard.”
“Kennedy,” said MacBride, “sometimes you’re a pain in the neck, but today you’re an inspiration.”
“Three times in the paper tomorrow, Cap. Two more cracks like that and I’ll see about getting you a headline.”
“And another crack like that, Kennedy, and I’ll plant my foot in your slats.”
“Ah, well,” grinned Kennedy, “boys will be boys. How about a drink?”
MacBride dragged out a bottle of Dewar’s.
VII
In a way of speaking, Dominick Maratelli was between the devil and the deep sea. That is reckoning, of course, on the conjecture of MacBride that Dominick had dropped the mob and that the mob was seeking him. The mob... and the law.
Moriarity and Cohen worked overtime on the hunt. Precinct plainclothes men worked too. And uniformed cops.
It was believed that when Dominick took hasty flight from the bombed house, he was broke. A man must eat. He must sleep somewhere. It was winter, and streets and alleys do not make comfortable lodgings.
Nor was MacBride idle. He too, roamed the streets and made inquiries at lunch-rooms, speakeasies; and most of his roaming was done during the dark hours. He went alone, looking into the twenty-five-cent-a-night flophouses, conning the bread-lines in North Street.
There was no clue yet as to the whereabouts of Chibby and the three girls. And MacBride was eternally aware of the fact that Dominick’s life depended on who found him first. Tony kept calling constantly... but there was no news.
And in the middle of the next week there was an article in the papers relative to the fact that Antonio Maratelli had resigned as alderman. Of course, the political powers that be had asked him to resign — a request that was by way of being a threat. Tony made no kick. He was more interested in saving his son.
Kennedy said, “If you ask me, Cap, that young wise guy Dominick deserves to be bumped off. There his old man got a nice political job, and was kind of proud of it, and then this young pup pulls a song and dance that the old man has to pay for. The reward of virtue is most certainly a kick in the pants.”
MacBride tightened his jaw a little harder and continued to roam the streets...
There was a black cold night when he wandered into a dark windy street and saw a familiar green sign blinking seductively:
As he drew nearer, he could hear the uniformed doorman beating cold feet on the cold pavement.
MacBride came up in the shadow of the houses and the doorman reached back for the doorknob. He did not recognize MacBride until the captain’s foot was on the step, and then he seemed to hesitate in perplexed indecision.
MacBride looked at him and said, “Well?”
“Oh... hello, Cap. Didn’t recognize you.” He opened the door.
MacBride walked into the dim, stuffy anteroom and stood just inside the door and looked around. The coat-room girl came over but MacBride shook his head and she recognized him and bit her lip and retreated back into the gloom. A stiff white shirt-front came out of another corner of the gloom, and a voice said:
“Well, buddy?”
“I’m MacBride.”
“Oh... yeah.”
“Where’s Al?”
“I’m Patsy. It’s all right. What can I do for you?”
“Get me Al.”
“Well, he ain’t here right now.”
“Where is he?”
“I dunno. He went out about an hour ago. If you want to wait for him — there’s a little room off here.”
“I don’t want to wait for him.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Cap.”
Muffled was the racket of the jazz band.
MacBride turned and pulled open the door and stepped out and looked up and down the street.
The doorman was gone.
MacBride’s hands were in his pocket, and the hand in his right pocket closed over the butt of his gun. He moved towards the narrow alley that flanked one side of the building and led to the courtyard in the rear. He looked down it and he flexed his lips and then he entered the alley and walked lightly but rapidly.
He reached the courtyard in the rear. He saw a door and a lighted window, but the shade was drawn down. He moved towards the door and grasped the knob and turned it and the door gave and opened on a crack. He pushed it wide and stepped into a corridor that was dimly lighted by shaded wall lights. He had been in this corridor once before. He closed the door behind him.
From the door farthest away on the right he saw Dominick step out, and behind him the doorman and Al Vasilakos. He started to rap out a command, but Dominick, who was on the point of making for the rear door, saw him and spun and ran in the opposite direction.
“Hey, you!” shouted MacBride.
He barged down the corridor past Al and the doorman. Through the door at the end he burst into the noisy cabaret. The jazz band was hooting and people were dancing. Dominick was running alongside the tables and making for the front. MacBride sailed after him, and the jazz band petered off and the dancers stopped and stared with amazement. MacBride bowled over a drunk that teetered into his path and reached the door to the ante-room six jumps behind Dominick. The door banged in his face, and as he flung it open he saw the front door slam shut.
He streaked through the ante-room and cannoned out in the cold dark street. He heard running footsteps and saw Dominick heading for River Road. MacBride took up the chase and pulled his gun out of his pocket.
“Hey, you, Dominick!” he shouted.
But Dominick kept running.
They were nearing River Road when MacBride raised his gun and fired a high warning shot. He saw Dominick duck and run closer to the shadows of the houses. He fired another shot, bringing it closer but still reluctant to kill.