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.
Suddenly beneath the arc-light that stood on the corner of Jockey Street and River Road, he saw a uniformed policeman appear. At the same time Dominick cut across to the opposite side of the street. The policeman crossed too, to head him off, and then Dominick swerved back into the center of the street and turned around, ran this way and that, and finally stopped and crouched.
MacBride reached him first and clipped, “Now put your hands up, kid!”
I... I’ll—”
“You’ll shut up! Is that you, Zeloff? Frisk him. I don’t think he’s got anything, but frisk him.”
Patrolman Zeloff went through Dominick quickly and deftly. “Naw, not a thing, Cap.”
MacBride took out manacles and locked Dominick’s hands behind his back. Then he shoved his gun back into his pocket. Dominick was shivering with the cold. He wore no overcoat.
MacBride said, “Zeloff, go back to the Club Naples and pinch Al and bring him to Headquarters. I’ll take this bird along in a cab.”
“Okey, Cap.”
“And close the joint.”
“Sure.”
MacBride grabbed Dominick’s arm and walked with him towards River Road.
“For cripes sake, Cap, listen. Al hasn’t done a thing—”
“Shut up. Hey, taxi!”
VIII
The light with the green shade hung over the shiny flat-topped desk and the light umbrellaed outward over the desk and included in its radiance Dominick and MacBride, who sat and faced each other across the desk.
Dominick was thin and a black stubble was on his face and black circles were beneath his eyes, but there was also black mutiny in his eyes. He had on a shirt beneath his thin coat, but no collar, and his black hair was rumpled but still a bit shiny from the last application of hair oil.
“You,” said MacBride, “you caused all this.”
“Well, why the hell bring it up?”
“I intend bringing it up and up. You’re just a wise guy who tried to run with big, bad boys. You worried hell out of your father and mother. Because of you your father’s house was blown up. Because of you your father lost his aldermanic job. Now what the hell kind of a break do you suppose you deserve?”
“Did I ask for a break? Did I?”
“Of course not. But you’re expecting one. What I want to know is, who killed Barjo?”
“I don’t know.”
“You mean you don’t feel like telling me.”
“About that.”
MacBride leaned forward and put his elbows on the table and drew his brows close down until they almost met at the top of his nose. “Dom, my boy, you’re going to spring what you know.”
“Like hell I am.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Listen, you. I didn’t kill Barjo. You’ve got nothing on me — not a thing! I didn’t kill him.”
“Why did you drop out of sight?”
“That’s my business.”
“Why did you sneak home and hide away?”
“That’s my business too.”
MacBride put his voice down low. “We know of course that Chibby is after you.”
“You don’t know anything.”
MacBride snapped, “Listen to me, you little two-tongued dago! I’m giving your old man a break. I’m trying to give you a break — not because I like you — but because I like your old man! As for you, I think you’re a lousy pup! But get this — get it! — I want Chibby or one of the broads was on that party the night Barjo got knifed. I don’t care what the hell one I get, I want one of them! And you — you’re going to play ball with me or, by cripes, I’ll whale hell out of you!”
“I’m not playing ball!” rasped Dominick. “I was on that party, I know that. But I didn’t do a thing to anybody. And I ain’t going to squeal!”
“You poor dumb slob!” MacBride half rose out of his chair and planted his palms on the desk. “Don’t you realize that Chibby wants to blow your head off? Don’t you realize that we’re the only guys can save you?”
Dominick was biting his lip and his black eyes were jerking back and forth across the desk. He shook his head. “I... I ain’t going to say a thing.”
The door opened and Patrolman Zeloff shoved in Al Vassilakos. “There he is, Cap.”
“Okey, Zeloff. Hello, Al. What the hell are you looking all hot and bothered about?”
“This — this is a dirty trick, Cap!”
“Is it? Listen to me, Al. I’ve given you all the breaks you’re going to get. You were harboring a fugitive from the law.”
“I wasn’t!” choked the Greek. “So help me, I wasn’t. This guy came to me and asked me to give him some jack so he could blow the town. He didn’t have no jack. I gave him hell for coming around.”
Dominick cut in, “He didn’t do anything, Cap. I went there and asked him for some jack, just like he said.”
“Sure,” said Al, waving his hand. “See?”
“All right, all right,” said MacBride. “I see. But you’ve always tried to kid me, Al, and you’ll warm your pants here a while. I don’t like your joint. You’re two-faced as hell. And I don’t like you. Zeloff, put this guy in the cooler for a while.”
“Okey, Cap.”
“Aw, say, Cap,” said Al, “give me a break.”
“Break? I’m through giving guys breaks.”
“Aw—”
“Come on, you!” snapped Zeloff, and pulled Al out into the hall.
MacBride swung around in his chair, sitting bolt upright, and threw his gaze across the desk like two penetrating beams of blue fire.
“You see the kind of a palooka you went to looking for help! The first yap out of him is to save his own face!”
“Well, d’ you see me yapping?”
“Dominick...” MacBride said the word with deadly softness as he leaned back. “Dominick, I warn you, you’re in for a beating if you don’t come across. I don’t care if you are Tony’s son. I’m trying to give you a break, but maybe I’ll have to break you first. You can be nice... or I can be — nasty. Do you get me?”
Dominick drew his face up tightly and pinched his brows down over his midnight eyes. “You can’t lay a hand on me!”
“I don’t — personally. I’ve got men who do it for me.”
“Yah, you’re just the bull-dozing cop I heard you were! Just a big flat-foot! Just a big, loudmouthed tough guy!”
“Just,” said MacBride, “that.”
Dominick jumped up, a lean shaft of vibrating dark fire. “You won’t beat me! You won’t! By God Almighty... you won’t.”
“Unless you play ball.”
The telephone bell rang. MacBride picked up the instrument.
“Captain MacBride talking,” he said. “Yeah, Mory... What?... No, no; go ahead...” He listened, his eyes narrowing “What’s that address?... Yeah; 22 Rumford Street. Okey. I’ll shoot right down.”
He slammed the telephone back to the desk and went to the door and yelled down the corridor. A reserve came on the run.
“Shove this guy in a cell, Mike. I got a date with a good break.”
He piled into his overcoat, grabbed his hat and went out into the central room. He called Hogan, and Hogan ran out to get the police flivver. MacBride was waiting for him on the sidewalk.
IX
Rumford Street is on the northern frontier of the city. It is a hilly street, climbing up from Marble Road. A drab street, walled in by three- and four-story rooming-houses. Ordinarily a peaceful neighborhood.
The police flivver swung off Marble Road and labored up the grade. When it was halfway up MacBride saw an ambulance and a small group of people.