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.
“You’ve got Arnold Rothstein on the brain,” he said.
Bryan smacked the back of his right hand down into the palm of his left.
“In one of those three categories lies the solution.” The power in his voice was no longer latent. His right hand, a fist except for the protruding forefinger, went up and then down to stop with a jerk when the finger was leveled at Spade’s chest. “And you can give us the information that will enable us to determine the category.”
Spade said, “Yes?” very slowly. His face was somber. He touched his lower lip with a finger, looked at the finger, and then scratched the back of his neck with it. Little irritable lines had appeared in his forehead. He blew his breath heavily out through his nose, and his voice was an ill-humored growclass="underline" “You wouldn’t want the kind of information I could give you, Bryan. You couldn’t use it. It’d poop this gambler’s-revenge scenario for you.”
Bryan sat up straight and squared his shoulders. His voice was stern without bluster: “You are not the judge of that. Right or wrong, I’m nevertheless the District Attorney.”
Spade’s lifted lip showed his eyetooth. “I thought this was an informal talk.”
“I am a sworn officer of the law twenty-four hours a day,” Bryan said, “and neither formality nor informality justifies your withholding evidence of crime from me, except of course” — he nodded meaningly — “on certain constitutional grounds.”
“You mean if the information might incriminate me?” Spade asked. His voice was placid, almost amused, but his face was not. “Well, I’ve got grounds that suit me better than those. My clients are entitled to have their affairs kept confidential. Maybe I can be made to talk to a Grand Jury or even a Coroner’s Jury, but I haven’t been called before either yet, and it’s a cinch I’m not going to publish any of my clients’ secrets until I have to. Then again, you and the police have both accused me of being mixed up in the other night’s murders. I’ve had trouble with both of you before. So far as I can see, my best chance of clearing myself is by bringing in the murderers, all tied up. And my only chance of ever catching them, and tying them up, and bringing them in, is in keeping away from you and the police, because neither of you show any signs of knowing what the hell it’s all about.”
He got up and turned his head over his shoulder to address the stenographer: “Getting this all right, son? Or am I going too fast for you?”
The stenographer looked up at him with startled eyes and replied: “No, sir, I’m getting it all right.”
“Good work,” Spade said, and turned to Bryan again. “Now if you want to go to the Board and tell them I’m obstructing justice and ask them to revoke my license, hop to it. You’ve tried it before and it didn’t get you anything but a laugh.” He picked up his hat.
Bryan began:
“Look here, you—”
Spade said:
“And I don’t want any more of these informal talks. I’ve got nothing to tell you, and I’m... damned tired of being called things by every crackpot on the city payroll. If you want to see me, pinch me, or subpoena me, or something, and I’ll come down with my lawyer.” He put his hat on his head, said, “See you at the inquest, maybe,” and stalked out.
Chapter XVI
The Third Murder
Spade went into the Hotel Sutter and telephoned the Alexandria. Gutman was not in. No member of Gutman’s party was in. Spade telephoned the Belvedere. Cairo was not in, had not been in that day.
Spade went to his office.
A swart greasy man in notable clothes was waiting in the outer room. Effie Perine, indicating the swart man, said: “This gentleman wishes to see you, Mr. Spade.”
Spade smiled and bowed and opened the inner door. “Come in.” Before following the man in Spade asked Effie Perine: “Any news on that other matter?”
“No, sir.”
The swart man was the proprietor of a Market Street moving picture theater. He suspected one of his cashiers and a doorman of colluding to defraud him. Spade hurried him through the story, promised to “take care of it,” asked for and received fifty dollars, and got rid of him in less than half an hour.
When the corridor door had closed behind the showman, Effie Perine came into the inner office. Her sunburned face was worried and questioning.
“You haven’t found her?” she asked.
He shook his head and went on stroking his bruised temple lightly, in circles, with his fingertips.
“How is it?” she asked.
“All right, but I’ve got plenty of headache.”
She went around and stood behind him, putting his hand down, stroking his temple with her thin fingers. He leaned back until the back of his head, over the chair-top, rested against her breast, and said: “You’re an angel.”
She bent her head forward, over his, and looked down at his face.
“You’ve got to find her, Sam. It’s more than a day, and she—”
He stirred impatiently and interrupted her:
“I haven’t got to do anything, but if you’ll let me rest this damned head a minute or two I’ll go out and find her.”
She murmured, “Poor head,” and stroked it in silence for a little while. Then she asked: “You know where she is?”
The telephone bell rang. Spade picked up the telephone and said: “Hello... Yes, Sid, it came out all right... No... Sure. He got snotty, but so did I... He’s nursing a gamblers’ war pipe dream... Well, we didn’t kiss when we parted. I declared my weight and walked out on him... That’s something for you to worry about... Right. Bye.”
He put the telephone down and leaned back in his chair again. Effie Perine came from behind him and stood at his side. She demanded: “Do you think you know where she is, Sam?”
“I know where she went,” he replied in a grudging tone.
“Where?” She was excited.
“Down to the boat you saw burning.”
Her eyes opened until their brown was surrounded by white.
“You went down there.” It was not a question.
“I did not,” Spade said.
Effie Perine stamped her foot.
“Sam!” she cried angrily. “She may be—”
“She went down there,” he said in a surly voice. “She wasn’t taken. She went down there instead of to your house when she learned the boat had come in. Well, what the hell? Am I supposed to run around after my clients, begging them to let me help them?”
“But, Sam, when I told you the boat was on fire!”
“That was at noon, and I had a date with Polhaus and another with Bryan to keep.”
She glared at him between tightened lids.
“Sam Spade,” she said, “you’re the most contemptible man God ever made when you want to be. Because she did something without confiding in you, you’d sit here and do nothing when you know she’s in danger, when you know she might be—”
Spade’s face flushed. He said stubbornly:
“She’s pretty capable of taking care of herself. And she knows where to come when she thinks she needs help, and when it suits her.”
“That’s spite,” the girl cried, “and that’s all it is! You’re sore because she did something on her own hook, without telling you. Why shouldn’t she? You’re not so damned honest, and you haven’t been so much on the level with her that she could trust you implicitly.”
Spade said:
“That’s enough of that.”
His tone brought a brief uneasy glint into her hot eyes, but she tossed her head and the glint vanished. Her boyish mouth was drawn taut and small. She said: “If you don’t go down there this very minute, I will, and I’ll take the police down there.” Her voice trembled on the last words, broke, and was thin and wailing: “Oh, Sam, go!”