The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction
- Автор: Якубовски Максим, Беллем Роберт
- Год: 2014
- Язык: английский
- Год: Constable & Robinson
- ISBN: 9781472111807
- Жанр: Крутые детективы
Электронная книга - «The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction». Краткое содержание книги:
“Argh-gh-gh!”
Whitey was trying to sit up and wasn’t doing well at it. I got him up on the bed and felt his head, where the gun had clipped him. But I couldn’t find any sign of a fracture. Then one of the biggest cops I ever saw in my life dashed in with a gun in his hand.
“Hey, you! Hands up!” he commanded.
I said: “Don’t be a fool! I’m going to call a doctor for my friend.”
The cop said: “There’s one downstairs. You killed that guy, didn’t you?”
“I missed him, I thought.”
“You missed him like hell! You shot his guts out all over the inside of the elevator.”
“What about the other one?”
“He got away. You got a gun?”
“On the dresser.”
He backed away from me until he got my gun. Then he said, a little friendlier: “What in hell happened, boy?”
Whitey’s eyes opened then. He looked as if he was around enough to understand what I was saying.
I said: “I’m damned if I know. The two guys came in with guns. My friend here took a swing at one of them and then the battle started. I shot at one, but I thought I missed.”
“You hit centre. Who were they?”
“I don’t know.”
“What d’ya mean, you don’t know. A couple of guys don’t just walk in and start trouble with a strange guy, do they?” “They did, didn’t they?”
“You’re a shamus?”
“Licence in my wallet. That’s on the dresser, too.”
He looked at my licence. I finally got the desk and told them to send the doctor up. By the time he arrived there were a lot more policemen, the manager of the hotel, two newspapermen inside, with a dozen others trying to get in.
It would have taken a hall to take care of the crowd that wanted to join us. But when I mentioned that to the cops they chased everybody out.
I thought that was so they could question Whitey and me with a little peace and quiet. But I was all wrong. That was to give themselves a chance for rough stuff, if they decided any was necessary – but Whitey and I fooled them.
We didn’t know either of the men. We didn’t know what they wanted to do a thing like that for. We’d never seen either of them before.
In fact, we didn’t know a thing.
We spent the next two days in jail and in different cells. But Whitey had the idea, and I wasn’t worrying about him saying anything. In fact there wasn’t a lot he could say. He knew nothing at all about the girl being found dead. I hadn’t had a chance to tell him about that.
Whitey didn’t know about my early-morning trip back, and about me being shot at and having to hide under the bridge. He wouldn’t have talked anyway – he’s not the talking kind.
The dead man was Maury Cullen, and he was a bad one. Cullen had served time for everything from plain robbery to manslaughter. He’d spent more time in jail than he had outside, if you counted the time he’d spent in reform schools while yet a kid. That was the only reason there wasn’t more trouble about it – the only thing that kept my licence for me.
I left Whitey at my place when I met the Bryce girl. I’d called her house the minute I left the station. Finally I got the girl after going through a performance that made me think I was trying to talk with a railroad president.
I said: “This is Joe Shannon, Miss Bryce. I’d like to see you.”
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you,” she said. “I’ve called your office at least a dozen times a day.”
“There’s been a little trouble.”
“You mean – you mean that George is in trouble.”
“I mean that I’m in trouble. Or don’t you read the papers?”
“Well, no. I don’t pay much attention to them. What happened?”
I told her I couldn’t talk to her over the phone and asked her to set a place to meet me. She suggested the Plaza. And when I laughed she told me she often met people there. I gave her the name of a halfway decent bar and restaurant on the wrong side of town. She agreed to meet me there in an hour.
And she did. She came in looking flustered. The minute we were in a booth, she leaned across to me and said:
“I’ve almost gone crazy. Haven’t you heard a thing about him?”
“You might as well get ready to take it on the chin, kid. I’m afraid there’s no news as yet. And this time no news is bad news.”
“I thought about that. I mean about George maybe being kidnapped.”
“That racket’s been out since the government men took over, Miss Bryce. I don’t mean that he was kidnapped. It’s worse than that, I’m afraid.”
The girl got white and asked me if I meant he was killed. I said that was it exactly, waiting for her to break down all over the place, but she did exactly the opposite.
She said: “But why?”
Her face was so white that the makeup stood out on it in patches. But her voice was even and no louder than it had been.
I said: “I don’t know. Did he have much money on him?”
“Very little. He just had an allowance, you know, and he was careless with money.”
“Then I can’t tell you, though I’m beginning to get an idea. It’s nothing I can go to the cops with.”
Then she said something that made me so mad I could hardly talk.
“If it’s more money you want, Mr Shannon, I can pay it.”
“There’s been a girl killed over this mess,” I said. “On top of that I’ve killed a man and spent the last couple of days in jail over it, even if I’m loose now. I damn near got killed myself, and a man who was working with me almost got the same. I’ve been beaten up and shot up and chivvied around by the cops, and you talk to me about money. Will your money bring back that girl?”
“I’m sorry,” said Miss Bryce. “What should I do?”
“If you’ve got any pull at all, or know anybody who has, you can find out who put that blind ad in the paper. The ad that started this. They’re not supposed to give out that information, but maybe you could get it for me. And if you’ve got the nerve you can go down to the morgue with me and look at all the unidentified bodies of men around the age of this George Harper.
“If he was killed and all marks cut out of his clothes, or if he’d been stripped, that’s where he’d be. If I knew him by sight I wouldn’t need you. Unless you want to tell his people the story.”
“Why break it to them that way?” she asked. “And, besides, we’re not sure yet. George had two little moles on his chest, and he weighed one hundred and sixty-two pounds. He was twenty-two. His hair was blond and his eyes were blue.”
“That won’t be enough.”
She didn’t change the expression on her face a bit as she said: “He had a birthmark – a strawberry mark I think you call it, on his left thigh. It was very large. As big as that.”
She made a big circle on the table.
I said: “Okay, I’ll go down and look while you try and find who put that ad in the paper. I’ll phone you back in two hours, say. At your house. And listen! If I go through with this and get into trouble, will you tell the cops about it? I mean if I fix it so there’s nothing to kick back on you or on the boy?”
“Why of course,” she said, looking surprised. “It’s only that I don’t want to make trouble for my people and his.”
We left it that way.
There was nothing doing at the morgue except that I damn near passed out while looking for the Harper boy’s body. I’d told the cop in charge that my brother was missing and that I was worried. I gave a vague description that tallied a little with the one the girl gave me. The attendant took me around and showed me every man they’d taken into the place during the last three days.