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.
“It’s a plant!” growled Handy, starting forward. “Look in the hall.” He turned and looked out the windows at the street below.
Russo opened the door, peered out, said: “Naw. It’s clear.”
Handy said: “Clear outside too,” and relaxed.
Nyberg purred: “You’d better spill it, Flash. And you’d better make it good. How did you find us?”
Casey was stuck here, and he knew it. To tell the truth about either Wade’s taxi-driver, or his following the two gunmen would probably scare Handy into moving them out of the apartment — before Logan could get there.
So he let his imagination go, and made up his story as he went along. How logical it sounded did not particularly bother him; he wanted to make it interesting — and take plenty of time.
“A taxi guy told me,” he said nervously. “Wade said he took the Henderson woman downstairs after the raid, and a couple tough looking muggs picked her up. Well, he was stuck on the girl; see? And he thought something might be up. But he couldn’t run out on me, so he got a taxi-driver to follow this other car and find out where these two guys went.
“When the cabby came back to the office, Wade was out. He got worried about his pay so he looked me up. I took care of the fare and he gave me this address — just before you two came to the Globe.” He nodded at Russo and Jaeger. “Maybe you saw him go out and—”
“Go on!” pressed Nyberg ominously.
“Well,” Casey shrugged. “I wasn’t sure of the set-up so I thought I’d do some checking.”
“Oh,” grunted Nyberg. He looked relieved and loosed his hold on Wade.
Casey, apparently still bewildered, glanced around. Jaeger brushed his mustache with an index finger and smiled again. Nyberg pushed Wade down on the divan. He was a sturdily built fellow, Nyberg. Bald, greasy-looking, with a heavy red nose and a thick-lipped mouth. His dress was slovenly, his fingernails dirty. Casey met his shrewd stare for a moment, then glanced at Handy.
Mike Handy looked worried. There was a film of moisture on his fatty face, and his eyes, which were black and seemed all iris, shifted nervously from the door to the windows beside him. The fingers of his other hand, which hung loosely at his side, moved spasmodically.
Wade said: “You were wrong about her, Flash.”
Casey did not answer, or look at Wade. He gave no sign that he had heard, because he did not want to let on what he knew — not yet.
Then Handy said: “Let’s get out of here. I don’t like it. If we get caught in here—” He moved to a chair and picked up his black topcoat.
Nyberg nodded and stepped towards Wade. And Casey felt his nerves grow taut. They couldn’t leave. Logan would never find them. He decided to tell what he knew — all of it. Gambling that his revelations would hold attention, postpone the present plan.
“How was I wrong about her?” he growled, and turned on Wade. “She got you to her place so these guys could take you, didn’t she? She put you on the spot and—”
“So—” breathed Nyberg, “this surprise business was an act? You know about that, huh?”
“Sure,” said Casey and made his voice confident, aggressive. “I oughtta. I was there when we trapped your other two hoods — in fact, I shot the stocky guy right over the eye. He’s in the morgue now.”
“She didn’t spot me,” Wade said, and Handy’s gasp was a background for his words.
Casey felt the sudden tenseness in the room, but he watched the young photographer. Wade was sitting on the divan with his elbows on his knees and his head down. His voice was listless; so was his attitude. He acted as though he did not care what happened, and Casey knew, in such condition, he could get little help from Wade in a showdown.
“She was on the level,” Wade went on. “You know why she chased me out of the office this afternoon? Because these guys — all but Handy — were in the next room. She was scared — for me, and for herself. She got me out and hoped to run for it.
“But these two guys” — he nodded at Jaeger and Russo — “ran down the back way and picked her up. She told ’em I didn’t know a thing. Then, when she called me at the Globe” — Wade hesitated, continued wearily — “that was okey. Only—”
“To hell with all this crap,” barked Nyberg. “What else do you know, smart guy?”
“Plenty,” said Casey and grinned deliberately. “I know about Dopey Donlan, and the private dick, and the dope ring you were promoting at the tracks, and how you hooked that up with that track gambling outfit that got raided.”
“You spoke your piece, smart guy,” Nyberg said and his thick lips twisted in a mirthless smile, “and now you’re in it up to your neck. You’re gonna find out just how it feels.”
Handy put on his coat. “Let’s get out of here. There’s something screwy about this. I don’t like it.”
The sweat was on his forehead again and his lip trembled. “You, Russo, put the gun on the kid. Nyberg, Jaeger, watch Casey. Better search him first.” He waited while Jaeger patted Casey’s pockets, and Casey held his breath and stuck out his stomach, stuck it out and leaned so that his back arched slightly and the unbuttoned coat hung out and away from the gun.
“We’ll take ’em out,” Handy went on. “If this plate is okey, I’m set.”
“You’re set?” sneered Nyberg. “How about me — the rest of us.”
“Well,” flared Handy. “I was in that raid this afternoon. Lucky they let me go after I paid the fine. If anybody’d seen me come out of that washroom—”
“Nerts!” said Nyberg. “I’m getting’ sick of your angles. Why all the panic? Why don’t we knock these guys off right here and now?”
“No... no,” said Handy, and his voice was shrill. “Take them out. I pay you plenty. I want a chance to get this plate developed, get an alibi.”
“You’re with us,” snapped Nyberg contemptuously, “and here’s once you stay with us. I’m beginnin’ to hate guys like you — all mouth and no guts.” He stepped to Wade, yanked him to his feet. “Come on, Kid.”
Casey waited there by the door. He was glad now that he had put on the bluff. It had worked longer than he expected. But was it long enough? He couldn’t tell. It was hard to judge time in this kind of a spot. And you could say things awfully quick. How much time had he killed? Five — six minutes. More, he hoped.
Russo had stepped over behind Wade. Handy opened the door and looked into the hall. Nyberg and Jaeger came alongside of Casey and he felt the guns in his side.
Casey made one more attempt to stall. “Say.” He let the fear come into his voice. “What’re you gonna do. You can’t—”
“Who can’t,” sneered Nyberg. “You know what we’re gonna do — so quit stallin’. You can take it, can’t you? Or is all these things I’ve heard about you just a lot of hot air.”
He dug his gun into Casey’s ribs, and they went out into the hall. Handy, and Wade and the bull-necked Russo; then Casey and Nyberg and the grimly smiling Jaeger.
7
The elevator was still waiting in the hall. On the silent downward trip, Casey tried to map out some logical course of action. Logan had not arrived. Otherwise he would have been waiting in the hall.
The elevator door slid open and they started across the narrow, dimly lighted foyer. Casey felt the reassuring pressure of his gun in his back. He thought he could get to it. But there were three other guns — and there was Wade.
The kid did not know about Casey’s gun. He would have no tip-off to a plan, even if Casey had one. And if the heat went on—