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.
Cairo edged closer to the boy on the sofa and began whispering in his ear again. The boy shrugged irritably.
Spade, looking at the pistols in his hand and then at Gutman, went out into the passageway to the closet there. He opened the door, put the pistols inside on the top of a trunk, shut the door, locked it, put the key in his pants pocket and went to the kitchen door.
Brigid O’Shaughnessy was filling an aluminum percolator.
“Find everything?” Spade asked.
“Yes,” she replied in a cool voice, not raising her head. Then she set the percolator aside and came to the door. She blushed, and her eyes were large and moist and chiding. “You shouldn’t have done that, Sam,” she said softly.
“I had to find out, angel.” He bent down, kissed her mouth lightly and returned to the living-room.
Gutman smiled at Spade and offered him the white envelope, saying: “This will soon be yours; you might as well take it now.”
Spade did not take it. He sat in the armchair and said: “There’s plenty of time for that. Besides, we haven’t done enough talking about the money end yet. I ought to have more than ten thousand.”
Gutman said: “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money.”
Spade said: “You’re quoting me, but it’s not all the money in the world.”
“No, sir, it’s not. I grant you that. But it’s a lot of money to be picked up in as few days, and as easily, as you’re getting it.”
“You think it’s been so damned easy?” Spade asked and shrugged. “Well, maybe, but that’s my business.”
“It certainly is,” the fat man agreed. He screwed up his eyes, moved his head to indicate the kitchen, and lowered his voice. “Are you sharing with her?”
Spade said: “That’s my business, too.”
“It certainly is,” the fat man agreed once more, “but” — he hesitated — “I’d like to give you a word of advice.”
“Go ahead.”
“If you don’t — I dare say you’ll give her some money, in any event; but if you don’t give her as much as she thinks she ought to have, my word of advice is — be careful.”
Spade’s eyes held a mocking light. He asked: “Bad?”
“Bad,” the fat man replied.
Spade grinned and began to roll a cigarette.
Cairo, still muttering in the boy’s ear, had put his arm around his shoulders again. Suddenly the boy pushed his arm away and twisted around on the sofa to face Cairo. The boy’s face held anger and disgust. He made a fist of a small hand and struck the Levantine’s mouth with it. Cairo cried out as a woman might have cried and drew back to the very end of the sofa. He took a silk handkerchief from his pocket and put it to his mouth. It came away daubed with blood. He put it to his mouth again and looked reproachfully at the boy. The boy snarled, “Keep away from me,” and put his face between his hands again. Cairo’s handkerchief released the fragrance of chypre in the room.
Cairo’s cry had drawn Brigid O’Shaughnessy to the door.
Spade, grinning, jerked a thumb at the sofa and told her: “The course of true love. How’s the food coming along?”
“It’s coming,” she said, and returned to the kitchen.
Spade lighted his cigarette and addressed Gutman: “Let’s talk about the money.”
“Willingly, sir, with all my heart,” the fat man replied, “but I might as well tell you frankly right now that ten thousand is every cent I can raise.”
Spade exhaled smoke. “I ought to have twenty.”
“I wish you could. I’d give it to you gladly, if I had it, but ten thousand is every cent I can manage, on my word of honor.”
“All right, then, call it fifteen thousand.”
Gutman smiled and frowned and shook his head. “Mr. Spade, I’ve told you frankly and candidly and on my word of honor as a gentleman that ten thousand dollars is all the money I’ve got, all I can raise.”
“Sure you told me that. But you didn’t say positively.”
Gutman laughed and said: “Positively.”
Spade said gloomily: “That’s not any too good, but if it’s the best you can do, give it to me.”
Gutman handed him the envelope. Spade counted the bills and was putting them in his pocket when Brigid O’Shaughnessy came in carrying a tray.
The boy would not eat. Cairo took a cup of coffee. The girl, Gutman, and Spade ate the scrambled eggs and bacon and toast and marmalade she had prepared, and drank two cups of coffee apiece. Then they settled down to wait the rest of the night through.
Gutman smoked a cigar and read Celebrated Criminal Cases of America, now and then chuckling over or commenting on the parts of its contents that he found interesting. Cairo nursed his bruised mouth and sulked on his end of the sofa. The boy sat with his head in his hands until a little after four o’clock. Then he lay down with his feet toward Cairo, turned his face to the window, and went to sleep. Brigid O’Shaughnessy, in the armchair, dozed, listened to the fat man’s comments, and carried on a wide-spaced, desultory conversation with Spade.
Spade lolled and smoked cigarettes and moved, without fidgeting or nervousness, around the room. He sat sometimes on an arm of the girl’s chair, on the table corner, on the floor at her feet, on a straight-backed chair. He was wide awake, cheerful and full of vigor.
At half past five he went into the kitchen and made more coffee. Half an hour later the boy stirred, awakened, and sat up yawning. Gutman looked at his watch and questioned Spade:
“Can you get it now?”
“Give me another hour.”
Gutman nodded and returned his attention to his book.
At seven o’clock Spade went to the telephone and called Effie Perine’s number.
“Hello, Mrs. Perine?... This is Mr. Spade. Will you let me talk to Effie, please?... Yes, it is... Thanks.” He whistled two lines of “En Cuba,” softly. “Hello, angel. Sorry to get you up... Yes, very. Here’s the plot: in our Holland box at the post office you’ll find an envelope addressed in my scribble. There’s a Pickwick Stage parcel-room check in it — for the bundle we got yesterday. Will you get the bundle and bring it to me, P.D.Q.?... Yes, I’m home... That’s the girl — hustle... Bye.”
The street doorbell rang at ten minutes of eight. Spade went to the telephone box and pressed the button that released the door. Gutman put down his book and rose smiling.
“You don’t mind if I go to the door with you?” he asked.
“O.K.,” Spade told him.
Gutman followed him to the corridor door. Spade opened it. Presently Effie Perine, carrying the brown-wrapped parcel, came from the elevator. Her boyish face was gay and excited, and she came forward quickly, almost trotting. After one quick glance she did not look at Gutman. She smiled at Spade and gave him the parcel.
He took it, saying: “Thanks a lot, lady. I’m sorry to spoil your day of rest, but this—”
“It’s not the first one you’ve spoiled,” she replied, laughing, and then, when it was apparent that he was not going to invite her in, asked: “Anything else?”
He shook his head. “No, thanks.”
She said, “Bye-bye,” and went back to the elevator.
Spade shut the door and carried the parcel into the living-room. Gutman’s face was red and his cheeks quivered.
Cairo and Brigid O’Shaughnessy came to the table as Spade put the parcel there. They were excited. The boy rose, pale and tense, but he remained by the sofa, staring under curling lashes at the others.
Spade stepped back from the table, saying, “There you are.”
Gutman’s fat fingers made short work of cord and paper and excelsior, and he had the black bird in his hands.