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.
“Ah,” he said huskily, “now, after seventeen years!” His eyes were moist.
Cairo licked his red lips and worked his hands together. The girl’s lower lip was between her teeth. She and Cairo, like Gutman, and like Spade and the boy, were breathing heavily. The air in the room was chilly and stale and heavy with tobacco smoke.
Gutman set the bird down on the table again and fumbled at a pocket.
“It’s it,” he said, “but we’ll make sure.”
Sweat glistened on his round cheeks. His fingers jerked as he took out a gold pocket-knife and opened it. Cairo and the girl stood close beside him, on either side. Spade stood back a little, where he could watch the boy as well as the group at the table.
Gutman turned the bird upside down and scraped an edge of its base with his knife. Black enamel came off in tiny curls, exposing blackened metal beneath. Gutman’s knife blade bit into the metal, turning back a thin curved shaving. The inside of the shaving, and the narrow plane its removal had left, had the soft gray sheen of lead.
Gutman’s breath hissed between his teeth. His face became turgid with hot blood. He twisted the bird around and hacked at its head. There, too, the edge of his knife bared lead. He let knife and bird bang down on the table while he wheeled to confront Spade.
“It’s a fake,” he said hoarsely.
Spade’s face had become somber. His nod was slow, but there was no slowness in his hand’s going out to catch Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s wrist. He pulled her to him and grasped her chin with his other hand, raising her face roughly.
“All right,” he growled down into her frightened face. “You’ve had your little joke. Now tell us about it.”
She cried: “No, Sam, no! That is the one I got from Kemidov. I swear—”
Joel Cairo thrust himself between Spade and Gutman and began to emit words in a shrill, spluttering stream:
“That’s it, that’s it! It was the Russian! I should have known! What a fool we thought him, and what fools he made of us!” Tears ran down the Levantine’s cheeks and he danced up and down. “You bungled it!” he screamed at Gutman. “You and your stupid attempt to buy it from him! You fat fool! You let him know it was valuable, and he found out how valuable, and made a duplicate for us. No wonder we had so little trouble stealing it! No wonder he was so willing to send me off around the world looking for it! You imbecile, you bloated idiot!” He put his hands to his face and blubbered.
Gutman’s jaw sagged. He blinked vacant eyes. Then he shook himself and was — by the time his bulbs had stopped jouncing — again a jovially smiling fat man.
“Come, sir,” he said good-naturedly, “there’s no need of going on like that. Everybody errs at times, and you may be sure that this is every bit as severe a blow to me as to anyone else. Yes, that is the Russian’s hand — there’s no doubt of it. Well, sir, what do you suggest? Shall we stand here and call each other names? Or shall we” — he paused, and his smile was a cherub’s — “go to Constantinople?”
Now Cairo’s jaw sagged while Cairo’s eyes bulged. In a little while he stammered: “You are—?” Amazement that came with full comprehension seemed to rob him of further words.
Gutman patted a fat cheek gently with a fat hand. His eyes twinkled. His voice was a complacent throaty purring:
“For seventeen years I have wanted that little item, and have been trying to get it. If I must spend another year on the quest, well, sir, that will be an additional expenditure in time of only” — his lips moved silently as he calculated — “five and fifteen-seventeenths percent.”
The Levantine giggled and cried: “I go with you!”
Spade suddenly released the girl’s wrist and looked around the room. The boy was not there. Spade went into the passageway. The corridor door was open. Spade made a dissatisfied mouth, shut the door, and returned to the living-room.
He leaned against the door-frame and looked at Gutman. He looked at him for a long time, sourly. Then he spoke, mimicking the fat man’s throaty purr:
“Well, sir, I must say you’re a swell lot of thieves.”
Gutman chuckled.
“We’ve nothing to boast of, and that’s a fact, sir,” he said. “But, well, we’re none of us dead yet, and there’s not a bit of use of thinking the world’s come to an end just because we’ve run into a little setback.” He brought his left hand from behind him and held it out at Spade, pink smooth hilly palm up. “I’ll have to ask you for that envelope, sir.”
Spade did not move. His face was wooden. He said:
“I held up my end. You got your dingus. It’s your hard luck, not mine, that it wasn’t what you wanted.”
“Now, come, sir,” Gutman said persuasively, “we’ve all failed, and there’s no reason for expecting any one of us to bear the brunt of it. It’s simply one of those unfortunate happenings, and—” He brought his right hand from behind him. In the hand was a small pistol, an ornately engraved and inlaid affair of silver and gold and mother-of-pearl. “In short, sir, I must ask you to return my ten thousand dollars.”
Spade’s face did not change. He shrugged phlegmatically and took the envelope from his pocket. He started to hold it out to Gutman, hesitated, opened the envelope and took out one thousand-dollar bill. He put that bill into his pants pocket. He tucked the envelope’s flap in over the other bills and held them out to Gutman.
“That’ll take care of my time and expenses,” he said.
Gutman, after a little pause, imitated Spade’s shrug and accepted the envelope. He said:
“Now, sir, we will say goodbye to you, unless” — the fat puffs around his eyes crinkled — “you care to undertake the Constantinople expedition with us. You don’t? Well, sir, frankly, I’d like to have you along. You’re a man to my liking, a man of many resources and of nice judgment. Because we know you’re a man of nice judgment we know we can say goodbye with every assurance that you’ll hold the details of our little enterprise in confidence. We know we can count on you appreciating the fact that, as the situation now stands, any legal difficulties that came to us in connection with these last few days would likewise and equally come to you and the charming Miss O’Shaughnessy. You’re too shrewd not to realize that, sir, I’m sure.”
“I understand that,” Spade replied.
“I was sure you would. I’m also sure that, now there’s no alternative, you’ll somehow manage the police without giving them a fall-guy.”
“I’ll make out all right,” Spade replied.
“I was sure you would. Well, sir, the shortest farewells are the best. Adieu.” He made a portly bow. “And to you, Miss O’Shaughnessy, adieu. I leave you the rara avis on the table as a little memento.”
Chapter XX
If They Hang You
For all of five minutes after the outer door had closed behind Joel Cairo and Casper Gutman, Spade, motionless, stood staring at the knob of the open living-room door. His eyes were gloomy under a forehead drawn down. The clefts at the root of his nose were deep and red. His lips protruded loosely, pouting. He drew them in to make a hard V and went to the telephone. He had not looked at Brigid O’Shaughnessy, who stood by the table looking with uneasy eyes at him.
He picked up the telephone, set it on its shelf again, and bent to look into the telephone directory hanging from a corner of the shelf. He turned the pages rapidly, found the one he wanted, ran his finger down a column, straightened up, and lifted the telephone from the shelf again.
He called a number and said:
“Hello, is Sergeant Polhaus there?... Will you call him, please? This is Samuel Spade.” He stared into space, waiting. “Hello, Tom, I’ve got something for you... Yes, plenty. Here it is: Thursby and Jacobi were shot by a kid named Wilmer Cook, from New York, I think.” He described the boy minutely. “He’s tied up with — working for — a man named Casper Gutman.” He described Gutman. “That fellow Cairo you met here is in with them now also... Yes, that’s it... Gutman and the kid have been staying at the Alexandria, suite 12-C. They’ve just left here, and they’re blowing town, so you’ll have to move quick; but I don’t think they’re expecting a pinch... There’s a girl in it, too — Gutman’s daughter.” He described Rhea Gutman. “Watch yourself when you go up against the kid. He’s supposed to be pretty good with the gun... That’s right, Tom; and I’ve got some stuff here for you. I think I’ve got the guns he used... Right. Step on it — and luck to you.”