Стюарт Стерлинг - The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

Cochrane fell over backwards across the front seat, with his head hanging down over the rim of the door, baying with the pain of the burning track across the top of his skull.

Butler, who was momentarily in danger of losing his eyesight from Mrs. Ranger’s flailing left hand, swung a pulled but powerful fist straight under her jaw, as the easiest solution, and knocked her limp and passive across the back seat.

“You’re too damned vivacious for a recently bereaved widow!” the detective grunted.

He detached the thick-lensed glasses, which were hanging from one ear by now, blew out his breath, leaned across the back of the seat, and switched off a little unobtrusive lever protruding from his bag.

“It’s got about everything on it I need now,” he remarked to the writhing Cochrane. “They won’t care to listen to how loud you can howl just from a little nick in your dome.”

He straightened him up by the shoulder. “So you were his friend — his business partner! I suppose you dipped into his money in the firm’s assets, played his wife, and then took the easiest way out of both predicaments. Came out and met her a block or two away from the house that night, instead of waiting for her in town; slipped inside and gave it to him.

“Then the two of you calmly went in to the theater and pretended to phone him to see how he was. Well, that’ll all come out at the end of a garden hose. Now, hold your little handy up and pull your cuff back out of the way; I’ve got something for you.”

“Is the paper going to bring charges against me for... for defrauding them?” Swanson asked apprehensively when he had been changed from the central figure of an impending murder trial to merely a second-string witness.

“Probably not,” Butler assured dryly. “From what I know about papers, the sooner the public at large forgets the little transaction the better they’ll like it. And the only reason all of us down here at Headquarters don’t take turns giving you a good swift kick in the pants is because in a way you really helped to break this case for us.

“If you hadn’t plumped yourself down in the middle of it and made them show their hands a couple of times more, it might still be unsolved. Y’better take my advice and don’t try anything like that again. Go out to your motherless kid in Arizona; he needs you. Leave crimes alone that don’t belong to you. There’s enough going around that have lost their rightful owners as it is.”

“I’ll go,” Swanson said.

“Come and Get It” by Erle Stanley Gardner from Black Mask Magazine, April 1927. Copyright © 1927 by Erle Stanley Gardner, copyright renewed 1954. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Erle Stanley Gardner and Queen Literary Agency.

“Cry Silence” by Fredric Brown from Black Mask Magazine, November 1948. Copyright © 1948 by Fredric Brown. Renewed. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate and Barry Malzberg.

“Arson Plus” by Dashiell Hammett writing as Peter Collinson from Black Mask Magazine, October 1923. Copyright © 1923, copyright renewed 1951 by Dashiell Hammett. Reprinted by permission of the Dashiell Hammett Literary Property Trust, administered by the Joy Harris Literary Agency, Inc.

“Fall Guy” by George Harmon Coxe from Black Mask Magazine, June 1936. Copyright © 1936 by George Harmon Coxe. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.

“Doors in the Dark” by Frederick Nebel from Black Mask Magazine, February 1933. Copyright © 1933 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc., copyright renewed 1961 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by special arrangement with Keith Alan Deutsch (keithdeutsch@comcast.net; www.blackmaskmagazine.com) proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Luck” by Lester Dent. This previously unpublished piece is an earlier draft of the selection “Sail” from Black Mask Magazine, October 1936. Copyright © 2010 by the Estate of Norma Dent. Reprinted by permission of Will Murray, Agent for the Estate of Norma Dent.

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett from Black Mask Magazine, September-December 1929, January 1930. From the novel The Maltese Falcon. Copyright © 1929, 1930 by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., copyright renewed 1957, 1958 by Dashiell Hammett. Reprinted by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

“Ten Carats of Lead” by Stewart Sterling from Black Mask Magazine, August 1940. Copyright © 1940, copyright renewed 1968 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by special arrangement with Keith Alan Deutsch (keithdeutsch@comcast.net; www.blackmaskmagazine.com) proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Murder Is Bad Luck” by Wyatt Blassingame from Black Mask Magazine, March 1940. Copyright © 1940 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc., copyright renewed 1968 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by special arrangement with Keith Alan Deutsch (keithdeutsch@comcast.net; www.blackmaskmagazine.com) proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Her Dagger Before Me” by Talmadge Powell from Black Mask Magazine, July 1949. Copyright © 1949, copyright renewed 1977 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by special arrangement with Keith Alan Deutsch (keithdeutsch@comcast.net; www.blackmaskmagazine.com) proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“One Shot” by Charles G. Booth from Black Mask Magazine, June 1925. Copyright © 1925 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc., copyright renewed 1953 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by special arrangement with Keith Alan Deutsch (keithdeutsch@comcast.net; www.blackmaskmagazine.com) proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“The Dancing Rats” by Richard Sale from Black Mask Magazine, June 1942. Copyright © 1942, copyright renewed 1970 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by special arrangement with Keith Alan Deutsch (keithdeutsch@comcast.net; www.blackmaskmagazine.com) proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Bracelets” by Katherine Brocklebank from Black Mask Magazine, December 1928. Copyright © 1928 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc., copyright renewed 1956 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by special arrangement with Keith Alan Deutsch (keithdeutsch@comcast.net; www.blackmaskmagazine.com) proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Diamonds Mean Death” by Thomas Walsh from Black Mask Magazine, March 1936. Copyright © 1936 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc., copyright renewed 1964 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by special arrangement with Keith Alan Deutsch (keithdeutsch@comcast.net; www.blackmaskmagazine.com) proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Murder in the Ring” by Raoul Whitfield from Black Mask Magazine, December 1930. Copyright © 1930 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc., copyright renewed 1958 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by special arrangement with Keith Alan Deutsch (keithdeutsch@comcast.net; www.blackmaskmagazine.com) proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.