Роберт Беллем - Pulp Frictions

‘You look in, and tell me what’s going on,’ I said, half sarcastically. And I’ll admit that I was surprised when he did stretch up and stand plumb in the light. Nothing happened to him either. But I did notice one thing. He had removed his slouch hat before he looked through the window. Just a habit, that? Maybe — then again, maybe not.

‘They are there — both of them — and the girl. Now’s your chance. We won’t have to enter by the cellar. Come — look.’ And he was as excited and as interested as a child.

I didn’t say anything. Perhaps, after all, the doctor was on the up and up with me. But I took off my hat there in the darkness and, reaching suddenly out, I placed it on the doctor’s head.

The hat had hardly landed; my hand was little more than out of the light; the white face of the doctor had no more than half turned in surprise, doubt, and then fear — when it happened. There was the roar of a gun, a choked scream, a hole in a white face — and the doctor pitched forward on his face. The trap had been sprung — and whether it was successful or not depended entirely upon the point of view you take.

Of course the thing was simple enough. A lad hid in the darkness and watched the lighted window. He was not to fire at a bare head, but was to shoot at the first covered one. My little experiment with the hat looked to him as if the heads had changed. He had made a mistake, of course — but life is full of mistakes; and here he was, coming to pay for his. Yep — he was dashing across the darkness towards the lighted window and the figure beneath it. He thought he had hit me. How sweet and simple of him! But then, I have often contended that crooks are like children.

‘All right... all right,’ he was calling as he came. Certainly he had the confidence of youth. And as he reached the window it opened, and I recognised the swarthy-faced lad, Ferganses; and I plainly saw the big automatic he held in his right hand.

‘You got him, eh, Farro?’ And there was something in his voice which was not entirely congratulatory. Farro recognised it, but too late. He was in the light of the window and I could just make out his face. Farro never had the chance to lift the gun in his hand — for Ferganses, in the window, fired at once. Without a cry Farro sank down on top of the doctor.

‘It is done, eh, doctor?’ Ferganses leaned from the window, his blinking eyes trying to get a good picture of me in the darkness. ‘But come,’ he went on, taking me for the doctor, ‘this Williams is dead — this Farro will no longer want a share. We must burn the money out of the girl, for she is obstinate. Come!’

‘Come!’ was right. He was hanging half out of the window, with the gun dangling in his hand. And I came. I stepped forward and swung my gun through the air. There was a dull thud, and his chin pounded down on the window-sill. He just sprawled there until I dragged him out and dropped him to the grass.

Maybe I should have shot him and been done with it. But I didn’t. It wasn’t big-heartedness, nor even a hesitancy about taking a human life. I just thought of my own interest. It was better that he should live. There was a mess there beneath the window that couldn’t be hidden from a police investigation. They’d need a victim and they might as well have Ferganses. The authorities would identify the doctor, question the girl, and drag me into it anyway. For once I’d face an investigation as innocent as a new-born babe.

But the girl. I found her all right, in the room above, where I had seen the flashlight. Horribly frightened, of course, yet physically all right but for the stiffness from her bound limbs. And... well, what more would you want, unless to have me go out and walk on Ferganses’ face? — which little action I had already done when I climbed in the window. After all, Bernie hadn’t gotten such bad service.

Despite his importance as the first hardboiled dick, Race Williams’ fame has been somewhat overshadowed through the passing years by two other pioneer sleuths, the anonymous Continental Op and Sam Spade, both created by Dashiell Hammett. Although Hammett, like Carroll John Daly, favoured a swift, terse style of storytelling, he put a great deal more effort into the characterisation of his protagonists, as well as creating stories that were rather more realistic. The first of his private eyes, the Continental Op, was also something of a contrast to Race Williams: middle-aged, heavily built, tough and sardonic, he used a gun but was just as willing to wade into a criminal with his bare hands if the need arose. He worked for the Continental Detective Agency in San Francisco and in a long career proved himself loyal, dedicated and totally incorruptible. Although, like Williams, the Op helped many women in trouble, in stark contrast to his predecessor he always co-operated with the police and solved most of his cases by painstaking enquiry and meticulous attention to detail. He was not one to boast of his abilities, and recounted all his cases in a detached style that made his readers feel they were in the company of a complete professional. He, too, made his first appearance in the pages of Black Mask, less than five months after Williams, in the story ‘Arson Plus’ which carried the by-line of ‘Peter Collinson’. Although some readers might have sensed that here was an important new character, few could have had any idea just how important — and even less what stature the pseudonymous author would later enjoy in crime fiction.

‘Peter Collinson’ was actually a curious name for Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) to have chosen. It derived from an underworld expression, ‘Peter Collins’, used to refer to a nobody, thereby making the author ‘nobody’s son’. Notwithstanding this, there was no denying the authentic feel of his landmark story about the Continental Op, or those that followed in the long-running series, due in considerable measure to the fact that Hammett had himself been a private detective. Born in Maryland, he had been a high school drop-out at 13 who finally found a job with the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency in Baltimore. Eight years later, after being assigned to cases in a number of cities — foremost among them San Francisco — as well as being involved with the gangster Nick Arnstein and the infamous Fatty Arbuckle rape case, Hammett ‘turned sour on being a detective to use his own words, and decided instead to try his hand at writing for the pulps. It was natural enough for him to draw on his wealth of experience with Pinkerton’s to make his mark on crime fiction, but it was with the creation of another detective, Sam Spade, who made his bow in The Maltese Falcon (1930), that he presented the genre with a character many believe to be the most famous detective of the twentieth century. Here, however, is the story that began the Hammett — and Continental Op — legend more than seventy years ago...

Jim Tarr picked up the cigar I rolled across his desk, looked at the band, bit off an end, and reached for a match.

‘Three for a buck,’ he said. ‘You must want me to break a couple of laws for you this time.’

I had been doing business with this fat sheriff of Sacramento County for four or five years — ever since I came to the Continental Detective Agency’s San Francisco office — and I had never known him to miss an opening for a sour crack; but it didn’t mean anything.

‘Wrong both times,’ I told him. ‘I get them for two bits each, and I’m here to do you a favour instead of asking for one. The company that insured Thornburgh’s house thinks somebody touched it off.’

‘That’s right enough, according to the fire department. They tell me the lower part of the house was soaked with gasoline, but the Lord knows how they could tell — there wasn’t a stick left standing. I’ve got McClump working on it, but he hasn’t found anything to get excited about yet.’