Mammoth Book Of Pulp Action [The] PDF
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The Mammoth Book Of Pulp Action Edited by Maxim Jakubowski ROBINSON London Constable & Robinson Ltd 3 The Lanchesters 162 Fulham Palace Road London W6 9ER First published in the UK by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2001 Collection and editorial material copyright © Maxim Jakubowski 2001 All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library. ISBN 1-84119-288-0 Printed and bound in the EU ABEB/Bookz – v2.0 Contents Introduction THE KID CLIPS A COUPON Erie Stanley Gardner GOODBYE HANNAH Steve Fisher SINNERS’ PARADISE Raoul Whitfield MOTEL Evan Hunter aka Ed McBain SMILE, CORPSE, SMILE! Bruno Fischer THE PULP CONNECTION Bill Pronzini BRUSH BABE’S POISON PALLET Bruce Cassiday THE GANGSTA WORE RED Michael Guinzburg CARAVAN TO TARIM David Goodis THE LADY WHO LEFT HER COFFIN Hugh B. Cave DEATH AT THE MAIN Frank Gruber RED GOOSE Norbert Davis THE FIRST FIVE IN LINE Charles Willeford WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A SLAY Frederick C. Davis RIDE A WHITE HORSE Lawrence Block BEST MAN Thomas Walsh DOG LIFE Mark Timlin DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU Fredric Brown COLLEGE-CUT KILL John D. MacDonald THE LOST COAST Marcia Muller THE PIT Joe R. Lansdale CLEAN SWEEP Roger Torrey EYE OF THE BEHOLDER Ed Gorman Introduction Pulp fiction never dies! In the footsteps of our initial volume of THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF PULP FICTION, which has enjoyed great popularity and several reprints, here is another cornucopia of fascinating tales by some of the greatest storytellers of yesterday and today. Whether one defines pulp fiction as stories originating in the erstwhile magazines printed on pulp paper, or a tradition of storytelling whose roots lie in hardboiled fiction populated by tough guys, cops, villains and femmes fatales of the parish, there is no denying that they are invariably stories where action and thrills are paramount and the reader is trapped in a whirlwind of adventure and suspense. In a way, pulp fiction is then an attitude, but first and foremost it is a grand demonstration of the art of storytelling at its best. And in these packed pages, writers of the golden age blend effortlessly with newer talents and contemporary stars who are respectful of the lessons of the past. From Prohibition days to up- to-the-minute tales of the hood, from highways to motels and Arabian desert capers, here is a mighty selection of pulp action at its best. And yes, they do still write them like they used to! Maxim Jakubowski The Kid Clips a Coupon Erie Stanley Gardner I - The Clue of the Jam Dan Seller lounged in the big chair and listened as Police Inspector Phil Brame recounted the circumstances of the crime for the edification of the small group of cronies who frequented the choice corner of the club. “Just a plain case of murder,” Inspector Brame was saying, “and a bit of strawberry jam is going to send the guy to the chair.” “I don’t think Dan Higgins intended to commit murder when he broke into the place. Mrs Morelay, paralyzed from the hips down, was in the living room, seated in her wheelchair, going over a bunch of account books. Higgins broke in to get some food. Mrs Morelay heard him moving around in the kitchen. There was a telephone attached to her wheelchair. She called police headquarters and reported someone in her kitchen, stealing food. “Higgins heard her telephoning. It sent him into a furious rage. The man was a hungry. He dashed into the room and split the woman’s head open with a hatchet he had picked up in the kitchen. Then he helped himself to food. He spread some homemade strawberry jam on a slice of bread and ate it. He spilled some jam on his necktie without knowing it. He had gone less than a block from the place when the police radio car came along. “Higgins looked like just the type who would be stealing food—a half-starved chap with clothes that were pretty much the worse for wear. Our men stopped and picked him up on suspicion and then went to the house and found that murder had been committed. Higgins denied he’d been near the house, and he’d evidently learned his lesson about fingerprints, because there were no fingerprints on any of the stuff in the kitchen. The police found a pair of dirty gloves in his pocket. Evidently he’d worn those while he was eating. But there was strawberry jam on his tie. The jam was analyzed. The amount of sugar it contained was carefully noted by the police-chemists, and then an analysis was made of the strawberry jam in the jar in the sink. The jam on the tie Higgins was wearing at the time of his arrest came from that jar of homemade jam.” “Wasn’t there someone who saw him leaving the house?” Renfroe, the banker, asked. “Yes,” Brame said. “Walter Stagg, the man who acts as manager for Mrs Morelay, drove up to the house in his automobile. He arrived there almost at the same time that the police did. He was just coming up the cement walk when the police car rounded the corner. He said that he had seen Higgins coming around the back of the house, as though he had either slipped out of a window, or had been snooping around the house. Stagg said he intended to unlock the front door —which was always kept on a night latch—and see if anything was wrong. If anything was missing, he was determined to jump into his car and follow the man until he could notify a policeman. Stagg was unarmed so he didn’t want to encounter an armed crook unless he had an officer handy.” Bill Pope, the explorer, stared steadily at the curling smoke of a cigarette. “It seems strange,” he said, “that a man would have gone ahead and eaten heartily after having committed a murder, particularly the murder of a helpless old woman who had done nothing to injure him.” “She telephoned for the police,” Inspector Brame said. “Don’t forget that.” “But,” Dan Seller pointed out, “if that was the motive for the crime and the man knew she had telephoned for the police, he’d have been doubly foolish to have murdered her and then gone on eating, knowing that the police were on their way in a radio car.” Inspector Brame’s face flushed. “More of your amateur detective stuff,” he said. “It’s an easy thing for you wealthy young coupon-clippers to construct theories proving that the police are always wrong. Doubtless, an attorney for the defence will try to bamboozle a jury into believing the police got the wrong man. But he won’t be able to—not with that strawberry jam on the man’s necktie.” “Was there,” asked Bill Pope, “robbery as well?” “Apparently not. Higgins had nothing in his possession when he was arrested. He might have taken something from the body and buried it somewhere in the vicinity. She was supposed to have a large sum of cash money which she always kept on hand, but there wasn’t any money found on her body. “Higgins was wise. He didn’t leave a single fingerprint. We fingerprinted everything about the body, and didn’t find a thing. The books that were open in front of her didn’t have a single fingerprint on the page other than the prints of Walter Stagg, the manager, who kept all the books and submitted them to Mrs Morelay for examination.” “Perhaps a draught of wind might have blown one of the pages,” Dan Seller said. “Did your men take prints on the other pages to see if that had happened?” “As it happens, my bright young man,” the inspector said, “we did that very thing, although we didn’t need to, because when the woman’s skull was split open, blood spattered upon the pages of the open account book, and we had no difficulty in telling what page was in front of her at the time.” “Very clever detective work, inspector,” Renfroe, the banker, said. “Undoubtedly the man will go to the chair on the strength of that strawberry jam.” “Mrs Morelay was wealthy?” “Quite wealthy. She leaves no will. The property goes to a niece, Tess Copley. She’s the only surviving relative.” “Live here in the city?” Renfroe asked. “Yes.” “They found the weapon with which the crime was committed?” Bill Pope inquired. “Oh, yes, of course. It was there in the room. There could be no question about it. A bloodstained hatchet that had been taken from the kitchen.” Bill Pope’s clear eyes surveyed Inspector Brame. “You should feel pretty happy, inspector,” he said, “but you seem to be down in the dumps.” Inspector Brame sighed. “It’s that damned Patent Leather Kid,” he said.
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