Black Mask (Fall 2017) , livre ebook

Black Mask (Fall 2017)
by
Lester Dent
Horace McCoy
Herbert Koehl
Kent Richards
Hugh B. Cave
Stephen McBarron
Dwight V. Babcock
Day Keene
Wyatt Blassingame
Edgar Franklin

Edited by
Alfred Jan

Black Mask • 2017
Copyright Information

© 2017 Black Mask

BLACK MASK Fall 2017. Published semiannually by Black Mask. © 2017 by Steeger Properties, LLC, all rights reserved. Black Mask is a registered trademark of Steeger Properties, LLC. The stories in this magazine are all fictitious, and any resemblance between the characters in them and actual persons is completely coincidental. Reproduction or use, in any manner, of editorial or pictorial content without express written permission is prohibited. Submissions must be accompanied by a self-addressed stamp envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

“And Death Waltzed In” appears here for the first time. Copyright © 2017 The Estate of Lester Dent.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Behind The Mask

Issue number three of the revived Black Mask is here!
As we’ve done with the first two issues, we’ve published a new story which sits quite nicely with the classic hard-boiled stories from the pulps. This time, we’ve included an unpublished story by Doc Savage co-creator Lester Dent. “And Death Waltzed In” is a later version of Dent’s story, “One to Talk,” which was written in October, 1932. Shopped to Carson W. Moore of Dell’s All-Detective, it went unsold.
Dent took another stab at it, rewriting the story in 1933: “And Death Waltzed In” was the result. The Executor of the Literary Estate of Lester Dent, Will Murray, speculates that Dent attempted to sell “And Death Waltzed In” to Ten Detectives Aces, The Shadow or Thrilling Detective without success. While we’ll likely never know the full story, we’re pleased to feature another story by Lester Dent in Black Mask. After all, editor Joseph T. Shaw thought so highly of his Oscar Sail stories from BM that he included one in his classic Hard-Boiled Omnibus.
This issue includes an interesting interview with the author of Donovan’s Brain, Curt Siodmak. This was conducted by Keith Alan Deutsch and was intended for the second issue of his ’70s Black Mask revival series. Alas, that issue was never published. But we’re giving it the prominence it deserves.
Look for another issue of Black Mask in the spring.
And Death Waltzed In
by Lester Dent

Lee Hutchens made cigarette smoke go scooting across his desk, disturbing cigarette ashes strewed there.
He said, “This is nothing to cut up so about.”
Van Powerwaite beat his fists on the desk and cried, “I tell you it’s a death matter!” He was a small man, neat, bright-eyed. He looked like a cornered fox. “Nobody can tell me it’s less!”
Hutchens tilted back and his swivel chair squealed. Hutch was very tall, very bony. Hunching his shoulders had screwed his coat collar up around his ears and bristling red hair. His face was angular and looked like it had been out in a hard wind.
“Mike, you tell it,” he invited. “See if you can make it make sense.”
“It’s starting out like a dozen others did,” Mike began. Mike was Mike Manhatty, two hundred and thirty pounds of him, all in blue. Mike was chief of Tulsa detectives, widely known throughout Oklahoma, and as fine a son of Ireland as ever took to a brick.
“Van Powerwaite, here, got a notice to kick in with fifty thousand, or he’d be handed plenty. This note came from the Oil Derrick gang. It was signed with a drawing of an oil derrick.” Mike scowled at his own blunt fingers. “Figure you know what that means, Hutch. I hate to say so, but it means we’re—” He spread his hands, “—stucko!”
Hutch scooted smoke over the desk again. “How many times has the Oil Derrick gang pulled this, Mike?”
Mike scowled blackly. “An even dozen, if you count the whole state of Oklahoma. Two gents who wouldn’t kick in, they killed.”
“And the police are helpless!” Van Powerwaite hit the desk with his fists once more. “That’s why we came to you, Mr. Hutchens!”
Hutch looked through the smoke at Mike Manhatty, one eyebrow creeping up to convey the slightest hint of a question.
“He wanted to go to somebody,” Mike said. “So I brought him to you. You’re the monkey for the job, Hutch. You held this job of mine for ten years before you quit the force to set up this detective agency. You got connections all over Oklahoma.”
Hutch’s eyes bored into Mike’s. He said, “You know Hector Smallock is the brains of the Oil Derrick gang, don’t you, Mike?”
“Sure.” Mike moved his shoulders hopelessly. “Hell! I can’t get nothing on him. I been trying for six months.”
“Hector Smallock running the Oil Derrick gang!” Van Powerwaite piped up. “Ridiculous! Hector Smallock is the best known attorney in Tulsa!”
Hutch said in a level, dispassionate tone, “Hector Smallock is crookedest, rottenest, filthiest specimen ever born to woman. They coined the word louse from that guy.”
“Amen,” Mike grunted.
“I can’t tell you how surprised I am!” murmured Van Powerwaite.
“It would surprise a lot of people.” Hutch burned the last inch from his cigarette with a single drag, snapped the fag into a cuspidor. “Well, I’ll take this case.”
“Hoped you would.” Mike stood up, burly, thick-necked. “You had better work so Hector Smallock don’t find it out, Hutch.”
“Me?” Hutch laughed. His laugh was thunder in the room. “I’ll tag around with Van Powerwaite, letting everybody see I’m his bodyguard.”
“Why—why—you’re crazy, Hutch!” Mike Manhatty was genuinely shocked.
Hutch swung over to a calendar, tore off sheets down to Tuesday, said, “Your oil company broadcasts a program on Thursday, don’t it, Van Powerwaite? And you deliver the radio sales talk yourself?”
“That is correct,” Van Powerwaite said crisply.
Mike Manhatty began a protest, “Hutch, you’re—!”
Hutch roughhoused him to the door, chuckled, “Don’t be an old woman, Mike! I’ve already got plans for this Hector Smallock.”
The door had a frosted glass panel full length. Gilt letters on it said, Radio Broadcast Studio.
The frosted glass panel broke with a loud jangling explosion. Glass sprayed jingling across the carpet.
A man shoved through. A small, squat man, masked, with a big single-action six-shooter. Another followed, his carbon copy twin, even to mask and gun.
“Don’t move—anybody!” one rapped dramatically.
A crooner ended his mouthing of a tune with a strained bleat and his face nearly assumed the white of his starched shirt front. His pianist stared with hands frozen over the keyboard. The pompous, bald station manager gurgled, “Oh! Oh!” and put up trembling arms.
Van Powerwaite, small, neat, like a startled fox, leaped up from a chair. He cried in a loud, excited voice, “Hutch! Hutch!”
Hutch said, “Take it easy, Van!”
Hutch stood with back pressed to the studio wall, overcoat wadded up around his ears and bristling red hair. His hands were sunken in his overcoat pockets.
The masked men advanced, glass cracking and gritting under their feet.
“Van Powerwaite!” the spokesman said harshly. “We want you! We’re from the Oil Derricks and we’d hate to see anybody get hurt—!”
Hutch’s tall frame tilted slightly away from the studio wall. His hands started out of his overcoat pockets.
The masked man saw, yelled, “You—shamus—up with—!”
The other masked man, more nimble of wit, scooped a chair, threw it underhand.
It was a heavy chair. Hitting Hutch, it straightened him stiffly against the wall. The man in the mask, rushing, clubbed a gun to Hutch’s red-bristled head.
Hutch got a gun out of his overcoat, a big short-barreled Colt. The masked man hit him again. Hutch weaved, took another blow, crashed over on the carpet.
“Wild West stuff!” The masked man got Hutch’s gun. “You—Van Powerwaite! Ankle out the back way!”
Van Powerwaite jigged from foot to foot, yelled excitedly, “You can’t do this! You won’t get away—!”
“Pipe down!” The masked man leaped, chopped Van Powerwaite’s face viciously with barrel and sights of his gun.
Van Powerwaite moaned and put his hands over his face. Crimson began to string between his fingers. He weaved obediently for the rear.
One masked man tore up the bank of microphones, hurled them violently across the studio. He ran over, kicked Hutch, snarling, “Up, shamus! You’re goin’ along!”
Hutch heaved off the floor, shaky. His wrists and face were skinned.
He and Van Powerwaite were herded into a rear room where instrument panels made black walls on either side. Through another door, they veered left.
Hutch threw a glance over his shoulder, said, “Step on it!” and began to run.
Van Powerwaite trotted beside him.
The two masked men came along in the rear, putting away guns, pulling off masks. They were grinning. Young men, they did not look tough.
Hutch flung at them, “Put these back on!”
One said, “Aw—we put it over!”
“It’s not over yet!”
Hutch spun into an elevator, a rough freight elevator apart from the passenger lifts. The cage sank them. The two young men were putting their masks back on.
Van Powerwaite, dabbing his cut face, asked anxiously, “Do you think anybody suspected it was play-acting?”
“Too early to tell.” Hutch watched floor numbers flick past.
One of the masked men choked with laughter. “Man, oh man! Did you see how that crooner looked?”
Hutch braked the elevator to a stop, caved the doors back, looked o