The Tag Murders

Carroll John Daly

Description

Race Williams thought he had seen it all until he came face to face with the mystery of The Tag Murderer: the killer who left metal emblems pinned to each of his victims' corpses. Solving the case is only made more complicated when The Flame, Race's femme fatale, becomes entangled in the mystery: what's her role? And is Race in her crosshairs too? One of the best adventures in the Race Williams series. Story #20 in the Race Williams series.



Carroll John Daly (1889–1958) was the creator of the first hard-boiled private eye story, predating Dashiell Hammett's first Continental Op story by several months. Daly's classic character, Race Williams, was one of the most popular fiction characters of the pulps, and the direct inspiration for Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer.

Sujets

• Hard boiled
• Popular culture
• Detective
• Private investigator
• Mystery
• Black Mask
• Mickey Spillane
• Raymond Chandler
• Dashiell Hammett
• Mike Hammer
• Pulp Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Black Mask
• Date de parution: 12 novembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788827516034
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Tag Murders

Race Williams book #20

A Black Mask Classic

by
Carroll John Daly

Black Mask
Copyright Information

© 2017 Steeger Properties, LLC. Published by arrangement with Steeger Properties, LLC, agent for the Estate of Carroll John Daly.

Publication History:
“The Tag Murders” originally appeared in the March–June, 1929 issues of Black Mask magazine.

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.

“Race Williams” is a trademark of the Estate of Carroll John Daly. “Black Mask” is a trademark of Steeger Properties, LLC, and registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The Tag Murders

Chapter 1
A Strange Introduction
The Evening Blade
That the police are helpless to cope with this latest “crime wave” may be a nerve-racked, panicky statement. But that they have not met the situation is undoubtedly a fact which the uncompleted crime records of the past few months will show.
Organized crime may be scoffed at in the district attorney’s office. It may be laughed down by the police department. But it cannot be denied that murder, robbery, blackmail, and even arson have been perpetrated under such similar conditions and circumstances as to make it apparent to the most “level-headed citizen” that some directing hand or hands are behind the recent and prolonged series of outrages that have struck terror to our city.
It may be “scatter brained” or even “childish”—as our contemporaries have hinted—to connect up small, round, metal tags with any deeply-rooted and well-organized industry of crime. That a “master mind,” with the single purpose of purloining from prosperous citizens the fruits of their labor, would leave behind him such “silly” indications of scorn and defiance of the police has been ridiculed. “Childish” that? Perhaps, if these metal indications of “jobs” all perpetrated by the same gang did not serve some other purpose. But each tag carries a message of fear—not only to the law-abiding and long-suffering citizen, but to the denizens of the underworld as well.
Five underworld characters—namely: two gang leaders, two ex-convicts, and one nationally known counterfeiter—have been done to death on the streets of the lower city. And upon the person of each, or in close proximity to the body, was found one of these strange metal tags. “Childish” this? “Scatter brained” this? Scorn and defiance to the police? Or was it something else? Was it as a warning to others that these men died?
It has taken this latest outrage—the robbery at twelve o’clock noon of Burton’s Jewelry Store on Fifth Avenue, and the brutal killing of a clerk—to stir our city to real action. Gregory Ford and his nationally known detective agency have been retained by the Consolidated Association of Merchants of New York City.
Interviewed, Gregory Ford gave out a bit of information that will be as interesting to the public as it was surprising and startling to this newspaper. Race Williams—gun-toting and gun-using, self-styled “private investigator,” who has on numerous occasions figured in sensational newspaper stories—is to be hired by the Ford Agency.
The New York Evening Blade has more than once condemned the district attorney for not watching more closely, and stopping with drastic measures the activities of this so called detective—Race Williams. But here is a matter that calls, perhaps, to a fight of fire with fire—and by that we begrudgingly admit that we mean “gun-fire.”
The Evening Blade cannot agree with the ethics of Mr. Race Williams. We cannot commend to the public his past activities in the many cases he has handled. But we can, and do, admit that no matter what our opinion may be, Race Williams has gotten results. In plain words—for once, this paper is in absolute accord with the methods of this notorious gunman, Race Williams. We want an end to these outrages. We want the men who are responsible for them. And we want them—in the parlance of the Old West—“Dead or alive.”
I read the editorial through again, then laid the paper down on the flat desk. According to the precedent laid down by fiction heroes, I should—in outraged dignity—horsewhip the writer of that article. But I didn’t. I took a laugh instead. Besides, this is the age of high-powered advertising—and that write-up was good business. Just one frown in the whole thing! Gregory Ford’s crack that he had hired me. There wasn’t a word of truth in that. Gregory Ford hadn’t made a peep about this case, though he had called me up and in his bluff, genial way tried to find out just how busy I was.
But that was like Gregory. He always played to the gallery. He simply wanted to see how the newspapers would take to me as his assistant. If they put up a terrible squawk, he could deny the interview—at least, say that he was misquoted; and in proof of his indignant denials, point to the fact that he never approached me on the subject.
However, The Evening Blade was not my favorite sheet. And I had not just picked up the paper and read the editorial by chance. Not by a jugful I hadn’t. It had been clipped from the paper and sent in to me by my office boy, Jerry, who spoke now, as I looked up at him.
“The bloke’s waitin’ outside.” Jerry jerked a thumb toward the door to the outer office—and when I waited for further information, “A mean, messy-looking bird, that looks as if he went in for hardware—wholesale.” I had picked Jerry up in the underworld and his jargon, if inelegant, was expressive.
“Show the lad in, Jerry, and I’ll listen to his swan song.”
Jerry grinned—slipped through the door, and I set the stage for the lad whose card was a complete editorial. And he came, letting his big body slip through the door in sections—for more effect. He was one tough-looking baby and no mistake. Plenty of body, but his face had been neglected. He had too much mouth and not enough eyes. His nose, though generous, had lost itself back in the center of his face. But the nose was there—closer inspection made one think it was all over his face. His ears, if he had any, were tucked under a checked cap. He was set up in new scenery, for a Broadway success.
“You’re Williams?” he chirped, through the side of his mouth as he spat on my new rug. I frowned slightly. I felt that we were not going to get along—decidedly, I did not get that psychological impression that here was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.
“Name of Little—Paul Little.” He pounded himself on the chest. “From Chi—want to know more?”
“Someone been robbing your flower garden?” I smiled over at him as he leaned forward, working his ugly pan into grotesque caricatures. But I watched his hands. Typical gunman—no finesse to this bird.
He sort of slipped the “flower garden” crack around his mouth with his tongue—lost the point entirely—and crossing to the desk behind which I sat, stood looking down at me.
“I’m a man of few words.” He tried to look uglier, but doubled for a comic instead. “You’ve read the spiel in The Blade. I’ve come to tell you there’s no show. In plain words—” he smacked his lips, “if you mix yourself up with them metal tags, I’ll lay ya out. Want it plainer?”
I leaned back slightly and laughed. An ordinary gunman, this. Real cheap stuff. I would have felt sorry for him if it wasn’t for the new rug. That thought brought another frown. Still, this boy had been taken in. Someone was joshing him or me—or someone wanted to see him packed in ice.
“Ya needn’t laugh it off.” Thick lips curled. “You’ve bluffed it out with the New York boys, maybe—but I’m a different lad again. I ain’t aimin’ to harm ya none, and perhaps I’ll even slip ya a little change though that part weren’t my thought. But—you raise one hand, like what that paper says—an’ I’ll cop ya through the noodle.”
I shrugged my shoulders and talked to him like a Dutch uncle.
“Someone’s been having a game with you, Baby,” I told him. “I don’t know what they paid you to come here and spill your bedtime story. But you’re miscast for this act. You can’t make a ‘heavy’ out of a ‘comic.’ ” I shot my right hand out and pointed toward the door. “On your way!”
He snickered once—licked at his lips—laughed, sort of harshly and mirthlessly—rolled his eyes—cursed slightly, while his face did a couple of colors, and—his thick head finally got the point that he was simply small change to me. It was just as that dawned on him that he lost his head and went for his gun.
His gun started up as my left hand crossed the desk. He never had a chance. The muzzle of my gun smacked down upon his knuckles—a heavy automatic crashed to the floor. He struck out wildly with his left hand—and I cracked him. He half spun, flayed out like a windmill, took another bust on what he was pleased to call his nose, and crashed to the floor.
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