Alias Buttercup E-Book

Carroll John Daly

• Herausgeber: Black Mask
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Mexican Joe was a sore eye and a bad tooth to the New York City Police Department. So, when he spread-eagled out of a twenty-second story window of a skyscraper and ended as mush amid the Brooklyn traffic, no one batted an eye. Except for Race Williams. A sure buck and a good lead compelled him to the scent of a fresh kill, and the end of a smoking gun. Having narrowly escaped his own close encounter with death, Race Williams must work against a mysterious shadow in the stormy city to solve Mexican Joe’s murder and save his own life in the process. Story #10 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.

Leseprobe

Alias Buttercup

Race Williams book #10

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:

“Alias Buttercup” originally appeared in the October 1925 issue 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.

Alias Buttercup

Chapter 1

Most times cases of mine end with death—I just sort of drift in with the type of gentlemen who must have “finis” written after their names to properly settle matters. But this time my story opens with a death. Mexican Joe Geary, or Gerhia, had been given the works. From the newspaper accounts of the affair he was dead. At first the police thought he had jumped or toppled from the twenty-second story window of a skyscraper. One thing all agreed upon—Joe had fallen heavy for the sidewalks of New York and got himself all smeared up in the midst of Broadway traffic.

I’m not a hard-hearted man, but in a way there was a chuckle in every line. The killing of Mexican Joe wouldn’t net me a brass penny and yet I had finally decided to push him over. It wasn’t so much his threats to kill me as it was the bad grammar of his letters—the thing was getting on my nerves. Joe hadn’t missed much of life—he was just a day or two ahead of his schedule, that was all.