Them That Lives By Their Guns: Race Williams #4 (Black Mask)

By Carroll John Daly

"Mr. Cardigan... if we come to terms, I'll go and fetch your daughter back. I don't want to be considered a killer, but if your son-in-law is as quick as you say, why—I'll bring your daughter home a widow!" Race Williams travels to Mexico in another hard-boiled classic from the pages of Black Mask Magazine. Story #4 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Mask
• Release date: Nov 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9788827516287

Book preview

Them That Lives By Their Guns

Race Williams book #4

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:

Them That Lives By Their Guns originally appeared in the August 1924 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.

Them That Lives by Their Guns

Chapter 1

Business is good. It’s surprising what a lot of trouble there is in the world. That’s why lawyers and—and investigators can make a go of it. I don’t like being called a detective. To my way of thinking, most of them are the bunk. Across my office door run the simple gilt letters:

Race Williams

Private Investigator

Those last two words say a mouthful and no mistake.

The police work too close with the newspapers for the upright citizen who’s slipped some place along that straight and narrow which the world thinks he’s been following. As for the private concerns—they take too many notes and things bob up later in life which don’t leave the upright citizen sitting none too pretty.

I don’t say that the private agencies won’t wink at the law. There are many of them that will give you evidence in plenty, and witnesses to back it up at so much per. But they don’t take the chances outside the law that I take—not by a jugful, they don’t. In my game, I stand alone. Unique is the word if you’ve got a fancy for digging into the dictionary. I ain’t, but a lad hung it on me once and I pass it along for what it is worth. That’s me—Race Williams. I tackle any little job, providing there’s enough money in it. I ain’t just been put into this world to help others. Not an endowed institution, you understand. I’m straight and clean and on the level. I’m always with the right, and my idea of what’s right and what’s wrong suits me.

This little shower of bouquets is for them dear friends who have been questioning my methods: them that lives by their guns sort of business. Well, I take my chances. If a lad’s got the nerve and the eye and the trigger finger, I’ll swap lead with him any place. Forty-second Street and Broadway ain’t barred. There—that’s me. Let’s go!

His name was P. Harrington Cardigan and it fitted him well enough. He was dressed up like a sore thumb, with a vest that would bust a chameleon wide open trying to keep up its reputation as a lightning change artist. Top this off with two or three chins, a pasty kisser, piercing gray eyes, and you have P. Harrington in the flesh. An eyeful to be sure—six feet of beef.

He had an eye for beauty, had this P. Harrington, and he stood in the doorway lamping me for several seconds before he spoke. Then he shoved out his chest, leaned a bit heavily on his cane, and threw his name at me—all of it. But it didn’t take with me. P. Harrington and I had not slapped fins at the same social functions.

On the outside he’s a million dollars; hard, cold, calculating; shrewdly alert, both physically and mentally. But under that skin of his, P. Harrington is playing a losing game. He’s fighting them nerves of his, and he’s coming off second best in the battle. His fingers twitch about the cane, and his free hand is playfully rubbing his chins and brushing imaginary crumbs off the shrieking waistcoat. But it’s his party, not mine—so I just give him a nod and jerk a thumb at an empty chair. I don’t go in for to show emotion, and when he pulls out a check book and a fountain pen, it’ll be time enough for me to coddle to him. So far, he’s a dead fish, and I wait.

Race Williams, he finally opens up. You’ve been highly recommended to me, and yet I hesitated coming to you. You are looking at a man who has already sent two men to their deaths.

I guess I show a little interest. After all, this bird has something real on his chest. It took time to spill anything; but when he did, he sure shot a carload, you’ll admit. But I encourage him. This sounds like real business—big money.

Why hesitate at a third? I slip him a smile. What’s another death between friends?

And he gets it. The doubt sort of slips off his map. I can see in his eyes the realization that he is facing a real man—the dawning light that his friend