Four men were enough. My quartet pleased me immensely. They didn’t look too intelligent for my purpose, and they didn’t look like thugs or sharpers. I put them in a jitney and took them over to the Old Town.
“Now this is it,” I coached them when we had arrived. “I’m going into the Golden Horseshoe Café, around the corner. Give me two or three minutes, and then come in and buy yourselves a drink.” I gave the farm hand a five-dollar bill. “You pay for the drinks with that—it isn’t part of your wages. There’s a tall, broad-shouldered man with a long, yellow neck and a small ugly face in there. You can’t miss him. I want you all to take a good look at him without letting him get wise. When you’re sure you’d know him again anywhere, give me the nod, and come back here and you get your money. Be careful when you give me the nod. I don’t want anybody in there to find out that you know me.”
It sounded queer to them, but there was the promise of five dollars apiece, and there were the games back in the casino, where five dollars might buy a man into a streak of luck that—write the rest of it yourself. They asked questions, which I refused to answer, but they stuck.
Gooseneck was behind the bar, helping out the bartenders, when I entered the place. They needed help. The joint bulged with customers. The dance floor looked like a mob scene. Thirsts were lined up four deep at the bar. A shotgun wouldn’t have sounded above the din: men and women laughing, roaring and cursing; bottles and glasses rattling and banging; and louder and more disagreeable than any of those noises was the noise of the sweating orchestra. Turmoil, uproar, stink—a Tijuana joint on Sunday night.
I couldn’t find Gorman’s freckled face in the crowd, but I picked out the hatchet-sharp white face of Hooper, another Los Angeles operative, who, I knew then, had been sent down in response to my second telegram. Kewpie was farther down the bar, drinking with a little man whose meek face had the devil-may-care expression of a model husband on a tear. She nodded at me, but didn’t leave her client.
Gooseneck gave me a scowl and the bottle of beer I had ordered. Presently my four hired men came in. They did their parts beautifully!
First they peered through the smoke, looking from face to face, and hastily avoiding eyes that met theirs. A little of this, and one of them, the Filipino, saw the man I had described, behind the bar. He jumped a foot in the excitement of his discovery, and then, finding Gooseneck glaring at him, turned his back and fidgeted. The three others spotted Gooseneck now, and sneaked looks at him that were as conspicuously furtive as a set of false whiskers. Gooseneck glowered at them.
The Filipino turned around, looked at me, ducked his head sharply, and bolted for the street. The three who were left shot their drinks down their gullets and tried to catch my eye. I was reading a sign high on the wall behind the bar:
Only Genuine Prewar American and British Whiskeys Served Here
I was trying to count how many lies could be found in those nine words, and had reached four, with promise of more, when one of my confederates, the Greek, cleared his throat with the noise of a gasoline engine’s backfire. Gooseneck was edging down the bar, a bungstarter in one hand, his face purple.
I looked at my assistants. Their nods wouldn’t have been so terrible had they come one at a time; but they were taking no chances on my looking away again before they could get their reports in. The three heads bobbed together—a signal that nobody within twenty feet could, or did, miss—and they scooted out of the door, away from the long-necked man and his bungstarter.
I emptied my glass of beer, sauntered out of the saloon and around the corner. They were clustered where I had told them to wait.
“We’d know him! We’d know him!” they chorused.
“That’s fine,” I praised them. “You did great. I think you’re all natural-born gumshoes. Here’s your pay. Now if I were you boys, I think I’d sort of avoid that place after this; because, in spite of the clever way you covered yourselves up—and you did nobly!—he might possibly suspect something. There’s no use taking chances, anyway.”
They grabbed their wages and were gone before I had finished my speech. I returned to the Golden Horseshoe—to be on hand in case one of them should decide to sell me out and come back there to spill the deal to Gooseneck.
Kewpie had left her model husband, and met me at the door. She stuck an arm through mine and led me toward the rear of the building. I noticed that Gooseneck was gone from behind the bar. I wondered if he was out gunning for my four ex-employees.
“Business looks good,” I chattered as we pushed through the crowd. “You know, I had a tip on Beeswax this afternoon, and wouldn’t play the pup.” I made two or three more aimless cracks of that sort—just because I knew the girl’s mind was full of something else. She paid no attention to anything I said.
But when we had dropped down in front of a vacant table, she asked:
“Who were your friends?”
“What friends?”
“The four jobbies who were at the bar when you were there a few minutes ago.”
“Too hard for me, sister.” I shook my head. “There were slews of men there. Oh, yes! I know who you mean! Those four gents who seemed kind of smitten with Gooseneck’s looks. I wonder what attracted them to him—besides his beauty.”
She grabbed my arm
