“You let me alone,” I ordered. “Your job is to see what goes on, and that’s all. If I get carved, you can mention it in your report, but that’s your limit. What did you turn up?”
“After you blew, the girl and the big guy put their noodles together. They seemed kind of agitated—all agog, you might say. He slid out, so I dropped the girl and slid along behind him. He came to town and got a wire off. I couldn’t crowd him close enough to see who it was to. Then he went back to the joint. Things were normal when I knocked off.”
“Who is the big guy? Did you learn?”
“He’s no sweet dream, from what I hear. ‘Gooseneck’ Flinn is the name on his calling cards. He’s bouncer and general utility man for the joint. I saw him in action against a couple of gobs, and he’s nobody’s meat—as pretty a double throw-out as I’ve ever seen.”
So this Gooseneck party was the Golden Horseshoe’s cleanup man, and he hadn’t been in sight during my three-day spree? I couldn’t possibly have been so drunk that I’d forget his ugliness. And it had been on one of those three days that Mrs. Ashcraft and her servants had been killed.
“I wired your office for another op,” I told Gorman. “He’s to connect with you. Turn the girl over to him, and you camp on Gooseneck’s trail. I think we’re going to hang three killings on him, so watch your step. I’ll be in to stir things up a little more tomorrow; but remember, no matter what happens, everybody plays his own game. Don’t ball things up trying to help me.”
“Aye, aye, Cap,” and he went off to get some sleep.
The next afternoon I spent at the race track, fooling around with the bangtails while I waited for night. The track was jammed with the usual Sunday crowd. I ran into any number of old acquaintances, some of