“This all?” I asked Thaler.
He nodded.
“Nick said there were fifty of you.”
“Fifty of us to stand off that crummy force!” he sneered.
A uniformed copper held the back gate open, muttering nervously:
“Hurry it up, boys, please.”
I was willing to hurry, but nobody else paid any attention to him.
We crossed an alley, were beckoned through another gate by a big man in brown, passed through a house, out into the next street, and climbed into a black automobile that stood at the curb.
One of the blond boys drove. He knew what speed was.
I said I wanted to be dropped off somewhere in the neighborhood of the Great Western Hotel. The driver looked at Whisper, who nodded. Five minutes later I got out in front of my hotel.
“See you later,” the gambler whispered, and the car slid away.
The last I saw of it was its police department license plate vanishing around a corner.