Continental Op Stories · The Golden Horseshoe (5/7) (2/2)

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 with both hands.

“So help me God, Painless,” she swore, “if you tie anything on Ed, I’ll kill you!”

Her brown eyes were big and damp. She was a hard and wise little baby⁠—had rubbed the world’s sharp corners with both shoulders⁠—but she was only a kid, and she was worried sick over this man of hers. However, the business of a sleuth is to catch criminals, not to sympathize with their ladyloves.

I patted her hands.

“I could give you some good advice,” I said as I stood up, “but you wouldn’t listen to it, so I’ll save my breath. It won’t do any harm to tell you to keep an eye on Gooseneck, though⁠—he’s shifty.”

There wasn’t any special meaning to that speech, except that it might tangle things up a little more. One way of finding what’s at the bottom of either a cup of coffee or a situation is to keep stirring it up until whatever is on the bottom comes to the surface. I had been playing that system thus far on this affair.

Hooper came into my room in the San Diego hotel at a little before two the next morning.

“Gooseneck disappeared, with Gorman tailing him, immediately after your first visit,” he said. “After your second visit, the girl went around to a ’dobe house on the edge of town, and she was still there when I knocked off. The place was dark.”

Gorman didn’t show up.