Whit began to whistle softly as he watched the game. The tune was ‘Casey Jones’. The blond man looked at him once, recognized him, and held up a handful of silver in invitation. Whit shook his head and went on whistling.

  The dice finally came to him. He had a handful of small coins in his fingers. He put them on the line in front of him as he picked up the dice.

  “I’m shooting a dollar and twenty-seven cents.”

  Someone snickered.

  The dice man shot a quick appraising glance across the table.

  “A dollar twenty-seven cents he shoots. Who’ll ride with the shooter who risks a dollar twenty-seven? A new passer, friends. Get your bets down, because he’s co-o-o-ming out with – a natural seven! Fifty-two, wins the glue. A dollar twenty-seven to the new passer, and it’ll be more next time. Let it ride, mister. Can’t accumulate if you don’t speculate.”

  The blond man paid off with a dollar and a half-dollar, the smallest coins in the rack in front of him. Whit picked up his winnings and. rattled the dice once more. The dollar twenty-seven remained on the line.

  He collected twice more before he lost his bet and the dice, and then he left the crap table with Larson and wandered away. Their wanderings did not take them so far that they couldn’t keep an eye on the slim blond dice man whose name was Jackson and whose identification number was 127.

  Five minutes later Jackson motioned to a relief man to take his place. He left the crap game and walked in the general direction of the gents’ room. Larson, at a word from Whit, parked himself where he could keep a general watch on the casino. Whit followed Jackson. The hair over the sore spot in his scalp bristled slightly as he passed the corner where Jess Caldwell had slugged him, but there was no attempt at a repeat performance. In the gents’ room, Jackson was washing his hands. No one else was in sight.

  “Hello,” Jackson said. “The dollar-twenty-seven man. That was a pretty heavy bet you chunked on the table.”

  “I'm a gambler,” Whit said. “Bet ’em big, win ’em big. That’s my motto.”

  “Good enough if you win. Where does a man get that much to bet?”

  “I got mine from Casey Jones.”

  Jackson’s manner changed. He said, “O.K. Who are you?”

  “My name’s Whitney. I’ve got a message from Casey. We’ve located the radio transmitter.”

  “We?”

  “Me.”

  Whit told enough to establish that he knew what he was talking about.

  Jackson said, “You aren’t from the Bureau.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No.”

  “Army?”

  “No.”

  “Navy?”

  “No. I’m just trying to give you guys a hand.”

  “Why?”

  “What difference does it make? I haven’t got all night to stand here shooting the bull.”

  “Don’t get sniffy,” Jackson said. His nerves didn’t seem to be in good shape. “I’m just trying to find out what it’s all about. If you’re good enough for Casey you’re good enough for me. What does he want me to do?”

  “The raid starts at five minutes after three. There are seven men available: Casey, Pete, John, you, me, a friend of mine, and the sheriff. We may pick up another man on the way. It’ll take four men at least to make the raid, and Casey wants Pete to catch the radio message at three o’clock. That means Pete will have to be somewhere near an electric light plug, so he’s no good for anything else. You and the sheriff will have to cover Caldwell and Lorenzo if they leave the Club. Pete will send the sheriff here, and he’ll handle Caldwell. Your man is Lorenzo. At three-five exactly, you take him. The sheriff will haul Caldwell in simultaneously, and we’ll knock over Gates and Kohler at the transmitter.”

  “There’s one hole in it,” Jackson said. “Lorenzo and Caldwell aren’t here.”

  “Oh, God! What happened?”

  “I just got the word from Gladys. She saw them leave ten minutes ago with Sammy Kohler. We both thought Casey was waiting for them outside, so we didn’t do anything about it. And you’d better tell Casey that something funny is going on, because Gladys swears Kohler was nudging Lorenzo along with a gun.”

  CHAPTER 22

  CASEY, squatted on the floor in John’s back room with John and Kitty helping him clean gun-grease from a nasty collection of shooting irons, listened to Whit’s hasty report without interrupting his work. He looked like a shabby but competent spider polishing his mandibles in the middle of a web. When Whit finished relaying what he had heard from Jackson, Casey made only one comment.

  “Good.”

  Whit hadn’t expected such a reaction to the bad news. He said, “How do you figure it’s good?”

  “It makes things easier for us. We know that if Kohler came after Lorenzo, Gates sent him. Gladys’ report makes it even more certain; Kohler wouldn’t rough Lorenzo around unless he did it on orders. Gates is calling in his men for the getaway. Maybe Lorenzo wanted to stay behind. I don’t know, but I’m certain that Gates is going to hand out final orders tonight, and he’ll want all the help he can gather to move his equipment. We’ll get them all in one place, instead of having to pick them up in instalments.”

  Larson was admiring one of the weapons, a tommy gun which had been cleaned and put together ready for business. He said, “We’ll get them in a lot of places all at once if we use this on them. How many of these choppers have you got?”

  John, another tommy gun in his big paw, said, “Four. And two riot-guns.” He gestured with the weapon in the direction of a cavity in the wall where a three-foot strip of baseboard had been pulled away. “Get some more shells out of there and start filling clips, will you?”

  “Sure.” Larson began hauling small wooden cases of ammunition from the hole in the baseboard.

  The guns were all clean now. John finished assembling them and laid them in a neat row on the bed, where they gleamed dully in the light; four ugly sub-machine guns and two short-barreled twelve-gauge pump guns. Everyone went to work loading magazine clips. Kitty, a half-dozen empties beside her and a pile of .45 cartridges in her lap, mechanically pushed shells into the clips as she had been instructed. Just for a moment she looked at Whit sitting across the room in his preposterous cowboy costume, intently occupied with his own pile of cartridges. Her greasy hands began to tremble. She looked away quickly and went on with her work.

  John said, “Casey, how do you want these guns parceled out?”

  “I’ll need one. You’ll need one. There ought to be one at the bridge and one up on the hill. Have you ever shot one of these things, Whit?”

  Whit shook his head. Casey said, “Larson?”

  “I can handle one. But I’ve got a gun. Better show Whit how to work it.”

  John picked up a tommy gun in one hand, took a clip of shells in the other, and held them out for Whit to see.

  “This goes here. Like this.” He clamped the magazine in its place under the breech. “This lever is the safety; this other one turns the gun into a single-shot rifle if you push it this way. You won’t have to worry about that, but leave the safety on until you’re ready to shoot. Then turn it around like this, pull this lug back to here” – he pantomimed with the cocking lug – “let it back, and you’re ready to fire. You’ve got twenty shots in a clip, and I’ll give you five or six spares. When you pull the trigger, don’t hold on to it too long because the clip will empty itself in two seconds. Just touch the trigger and let go. Got it?” Whit nodded, taking the heavy gun from John. It felt awkward in his hands.

  John said, “Shooting downhill, hold your sights low and watch the line of fire or you’re liable to overshoot. That’s all you need to know, except to be sure to jam the butt hard against your shoulder if you don’t want to bruise yourself.” Whit nodded again.

  Casey said, “Don’t kill anyone if you can help it. Aim about at the kneecap if you have time. But if somebody points a gun in your direction, don’t take a chance. Let him have it first, wherever you can hit him. I’d rather he were killed than you. That goes for you top, Larson.”

  Kitty made a small inarticulate noise.

  Everybody except Whit turned to look at her. He had been afraid to look for some time. He said loudly and quickly, “I don’t expect anyone to get close enough to me for anybody to point guns, one way or the other. Anyway, this damn thing is too impersonal. If I had my way I’d rather smack somebody in the nose.”

  Casey said, “Maybe you would. But don’t try to punch noses with Walter Gates. He’s bad medicine.”

  “I owe him a punch in the nose.” Whit was trying hard to turn the conversation away from shooting. “And Lorenzo, too. Everybody gets a crack at him but me. John, you threw him out on his ear once. What happened?”

  John grinned, remembering the happy day. “Nothing happened. Gladys was in a booth out in front with Pete one night, passing along a message for Casey, and Lorenzo came in with a couple of girls who wanted hamburgers. Gladys and Pete weren’t supposed to know each other then, and they were about ready to come out of the booth. I didn’t want to take a chance, so I asked Lorenzo how he liked his sandwich. As soon as he opened his mouth I threw him out.”

  Whit laughed, much more loudly than the joke called for. While he tried to think of something else to direct Kitty’s thoughts away from the business ahead of them, there were faint footsteps outside. Pete Wilson came in with the sheriff and deputy-sheriff Strong.

  The sheriff had been yanked away from a peaceful evening at home, and he was in a bad mood. He picked out Whit as the person present who had given him the most trouble.

  “Goldarndest story I ever heard in my life,” he grumbled.

  “’Scuse me, Mrs. Whitney. What’s all this moonshine Pete has been telling me?”

  “Talk to the head man.” Whit nodded in Casey’s direction.

  The sheriff scowled at Casey, taking in the frowsy clothes and the stubble of beard. Casey said, “Whatever Pete has been telling you is on the level. We need your help. We’re going to make a raid tonight, and we haven’t time to get enough of our men. Pete says you’re reliable. That’s why you’re here.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “The Federal Bureau of Investigation. I don’t carry my credentials with me, but I can get them if you want to see them.

  The sheriff grunted. “I saw Pete’s. I’m not questioning them. I just can’t make head or tail of what he tells me. Sounds like a wild-west story.”

  “It isn’t.”

  The sheriff looked around the room. “These all yore men?”

  “They’re all Federal agents, yes. I’m prepared to deputize you as well. Can you and your man be trusted to keep your mouths shut?”

  “I can keep my mouth shut when I got a reason for keeping it shut,” the sheriff answered. “Strong here will do what I say. He isn’t smart, but he can be trusted.”

  Deputy-sheriff Strong smiled in a friendly way. The sheriff had said something that sounded like a compliment.

  “That’s fair enough.” Casey took out his beautiful watch and checked the time. “We’ve got to get started. Whit, you and Larson know your job. Mrs. Whitney, you’ll have to take a message to Gladys at Lorenzo’s Club, and Strong will pick up Jackson. The rest of you are coming with me. Before we start I’ll tell you all exactly where we’re going and what we’re going to do, so there won’t be any slips.”

  Whit and Larson got into the convertible and drove away.

  Larson was at the wheel. Whit held in his lap a large newspaper-wrapped package containing the tommy gun and a canvas sling holding five spare clips of cartridges. Counting the magazine already in the gun, there were a hundred and twenty instalments of concentrated trouble he could shoot at Gates and Gates’ men if the necessity arose. He hoped it wouldn’t arise. He wasn’t particularly afraid of what might happen before the evening ended, but the parting with Kitty had been difficult. It made him feel morose.

  She hadn’t wept. He would have felt better if she had. Always before, when they quarreled or when he had done something foolish which frightened her or made her mad at him, she had cried quickly and angrily, not from weakness or feminine pettishness but because she blew off steam that way as he did by cursing. Tonight had not been the same. She had been like a log of wood when he kissed her good-bye. All he had of her now was the wrist-watch she had given him at the last minute because his own was still at the hotel. It made a small lump in his shirt pocket.

  He moved the package on his knees to a more comfortable position.

  Larson said, “You act like that chopper is going to bite you.”

  “I expect it to. I don’t know why Casey turned it over to me. You’re the one who ought to have it.”

  “I don’t need it.” Larson took one hand from the wheel and touched the bulge below his armpit. “I feel more at home with my own iron.”

  They reached the Verdi crossroads in less than twenty minutes, and came to a stop a few moments later under the oak tree near Hotaling’s corral. The house was dark when they drove into the stable-yard, but a horse whinnied from the barn as Larson shut off the engine, and a light came on immediately in the house. Alex opened the door to see what was going on.

  He wore nothing but a suit of old-fashioned long underwear. When he saw the two men in the light shining from the doorway, he said, “Come in, come in, durn it. What are you doing out here this time of night?”

  “We can’t stop, Alex,” Whit said. “Anybody around?”

  “Jest my stable man. He’s out with the hosses. What’s the matter?”

  “How would you like to go hunting for the men who shot your bay mare?”

  “How would I like to—’Alex peered at Whit. “Say that again.”

  “The horse is dead. We found it buried near the ghost town ten miles up the river. The man who rented it from you didn’t steal it; he was a Federal agent, and the horse was shot after he was murdered. We’re going to get the men who killed him, right now. We need your help.”

  Alex came out on the porch to see them better. “You’re giving me a straight story?”

  “Yes. We haven’t much time. I’ll tell you all about it on the way, if you’re coming.”

  “I’ll come,” Alex said. “What do you figger to do – ride in?”

  “We’ve got to get across the river and up on the bluff back of the ghost town before three o’clock.”

  “We’ll ride, then. It don’t give us much time, but we’ll make it.” Alex turned to enter the house. “Go roust out my stable man and tell him to saddle up. It’ll take me about a minute to git me a gun and a pair of pants.”

  Deputy-sheriff Strong wasn’t smart, but he was reliable. He strong-armed his way through the crowd until he got within reaching distance of the crap table where Jackson was still exhorting the suckers to leave it lay and watch it pay. Jackson was going to be needed elsewhere before long, and he wasn’t due to finish his shift behind the table for several hours.

  Strong got him by the arm first and flashed his badge afterwards. “You’re under arrest. Come along quiet.”

  The crapshooters calmed down immediately. One or two of the nearest moved away from the two men behind the table.

  Jackson had a stack of silver coins in each hand. He carefully put the money back in the rack in front of him before he spoke.

  “What’s the charge?”

  “Draft dodging. Your number is one two seven and it’s been called. Come along before I get tough.”

  The muscles of Jackson’s arms relaxed in Strong’s grasp. He said, “I guess you’ve got me. Can I finish out this shift?”

  “No.”

  Jackson turned apologetically to his stick-man. “Sorry, Joe. Check my bank in and explain it to the boss, will you?”

  “Sure thing. Hope you come out of it O.K.”

  Jackson shrugged. “You know how it is with the draft board.”

  Strong let the prisoner take off his green apron and get his hat and coat. They left the Club, got into Strong’s car, and drove away in a hurry.

  “This place we’re going to is across the border,” the sheriff said. “I got no jurisdiction in California, if it makes any difference.”

  Casey said, “You can forget about being sheriff for tonight. You’re a Federal deputy now, and you’ve got jurisdiction all the way from here to the Pacific Ocean and three miles out.”

  “Makes no never-mind to me, just so long as I’m legal. Wouldn’t want to break the law.”

  They were all together in Pete’s big touring car, driving out the highway in the light of the pale quarter moon which had just risen over the mountains. Casey was with the sheriff in the back seat, Pete drove, and John sat beside him. Casey and the sheriff had less room than the men in front, because of the gunny sack full of weapons and Casey’s huge suitcase on the floor at their feet. But the ride would not be long.

  The sheriff said, “So Sammy Kohler killed Pop Foster.”

  “Either Kohler or Walter Gates. Probably Kohler.” Casey fished inside his coat and pulled out a heavy automatic. “This was his. I lifted it from him a couple of nights back. Did you recover the bullets from Foster’s body?”

  “Yes.”

  “Check one front this gun against them. I think you’ll find they match up.”

  “I guess you were the one who slugged Kohler the other night. I would have swore it was Whitney.”

  “He had a hand in it,” Casey said.

  “Will I get Kohler for Pop’s murder?”

  “I’m afraid not. The government wants him first. But you check those bullets and give me a report, and we’ll hang a murder charge on him along with everything else. It won’t make any difference in what he gets, but it will close your case.”

  The sheriff stowed the gun away in his pocket. “That’s better than nothing. But I was kind of hoping to close the case myself. Foster was a friend of mine.”