He cronied with gangsters whom he had known and chatted with them in places where he might be overheard. His conversation dwelt on a particular subject. Who had last seen Clipper Tobin before he was bumped off?
Sneaks was keenly observant. All the time that he was apparently concerned in talk, he was watching.
This was the third night that he had been thus engaged, for he had started on his campaign immediately after his orders were received from Double Z.
It was in a dilapidated dive called the Green Mouse that Sneaks gained his hoped for results. While he was talking to a second-rate gunman, he noted a motion on the part of a man near by. Sneaks watched from the corner of his eye. Instead of turning toward him, the man turned away.
That might have been disarming, but for one fact. Sneaks Rubin had only seen the back of the man whom he had stunned in Bodine’s apartment. Now Sneaks recognized the same back at the near-by table! He had found his quarry!
Sneaks immediately became confidential in his tone, but he talked loud enough to his companion, so that the listening man might hear.
“Listen, Bud,” he said. “I’d like to find a torpedo as good as Clipper was. He was my — well, Clipper was a one-man mob in himself. I’m the guy that called him that—”
Cliff Marsland, listening, was elated. Sneaks had used the very term that he had heard Clipper use. The dead gangster had prided himself on being a “one-man mob.” Without doubt, Sneaks Rubin was the man who had arranged for Clipper Tobin to kill Arnold Bodine.
Sneaks was known to Cliff, although it was doubtful that the crafty little gangster knew Cliff by sight. The reason was plain. Sneaks was a character in the bad lands. Cliff was just a name.
Due to his long absence, Cliff was seldom recognized. Nevertheless, he decided to take no chances. He remained in his position, head turned away, until he saw Sneaks shamble from the place.