“Hello,” Noonan greeted me. “I was hoping you’d show up. Tried to get you at your hotel but they told me you hadn’t been in.”
He wasn’t looking well this morning, but under his glad-handing he seemed, for a change, genuinely glad to see me.
As I sat down one of his phones rang. He put the receiver to his ear, said, “Yes?” listened for a moment, said, “You better go out there yourself, Mac,” and had to make two attempts to get the receiver back on its prong before he succeeded. His face had gone a little doughy, but his voice was almost normal as he told me:
“Lew Yard’s been knocked off—shot coming down his front steps just now.”
“Any details?” I asked while I cursed myself for having pulled Dick Foley away from Painter Street an hour too soon. That was a tough break.
Noonan shook his head, staring at his lap.
“Shall we go out and look at the remains?” I suggested, getting up.
He neither got up nor looked up.
“No,” he said wearily to his lap. “To tell the truth, I don’t want to. I don’t know as I could stand it just now. I’m getting sick of this killing. It’s getting to me—on my nerves, I mean.”
I sat down again, considered his low spirits, and asked:
“Who do you guess killed him?”
“God knows,” he mumbled. “Everybody’s killing everybody. Where’s it going to end?”
“Think Reno did it?”