I went on with the work, turning to Elihu Willsson:
“Do you want to squawk about your bank being knocked over, or do you like it?”
Max Thaler touched my arm and suggested:
“We could tell better maybe who’s entitled to beef if you’d give us what you’ve got first.”
I was glad to.
“Noonan wanted to nail you,” I told him, “but he either got word, or expected to get word, from Yard and Willsson here to let you alone. So he thought if he had the bank looted and framed you for it, your backers would ditch you, and let him go after you right. Yard, I understand, was supposed to put his OK on all the capers in town. You’d be cutting into his territory, and gypping Willsson. That’s how it would look. And that was supposed to make them hot enough that they’d help Noonan cop you. He didn’t know you were here.
“Reno and his mob were in the can. Reno was Yard’s pup, but he didn’t mind crossing up his headman. He already had the idea that he was about ready to take the burg away from Lew.” I turned to Reno and asked: “Isn’t that it?”
He looked at me woodenly and said:
“You’re telling it.”
I continued telling it:
“Noonan fakes a tip that you’re at Cedar Hill, and takes all the coppers he can’t trust out there with him, even cleaning the traffic detail out of Broadway, so Reno would have a clear road. McGraw and the bulls that