“Dan Rolff,” he whined. “He walked up to him and stuck him with the same skewer Whisper had used on the twist. That’s right.”
“How do you know it was the one Whisper killed the girl with?”
“Dan said so.”
“What did Whisper say?”
“Nothing. He looked funny as hell, standing there with the butt of the sticker sticking out his side. Then he flashes the rod and puts two pills in Dan just like one, and the both of them go down together, cracking heads, Dan’s all bloody through the bandages.”
“And then what?”
“Then nothing. I roll them over, and they’re a pair of stiffs. Every word I’m telling you is gospel.”
“Who else was there?”
“Nobody else. Whisper was hiding out, with only me to go between him and the mob. He killed Noonan hisself, and he didn’t want to have to trust nobody for a couple of days, till he could see what was what, excepting me.”
“So you, being a smart boy, thought you could run around to his enemies and pick up a little dough for killing him after he was dead?”
“I was clean, and this won’t be no place for Whisper’s pals when the word gets out that he’s croaked,” Wright whined. “I had to raise a getaway stake.”
“How’d you make out so far?”
“I got a century from Pete and a century and a half from Peak Murry—for Reno—with more promised from both when I turn the trick.” The