“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?”