Alma was carried to the hospital, and revived. But she would say nothing, give no names—staunch to the spirit of the Gangs. Only she whispered feebly to Mollie Squint, when the Dropper had been sent away by the doctors:
“Johnny must have loved me a lot to shoot me up like he did. A guy has got to love a goil good and plenty before he'll try to cook her.”
“Did youse tell th' hospital croakers his name?” asked Mollie Squint.
“Of course not! I never squealed to nobody. Do youse think I'd put poor Johnny in wrong?”
“Then I won't,” said Mollie Squint.
An attendant told Mollie Squint that she must go; certain surgeons had begun to assemble. Mollie Squint, tears falling, kissed Alma good-by.
“Give Johnny all me love,” whispered Alma. “Tell him I'm no snitch; I'll stick.”
The Dropper did not have to be told whose bullet had struck down his star, his Alma. That night, Kid Kleiney with him, he went looking for Spanish. The latter, as jealous as Satan, was looking for the Dropper. Of the two, Spanish must have conducted his hunting with the greater circumspection or the greater luck; for about eleven of the clock he crept up behind the Dropper, as the latter and Kid Kleiney were walking in East Broadway, and planted a bullet in his neck. Kid Kleiney 'bout faced at the crack of the pistol, and was in fortunate time to stop Spanish's second bullet with one of the big buttons on his coat. Kid Kleiney fell by the side of the wounded Dropper, jarred off his feet by the shock.' He was able, however, when the police came up, to help place the Dropper in an ambulance.
Spanish?
Vanished—as usual.