They were a cold and hard-appearing group of men quite in contrast to the emotional Hegarty who now laid before them a proposition.
“You, Marzonij,” said he to the smallest of the men.
“Yeh, Boss?” the fellow replied, expectantly.
Thin, pale-faced, he did not look as one would expect him to look, for Marzonij was Hegarty’s best gunman, a merciless killer when doped with a certain drug to which he was addicted. But, because he was small, he could slip up alleys faster in the dark.
“How’s your rod, Marzonij?” asked Hegarty as evenly as he could.
“O.k., Boss. My finger’s itchin’ fer the trigger!”
“Well, here’s the lay-out, Marzonij,” said Hegarty, talking fast but distinctly now as if he had thought the whole thing out. “We know this Gallagher is a Fed. If Cowboy knew it, he’d bump him off, and it just might be a help to us. Not only would we be clear of a bit of typewriting by that guy who is a perfect shot, but the blame for the killing could be laid to Cowboy!”
“How you want me to do it, Boss?”
“Well, the boys at the island expect us Thursday at midnight, don’t they?”
Several men nodded, curtly.