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 squeal on his associates for a price seized the en­velope and greedily thumbed through the fifteen $1000 bills it contained. Then he looked up at Tony and smiled gratefully. In gangland, it was indeed a pleasure to find an enemy—or even a friend—who kept his word when he didn't have to.

"T'anks," he said. "I didn't t'ink you'd come t'rough!"

"I always keep my word—good or bad," retorted Tony, his former enemy's sincere gratitude touching him as much as anything could. "On your way—and good luck!"

Tony's own gunmen, the dapper, polished Mike Rinaldo in command of the little party, escorted Peluso away. An hour later, Rinaldo returned, looking rather downcast.

"Got a little bad news to report, chief," he said. "On the way down to the depot, another car forced us into the curb and a coupla Wops bumped Benny off before we could pull our gats. We jumped out of the car and beat it before the cops came. Some of the Bruno mob must have found out we had him here and been on the lookout for him to come out."

"All right," said Tony wearily. "I s'pose the cops and newspapers will blame me for having him bumped off because so far as they know, he was