On all sides now he was accorded the greatest respect. And he knew why; it was because the word had gone around that he was a "killer." He had killed only once, really in self-defense, and actuated largely by fear, yet he was marked as a killer and through life he would be subject to the advantages and disadvantages that went with the appellation.
His income now was running about three hundred a week—which was enormous for a gangster before Prohibition came along and made them millionaires—and with Vyvyan's help he was managing to have a nice time. He had taken a nicer flat for her by now and she had quit the show.
"I just can't bear to think of other men starin' at them pretty legs of yours, kid," he explained when insisting that she quit. "I'm makin' plenty o' dough for both of us, so throw up the job."
Being fond, like most blondes, of an easy life secured with the smallest possible expenditure of energy, she obeyed orders. Tony himself was still living at home but intended to move as soon as he could get up the necessary courage. His brother Ben, the policeman, hearing of his headquarters grilling over the Spingola killing, had given him another one at home while the rest of the family
