Didja' Hear? Danny Devlin's Dead

Tommy Palmer and Billy Frisco weren’t meant to be rivals.

It just happened.

Tommy liked to sit in Billy’s jazz club and listen to Billy’s girlfriend, Carla, sing. That’s where he was the rainy night Danny Devlin was shot during the botched post office robbery.

The same night Devlin’s drenched getaway driver ran into Frisco’s and Tommy saw him.

Billy had set up the driver and he panicked, abandoning the thieves. For bringing in an amateur Billy was responsible for ‘fixing’ the situation. He was ordered to kill the driver and, as a bonus, a prostitute who talked too much about her important clients.

Billy’s no killer. He’s a lounge guy. A loan shark. A dim bulb along the edge of the high glitz and neon of Atlantic City’s casinos.

Don’t bet on it.

With his club on the line there wasn’t much Billy wouldn’t do to keep it.

And all Palmer wanted to do was nurse his drink on that late Ash Wednesday night and listen to smooth interpretations of great cabaret songs.