Make My Coffin Strong (A William R. Cox Hardboiled Thriller‪)‬

A whisper into the mouthpiece – a name, a place – and maybe that night a black truck would careen up the El aimed at Steve Galloway. Or it could be a knife, or a gun.
Galloway knew all this. But Sam, who had raised him, was dead, dead at the hands of these civilized killers, these quiet, dark men who dealt in corruption and decay.
So Galloway fought them anyway – with all the wildness of the black Irish in him – and he almost had them when the house fell in on him … for he found himself in love with his enemy’s girl.
Now somewhere, he knew, in Greater New York, and in a matter of hours, a phone would be lifted and over the wires would hum … the message of death …