Capone, the Cobbs, and Me

Baseball big-leaguer Mort Hart, trapped between an insane Al Capone and a vengeful Ty Cobb must use his wits to save his skin and the skin of the woman he loves, Charlene, Cobb’s wife.
Mort is also suspected of ‘knowing too much’ by a mob murderer, Jimmy, who tries to kill Mort. And Cobb suspects Mort’s affair with Charlene and has good reason to kill Mort as well.
Both Mort and Charlene — she an excellent pianist — are attracted to the fascinating Mezz Mezzrow, jazz bandleader, friend of Louis Armstrong, marijuana seller and ‘voluntary Negro.’ Mezz involves Mort in a secret burial of a murder victim and ultimately makes both Mort and himself police suspects. At the story’s climax, Mort finds himself pulling the trigger of a pistol aimed at Cobb, even as Cobb pulls the trigger of a pistol aimed at Mort. Capone, maddened by tertiary syphilis, stands nearby, watching in psychopathic fascination. As on the cover of a noir paperback, Charlene also looks on, fingertips suspended at her kissable lips. Will it be her husband to die? Or will it be Mort, her lover?