TEXAS: The Last Days of The Cat

One day last month, a convict, just released from the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, told a Dallas cop the hottest rumor from the prison grapevine: a certain party was offering $50,000 for the assassination of a husky, dark-eyed Dallas gambler named Herbert Noble. The stoolie confided: "They say that this man will buy you a new suit of clothes, give you some running money, a gun or dynamite if you want it, and pay you off when you do the job."

When Herbert Noble heard the convict's report, he said: "They're after...