Zolla (full name unrevealed) was a black market racketeer based in Dick Tracy's city. He had wavy dark hair and wore eyeglasses.
Hiring Flattop[]
Zolla and two other unnamed associates hired Flattop to kill Dick Tracy for $5,000, which was five times than Flattop usually charged for a contract killing. Zolla and his associates had been investigated by Dick Tracy for months, and and they feared that he was close to arresting them.
Flattop kidnapped Tracy and was about to kill him when he realized that Zolla and his confederates could likely be convinced to pay more for the job. Flattop contacted Zolla and told him that he would tell Tracy who had hired him unless he received $50,000.
Zolla and his associates agreed to pay the additional money, and Flattop prepared to kill Tracy. Tracy escaped and killed almost all of Flattop's gang in the process. Flattop fled.
Tracy planted a false story in the newspapers that he had been killed. Zolla and his group were so pleased by the news that they invited "Flattop" (who was actually Tracy, concealing his identity) to their apartment to celebrate, where they were all arrested.
Notes[]
- Flattop was shown to receive his initial payment from an unnamed man wearing round eyeglasses. This man wore a hat, but his visible hair was not dark, indicating that this was most likely not Zolla, but another conspirator.
- It was not established if Zolla and his group were affiliated with the remnants of Big Boy's gang or another early incarnation of the Apparatus, but later readers have speculated a connection.
- Years later, during the Sharptop storyline, Flattop's "ghost" would claim that he had been hired by corrupt politicians (including Montgomery Grafton) to kill Tracy, not black marketeers. It is unclear what the connection between the various groups and Zolla was.