Pete,

true the verse can be read to make sense either way. But MJH, who wrote the song, meant to convey two men, Bob and Louis, gunning down Louis Collins, according to the 1965 interview (which is reprinted in the liner notes of Avalon Blues, the Columbia reissue of his 1928 sides).

None of this rules out the intriguing suggestion that Bob was Bob Angels. That way, it almost sounds like a mafia thing...like Frank Pentangeli from The Godfather II, known as Frankie Five Angels...