Carter Roy

Lana was, unfortunately, another one.

Not only did Mickey secretly film the pair having sex, but Johnny also drugged Lana and photographed her sleeping naked.

Mickey's blackmail plots began to unravel when Johnny's feelings for Lana changed.

At some point, she stopped being a mark.

Johnny was in love.

Now that the relationship was real for Johnny, he tried to cut ties with Mickey.

Seemingly by ghosting, i.e.

he stopped hanging out with him, Johnny planned to cut ties completely by leaving the country.

He made it all the way to New York before he gave up.

Perhaps he knew that the mob could probably find him wherever he went, or perhaps he couldn't bear to leave Lana.

It's unclear how she factored into his escape plan.

According to one account, he claimed that he did somehow get out of the mob, but it meant he had to always keep a gun on him.

He never knew when someone was going to take you out.

Supposedly, it would be a lower-ranked little guy mobster who'd kill him to make a name for themselves.

But what if Johnny was actually afraid of Mickey?

After all, if Johnny was ending the blackmail plot in the middle of scamming one of the biggest movie stars ever, Mickey could have been out a huge chunk of change.

So perhaps Mickey, feeling betrayed and angry, took Johnny out.

It's not impossible.

Perhaps he went to Lana's, knowing he would find Johnny there and confronted him.

He could have threatened Johnny to go through with the plan, or maybe even pay Mickey the potential blackmail money he would be losing.