12 Sports Aces, January 1943 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE RED-LIGHT EXPRESS 13 himself off the ice, He was groggy and the pain around his ribs was becoming violent. He felt as if Angel had busted a couple of them, Rock stepped into the breach, said: “That's all, Let’s call it quits.” ERE was a visible strain in Rock’s voice that could easily be detected. Come Thursday night, the club would have a new owner or be orphans without a franelrise. Sweeney clumped slowly toward the ramp, and Connie Leonard’s voice caused him to notice her presence for the first time. “Some show, pal,” she said. “They should haye charged admission to see it. Terrifie is the word. You ought to feel mauled after that ane.” “JT hope it was bloody enough for you,” Sweeney said evenly, “Pm sorry there won't be a repeat performance.” “Don’t worry about that,” Connie Leon- ard said. “I never miss a game. | think Fil even eome to the practice if they’re all going to be like this one. You’H let me know in advance, won’t you, Mister Sweeney?” Phere was a sort of naive sareasm in Connie Leonard’s voice. It burned Swee- ney up the way she took things for grant- ed. She apparently claimed to be a hockey sport. Well, he’d see how far her interest in hockey went. Sweeney said: “Yeah, I can let you know more than that. You come and go around here as you please. I guess you can do a lot of things on five million bucks. You could even buy into the Raiders if you wanted to. Of eourse, you'd be doing a great guy a favor. But you might lose money and that would be out of the question.” “IT didn’t know the Raiders were for sale,” Connie Leonard said. “It’s too bad about Rock if he’s having tough sledding. I. always ask him for a season pass and he’s never refused. He’s a very nice man.” Sweeney sighed, Here was a gal worth more than a cool five million and getting into the heekey games free, Littl wonder Rock was busted. Sweeney was about to tell the gal that when her society lawyer friend, Barry Petham, said: ‘¥ou can’t be sertous about wanting Miss Leonard to back the Raiders, Pve never heard of such a foolish proposi- tion.” “That's right,” Sweeney said. “It is a lousy proposition, It means putting your dough on the underdog and then some. Fm sorry that # occurred to me that Miss Leonard might be interested.” ‘Sweeney shrugged, moved toward the ramp. He didn’t notice Ange! Toland duck in a few seconds ahead of him, In the dressing room it was quiet and somber. The few scattered comments that were spoken came in low, almost whis- pered syllables. Sweeney showered, dressed slowly, conscious of the darts of pain that kept shooting through the red, raw pateh that marked his ribs. Sitting on the beneh, he heard Angel Toland’s loud, gruff voice echo through the room. “Rock is okay as guys go,” Angel said. “But you can’t run a team on sentiment. We gotta look out for ourselves. What we ought to do is get together and ask Rock to sell for our protection and his own sake. I happen to know that there’s @ guy willing to buy the team. But Rock won’t sell because he’s sore at the guy. “He figures that if he sold, there’a be nothing left for him after he got through paying off what he owes. So he intends to stick everybody and walk out with dough in his pockets. The franchise goes back to the league. That means either the team is finished or the Jeague runs it. Won’t that be nice stuff?” | The room was frozen into silence for a moment. Sweeney had to admit that An- gel had put aeross his point. Angel had talked in dollars and cents and that was the thing closest to the hearts of the Raid- ers. But Angel hadn’t told them what was up his sleeve. The reaction came. The room was sud- denly full of talk and jabber. Happy Holli- day opened his trap and the din quieted. “Since when have you started giving a damn about us, Toland?” Happy said bhintly. “You’ve been getting your dough right along. You worked the squeeze on Roek and wouldn’t play uniess ke shelled out. Yeah, and you get twice the dough EORMICOOOKS (E@)