12 Sports Aces, January 1943 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

THE RED-LIGHT EXPRESS 25 2 O Ques Qeree ee Pe Gur Geo Bor Gan ro Beene ener Pers Ou Greener OerG re Pre Per Ger Ger Gs erGorDerBoura her er Beer See Oro Par Per erPor Pore Or Ore Gre Ger Pee Serer Qrrer Per Ou GrePorhes ¢ He thought they were all in his head but they weren’t. The lights were flashlight bulbs popping. They had flashed all dur- ing the game, getting “action” shots for the next day’s papers. It was a cockeyed, whirling picture that was set in motion before Sweeney. There were the players, the ref, the brawl and now a guy in a - sweatshirt coming onto the ice. The guy ~ was Buzzy Barnes. But how could it be Buzzy? Hadn’t Buzzy gone completely berserk the night that Rock had been waylaid? The scene snapped off there. The blood was sloshing down Sweeney’s face. The crowd sat tense, silent. Then a shrill voice from the gallery broke into the stillness. “It’s the jinx again. It’s caught up with Sweeney like it did the others.” A buzz rumbled through the arena. Sweeney felt gentle hands reaching down to pick him up. He pushed them away, staggered to his feet. A slow, drawling voice that could only belong to Buzzy Barnes trickled through his befogged senses. “I tried to stop it but I was too late. But Angel will never ruin another guy. He’s jinxed himself this time. He’ll find that out.” Sweeney somehow managed to make it into the dressing room on his own steam. Behind him he could hear the cheers spurring on the players tangling on the iee. Sweeney slumped down on a bench and somebody fed him a whiff of smell- ing salts. He sat there and the cobwebs began to clear in his brain. But the ache in his side was beginning to thaw out, send hot licks of pain through his body. The doc went to work on the scalp wound. When the doc had finished, Sweeney be- came conscious of Buzzy’s hand squeezing his arm. Buzzy relaxed the pressure. Sweeney looked at Buzzy and Buzzy’s eyes were no longer hazy and glinted. They were bright and clear. Sweeney sensed something. He couldn’t begin to make heads or tails out of the situation. “This is no time to selve mysteries,” Sweeney said. “What’s the lowdown, Buz- zy? I thought you were—” “In the bugrhouse or something,” Buzzy finished for him. “If Angel Toland had | said evenly. his way I might have been. But Rock looked after me. I’m okay now. Have been for quite a while.” ~ “But what about the other night in the hospital?” Sweeney asked, puzzled. Buzzy laughed. “Just whack enough to get the license number of the car that hit Rock. But I had to put on a good act for Bo Madden’s stooges. They’d have fin- ished me off if they figured I was telling things to the D. A. Besides, I didn’t want to tip the D. A.’s hand. It was a good act, huh? I had a lotta practice.” - Sweeney took another whiff at the smelling salts. “Tell me more about Bo Madden. I’m interested.” “The last I heard, him and Jenkins and Pelham were squirming in the D. A.’s office,” Buzzy said. “Hach one of them — was trying to pin the rap on the other.” At this point Lew Harrigan came into the room. “We've caught up with Angel Toland this time,” he said. “The boys got plenty of nice pictures of him giving Sweeney the business.” : “So you found a loophole and you're crawling through it, Harrigan,” Sweeney “They’ve got Bo Madden pinned down and you’re out to save your own skin. It’s that easy, huh?” ARRIGAN grinned a little. “A re- porter sometimes has got to live with the wolves to get the real lowdown. Well, I had a hunch about Angel Toland and this jinx business. But to get at Angel, you had to get at the guy behind him—Bo Madden. That guy has Angel sewed up in knots. He either worked with Madden—or else.” Sweeney sucked in his breath. “Tough, Angel had to get in that kind of a hole to Madden.” “Don’t feel sorry for the guy,” Harri- gan said. “Angel has his own reasons for keeping that jinx alive. He collected from Madden. But the real gravy was in the mail when Madden got control of the Raiders. But for that to happen, the Raiders had to lose dough and games, Be- sides. Angel couldn’t stand to see any- body steal his stuff. It did something te him, He was on top and beginning to slip and the guy was desperate.” COMICLOOO KS