15 Story Detective, April 1950 — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

Pigskin Patsy enough for the other customers to hear, “Why does a guy with your dough drink beer?” She saw Barry go white around the mouth, saw his shoulders lift. She saw the bartender’s hand reach under the bar top. He stared with calm contempt at Barry McBride. “Please, Barry,” she said, just loudly enough to carry to him. The tension went out of him slowly and he walked over to her. “T’m on the edge,” he said. “Sooner or later I got to break the mouth on one of these smart guys.” “That’s why Kyle and I want you out of town. The cops would love throwing you in the tank and roughing you up.” “T might like that too.” She took his arm as they went down the street, The late fall sunshine was watery, but the day was unseasonably warm. Her mind was full of a hopeless anger at what this was doing to him. Barry McBride had been as uncomplicated and friendly as an aitdale puppy. Now a deep streak of violence was beginning to show. Two boys of about fourteen coming to- ward them nudged each other and whispered. They stared at Barry. She looked at him. He was looking straight ahead, a funny expression on his face, She felt the muscles in his arm tense. When the boys were fifty feet behind them, one of them yelled, “Crooked Barry McBride! Crooked Barry!” “They don’t know,” she said. “Don’t hate them for that. Ali they have to go on is what the paper said.”’ “T just don’t know people were like this,” he said in tones of wonder. “TI just didn’t know. I figured you do the right thing and you're all set. Lord, how they climb .on you!” They came to the Courier building. “T’ve got to leave you here,” she said. “No fights. Promise?” His grin was shamefaced. I pinched , 55 her heart to see how much his face had changed in two days. There were lines bracketing his mouth that she had never noticed before. His eyes seemed deeper in his head. “No fights,” he said. YLE BENEDICT was in his office. She pulled the door shut behind her and sat down. The office was barely large enough for two of them and the big steel desk. Two walls were covered with the signed photographs of sports stars. She found the familiar one of Barry Mc- Bride and looked at it. An action picture taken with a telescopic lense, showing Barry coming through a big hole in the line in the ’47 Packer game, plunging at express train speed, thick knees pumping high. “How’s he taking it, Laura?” Kyle asked. Kyle was a slim, fresh-faced young man with a mild manner. He had started on the Courier. Now his sports column was syndicated in two dozen mid-western papers. He called the shots as he saw them, and was respected for it. “How would you expect him to take it?” she said bitterly. “Everything he has believed in has blown up in his face.” “Everything but you.” “T guess I’m just a one-man gal, Kyle.” “And to think that it could have been me,” he said, smiling. “What are we going to do, Kyle? What are we going to do?” “He wouldn’t go, eh?” “I knew he wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be like him to go. He’s going to stay out in public until somebody says the wrong thing. And then they’re going to jail him. You know that as well as I do.” “At least he'll be safe in jail, I’m be- ginning to have some interesting ideas about the whole setup. Almost every- body in town except you and me think Stackie Coults was telling the truth. I’ve been wondering why he would lie. If we - . Eomicboo <S eo)