The center snapped the ball back to Socks, and he dropped back for the pass. Kuttner started around the end, and Burtson, thinking the pass was for Kuttner, started after him. Ryan had gone through the middle, and suddenly, Socks, still falling back, saw Kulowski away off down the field. He was really running. It would be forty yards, at least.
As a big tackle lunged toward him, Socks shot the pass in a rifling spiral that traveled like a bullet, just out of reach of leaping hands. Then Kulowski went up, the ball momentarily slipped through his hands, and a terrific groan went up from the stands, but then he recovered and was running!
Tarbell had been playing far back, and he started slow as Kulowski came toward him. Then the big All-American’s pace changed suddenly, his toes dug in and he hurled himself in a dynamite-charged tackle at Muggs.
Kulowski made a lightninglike cross step, and at the same moment, his open hand shot out in a wicked stiff-arm, backed by all the power of those freight-handling muscles. That hand flattened against Tarbell’s face and the clutching hands grasped only air.
Two men got Kulowski on the two yard line, bringing him down with a bone-crushing jolt.
They lined up again, and Ryan looked at Muggs and Kulowski grinned. They snapped the ball, and he went through the middle with everything he could give. They tried to hold him, but for the first time in his life, Muggs Kulowski was playing with everything he had in him. He put his head down and drove.
With four men clinging to him, he shoved through. The ball was over.
The rest was anticlimax. Socks Barnaby dropped back and booted the ball through the goal posts, and the whistle blew.
It was 20 to 13!
“Well,” Barnaby said to Temple as the big coach stood waiting for them, “what did I tell you?”
“You tell me?” The Coach grinned. “Why, I knew that you were all brains an’ he was all beef. What d’you suppose I needled you for? Don’t you suppose I knew that thesis of yours was on the sense of inferiority?”
“Crabapples!” Socks scoffed. “Why, you couldn’t—!”
“Listen, pantywaist,” Temple growled. “D’you suppose I’d ever have let you an’ Muggs on that field if I didn’t know you could do it? Don’t you suppose I knew you an’ him were down behind that red barn every night? What d’you suppose I kicked him off the field for? I knew you were so confounded contrary you’d get busy an’ work with him just to show me up!”
“Well,” Socks grinned, “it wasn’t you who got showed up. It was Hanover.”
“Yeah,” Temple agreed, “so go put that in the Lantern. And you, Kulowski. You get out for practice, you hear?”
“Okay,” Kulowski said. Then he grinned. “But first I got to write an article for the Lantern.”
Coach Temple’s eyes narrowed and his face grew brick red.
“You? Writing for the Lantern? What about?”
“Coaching methods at Eastern,” Kulowski said, and laughed.
He was still laughing as he walked toward the field house with his arm across Barnaby’s shoulders.
Anything for a Pal
* * *
TONY KINSELLA LOOKED at his platinum wristwatch. Ten more minutes. Just ten minutes to go. It was all set. In ten minutes a young man would be standing on that corner under the streetlight. Doreen would come up, speak to him, and then step into the drugstore. Once Doreen had put the finger on him, confirming that he was, in fact, the man they sought, the car would slide up, and he, Tony Kinsella, Boss Cardoza’s ace torpedo, would send a stream of copper-jacketed bullets into the kid’s body. It would be all over then, and Tony Kinsella would have saved his pal from the chair.
He looked up to the driver’s seat where “Gloves” McFadden slouched carelessly, waiting. He noted the thick neck, and heavy, prizefighter’s shoulders. In the other front seat “Dopey” Wentz stared off into the night. Kinsella didn’t like that. A guy on weed was undependable. Kinsella shrugged, he didn’t like it but the whole mess would soon be over.
This kid, Robbins, his name was, he’d seen Corney Watson pull the Baronski job. Tomorrow he was to identify Corney in court. Corney Watson had sprung Kinsella out of a western pen one time, so they were pals. And Kinsella, whatever his failings, had one boast: he’d do anything for a pal. Tony was proud of that. He was a right guy.
But that was only one of the two things he was proud of. The other the boys didn’t know about, except in a vague way. It was his brother, George. Their name wasn’t Kinsella, and George had no idea that such a name even existed. Their real name was Bretherton, but when Tony had been arrested the first time, he gave his name as Kinsella, and so it had been for a dozen years now.
Tony was proud of George. George was ten years the youngest, and had no idea that his idolized big brother was a gangster, a killer. Tony rarely saw him, but he’d paid his way through college, and into a classy set of people. Tony smiled into the darkness. George Bretherton: now wasn’t that a classy name? Maybe, when he’d put a few grand more in his sock, he’d chuck the rackets and take George off to Europe. Then he’d be Anthony Bretherton, wealthy and respected.
Kinsella leaned back against the cushions. This was one job he was pulling for nothing. Just for a pal. Corney had bumped “Baron” Baronski, and this kid had seen it. How he happened to be there, nobody knew or cared. Tomorrow he was going to testify, and that meant the chair for Corney unless Tony came through tonight, but Tony, who never failed when the chips were down, would come through.
They had located Robbins at a downtown hotel, a classy joint. Cardoza sent Doreen over there, and she got acquainted. Doreen was a swell kid, wore her clothes like a million, and she was wise. She had put the finger on more than one guy. This Robbins fellow, he wasn’t one of Baronski’s guns, so how had he been there at the time? Tony shrugged. Just one of those unfortunate things.
Why didn’t George write, he wondered? He was working in a law office out west somewhere. Maybe he’d be the mouthpiece for some big corporation and make plenty of dough. That was the racket! No gang guns or coppers in that line, a safe bet.
Tony wondered what Corney was doing. Probably lying on his back in his cell hoping Kinsella would come through. Well, Tony smiled with satisfaction; he’d never botched a job yet.
* * *
SUDDENLY DOPEY HISSED: “Okay, Tony, there’s the guy.”
“You think! When you see Doreen comin’, let me know. I’m not interested ’til then.”
He suddenly found himself wishing it was over. He always felt like this at the last minute. Jumpy. Prizefighters felt that way before the bell. Nerves. But when the gun started to jump he was all right. He caressed the finned blue steel of the barrel lovingly.
“Get set, Tony, here she comes!” The powerful motor came to life, purring quietly.
Kinsella sat up and rolled down the window. The cool evening air breathed softly across his face. He looked up at the stars, and then glanced both ways, up and down the street. It was all clear.
A tall, broad-shouldered fellow stood on the corner. Tony could see Doreen coming. She was walking fast. Probably she was nervous too. That big guy. That would be him. Tony licked his lips and lifted the ugly black muzzle of the submachine gun. Its cold nose peered over the edge of the window. He saw a man walk out of the drugstore, light a cigar, and stroll off up the street. Tony almost laughed as he thought how funny it would be if he were to start shooting then, how startled that man would be!
There! Doreen was talking to the man on the corner. Had one hand on his sleeve…smiling at him.
God, dames were coldblooded! In a couple of minutes that guy would be kicking in his own gore, and she was putting him on the spot and smiling at him!
Suddenly she turned away and started for the drugstore on some excuse or other. As she passed through the door she was almost running. The car was moving swiftly now, gliding toward the curb, the man looked up, and the gun spouted fire. The man threw up his arms oddly, jerked sharply, and fell headlong. McFadden wheeled the car and they drove back, the machine gun spouting fire again. The body, like a sack of old clothes, jerked as the bullets struck.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING Tony lay on his back staring at the ceiling. He wondered where Doreen was. Probably the papers were full of the Robbins killing. Slowly he crawled out of bed, drew on his robe, and retrieved the morning paper from his apartment door. His eyes sought the headliners, blaring across the top in bold type: