Pulp - Popular Sports.46.04.The Phantom of the Blue - Joe Gregg (pdf)

Popular Sports Magazine, Spring (April), 1946

THE PHANTOM OF THE BLUE By JOE GREGG “Spook” Smith has his reasons for not wanting to mix it on ice—and it takes a canny sports writer to make him click!

CHAPTER I Player With a Past

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E came in and sat down front in the empty ice arena and let his eyes stray over the players who were practising there. At the far end of the two-hundred-foot fence-girt rectangle, a rookie goalie was alternately presenting arms, skatestopping, shinguard-blocking, handcatching, while a covey of forwards raked the puck in turn, skated forward, feinted

and blasted away at the six-foot-wide net. “Hi, Colgan. Looking for somebody?” Neal Colgan, crack Chicago sports writer, looked around, his brown eyes noncommittal. “Oh, hello, Syd. Just looking. Any changes?” Syd Marner, Black Hawk managing genius, shook his head. He sat down, offered Neal a cigar, and didn’t speak until they were both lighted. “No, no changes.” He exhaled a thin line of blue smoke. “He’s still here.” When Colgan smiled, the cynicism

POPULAR SPORTS MAGAZINE melted from his wintry face. “Smart guy, aren’t you!” “Am I?” “Some people say so. How’d you know I had come to look at—him?” Marner shrugged. “I saw you watching him pretty closely our last few games. When he was skating around taking practise shots. You asked a lot of questions. Yet you never so much as mentioned him in your column, or your articles.” “I like to know,” Neal Colgan said simply. “So do I,” Marner murmured. He watched the youngster in the nets. “Good lad, that. Another year and he’ll be our spare goalie. Look at that save!” “Changing the subject?” Colgan asked. “Where’s your rookie forward? That’s the unusual kid!” “Think so? What’s unusual about him? There’s thousands like him. He can skate. Got a good hand and a good eye. So have a thousand others. Look, even his name is like a thousand others. ‘Smith.’ What’s unusual about that? S-m-i-t-h. Unusual, huh?” “He was with the Bruins a week,” Colgan said. “The Red Wings gave him a try. He dropped back into small-club play. Now we have him here in Chicago. That’s unusual in itself, isn’t it? What makes you think you can make him click if those others can’t?” “A couple of days ago, you didn’t even know his name,” Marner said. “Now you’ve got the F. B. I. specification on his prints or something. Look, if I let other coaches and managers pick my team for me, you think I’d ever have a winner?” “What gets me,” the newswriter pointed out, “is, if you think this Smith is going to make your team a winner, why don’t you use him? You remind me of a guy afraid to bite into an apple for fear

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he’ll find a worm in it.” The Black Hawk mentor yawned. “Maybe it’s a candied apple and I’m saving it for dessert. Did you think of that?” “Not,” Colgan chuckled acidly, “with Chicago starved for some victories. Brother, if that’s dessert, you’d better start biting, because that’s all we’re gonna get!” “If I was smart as you, I’d get me a team to manage.” Colgan grinned. “I’d rather help you. Heyl Here he comes, now!” Both men fell silent when the lithe but well-built kid with the close-fitting mask of black hair and the set jaw under the firm but youthful mouth, skated out from the dressing room ramp. He took his place in the practise lineup diffidently, giving way to another player who edged up alongside him. When the goalie cleared and rammed the puck out again, the broad-shouldered kid moved with deceptive ease, hit a sudden burst of speed and slammed the puck against the boards to clear an imaginary blocker. He caught up the puck again, feinted a pass, then rifled a shot at the nets. The puck struck an upright and caromed off. The skater swooped, carried it around behind the net at blinding speed, his skates spewing up a thin shower of ice as he stepped into a fast turn. He backhanded the puck when he came out, then skated to take his place in the line-up again. Colgan whistled softly. “Do the boys like him?” Marner grunted. “Do the boys like anyone! The kid stays to himself, keeps his mouth strictly for shut and doesn’t act wise. How you going to dislike a guy like that?” “Or like him, for that matter,” Colgan said. “Scrimmage?” “Had it. Early. Had a battle, too. Sugar

THE PHANTOM OF THE BLUE Sassoon and Peewee Lafond tangled. They can’t get used to playing on the same team!” “Smith get into it?”

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ARNER shook his head and tried to make his voice casual. “No. Matter of fact, after the fight, we found he’d gone to the dressing room. For something or other. He’s just coming out now. He sure has speed, hasn’t he?” Colgan’s brown eyes were taking it all in. “Uh huh. Did he show his speed getting into the dressing room?” Marner looked at him. “What do you mean?” The writer stood up, a thin smile on his face. “Well, I’ll be getting along. So long as you don’t care to let me in on whatever is bothering you—” Irritation crept into Marner’s voice. “What’s wrong, Neal, what’s wrong? What are you getting at?” Colgan waved a hand. “I’ll be seeing you, Syd.” The Bruins were completing their westward swing when they dropped in for their first Chicago session with the Hawks. Marner started his regular line-up of Sassoon, Lafond and Center Corky Gargan as the forward trio. Lenny Kildare and Gaines Stuart defended Con Naylor in the nets. The Hawks scored after six minutes of play when a Boston forward landed in the brig for tripping and the home team made the most of the break. But at the end of the first period, the Bruins had piled on the pressure and were a goal up. They stretched it to 4 to 1 in the second session. Then Sassoon and Lafond dropped out and were replaced by Paddy Mahan and

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the rookie, Smith. Colgan looked over, caught Marner’s eyes and grinned when the Hawks’ top-man looked quickly away. The crowd was apathetic, was even beginning to ride the players a little when Naylor made a neat stop, cleared to Stuart and the Hawks rode the puck up the ice. There was a moment of silence when the new forward came winging effortlessly along, the puck riding almost carelessly on the end of his stick, a maximum-regulation length which the newcomer held in one hand. The Bruin center tried to steal the disc, but a sharp twist and a strong flip sent the puck to Gargan who shuttled it in turn to Mahan. Then someone let out a bark of sheer surprise and everybody sat up. Smith was flashing with blazing speed in a diagonal sweep that brought him angling at the net, and the startled defense men jumped to cover. But Paddy Mahan had seen, had moved his stick. The rookie forward took the flashing disc on his stick, made a full, backward turn, and blasted the puck at ankle-height for the uprights. The red light flashed and the Chicago fans yelled their approval. But Colgan’s attention was elsewhere. He eyed the Bruins intently, his eyes speculative. The puck was put into play again and Mahan made a neat steal from an overanxious Bruin forward and the new Hawk trio hit over the blue with everincreasing speed. Gargan took the puck on a board-carom and flashed it to Smith. The crowd started a roar when the youngster blasted for the Bruin net again—and choked it off when Smith eelhipped his way around a defense man, swooped in back of the net and passed to Mahan. Mahan made a swift try, but the goalie blocked it and started to clear. Then Smith was in on him in a spurt of skate-cut ice

POPULAR SPORTS MAGAZINE and flashing movement. He jabbed his stick sharply, twice—on the second try he beat the goalie. The Chicago crowd rubbed its collective eyes, dived for the programs and the sibilant name “Smith!” slid off thousands of tongues. The Bruin defense talked it over briefly and when the Hawks new speed-team roared in two minutes later they were waiting—For Smith. Burly Monk Harmer tried to pocket the man against the boards and a roar broke from the crowds when the rookie stopped on airbrakes and Harmer crashed heavily and all but went into a box, guard-nets and all. Mahan took the pass, feinted with it, then snapped to Gargan, who rifled it to Smith. The rookie poised for his slam, then flicked his stick. The goalie made an involuntary stab at a puck that wasn’t there—for Smith had left it, cagily, was even now blocking the goalie’s vision as he cut close to the net. It was Paddy Mahan who slammed the 3 inch rubber biscuit past the beaten goalie to light the red for the Hawks. CHAPTER II Trouble-Dodger

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HE crowd roared its pleasure, and the Bruin players skated around, eyeing one another and then looking up at their coach. The Hawks tried to look as if they had been doing this sort of thing all their hockey lives. Then there was sudden activity in the Bruin pen and two new defense men spilled out onto the ice to relieve their befuddled teammates. “Randall and Slugger Barnes,” Colgan said. “Oh, oh! The Bruins’ specialized bad boys!” He looked with new interest at Marner, but the Hawk mentor was busy.

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Smith and Mahan skated off ice, with the cheers of the Hawk supporters thundering in their ears—Smith bland, dead-panned, looking neither right nor left, but Paddy Mahan wide-eyed, his ruddy Gaelic face a map of honest surprise. Sugar Sassoon and Peewee Lafond were a study, as they skated to their positions. But they went into action with a jump and a will that hadn’t been there when they started the game. Peewee went over the blue with Sugar, his old rival, taking his pass. But they weren’t getting past the new Bruin defense. Randall threw a wicked block that pinned Sassoon, and Peewee tangled with a slyly thrust stick when he swooped to take the return pass. The whistle shrilled and Slugger Barnes, his face sheepish, went to the penalty box under a canopy of Chicago jeers. Sassoon and Lafond teamed for three hard smashes and connected after some newfound hipper-dipper that hadn’t been in them ten minutes before. With the magical 5—4 score inspiring them, the Hawks found new life and forgotten skill and fought back the Bruin effort to tie things up. Chicago even found the will to beat the Bruin goalie for the clincher, with only two minutes of the final period to go. Peewee marked up the score, but it wasn’t Peewee’s name that was on every tongue when the happy crowd started for the exits. A new Chicago hero had been born on that skate-sworled ice. “. . . Smith!” Colgan provided the cigars this time. They stood outside the dressing-room door, faces composed but their eyes fighting a silent duel. Colgan looked at the tip of his cigar, and back at Marner again.

THE PHANTOM OF THE BLUE “Why didn’t you leave him in a bit longer?” “Why should I?” Marner asked. He chewed on his cigar. “Look, I like these rules that let you make free substitutions. It keeps the boys from getting worn out.” “Or hurt?” “Or hurt. They get hurt easier when they are tired.” “Smith wasn’t tired. By the way, did you ever see anything like the way that kid can stop when he sees a block coming? Uncanny, almost!” “No sense in running into something if you can help it.” Colgan nodded. “And maybe Smith can’t help it! Looks like you have the spark-plug the team needed, Syd. Right?” Marner cleared his throat noisily and looked away. Then: “I guess you have some fancy name for the guy—? You know—‘The Wild Moose of the North Woods,’ and ‘Blockbuster Benson’ and ‘Cowboy Carson,’ and that sort of hooey. You and your names!” “The Spook,” Neal Colgan grinned. “Spook Smith! How’s that?” “And for that, you get paid!” Marner said. “Just for that!” “That ain’t all I do,” Colgan said airily. “I get tickets for all sorts of things for the Boss. I help fill his paper full of words and words and words. In between the advertising columns, I mean. You know, it would be monotonous if all the paper carried was ads! And I do even more than that!” “For instance?” Marner eyed him. “Well, if a guy had an apple and it had a worm in it. Get me? Me, I’d talk it over with him, kinda. Get me?” Marner’s eyes rested on him a long minute.

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“Starting that stuff again, eh? Well, don’t bother yourself about the worm, old boy.”

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OLGAN sighed. “I have to bother myself about the worm. Why? Well . . . I have to eat it, too. If I were sucker enough to go for the apple. Now, the last worm I had to eat was Horizontal Harry Ward, the champion first-round sleeper of the Ring. Brother, I can still taste him! My fellow scribes fed him to me for years. They still do every now and then. My reputation is important to me.” “My team is important to me,” Marner told him. “Well? Give with the answer!” Marner sighed. “Neal, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I suspect, but I’m not hanging any kid’s career on suspicion. All I can do is string along and find out.” The door opened and the first wave of Hawks came out, dressed for the street. Colgan and Marner exchanged greetings with them; and then Marner was singling one out from the rest. “Smith? Step over here a minute. Smith, this is Mr. Colgan, Neal Colgan. I guess you know who he is.” Colgan looked at the youngster and liked what he saw. Clear blue eyes, good build—clean. “Think you’ll like it here with the Hawks, Smith?” “I hope so, sir.” Smith laughed. “It’s good town. I like the club, too.” “How did you like Boston?” The blue eyes bored into Colgan’s dark ones sharply, then looked over his shoulder. “Oh, pretty well. All right, I guess.” “Not as well as Detroit, though?” The blue eyes came back, but only briefly.

POPULAR SPORTS MAGAZINE “Detroit? Yeah, that’s okay. We stayed at the Detroit-Leland. That’s a good hotel, all right!” “Did you like Minneapolis, too?” The blue eyes stayed away. “Yeah. Okay.” “Baltimore - Winnipeg - Vancouver – Philadelphia - Ottawa – Buffalo – Quebec? Like them all?” “I like to travel,” Smith said. “It’s good you do,” Colgan said evenly. “Otherwise you’d be a pretty unhappy boy Hope you make good here, kid. For all us.” When Smith looked at him, he added, “Syd and me, and yourself. I am very much interested. When I say a guy is good, he is good. I am not often fooled. Are you good, Smith?” The youngster shifted from one foot to the other and flushed. “Well, now—” “Cut the schoolgirl blushes, fella. If a guy is good, he knows it. I mean, quietly knows it. Not a big-head or a loud-mouth. You’ve been around. Are you good?” The blue eyes met Colgan’s evenly and steadily. “I think I am. Yes.” He licked his lips and fished a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his face with it. “Why?” “Because,” Colgan said, “I’m going to say in my column what I think. And by Dan, you’d better not cross me up! Me, there is only one thing I hate worse’n eating crow. And that is to eat a worm. Ever bite into a nice juicy apple—? And have it come out a worm? Or half a worm? I don’t like it.” The kid shrugged. “You’ve got your business and I’ve got mine. I’m not asking for any publicity. And any time you bite into a worm, as you call it—well, spit it out. That’s what I do.” He looked at the Hawk’s mentor. “Is that all, Mr. Marner?” “Until practice tomorrow,” Marner

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nodded, a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Good night, Smith.” But the manager-coach was in outright laughter when they were alone again. “Neal, he sure told you where to file your copy! And very quietly, too!” “Save your laughter, pal,” the writer said drily. “It may be only the echo of our hysteria, if we are wrong! And the chances are very good that we are wrong. Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Baltimore—” “Aw, go work for a railroad,” Syd Marner growled. “I’m sweating this deal out, too!” Marner used Smith cagily, spilling him out onto the ice for brief spells that would bring the Hawks to a studied speed, like a symphony conductor striking a key for his musicians to tune on. The Chicago team fell upon winning ways and the name of Spook Smith was headlined in the Sports sections and the fans roared approval of his every move when he was on the ice. But the usual friendly jokes and talk and gags which players bandy about among themselves were missing when Spook Smith was present. Neal Colgan asked Jiggs Maloney, the Hawks trainer, about it one day. “The kid has a bad rep, hasn’t he?” The trainer worried his bulbous nose with a brisk hand. “Well, now, Neal, I’ll tell you. These guys are square-shooters, and they are closemouthed, these hockey guys. You know that. But even so, I been able to pick up plenty! The kid is good, no question. Just so far as he cares to be good. Get it? But there comes a time he don’t care for it.” “Which is?” “When the going gets rough. He ducks trouble long as he can; and when he can’t any longer, he walks off. Or gets the

THE PHANTOM OF THE BLUE gentle heave-ho. You and I know the Rink ain’t no place for a guy who won’t mix it if he has to.” “You’d say he’s got a touch of canary then. Right?” “I ain’t saying nothing! Not me! He’s wings on skates, and he can put that puck in any pocket of your clothes. Besides, he has sure stepped the gang up.” The trainer laughed. “It burns up the rest of the boys to think a guy who won’t fight has all that stuff wasted on him. “Boy, there ain’t a one of ‘em wouldn’t give his eye-teeth for that baby’s speed and hipper-dipper. Yeah, you named him right! The Spook! Spook Smith. The Ghost of the Blue Line! Right now, Syd is lucky. “We got no injuries, the going ain’t been tough. He can pull the kid as soon as things rough up. But—well, I just hope his luck holds. But it won’t. They’ll put the pressure on, come the time. They know him!” “What makes you so sure?” “Listen, that guy has played hockey everywhere. The boys know him. Not well, understand, but they have seen him. They’ve played with him, against him.” The trainer frowned. “Funny part is, he don’t strike me as being no panty-waist when he is off the ice. You know?” CHAPTER III Rugged Going

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OLGAN thought about it. “Maybe he’s killed a guy, once. An accident, or like that. And he’s got what the doctors call a psychosis. You know, an angle, a mania. Maybe he’s so hot-tempered he don’t trust himself.” Jiggs laughed. “Forget that! That guy is cold as a pickle, when he wants to be. Well, they

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come and they go.” Colgan nodded, “Sure,” but he didn’t feel that way. He was beginning to taste the worm in that apple. And he tasted it more strongly, when the Canadiens hit Chicago and began cracking wise about the four straight games they’d lifted in last year’s Stanley Cup. “Too bad, too bad!” Defenseman Butch Bedeau mourned, when all the Hawks could hear him. “It looks like us and the Rangers, yes? And the Rangers— they hard to beat, maybe! Yes!” “Harder to beat than your goalie will be, when Spook ranges on him!” Syd Marner yelled. “Save your jeers, Butch, you’re at your own funeral!” The tough Frenchman laughed. “Keep a time table handy, ol’ boy! I understand he likes to travel. Yes? When he gets the urge? Ah, well, we will give him the urge! Just you watch!” Marner watched with Neal Colgan sitting alongside him. Ten thousand Chicago fans, watched, too. If Spook Smith knew he was a marked man, he didn’t show it by his manner or his expression. He played his position coldly, scientifically, bringing his terrific speed and uncanny ability to avoid collision into play when he had to. Blocks he took by the score—but only if he couldn’t avoid them. And when a tangle threatened, he was well out of the way as fast as he could get out of the way. Spook Smith is smart .enough to keep out of the brig, so he can be more valuable to his team, Colgan wrote on more than one occasion. But his face was sour each time he wrote it. “Gee,” he told Marner, “I’d give a week’s pay if the kid would only act human and mix it! I’d give a month’s pay to see him hang one on a referee!”

POPULAR SPORTS MAGAZINE “So would I,” the manager said drily. “Our money is safe.” But the Canadiens had different ideas. Their lead was slipping under the steady sniping of the Rangers and the Hawks, and the cagey Frenchmen were going to do something about it. Where they could, at any rate—and Chicago seemed to be where they had decided they could. The two teams maintained a deadlock through the first eight minutes. Then the Canadiens’ forward-attack put on a dingdong performance that the Hawks couldn’t quell until the red light had flashed twice. Then Marner spilled out his own speed merchants. Butch Bedeau grinned evilly and took a new grip on his warclub when Spook, Gargan and Mahan flashed across the Blue and hit for the net. Bedeau’s partner, Tuffy Lawrence, came out to meet the attack; but it was Bedeau himself who blasted in, suddenly, shoulder low and stick smashing as if for the puck. But the aim was squarely for Spook’s legs. The Hawks’ fireball tried to pivot away, then parried with his own stick to ward off the blow when he saw he couldn’t avoid it. The crowd roared when the Frenchman, taken by surprise, lost his stick in the resulting shock. Spook gaped, grinned, grabbed the puck close in, and skirted past the scrambling Frenchman. He got the puck away in a square slam that the goalie blocked, but he was on the man before he could clear. The red light flashed, and the Chicago crowd roared their derision at the chagrined Bedeau. The hot-headed Frenchman screamed some fancied protest to the officials, then skated purposefully to meet Spook. The Hawks saw the move and bore in, shoving and pushing, and the Canadiens hit in to back up Butch. And then the Hawks were holding off

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Bedeau and Spook Smith was backing, white-faced, to the boards, was reaching out a hand to get a firm hold on the support. Bedeau got close in and shouted and yelled at Spook. The Hawk star held firm where he was. But a grin etched his lips. Colgan, watching, blinked. “He’s scared—and he isn’t scared! Now, what in the—” “How does the apple taste?” a hard voice asked. It was Marner. “Save half that worm for me. Here we go!”

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ARGAN, the Hawks captain, skated close to talk to Spook. You could tell from the cant of Gargan’s jaw and the way he was looking down his nose that it wasn’t pretty. Spook smiled, but it was a tight smile. When Gargan was through, the speed-merchant shrugged and skated slowly back to his position. But he avoided meeting the flat stares of any of his mates. “He won’t be any more use to us,” Marner said flatly. “The boys will start riding him now. My boys. I—hey, are you listening? Half this worm is yours, you know!” “Huh?” Colgan was frowning, his eyes on the skaters below. “Spook looked like he was afraid he’d fall. Did you notice that? When he had hold of the rail, was holding himself steady—he seemed okay again! Notice?” “Tell me he is a shell-shocked veteran,” Marner jeered. “I know his record. He served in Alaska, then was let out because of a punctured eardrum. What are you getting at?” Colgan worried his lip. “Why should he be afraid of falling? Know any reason? I’d bet my pay that’s what made him skate over to the boards and hang on! Did you notice?” “I noticed a broad streak right down

THE PHANTOM OF THE BLUE the back of his sweater,” the coach growled. “Guess what color!” “A fall. Afraid of a fall,” Colgan mused. “Now, just what could that be all about!” “The fall is us. The Hawks,” Marner said. “Oh well, I’ll leave him in as long as I can. Me, I’m going to see how this guy ticks, why he leaves clubs all over this country and Canada. I’m letting him stay in!” The crowd wasn’t so happy. It sat waiting for something to cheer about, like a man who has boasted to friends about a far-distant relative and he comes in a stumble-bum. The halo wasn’t broken. Not quite. But it was dangerously warped. . . . And then the period was over. In the dressing-room, Colgan picked out the kid and was on his way to have a talk with him, but Corky Gargan was there first. “Look, Smith,” Gargan said, in the sudden stillness of the room, “we know you. Understand? But there are a lot of guys out there who only think they do. Guys who paid to see you perform. Kids that think you got the stuff, who don’t know any better. “Now, we know the set-up. Butch has your number, and will ride you right off the ice. You can quit now and not let that mob out there suffer your disgrace with you. Trouble is coming. You’ll duck it. Duck it here! Beat it!” Spook listened to it all, head cocked, his eyes steady on a spot on the floor. When it was all said, he looked around and saw Colgan. His eyes paused, skipped back, then went on to Syd Marner. “That your idea, too, boss? Am I out of the line-up?” Marner shook his head. “I didn’t say so. How do you feel about it?”

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Spook looked at Gargan. “I’ll finish the game out, Corky.” The team captain laughed jarringly. “Too yellow even to quit, huh? Why—” He broke off when Spook came to his feet. “Don’t say that,” the kid said quietly. “I’m letting you get by with it once. Because, in a way, I asked for it. Don’t say it again, Corky, I’m warning you.” “You’re warning me!” Gargan barked. “Why, you yellow pup!” “Get your hands up!” “Look, now, Percy!” Gargan laughed. “Wanna get hurt?” “Get ‘em up, I’m not waiting!” Gargan got his hands up and swung with the move. Spook did a slide-back with his chin, then shifted his feet, and swung. Thock! He crossed his right and the uppercut left was in time to catch Gargan as the Hawk captain went down. Spook wiped his knuckles in the palm of his hand and looked around. “Any more of you guys think I’m yellow?” “Look, Bub,” Con Naylor said. “Just what was that show you put on outside, in front of the crowd? I mean, whaddya think Corky is to gather?” “You got the same idea?” “Don’t rush me! I’m asking you—” “I’m asking you! You think I’m yellow?” Naylor elbowed some room around himself. “Well, yeah. I do. If—” The Hawks defenseman broke it off and blocked a hard left, then slugged back. “Let’s go, Percy!” CHAPTER IV The Worm Comes Out

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POOK rocked back against the lockers, wiped the blood from his split

POPULAR SPORTS MAGAZINE lips, and came out blasting. Naylor fought back savagely, but futilely. He took three stiff lefts, buckled under a zooming right, and sat down on the floor heavily when the hard-eyed forward rocked him with a left to the belly. “Any more?” Spook asked, his breath audible in the shocked stillness. “This isn’t the first time I’ve taken on a team! Or a good part of it. I can’t take you all, but there’s still room for a few. Well?” Marner saved his boys the trouble. “Break it up,” he said quietly. “I don’t like fighting among teammates; Gargan and Naylor asked for it, but that’s all. I’ve got to field a team on that ice again tonight. Jiggs?” The trainer looked up from the bench where Colgan was now sitting. “They’ll make it, boss. Just dazed. They’re okay.” “Okay. Hit the ice! I want this game, so get winging!” He looked at Colgan when the others had left. “That did it! We broke the ice with that queer Spook of ours. He’ll fight, now!” Colgan shook his head. “Not out there. he won’t. On the ice. Didn’t you hear him say he’d taken on teams before? Me, I believe him. Poor fellow!” Marner gaped. “Poor fellow! Him?” “He must be awful mixed up inside, Syd. Awful mixed up. Me, I was feeling sorry for us. It’s different, now. I’m sorry for the Spook. But I don’t think you’ll find him one bit changed on the ice! Let’s look, huh?” They looked. So did Spook’s mates, in amazement, when Butch Bedeau rode the kid into the boards, laughed vicious taunts at him, battled him across the ice every time the Hawks forward wall came across on the attack. Once, when the Frenchman had his

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dander up and was crowding in for a real fight, and both teams ganged up threateningly, Spook got away, got over to the boards, held on again with a tight grip. Watching it all, Colgan’s sports’ encyclopedic mind wrestled with the goofiness of the thing. Smith who fought like a wildman in the locker room—Smith who paled at the thought, the threat, of a mix-up on the ice—Smith, who— He sat straight, snapped his fingers, and his eyes widened. Marner looked. “What?” “I just remembered something,” he said. “How does Spook spell his name? Sm-i-t-h? Like that or—S-m-y-t-h! Do you know?” “The easy way, his contract reads,” Marner said, his eyes still on the players. “But I don’t see—Great Jehosephat, Neal! Clipper! Clipper Smyth! That time in Boston!” Colgan gestured. “I dunno. It’s a wild guess. That was eleven years ago. This guy—our Spook just could be his kid brother. If he had one.” He got to his feet. “I’m going to use your office phone on the third floor. To call our ‘Morgue,’ at the paper. The files. If I give you a high sign, chase Spook off the ice. Okay?” “Looks like Bedeau will chase him if I don’t. Besides, the fans are getting wised up. Well, go ahead. But I don’t think you’ve got the right slant. This worm is just a—worm.” Five minutes later, the Hawks’ pair of Sassoon-Lafond skated out and Spook Smith left the ice with the jeers of the crowd battering at his broad shoulders. “Hey,” Colgan hailed him, as he clumped up to the dressing-room door. “Want to have a talk, Jerry. Okay?” Spook Smith stared, his eyes steady. Then he followed. He started to unlace his shoes, but stopped when Colgan touched

THE PHANTOM OF THE BLUE his hand. “What?” “You can’t keep quitting, Jerry. You can’t. Don’t you see that? You got to face the thing. It’s the way Clipper would want it, the way Clipper does want it—wherever he is.” The kid looked at the floor. “You guessed, huh? You know Clipper didn’t kick that fellow purposely, don’t you?” He faced the writer, his eyes begging for assurance. “If you knew Clipper, you know he couldn’t do that!” Colgan nodded. “He was absolved, found not guilty. All the boys knew it. Everybody knew it. There was a fight, Clipper went down swinging and his skate just happened to get that other guy in the head. That’s all.” “And the other guy died, that’s all!” Spook said gruffly. Sure, they absolved Clipper. But it drove him out of the game, broke his heart. He’s out home, working with dad. “But he never really forgot. And if anything happened in a mix-up I was in to bring it up again. Well—” the kid gestured with his hands. “It would all boom back on Clipper again. See?”

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OLGAN nodded. “I see. I see something else, too. Want to listen. How often, to your knowledge, has that happened, has a man died after a mix-up like that? In hockey?” Spook shook his head. “I never heard of another. But....” “Hold it! How many times do the boys go to the ice in a pile-up, or a free-for-all? Hundreds, maybe thousands, of times a season. Right? There isn’t much chance of that repeating itself. “A gambler would lay you a millionto-one, rough as the game is. Okay. Now, what do you think the odds are that it would be Clipper Smyth’s brother, this

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time? A hundred million to one? You’d be a sucker to even put a buck up on that bet!” “I wouldn’t want Clipper to get hurt again,” Spook said. “Maybe you just don’t think the old Clipper would be hurt if he thought his kid brother was laying down on him, laying down on the fans, on his team, on his own reputation as a game, heads-up hockey player! Ever think about that?” “Not just that way. No.” “Here’s something else. Wouldn’t Clipper’s memory be a lot healthier in the game if his kid brother showed Clipper’s old courage and fight instead of running for the boards when the going got tough? “You gotta go out there again— tonight! —and you gotta force yourself to not run! Get it? To not run! If Bedeau jumps you, jump him right back. I don’t advocate fighting, but I hate running away. That isn’t sporting! That isn’t Clipper! That shouldn’t be you! How about it?” Spook Smith—the Jerry Smyth who was Clipper Smyth’s kid brother—shook his head. “I don’t think I could. I fought against it so long, it’s a habit. Understand?” Then Colgan was grinning, was standing up, was breathing a gusty sign of relief. ‘Spook, I’m glad for you! I tried to sell you a bill of goods. And right now I’m glad I didn’t. Because did you ever know it was Butch Bedeau who started that battle and who is still starting fights, and getting away with it? Won’t Bedeau laugh when he reads he drove two of you out of the game!” “Neal! Mr. Colgan! You wouldn’t do that! You wouldn’t mention that and me? In the paper?” “Look, Jerry. I’m a newsman. You and Clipper are news. I write what I know, and I know what I see. Right?”

POPULAR SPORTS MAGAZINE Spook came to his feet, his eyes wild. “So it was Bedeau, eh, that started that fight? That grinning rat!” The thing had soaked in on him, had worked into his heart. “Won’t I enjoy beating his ears in, if he utters even one peep!” Colgan pointed to the door, to the ice beyond. “What are you waiting for? Clipper’s sanction? What do you think Clipper would have done to that monkey out there tonight! What would he do if he read it in the papers, huh? What—hey, Spook! Wait for me!” The crowd roared when Spook and Mahan hit the ice for the ten-minute overtime period to break the 4—4 tie. The Black Hawks looked at one another and up into the tiers of seats at the blobs of open-cratered faces. Corky Gargan skated close to Spook just before the puck was faced and said a few words. “I still don’t like you. But for the love of mud, get into the game and stay in!” “When do I cheer?” Spook snarled, his eyes ugly. “How’s about facing that puck off and let’s get going. I got to see a guy on unfinished business!” The Hawks captain was perhaps more dazed by the dressing-room beating, but not much more. He skated to his place, shaken, and lost the puck on the throw-in. The Canadiens toured the Hawks ice with the disc for three minutes of shuttling and battling. Then Gargan got it back, rifled it to Paddy Mahan, who carried it across the Blue and snapped it to Spook. Bedeau took a fresh grip on his stick and edged cagily in. Spook didn’t miss the maneuver, and for one desperate, agonized moment his eyes left the Frenchman’s face and touched on Colgan’s, where the newsman sat next to Syd Marner. Then he lowered his shoulder and charged. The crowd barked its delight when Butch Bedeau went into a mad dance to

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save his footing—and lost. The forward was by, rocking precariously—but he was by. The puck was a dark blur that grew to fullness on the end of Mahan’s stick. The little Irishman let go a hard blast at the nets. The light flashed and programs were shredded and cascaded down on the ice, and then a growing roar took hold of the arena when the hot-headed Butch Bedeau rushed the Hawks forward for some fancied or real offense. “Ha, you ghost, I catch you this time, eh? By Gar, I’ll—” “Shut your trap, Frenchy,” Spook told the man tightly. “Shut it or put up! You’ll do what!” The wide-eyed Hawks jammed around, and Frenchy was in a pocket. He didn’t quite like what he saw in front of him, this blazing-blue-eyed transition from runaway ghost into hard-jawed fighting man. “You elbowed me, kicked me!” the Frenchman shouted. “You lie worse than you play, lug!” Spook snapped. “Want it now—or can you wait until I come back?” The referee broke it up with warnings to the men. And when Spook got the puck two minutes later, that official charged along to see what he could see. He saw plenty. Bedeau came out raging, tried to stop the pass. But none was attempted. Instead, Spook hit him head on, and the two rocketed into the boards and smashed down on the ice. Then they were up, swinging, and the puck was alone. But not for long. Two of Butch’s teeth joined the puck, and Butch sat down heavily and held his mouth. “Poor Butch. Poor Butch!” Colgan was saying. “Gee!” “Huh? Whaddya mean?” Marner asked. “Holy cripes, there goes Spook to the box! And there goes Bedeau out of the

THE PHANTOM OF THE BLUE game!” “Poor guy,” Colgan sighed. “Oh, well—he had it coming to him. If not for one thing, for another. But—well, you see, Spook has an idea Bedeau started that fight in Boston that time.”

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Marner frowned. “He wasn’t even on those teams. He was with—let’s see—the Maple Leafs, then. Where did Spook get that idea?” Colgan bit into a cigar. “I just hate eating worms,” he said.