1971 - Want to Stay Alive

by James Hadley Chase

  He flicked down the switch of his radio.

  “Looks like she’s arrived! She’s blonde, white sweater and blue hipsters. She’s in the booth now. Don’t crowd her . . . tail her from a distance!” He switched off.

  Leaving the office, he went quickly down the stairs and into the lobby.

  The girl was walking away, swinging her handbag. Jacoby was starting after her.

  Lepski darted to the telephone booth as a large, fat man was opening the door.

  “Police!” Lepski snarled in his cop voice, shouldered the man out of his way and felt under the coin box. The envelope was gone! He sidestepped the fat man who was goggling at him then walked swiftly after Jacoby.

  This was the woman!

  He switched on his two-way radio.

  “This is it! She’s coming out now!” He paused in the sunlight as the girl made her way towards the parking lot. He nodded his approval as he saw Jacoby turn aside and make for his car. “She’s crossing to the car park Dave! Take your car to the North exit and wait. Buick 55789. Pick them up if they come your way. Andy! Cover the south exit!” Switching off, he ran to Jacoby’s car and scrambled in. Jacoby had the radio going and he was filling the air with instructions to the six patrol cars circling within a mile of the airport.

  The drivers of the patrol cars knew what to do. Each car fanned out to cover every exit from the City. That was their job. The three police cars at the airport would cover the Buick if it headed back to the City.

  Dave Farrell came on the air.

  “Exit north, Tom and heading out of town. Am covering.”

  “Let’s go,” Lepski said, and Jacoby set the car moving.

  ***

  David Jackson junior had gone to bed drunk and woken up drunk. This morning at the airport he had to meet his mother who was flying down from New York on a visit. He was fond of his mother, but he wished to hell she hadn’t decided to come to Paradise City at this time when he was having a ball at the Spanish hotel. But his mother was important to him. She was his lifeline, and there were times when he appreciated her. He knew she was the oil in the cogs between his father and himself. If it wasn’t for her firm and constant intervention, David Jackson junior would have been disinherited long ago and since his father was worth some fifteen million dollars, the thought of being disinherited fazed David Jackson junior more than somewhat as the late Damon Runyon would have put it.

  So when he came awake, he dragged himself out of his bed knowing the least he could do was to be at the airport on time to meet the old girl even if it killed him. He had a hangover that made him feel as if he had been fed through a mincer. As he got into his E type Jag, to ease his raging headache, he took a long slug from the bottle of Teachers he always kept in his car.

  He looked at his gold Omega and saw he had only fifteen minutes to reach the airport before his mother’s plane arrived.

  With his back teeth practically floating in Scotch, this seemed to him to be a challenge, and he went storming down the boulevard, heading for the airport with the speed of a Grand Prix race and the skill of an idiot child.

  He avoided three collisions only because of the other drivers’ skill. Then he was out of the traffic and onto the highway and he trod down on the gas pedal. The car surged forward. He looked at his watch. The time was 12.30.

  When driving at 110 miles an hour it is unwise to take your eye off the road and fatal to look at your watch.

  The long hood of the Jag smashed into the side of a dusty blue Buick as the Buick swung out onto the highway from the road leading from the airport. The force of the impact threw the Buick across the highway and another car, unable to stop, smashed into it, collapsing the radiator.

  The Jag left the road, somersaulted and landed on its back, then burst into flames. David Jackson junior had died before the flames began to turn his body into a charred lump of meat.

  Chuck saw the Jaguar coming at him, but there was nothing he could do about it. He felt the shock of the impact and then window glass sprayed him like shrapnel.

  By some odd freak the car doors flew off and came away from the body of the car. Also by some odd freak, Chuck was thrown from the car to land on hands and knees on the road.

  He remained like that staring with terror at the growing pool of blood that made a puddle around him, knowing it was his blood. And yet even with the pain, the terror and the fact he knew he was bleeding to death, all he could think about was the money in the glove compartment of the Buick.

  Somehow he struggled to his feet. Dimly, he heard cars hooting and voices shouting. Not caring, he lurched to the ruined Buick and reached for the money.

  A river of burning gasoline from the Jaguar came like an orange and red snake down the slope of the road and reached the Buick as Chuck’s bleeding fingers closed on the envelope in the glove compartment.

  The leaking gas tank of the Buick exploded.

  Chuck was tossed in the air, his clothes alight, and what was left of him smashed down across the upended wheels of the Jaguar.

  EIGHT

  As the third car in the collision erupted into flames, as Lepski and Jacoby fought their way through the gaping crowd, as black smoke blotted out Chuck’s dead body, a brown hand closed around Meg’s wrist and pulled her away from the flames and the smoke.

  Meg was in shock.

  She had escaped the flying glass, but the impact of the collision had been so violent it seemed to her that her brain had come loose inside her head.

  She felt herself being drawn along and she was just able to keep walking.

  She was sightless and trembling, feeling herself brushing against bodies as the Indian dragged her through the crowd. People stared at her before looking back at the burning cars.

  When the gas tank of the third car exploded, the crowd heaved back and Meg dropped to her knees. She felt herself dragged upright, felt firm, hard hands take hold of her, then she fainted.

  The Indian who had hold of her, stooped and catching hold of the back of her thighs, he got her over his shoulder. He started forward, his head down, forcing his way through the crowd, his movements hidden by the black smoke, billowing from the burning cars.

  Those who noticed him imagined he was rescuing some dumb girl who had sparked out. The smell of roasting bodies, the fierce flames and the thick smoke were far more exciting than to bother with some Indian carrying away a dirty, hippy girl. The crowd let him through, then surged forward as Chuck’s body began to burn.

  Dave Farrell from his police car, watching all this from the North exit of the airport, alerted Beigler.

  “We have a major smash here,” he reported. “Highway completely blocked. We want help. Buick 55789 involved. Airport fire squad in action. Major traffic snarl up. Repeat . . . we want help.”

  By this time Lepski, followed by Jacoby, had fought his way through the crowd and the smoke to the burning Buick. The two detectives saw the flames licking around Chuck’s body as it lay across the rear wheels of the upturned Jaguar. The heat was so fierce they couldn’t get within yards of the burning body.

  With sirens screaming, the Airport fire squad arrived and began to blanket the three blazing cars with foam.

  It was some ten minutes later before Lepski could report to Beigler. After listening to his report, Beigler told him to come back to headquarters and leave the other detectives to help unscramble the traffic snarl up.

  The Indian who had pulled Meg from the wrecked Buick sat in the high cabin of his fifteen ton truck, his hands resting on the steering wheel while he waited patiently for the police to sort out the traffic jam and he could move off.

  Meg lay huddled out of sight on the floor of the cab. She was still unconscious and the Indian whose name was Manatee looked doubtfully at her.

  Manatee was a slim, narrow-eyed Indian with a crop of black hair that resembled a nylon broom. He was twenty-seven years of age, married with four children. He made a decent living by driving one of Ocida’s trucks, carrying crates of o
ranges to the airport from the market. Manatee had served three years in a tough State prison farm for robbery with violence. If it hadn’t been for Ocida who knew the right strings to pull, Manatee wouldn’t have got a licence as a truck driver and he and his family would probably have starved. Manatee was very aware of the debt he owed Ocida and was accordingly grateful. There were no secrets kept among the waterfront Indians: most of them knew that Poke Toholo had found a paving racket and he was terrorising the rich whites of the Fifty Club. This was something most of them would liked to have done given the brains, the idea and the nerve. The fact that Poke was in with Ocida and a friend of Jupiter Lucie from whom Manatee got his oranges, made him Manatee’s friend also.

  Manatee recognised Poke’s Buick as Chuck drove away from the airport.

  He had heard that Poke was working with two whites and he guessed the driver and the girl at his side were these two he had heard about.

  When the smash came, Manatee’s truck was standing in a parking bay. He had finished unloading two hundred crates of oranges and he was taking time off to smoke a cigarette and rest a little. He was horrified to see Poke’s car turn into flames. He saw the girl fall out of the car and he had acted, swiftly and instinctively.

  Now, here she was, lying at his feet. Her face pinched and bloodless and her eyes closed.

  Manatee began to wonder if he had done the right thing. Maybe he shouldn’t have interfered. Maybe she was badly hurt. Maybe she should be in hospital.

  He put his hand on her shoulder and gently shook her. Meg’s eyes opened. She stared dazedly up at him. For a moment she thought the man leaning over her was Poke, then she realised this was a stranger. She also realised she was half lying on the floor of the cab and she struggled to sit up.

  Then she remembered the smash and seeing Chuck for a brief, awful moment falling out of the car with his face full of glass.

  “Are you all right, lady?” Manatee asked. “Are you hurt?”

  Was she hurt?

  She moved but felt no pain.

  “I’m all right. What happened to . . . him?”

  “I guess he got burned.”

  Meg shuddered, then she relaxed back against the dirty seat of the cab.

  She was free, she told herself, she could begin again. She could . . . then she began to shake and she put her head in her hands as the shock hit her.

  Manatee saw the traffic was moving again. This delay was costing him money. He started the engine.

  “You want me to take you to hospital?” he asked, troubled by the way she was shaking.

  “No.”

  “I picked up your handbag, lady. You dropped it when you passed out. It’s right there by you.”

  Meg tried to control her shivering.

  “You take it easy. I’ll drop you off on the waterfront. Will that be okay?”

  “Yes . . . thank you.”

  The truck edged into the stream of traffic waved on by a red faced, sweating patrolman.

  ***

  “We had them covered, then this goddamn Jag came like a bat out of hell and soured the whole operation,” Lepski was saying.

  Terrell listened. Sitting on the window sill, Beigler also listened.

  “Okay. The man’s dead, but where’s the girl?” Terrell asked. “She was in the car. I saw her get in,” Lepski said. “Then came the smash. The smoke was dense and the snarl up something. We had something like five hundred people milling around. Somehow she must have slipped away.” Lepski was aware he had to excuse himself and he was leaning over backwards to do just that.

  “So we’re back to square A,” Beigler said, his voice flat and resigned.

  Terrell stared at his pipe while he thought, then he lifted his heavy shoulders.

  “Yes. I’ll now have to talk to Hedley. We’ll have to do it the hard way. I’ll see if Hedley will offer a reward. We’ll have to give out we want to talk to Poke Toholo. We’ll have to set up road blocks and take the Indian quarter to pieces to find him.”

  A tap came on the door and Jack Hatchee from the Records department came in.

  Hatchee was a tall, heavily built Indian with greying hair, a droopy thick moustache and shrewd black eyes of a thinker. He was a man the detectives at headquarters had learned to respect. If they gave him a name, a description, a method of operation, he would nod and sooner or later - Hatchee never hurried - he would come up with a constructive answer.

  Under the impact of the recent events, Terrell had forgotten about him, but when he saw him, he suddenly relaxed the way a man will relax when his competent doctor arrives.

  “What is it, Jack?”

  “I’ve checked through all those reports, Chief,” Hatchee said. “I’m sorry to have been so long but there were a lot of them. One report is out of line. Jupiter Lucie hasn’t a cousin.”

  “Who is Jupiter Lucie?”

  “An Indian. He has a good business, exporting oranges and running a stall on the waterfront,” Hatchee explained. “He is one of the big men on the waterfront . . . a careful, cunning man. He does many illegal deals but he keeps out of trouble. When Lawson and Dodge went to his stall, while checking on the Indians on the waterfront, Lucie was with another man. This man, Lucie told them, was his cousin, Joe Lucie. Lucie has brothers and sisters, but no cousins.”

  Listening to this, Lepski suddenly remembered what his wife had told him: what the old rum-dum Mehitabel Bensinger had told her: You should look for this man among oranges.

  The old crystal ball gazer had already said the man they had to look for was an Indian and she had been right! Now . . .

  He leaned forward, staring at Hatchee.

  “This guy deals in oranges?”

  The strangled note in his voice made both Terrell and Beigler look at him.

  “He has a very good trade in oranges.”

  Lepski drew in a snorting breath.

  “That’s him! I . . .” Then he stopped short. The thought of telling Terrell and Beigler that his wife had consulted a crystal ball gazer and the reaction he would get from them brought him out in a hot sweat.

  “Something on your mind, Tom?” Beigler asked impatiently.

  “I’ve got a hunch.” Lepski shifted around on his chair with embarrassment. “I . . .”

  Terrell and Beigler turned their attention back to Hatchee. Hunches didn’t interest them: they wanted facts.

  “So okay, Lucie hasn’t a cousin . . . we’ll check him out,” Terrell turned to Lepski. “Go down to Lucie’s stall and talk to this guy who Lucie says is his cousin.”

  Lepski was now certain that this man he was being told to talk to was Poke Toholo. That old rum-dum might be swilling his whisky, but she had delivered the goods once and he was now sure she was delivering the goods again.

  “Chief . . . suppose this man is Toholo,” he said, sitting forward as he looked directly at Terrell. “So I check him out. So where does it get me? I don’t know Toholo. I’ve never seen him. None of us have seen him. I could be walking into a bullet. Okay, maybe this guy is some punk out of jail who Lucie is taking care of, but if he is Toholo, I could walk into trouble and bitch up the whole operation.”

  “He’s right,” Hatchee said quietly. “If it is Toholo there will be trouble.”

  Terrell nodded. By his sudden frown the three detectives knew he was annoyed with himself for not thinking of this possibility.

  “Yes.”

  Terrell thought for a long moment, then he reached for the telephone.

  “Charlie . . . see if you can get me Mr. Rodney Branzenstein. Yeah . . .Branzenstein. Try the Fifty Club.”

  After a brief wait, Branzenstein came on the line.

  “Rod . . . can I ask you a favour? Will you do a little police work for me?”

  Terrell asked.

  “Well, for God’s sake!” Branzenstein laughed. “Police work! What do you mean?”

  Terrell explained.

  “Well, of course.” Branzenstein’s voice turned serious. “Yes, I would know
Poke Toholo anywhere. So what do you want me to do?”

  “I’ll send a man over to you right away,” Terrell said. “He’ll point out Lucie’s stall. I want you to walk past and see if you spot Toholo. Be careful. Don’t let him think you’ve recognised him.”

  “I understand. This will he an outing for me! Okay, Frank, send your man down. I’ll be waiting.”

  “He’ll do it,” Terrell said as he hung up. “Jack, go to the Fifty Club and take Branzenstein to the waterfront. Show him Lucie’s stall, but keep out of sight yourself. I don’t have to tell you what to do.” He turned to Lepski. “Go with him and cover Branzenstein. By the time you get there, I’ll have the whole waterfront sealed off. Get moving!”

  When Lepski and Hatchee had gone, Terrell looked at Beigler.

  “This could be a tricky one . . . the waterfront is always crowded. If it is Toholo, he could make a fight of it. We know he has a gun.” He opened a desk drawer, searched and brought out a large scale map of the waterfront.

  He studied it for a minute or so, then began to mark the map with a pencil.

  “Cover all these streets I’ve marked, Joe. If it is Toholo, we get him dead or alive.”

  Beigler nodded and taking the map, he went back to his desk. Picking up the microphone, he began alerting his men, bringing them fast in a wide semi-circle that would surround and seal off the waterfront.

  ***

  Rodney Branzenstein got out of the police car, followed by Lepski and Jack Hatchee.

  “All right, you fellows,” Branzenstein said, very much in control of the operation, “just show me where you think this Indian is and leave it to me. I know just what your Chief wants. If it is Toholo, I’ll take out my handkerchief and make as if I’m mopping my brow.”

  Lepski had many hates: among them were rich Corporation lawyers who owned Rolls-Royces and lived in ten bedroom houses.