The Man Who Stayed Alive

by John Creasey

  He stood with one leg slightly forward of the other, his hands raised as he had pushed them forward in a kind of angry appeal. He looked at her as she sat by the dressing-table. There she was, in all her beauty, with a wrap loosely around her. Her limbs were so straight and the lines so clean; all of her was so lovely, too.

  She wasn’t smiling; her eyes held a despairing glow.

  ‘Neil,’ she whispered, ‘don’t go; I beg you not to go.’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘Neil,’ she said, ‘don’t do what Bob did, don’t kill yourself, for him or for me or for money. Today and tomorrow and all the tomorrow’s we can be alive; let’s not have more things to mourn. Don’t go!’

  Whittaker’s teeth were clamped together, and he could feel the sweat on his forehead, the clammy tightness at the back of his neck, at the palm of his hands. He looked at her as if he meant to carry the picture for all the days of his life. He felt the pressure of his jaws, and the demand of his own

  body, but——

  He turned away.

  ‘Eve,’ he said, from the other side of the door, ‘I want you to come with me. I’ll wait in the car for twenty minutes or so. Time for you to get ready.’

  She didn’t answer.

  He went downstairs and out into the night, which might be filled with watching eyes. He had forgotten Olive Johns, Pirran, Ricky, all the deadly things that had happened, all the menace that New York held for him.

  He could only think of Eve.

  Whittaker sat waiting, the second cigarette nearly smoked, the night for company, the distant lights showing the shadowy branches of the trees, and the fragile leaves which, in the sun, had their own beauty. He heard the mosquitoes humming, inside the car; and the rustling sounds of the night, and the never-still engines on the highways and in the sky.

  It was nearly half an hour since he had left the house.

  The lights still shone there.

  He found himself thinking, blindly, that she wasn’t coming, that he would never see her again. She was calling him back as clearly now as she had before. She was telling him that there was nothing, nothing in this world, that she would not do to save his life.

  Then a light in the house went out.

  Another.

  Soon he heard her coming.

  * * *

  And no one watched.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  OLIVE AGAIN

  Whittaker leaned across and opened the door, and Eve got in beside him. There was so little light that all he saw was the movement of her slim legs, and the outline of her white glove. Neither of them spoke. He let in the clutch and started off, fighting to make sure that he drove well and didn’t stab at the controls. They swayed up the hill towards the% main street, and he remembered the directions well enough to turn towards New York without being told which way. The silence went on, and there seemed no easy way of breaking it; yet it had to be broken. The wrong word would be disastrous and he knew that.

  He turned into the parkway.

  The traffic wasn’t thick, but there was enough coming in each direction to make him think. He didn’t want to think. His mind and his heart were in turmoil, and as the silence dragged out he began to be afraid of it — as if it were some monstrous, shapeless Thing which could not be seen, could not be brought to grips.

  A long way ahead the sky was bright with the lights of the city.

  ‘Eve,’ said Whittaker.

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Eve,’ said Whittaker, ‘now and for ever — thank you for not staying behind.’

  She didn’t move and didn’t speak. He thought, in distress, that it had been no good, he had not struck the right note and had not helped her. But soon there was a perceptible change; he could hear her breathing more normally, she wasn’t quite so tense. He began to hope again and drove more slowly.

  ‘Neil,’ she said at last, ‘how do you intend to get into the hotel?’

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ answered Whittaker, ‘I haven’t given it much thought. The occasion usually creates the method.’ He spoke with ridiculous care, was almost precise, in his anxiety to say nothing to distress or disturb her. ‘I’ve a face that loses itself in a crowd.’

  ‘You ought to have some kind of disguise,’ Eve said. ‘You must have.’

  ‘I’ve always got through.’

  ‘You might not, this time. If the police suspect Olive Johns, they’ll be watching. So will Ricky’s men.’ She was very matter-of-fact.

  ‘I don’t carry make-up, because I’ve never used it,’ Whit-taker said.

  ‘Bob had some things,’ Eve told him in a taut, high-pitched voice. ‘I’ve brought them.’

  She had brought rubber cheek-pads to make Whittaker’s face look fuller, nasal pads which would thicken his nose, gum to tighten the skin at his eyes and lips. As he put them on, using her mirror, he felt the real desperation of her desire to make sure he didn’t die.

  When he had finished he looked at her and said:

  ‘You’re magnificent, Eve. One day I’ll say thanks.’

  He paused, but only for a moment: ‘If you’ll book a double room and say I’m coming later with the luggage, I can come in after you’ve moved in. I’m not likely to be stopped while walking to the lift. The night staff didn’t see me last time.’

  ‘That sounds reasonable,’ Eve conceded.

  ‘It ought to work,’ Whittaker said. ‘The experts always say that the simple way is the best, it’s the obvious course the other side wouldn’t expect you to take.’

  She didn’t respond, but he sensed the way she relaxed. He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and handed it to her. She lit one and put it to his lips. He drew on it, but didn’t speak beyond a murmured Thanks’. It was all that was needed. He felt not only the warmth of the evening but of their new companionable quiet. It was like being at peace; he reminded himself that he hadn’t known anything like it for a long, long time.

  ‘If we have any luck,’ he added, ‘I can park near the hotel’

  ‘Not too near,’ she warned. ‘Where is it?”

  ‘Broadway at 61st.’

  ‘Park on the other side of Tenth Avenue,’ Eve advised. ‘There’s more room, and you would probably get a place where you could drive off in a hurry.’

  ‘Fine!’

  New York. . . .

  At the beginning of a built-up area, it was dark except for just the street lights and a few lighted windows, but gradually the lights ahead lured them and spread about them, and soon they drove through a blazing sea of neon, with all the other traffic and the people like actors in a huge, spot-lighted stage. Whittaker turned off Broadway towards Tenth, along a one-way street, leading and crossed Tenth; right at the corner across the road was a space to park; he could reverse and be off in a few seconds, for there was no room for anyone to park behind him.

  ‘Perfect,’ he said.

  “‘Don’t get out yet,’ said Eve. ‘When you’re inside the hotel, what are you going to do?’

  ‘Have a little talk with Olive.’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten that they probably expect you?’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten anything.’

  ‘All right,’ Eve said. ‘Let’s go.’

  He wondered what she was really thinking. He had seen how magnificently she could control her thoughts, and thrust her feelings out of the way. Was she doing that now? They walked briskly away from the river and the slight breeze it offered, towards the hotel. Its illuminated sign blazed in dazzling red: Hotel Lamprey. He could see the window of the room he had occupied. Since he had come to New York, he seemed to have been on the move every moment, to have had a dozen temporary sanctuaries.

  ‘I’ll go into the restaurant, and have a drink,’ he said.

  ‘It’s pretty dark in there. Come in through the entrance from the hotel.’

  ‘Surely.’

  The street entrance to the restaurant was twenty yards from the main entrance to the hotel. Whittaker
left Eve. She hardly paused as she went on. He forced himself to go into the restaurant, and not to wait until she was out of sight. Only a wall and a few tables separated them, but it seemed like a wall.

  A dark-clad head-waiter appeared out of the gloom of the dimly-lit restaurant. In a far corner a fleshy blonde was crooning and swaying in a strapless gown, and behind her a pianist drooped over the keys of a piano that was slightly out of tune.

  ‘Just for one, sir?’ He had a slight accent.

  ‘I’ll have a drink,’ Whittaker said. ‘I’m waiting for a friend.’

  ‘Ver-ee good, sir. The bar iss dere.’

  No one could miss the bar. One man sat at it, his head buried in his hands, another was beating time to the crooning with a swizzle stick against a glass, a couple sat close together at the far end. The barman seemed to be waiting for dynamite to liven the place up. Whittaker pulled up a stool, and the man sauntered over.

  ‘Tom Collins,’ he said.

  ‘Sure.’

  A pause, and some juggling.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Whittaker was very sensitive to time, more so than usual tonight. He seemed to have been waiting for Eve all day. Now, he waited ten minutes, and it was an age. The old, familiar thumping at his heart came back, and he fought against it, tried to make his drink last out, but finally finished it and ordered another. The crooner stopped; only the pianist could be heard now in a listless melody.

  Where was Eve ?

  She wouldn’t stand him up, would she ? He knew that she wouldn’t, but that didn’t satisfy him. She wouldn’t let him down willingly, but remember what she had been prepared to do, simply to keep him away from here. She had come to him of her own accord, and he had taken it for granted that it meant she had submitted to his compulsion. But had she ?

  Had she fooled him?

  Twenty minutes.

  She didn’t need twenty minutes to book a room, and to come in here. Five or ten was needed at most. Even if she went to see the room — and she wouldn’t do that, or she needn’t do it — she was too long.

  Half an hour.

  He stubbed out his third cigarette, and moved away from the bar. No one took any notice of him, not even the smooth head-waiter. He went into the hotel. Two elderly women, one nursing a small, fluffy dog, were sitting in a corner and leaning forward as they talked. A very tall man, wearing a ten-gallon hat, and with an overnight case by the side of his chair, lay back in the chair with his long legs stretched out, and mouth slightly open as he slept. A man whom he hadn’t seen before was at the desk.

  Whittaker nodded.

  The man said ‘Hi,’ and then a buzzer sounded, and he turned to the telephone. ‘Hotel Lamprey. . . .’

  The lift doors were closed. Whittaker pressed one button and heard the lift humming. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the clerk. The man seemed to have taken no action, but he might be playing dumb.

  The lift came down and the doors opened.

  Whittaker stepped in and pressed button. He couldn’t get to the first floor quick enough, not out of it as soon as he wished. He went down the stairs as swiftly as he had the previous day, and opened the doors leading into the entrance hall a few inches. He could just see the clerk’s head. The man was totting up some figures; he wasn’t at the telephone, and didn’t look in the slightest degree alarmed.

  Whittaker drew back.

  He went to the lift at the first floor, and this time pressed for the third. He stepped on to the familiar landing half expecting to see a man, like his prisoner of the morning, or like the one who had been here when he had first arrived.

  No one was here.

  What was the matter with Ricky?

  Even if the police had decided that Olive knew nothing, what was Ricky doing?

  Whittaker moved towards room 34. He was sure of one thing: that Eve had not needed all the time she had taken, and that she had come here to do what she could by herself. It was just another form of sacrifice.

  He reached the door and listened.

  He heard a sharp slap of sound, and then the murmur of a man’s voice.

  Whittaker couldn’t catch the words and didn’t hear anything else for several seconds; but suddenly that slapping sound was repeated. A man was slapping a woman across the face, and then asking questions. lie tried the handle of the door, and pushed; the door was locked, of course it would be. He turned it again, and then put his shoulder to it. There was no sound outside, not even the hum of the elevator.

  Then came blessed noise.

  That was his first thought about it. Radio music blared out inside the room, drowning any sound he made. He tensed himself to thrust at the door — but before he did so, he saw the other possible reason for that radio blaring: that it would drown any sound made inside the room.

  He took out his skeleton key and made himself move cautiously; every nerve was strained. The lock turned, making hardly a sound. He opened the door just an inch, and peered into the room. The music blaring at him from a radio was deafening. Music drowned all sound, but didn’t do anything from stopping him from seeing the thing that was happening in here.

  Olive, by the bed, near the radio; dressed.

  At the foot of the bed a man with a cigarette in his hand — held oddly, not as if he were going to draw at it but as if he were going to stab with it.

  Eve, thrust back against the wardrobe, her dress ripped down off one shoulder, her creamy skin bared to the glowing heat of the end of the cigarette.

  No one moved.

  No one moved for the split second which followed; there was just the blaring of the radio, and now Whittaker knew that it had been switched on to drown the sound of any scream that Eve should make.

  Then he moved, and the man heard the door open.

  He reached the man, who dropped the cigarette and snatched at his gun. It was Blick. No man living could have reached his pocket in time. The blow lifted him off his feet and over the foot of the bed. His legs reared up in the air, as if he were going to turn a somersault; but he didn’t; his legs came down again, like a branch of a tree suddenly lopped off.

  Whittaker turned swiftly, closed the door, and although it snapped, it made little sound and it would cut off the noise the radio was making. In the same swift movement he took a chair and thrust it behind the door, so that the back caught beneath the handle, and there was no risk of the door opening suddenly.

  He turned to Olive Johns.

  ‘Turn it down a bit, Olive,’ he said, ‘I can’t hear myself speak.’ Olive, crouching, didn’t move and didn’t say a word.

  Eve, shrugging her dress back on to her shoulder, walked past Whittaker without looking at him, reached the radio and turned it down; the music was still loud and clear, but much quieter than it had been.

  Then she looked at Whittaker.

  ‘I’d started to question her when the man came in; he must have been next door. He wanted to know where you were.’

  ‘Did Olive say anything?’ Whittaker asked flatly.

  Very slowly, Eve answered, ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Too bad,’ he said. ‘Much too bad. Eve, get a pin from the dressing-table, pin up that dress of yours, and then go and wait for me at the car.’

  He wondered if he had asked too much.

  She had always intended to come and do what she could by herself, of course, and he had been a blind fool not to realise that. He didn’t blame her. He would always have profound admiration for her, and this would be one of the things that would stand out. Her courage and her determination.

  It was easy to forget that it was her fight. He, not Eve, was the interloper. He couldn’t and he didn’t blame her for what she had done, but as he told himself that he may have asked too much, he wondered what he would do if she refused.

  CHAPTER XIX

  ‘WITH LOVE, HONEY’

  There wasn’t any time to play with. The noise might have disturbed others, nearby; the clerk might have fooled Whittaker, Blick might have friends at
hand. There just wasn’t time to argue with Eve. He knew that when he left he might have to leave in a hurry, and that if the two of them were here it might lose fatal time.

  Only a second or two passed after he asked her to wait in the car, but they were precious. He wanted to shout at her, but he restrained himself.

  I’ll be in room 71,’ she said at last. ‘I couldn’t get one any nearer. I’ll repair the dress up there.’

  ‘If I’m not with you in half an hour, you get away,’ he insisted.

  ‘All right,’ she said flatly.

  She went out, moving the chair so as to open the door. He put it back in position. The man was still lying full-length on the bed, half-conscious. His hands were in sight. Whittaker went to him, took the gun from his shoulder holster, and actually laughed as he put it into his pocket. Three! Then he found more cotton wool, and plugged Blick’s ears.

  He moved about the room, watching Olive, opening a drawer here, another there. All her things were unpacked. He kept looking at her, hoping to see some sign that she was nervous of what he might find, but she took no notice at all—until he touched a photograph which lay in a drawer, face downwards.

  Whittaker sensed her sharpening interest.

  He picked the photograph up and turned it over. It was of Bob Gann, and a fine one, showing him at his handsome best. Across it in his writing was written: ‘For Olive, with love, Honey.’

  Whittaker didn’t look up at once. Olive Johns wasn’t even remotely demure or quiet, now. She leaned against the wall with her shoulders drooping, her hair flopping over her forehead and over one eye. Her mouth was slightly open, and she was panting for breath. That as much from shock as from anything else. It didn’t make her look pretty; in fact, it turned her ugly — slatternly. For the first time he could see something of the real nature of Olive Johns. There had been a time when he had thought that what she needed was a sound spanking, but it went far, far deeper than that. She was bad; gone rotten. What had happened on board the Queen B. had been coldly and calculatedly done; that body, a snare.

  She wasn’t the only one who knew its power.