1971 - Want to Stay Alive

by James Hadley Chase

  “To be honest, Anders, he didn’t.”

  “I should think not!” Anders took her elbow gently and began to guide her back into the hotel. “You sit quietly, Mrs. Clayton. I’ll get Mr. Bevan to call Dr. Lowenstein. I can’t have you running around wild, now can I?”

  “Sweet Jesus!” McNeil muttered and was so impressed, he crossed himself.

  Some minutes later, Anders came back and rested his corns on the red carpet. McNeil was still there, breathing heavily, his small Irish eyes glassy.

  “That was Mrs. Henry William Clayton,” Anders told him. “Her old man kicked off five years ago. He left her five million bucks.”

  McNeil’s eyes opened wide.

  “You mean that old bag of bones is worth five million bucks?” Anders frowned at him.

  “Pat! You shouldn’t speak disrespectfully of the dead.”

  “Yeah.” There was a long pause, then McNeil said, “You sort of shoved her around, didn’t you?”

  “That’s the way to handle them. She loves it. She knows I’m the only one who cares about her.”

  “Have you got any more like her in this joint?” McNeil asked. “The hotel is stuffed with them? Anders shook his head. “Dotty old people with too much money . . . it’s sad.”

  “It wouldn’t make me sad,” McNeil said. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it. See you.” He paused, then regarded Anders. “How much did she slip you?”

  Anders lowered his right eyelid in a heavy wink.

  “That’s a trade secret, Paddy.”

  “Man! Am I in the wrong trade!” Sighing, McNeil started down the boulevard, his big feet slapping on the sidewalk.

  Lying on the flat roof of the Pelota night club, Poke Toholo watched the big police officer depart. He watched him through the telescopic sight of the target rifle.

  Poke had been on the roof now for the past three hours. The four-storey building was a little under a thousand yards from the Plaza Beach hotel.

  Poke had arrived there in the Buick at 06.00, a time when he could be sure there would be no one around to see him leave the car and carrying the rifle.

  He was familiar with the Club: one of the oldest buildings in the City. It had a swing down iron fire escape at the rear which was considered by tourists to be a novelty and something to gape at. The climb to the roof had been made without danger or difficulty, but Poke, as he lay concealed by the low wall surrounding the roof, knew that getting down to the street again would be much more dangerous. The boulevard by then would be busy, the adjacent buildings alive with people and he risked being seen, but he was prepared to take the risk.

  He looked at his wristwatch. The time now was 09.43. He again applied his eye to the telescopic sight and began to search the boulevard.

  Traffic was building up. People were appearing, moving in a steady stream up and down the boulevard. Then he saw Chuck and he nodded his approval. Chuck was on time: a little early, but that didn’t matter. Chuck, wearing a clean red and white check shirt and grey hipsters, looked like any other of the young tourists who swarmed into the City at this season. He was idling along, reading a newspaper.

  Poke slightly adjusted the screw of the telescopic sight, bringing Chuck’s face into sharp focus. He saw he was sweating. That was understandable.

  Chuck had a tricky job to do: quite as dangerous as what Poke had to do.

  Again Poke looked at his watch. Only another few minutes, he thought and shifted the telescopic sight to the entrance to the Plaza Beach hotel.

  Focusing the cross hairs on Anders’ head, he satisfied himself that it would be a certain shot.

  Oblivious to what was going on, Anders surveyed the boulevard, nodded to those who nodded to him, touched his peak cap to those who merited a salute and basked in the warmth of the sun.

  Since the coming of the mini skirt, the bare midriff and the see-through dress, Anders’ life had become much more interesting. With approval, he watched the girls prance by. As a doorman, he relied for a living on the old, the fat and the rich, but that didn’t mean he had lost his appreciation for long legs, a twitching bottom or a bouncy breast.

  Then Mrs. Dunc Browler appeared.

  Anders was expecting her. Invariably at this hour she made her appearance. He gave her his best salute, his smile bright, kindly and friendly: a smile he only switched on for his special people.

  Mrs. Dunc Browler was a short, stout woman in her late sixties. Perhaps the word “stout’ was an understatement. By eating five large meals a day for most of her sixty-seven years she had managed to cover her small frame with a layer of fat that would make an elephant anxious. She was one of the many eccentrics who lived permanently in the hotel. It went without saying that she was rich: just how rich no one knew, but the fact that she had one of the best suites in the hotel that cost $300 a day for the suite alone pointed to the fact that she was pretty well heeled.

  Since losing her husband who she had doted on some four years ago, she had bought a large floppy bitch from the dog pound for something like three dollars and Anders considered she had been conned. Admittedly the dog was affectionate but to Anders’ snobbish eyes, she had no class.

  “That dog’s mother should have been ashamed of herself,” he had said while discussing the dog with the assistant doorman.

  But to Mrs. Dunc Browler, Lucy, as the dog was called was her child, her dearest possession, her friend, her companion and Anders, knowing people’s weaknesses, accepted the fact.

  So when Mrs. Dunc Browler made her appearance, wearing flowing white robes that would have delighted a P. & G. account executive and a huge hat covered with artificial cherries, apricots and lemons to take Lucy for her constitutional, Anders went into his act.

  “Good morning, ma’am,” he said with a bow, “and how is Miss Lucy this morning, ma’am?”

  Mrs. Dunc Browler beamed with pleasure. She thought Anders was a dear man, so kind and his interest in Lucy filled her heart with pleasure.

  “She’s fine,” she said. “Absolutely fine.” Directing her beaming smile down to the panting dog, she went on, “Say good morning to nice Anders, Lucy, dear.”

  The dog regarded Anders with overfed bored eyes, then squatting, she made a small puddle on the red carpet.

  “Oh dear.” Mrs. Dunc Browler looked helplessly at Anders. “I should have brought my darling down a little earlier . . . quite my fault.”

  The carpet would have to be removed, cleaned and another installed, but this was no skin off Anders’ nose. As the old girl paid $300 a day to stay at the hotel, why should he worry?

  “Little accidents will happen ma’am,” he said. “You have a fine morning for a walk.”

  “Yes . . . a lovely morning. While Lucy was having her breakfast, I was listening to the birds. They . . .”

  Those were the last words Mrs. Dunc Browler was to utter.

  The bullet smashed through her ridiculous hat and into her brain. She sank to the red carpet like a stricken elephant.

  For a split second Anders looked down at the dead woman at his feet, then his Army trained mind took over. He had seen so many men shot through the head by snipers in the past that he immediately realised what had happened. He whirled around, his keen eyes searching the distant roof tops. While women screamed, men shouted and pushed forward, while cars came to a grinding halt, Anders caught a glimpse of a man ducking out of sight behind a low wall surrounding the roof of the Pelota nightclub.

  Anders was wasted no time pointing and shouting. Ploughing his way through the gathering crowd, he lumbered into the road and started off towards the nightclub at the end of the boulevard.

  “Jack!”

  Without stopping, Anders looked over his shoulder. He saw Police Officer McNeil pounding up behind him.

  “The bastard’s up there!” Anders panted and pointed to the roof of the nightclub. “Come on, Paddy! We’ll get him!”

  But age, soft living and too many shots of Cutty Sark were already taking toll of Anders’ legs.
His stride began to falter as McNeil reached him.

  “I saw him!” Anders gasped. “The fire escape, Paddy!”

  McNeil grunted and pounded past Anders, his big hand matching his gun from its holster. People gaped at him and moved hurriedly out of his way.

  None of them went with him to help. This was strictly police business: why should they stick their necks out?

  As Poke Toholo came slithering down the fire escape, McNeil came charging around the building. They saw each other at the same time. McNeil saw the Indian had a gun in his hand. He pulled up, his barrel shaped chest heaving from his run, and swung up his gun arm. As his finger tightened on the trigger, he felt a violent blow in his chest that lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing down on his back.

  Poke took the last ten steps of the escape in a j u m p and made for the parking lot. McNeil forced himself up, lifted his gun as Poke looked back over his shoulder. Seeing the gun aiming at him, Poke swerved aside as McNeil fired, then paused to take careful aim, he shot McNeil through the head. Spinning around, he raced into the parking lot, his black eyes looking for danger. Only a dozen or so cars, left over night, greeted his eyes. It took but a moment to find one of them unlocked. He slid into the back seat, shut the door and crouched down.

  He was out of sight as Anders, panting, his face purple from his exertions, came into the parking lot and found McNeil’s body.

  One brief look told Anders that McNeil was beyond his help. He snatched up McNeil’s gun and started across the parking lot to the far exit, sure his man had gone that way. As he did so three frightened faced men came reluctantly into the parking lot. Seeing Anders with a gun in his hand and recognising him by his uniform as the doorman of the Plaza Beach hotel, they plucked up their courage and ran after him.

  Unflustered, Poke watched them go, then taking out his handkerchief, he carefully wiped the gun. He would have to leave it, he thought regretfully.

  He lifted the car seat and thrust the gun out of sight.

  More people were spilling into the car park. Police and ambulance sirens were making the air hideous with noise. Sliding out of the car, moving unhurriedly, Poke walked over to the crowd surrounding the dead policeman: The crowd accepted him as one of themselves. He was still standing gaping as they were gaping when the car park became flooded with policemen. He allowed himself to be herded away with the others and when he reached the main boulevard, he moved slowly and quietly back to the Buick.

  While all this was going on, Chuck, sweat running down his face, had joined the milling crowd surrounding Mrs. Dune Browler’s body. No one had eyes for her dog, Lucy who stood on the edge of the kerb in fat bewilderment. Chuck bent over the dog, his hand going to her collar. Lucy disliked strangers. She backed away. Cursing, Chuck grabbed her. No one noticed him.

  It was only after the police had restored order, after some of the hotel staff had rushed out to cover Mrs. Dune Browler’s body with a sheet and after the crowd had been dispersed that the assistant manager of the hotel, a dog lover himself, remembered Lucy. It was he who found the luggage tag fastened to Lucy’s collar. Written on the tab in printed letters was the legend: The Executioner.

  FOUR

  The news that a killer was loose in a City more famous for its idle rich than Monte Carlo made banner headlines in the press of the world. Foreign newsmen and independent TV units and the like descended on the City like a flock of vultures. They invaded every hotel and motel and were even prepared to take to tents when room accommodation ran out.

  The man they were after was Doorman Jack Anders, being the only one to have caught a glimpse of the Executioner, but before they could get at him, he had been whisked from the scene. After a brief consultation with the Director of the Plaza Beach hotel, Mayor Hedley had persuaded him that Anders would be better off for a while with his brother who lived in Dallas.

  Anders had been smart enough to accept the situation. The old, the rich and the raddled would not take kindly to him once he became a TV character.

  Limelight was their prerogative and not the prerogative of a hotel doorman.

  Before he was smuggled out of the City, Anders had been interrogated by Beigler with Terrell and Hedley sitting in.

  Beigler knew he was dealing with an old soldier: a man with a keen mind and whose observation could be trusted. He knew Anders wouldn’t exaggerate to make himself important as so many people in his place could have done. He was sure the facts Anders gave him were facts he could rely on.

  “Don’t rush this, Jack,” Beigler said. “Let’s go over it again.” He looked at the notes he had taken. “Mrs. Browler always left the hotel at 9.45. . .right?”

  Anders nodded.

  “This was a set routine?”

  Again Anders nodded.

  “This routine . . . how long has it been going on?”

  “Since she has been with us . . . some five years.”

  “Mrs. Browler was a well-known character. You could say she was an eccentric . . . right?”

  “She was that all right.”

  “So a lot of people would know she would leave the hotel at this time.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, Jack. We have this established. Let’s skip to the shooting. You were talking to her: then it happened. Let’s go over that again.”

  “Like I said: I saw by the head wound and by the way she fell she had been shot by a high velocity rifle,” Anders said. “I looked around. There were one or two possible places for a sniper to be hidden, but the best place was the roof of the Pelota club. I looked that way and I saw the killer.”

  “Now let’s take this slowly,” Beigler said. “You’ve already told us you caught a glimpse of the killer. Let’s try to develop this. I’m not asking you for facts this time. I’m asking you for an impression. You get me? Don’t worry about whether the impression is right or wrong. Just give me your impression.”

  Anders thought for a moment.

  “I saw a movement. I didn’t see a man . . . it was a movement. By this movement, I knew a man was up there. I knew this man, by the way he ducked out of sight, was the sniper . . . so I went after him.”

  “That’s not what I asked you,” Beigler said patiently. “You’ve already told me that. You saw a movement and you knew there was a man up there. Okay, now I’m asking you for an impression of this man.”

  Anders looked uneasily at Terrell and Hedley, then he looked back at Beigler.

  “I’m giving you the facts,” he said.

  “I have your facts here.” Beigler tapped his notebook. “Now I want you to sound off. You had a glimpse of a man ducking behind the wall. Was he white or coloured? Don’t think about it . . . just give me your impression. I don’t give a damn if you’re right or wrong. Was he white or coloured?”

  “Coloured.” Then Anders caught himself up and shook his head. “I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know. I just saw a movement. I tell you I didn’t see him.”

  “But you have the impression he was coloured?”

  “I don’t know. Yes . . . maybe. He could have been sun tanned. I can’t swear to it. I did get the idea he was dark.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  Anders began to look worried.

  “How do I know? I told you . . .”

  “Was he wearing a black shirt, a white shirt, or a coloured shirt?”

  “Maybe a coloured shirt.” Anders rubbed his sweating chin. “I’m trying to help, but I don’t want you to talk me into telling you lies.”

  Beigler looked at Terrell who nodded.

  “Okay, Jack, thanks,” he said. “You’ve been a help,” and the session was over.

  When Anders had gone, Hedley said, “You call that helpful? You practically talked him into giving false evidence!”

  “Anders has a trained mind,” Terrell said quietly. “He has an impressive record as a combat soldier. I’d rather go along with an impression from him than so called solid evidence from the usual witnesses we get. Ande
rs has been helpful.”

  Hedley shrugged and got to his feet.

  “Three killings! And what have we got? Nothing!”

  “You may not think so, but I do,” Terrell said. “You see, Lawson, you don’t understand police work. Right now we have one concrete and one abstract clue. We now know this man isn’t working alone. Someone let the air out of Riddle’s tyre so the killer would find Lisa Mendoza alone. Someone clipped a luggage tag on Mrs. Browler’s dog . . . so we know this man has help. We now have a hint that this man could be coloured. You say we have nothing, but I don’t.”

  “But what does it amount to?” Hedley asked. “This lunatic . . .”

  “Take it easy, Lawson. Come with me.” Terrell got up and putting his hand on Hedley’s arm, he led him down the passage and into the Detectives’ room. Every desk was occupied. Each detective was talking to a witness who had either seen Mrs. Dunc Browler shot or had heard about McCuen’s murder or knew something about Riddle and his mistress: eager, public spirited people, longing to give information, most of it worthless, but some of it that just might steer the police closer to the Executioner. The queue of these people extended along the corridor, down the stairs and to the street.

  “One or more of these people,” Terrell said, “could come up with a clue. This is police work, Lawson. Sooner or later we will get him.”

  “And in the meantime he could kill again.”

  “Sooner or later he will make a mistake . . . they all do.”

  “So what do I tell the press?”

  “That we are continuing the investigation. Don’t tell them anything else,” Terrell said. “This is important . . . if you have to blame someone, blame me. Say we are doing our best.”

  Hedley nodded, then went down the stairs past the long queue of sweating, patient people and on to the waiting press men.

  Terrell returned to his office where Beigler was waiting. The two men looked at each other.

  “Well, now he’s gone, let’s see what we have so far,” Terrell said and sat down. He reached for a sheet of paper on which he had made notes, broken down from the summaries of reports supplied by his men. “We could just be getting a picture: not much of a picture, but maybe something. I’m still after the motive. These three victims were all top class bridge players and members of the Fifty Club.” He looked up from his notes. “What do we know about the Fifty Club?”