1971 - Want to Stay Alive

by James Hadley Chase

  “Good. How many men have you pulled in?”

  “Six waiting outside.”

  “Let’s have them in.”

  Headed by Lepski, five of Terrell’s but men came into the office. There was Max Jacoby, Dave Farrell, Jack Wallace, Andy Shields and Alec Horn.

  “Find chairs,” Terrell said, “and sit down.”

  After a few moments of confusion the six detectives got themselves seated.

  “You know the situation,” Terrell said. “You’ve all read the reports. Our number one is Poke Toholo. These two who call themselves Mr. and Mrs. Jack Allen are working with him and could lead us to him. You have their descriptions. They shouldn’t be difficult to spot because they don’t know we are on to them. This is why we’re taking a beating from the press. We’ve given out we haven’t any lead and as long as the press call us the Keystone Cops the more relaxed these three will be and that’s what I want them to be . . . relaxed.” He paused to light his pipe, then went on, “I am sure a number of the members of the Fifty Club have had demands for money and I’m equally sure they have paid up, but none of them will admit it. They are a spineless lot and Hansen’s killing has scared them witless. Hansen did pay, hut someone found the money before Poke did, so he killed Hansen. The idea of taping an envelope with money in it under the coin box of a public telephone is a smart one. Public telephones are continually in use and it would be almost impossible to spot anyone collecting the envelope if it were not for the fact that we have the descriptions of these three: this they don’t know and they mustn’t know. We know they have used a telephone booth at the airport and as they don’t know we’re on to them, they could use it again. Max, Dave and Jack, you go down to the airport right away. Go into each telephone booth and feel under the coin boxes. If you find an envelope, leave it where it is and call me. This is going to take a little time. You must act like anyone going into a telephone booth. Just remember you may be watched and one wrong move could bitch up this operation. I don’t have to spell it out to you, do I?”

  The three men nodded.

  “If when you’re there you spot any of these three, stick with them. You’ll be in radio communication with Lepski. We want to pick them all up. If you spot the three together, then close in on them, but be careful . . . they are dangerous. It’s my bet only one of them will do the collecting . . . probably the girl. If it’s only one of them, tail her or him and keep reporting. Do you get all that?”

  Again the three men nodded.

  “Okay, get going.”

  It was Jack Wallace who found the envelope under the coin box in Booth B in the airport lobby. He felt a little thrill of excitement as, leaning against the coin box, his big body blocking any watching eyes, his left hand went under the coin box as he dialled a number with his right. He had intended to have a quick word with his wife, but when he felt the envelope, he cut the connection and redialled, this time calling Terrell.

  “I’ve found it, Chief,” he said. “Booth B.”

  Terrell drew in a long breath: his gamble had paid off! “Fine, Jack. Leave the airport and report to Lepski.”

  Wallace hung up and left the booth, glancing at the elderly woman who was impatiently waiting to take his place.

  Lepski was sitting in his car, his radio switched on when Terrell’s voice brought him to attention.

  “Jack’s found the envelope in Booth B,” Terrell told him. “Take over, Tom; the operation is all yours . . . and good luck.”

  Lepski put his hand inside his jacket and touched the butt of his .38 police special as he said, “Okay, Chief, I’ll report when something happens,” and he switched off.

  Wallace appeared by Lepski’s car.

  “Alert the others, Jack,” Lepski said. “I’ll go inside and take a look around.”

  He left the car and walked across the vast parking lot into the airport lobby. He moved casually, edging his way through the loitering crowd. He passed the line of telephone booths, looked briefly at the elderly woman who was in Booth B, then went up the stairs leading to the gallery overlooking the lobby where the control offices were. Up on the gallery he had a clear view of Booth B.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” a girl said, “but you can’t remain here. This is for the airport officials only.”

  Lepski turned and eyed her.

  She was small, pretty and dark, wearing the yellow blouse and the black mini skirt uniform of the Paradise City Airlines. For a long moment, his eyes dwelt on her legs, then as she gave an embarrassed giggle, he became all cop.

  “Who’s in charge up here?” he asked and showed his badge.

  Minutes later, he was sitting in an office, looking through the glass partition down into the lobby and at Booth B, out of sight, and with his radio switched on.

  Lepski was trained to wait. That was police business. The first four hours crawled by. At the end of each hour, one of his men went into the telephone booth to check the envelope was still there. Fifty-three people used the booth during the wait. For something better to do, Lepski counted them, but none of them matched the description of the three he was waiting for. After five hours, Max Jacoby relieved him and Lepski took a nap on a truckle bed lent by the Airport supervisor.

  He dreamed of the airhostess. Her antics in his dream surprised him, and it took a lot to surprise him. He was a disillusioned man when he woke.

  ***

  The first thing Chuck did after his morning coffee was to check the Buick.

  He drove the car to a service station, had the tank filled, had the tyres and battery checked and the radiator topped up. The garage hand told him two of the plugs should be replaced so Chock had them replaced. Once he had collected the money, he had a long drive ahead of him and nothing must he left to chance. This was the end of the operation. To him, two thousand dollars and a car meant a new life. His mind was too narrow to wonder what would happen when the money was spent. He lived for the day. There was always more money to he found: always some paying racket if you looked for it. Why worry about tomorrow?

  Satisfied the car was now in as perfect working order as it ever would be, he drove it to the waterfront and parked it. He checked his watch: the time was 10.43. In another half hour they would start the operation. Standing in the sun, he studied the paper Poke had given him. He decided to leave the airport to the last. From the airport he could drive to highway 25 and the n away to Los Angeles. So the first stop would be the Adlon hotel.

  He had told Meg who he had left in bed, to meet him on the waterfront.

  Lighting a cigarette, he walked over to a bollard and sat on it. This side of the harbour was empty. The sponge boats were at sea. On the other side of the harbour he could see the yachts, the motorboats and the sailing boats of the rich. He flicked ash into the oily water and rubbed his blunt nose with the back of his hand and tried to relax.

  Chuck never read a newspaper nor listened to the radio. He lived in his own small, restricted world. So he knew nothing about Hansen’s murder nor the subsequent uproar in the press.

  Like milking a cow, Poke had said.

  Chuck grinned uneasily. Not quite, but nearly. The cow could be dangerous. He wondered how the Indian would react when he found out he was the cow who was being milked.

  A little after 11.00 he wandered back to the car.

  At this hour of the day the quay was crowded with Indians, fishermen, tourists with their cameras and the crews off the luxury yachts. People were going into the bars for their first drink of the day. There was a crowd of tourists on the edge of the quay watching a lobster boat unload.

  Meg came through the crowd and slid into the passenger’s seat in the Buick. She was wearing her grubby white sweater and her worn hipsters; her long, lank hair flopped on her shoulders as she settled herself.

  Chuck got under the wheel. He turned the ignition key and started the engine.

  “This is it, baby,” he said. He tried to make his voice sound confident but he was uneasy. The next two hours could be danger
ous. He wondered if Poke was at the fruit stall. He looked uneasily up and down the crowded quay.

  As Meg said nothing, he looked sharply at her. She seemed relaxed and he looked at her hands: no tremor and this angered him. She was too goddamn cool, he thought, and he realised she just didn’t care. This was dangerous. When you don’t care, you took risks. He felt a spasm of fear as he thought of the possibility of some cop pouncing on her.

  “As soon as we get the money, we’re off,” he said. “We’ll go to Los Angeles . . . that’s fun City. With two thousand bucks, we’ll have a ball.”

  Still she said nothing. She was staring out of the car window, her face blank and he had a vicious urge to hurt her, but this wasn’t the time.

  He thought back on the previous night. He had wanted and needed her.

  She had lain under him like a dead body. Nothing he had done to her had aroused her and when finally his lust had drained out of him, he had rolled off her in disgust.

  As he shifted into reverse to back the car out of the parking bay, he suddenly decided he had had enough of her. He would ditch her as he was ditching the Indian. As soon as she had collected all the envelopes and they were on highway 27, he would stop and throw her out. With two thousand dollars or whatever they collected, he was sure he could find a girl who wouldn’t react to him like this goddamn zombie. Less than nothing! Wasn’t that what she had said about him? Okay, he would lose her, but not until she had got the envelopes!

  “We go to the Adlon first,” he said. “Booth 6. Are you listening?”

  “Yes,” Meg said.

  As he edged the car along the crowded quay and up a side street that would bring them to the main boulevard, Patrol Officer O’Grady was standing at the street corner leading to the boulevard.

  Every patrolman had had his instructions and a description. The instructions had been emphatic: don’t arrest, report. He eyed the dusty Buick and came alert. As the car crawled past him he looked at Chuck and then at Meg and instantly recognised them from the description he had learned by heart. The temptation to stop the car and make the arrest was almost too much for him. He imagined his photograph in all the papers and perhaps even giving a TV interview but the thought of Beigler’s wrath cooled the temptation. He watched the car join the heavy traffic on the boulevard, then switched on his two-way radio.

  Waiting for his information, Beigler alerted Patrol car 4.

  Police Officer Hum with Police Officer Jason were parked on the boulevard. They came alert as Beigler’s voice snapped out of the radio box.

  “X.50. 1963 dark blue Buick. No 55789 heading your way. Repeat X.50. Tail if you can, but lose it if you think you could be spotted. Man and woman. Repeat leave them alone if there’s any chance of them spotting you.”

  The code signal X.50 told Hum that this was the Executioner operation. He started the car engine. He kept his radio on and could hear Beigler alerting the other patrol cars.

  “Here they come,” Jason said, and Hum began to move the police car into the stream of traffic.

  The Buick went past them and both officers got a good look at Chuck and Meg. Hum forced his car between a Rolls and a Cadillac. The driver of the Rolls tapped his horn, then realised he was showing disapproval to a police car. He tried to look as if he had touched the horn button by accident as Jason glared at him.

  The Buick beat the traffic lights ahead and Hum cursed as he had to stop.

  “We’re bitched,” he said. “The only way to get through this mess is to sound the siren. There they go. We’ve lost them.” He reported back to Beigler.

  Oblivious that they had been spotted, Chuck turned right at the next intersection and slowed as he reached the Adlon hotel.

  “Go ahead, baby, I’ll wait here.”

  Meg went into the hotel and collected the envelope from Booth 6. She returned to the car and put the envelope in the glove compartment. From the Adlon hotel Chuck drove to the Excelsior hotel and again Meg collected an envelope without trouble.

  With a growing feeling of elation, Chuck watched her put the envelope into the glove compartment, then he drove towards the City’s railroad station.

  “Man!” he muttered to himself, “this really is like milking a cow! A thousand bucks ahead! Three more stops and we’re home!”

  Patrol car 6 reported that the Buick had passed them, going in the opposite direction. The traffic had been too heavy to turn so they had lost them.

  Beigler looked at the large scale map spread out on his desk. He pinpointed where the Buick had been seen and alerted Patrol cars 1 and 2 that the Buick could be heading their way.

  But Chuck used the side streets to get to the railroad station and the Patrol cars missed him.

  Chuck had to circle around the station as there was no parking space. This bothered him. Some nosey cop could stop him and ask him what he was waiting for. He had to circle the station four times before he saw Meg, waiting.

  Sweat was running down his face as he pulled up.

  “Christ! You’ve taken your goddamn time!” he snarled as she got into the car and he pulled away. “Did you get it?”

  “Yes.” Meg opened the glove compartment and put the third envelope on top of the other two.

  “Phew!” Chuck wiped his face with the back of his hand. “For a moment . . .” He stopped and forced a grin. “Fifteen hundred bucks! Now for the Greyhound!”

  He cut down a side street and onto Seaview Boulevard. A Patrol officer, very much on his toes, spotted the Buick as it crawled with the heavy traffic and he alerted Beigler. Beigler alerted Patrol car 2 but this car was hopelessly snarled up in the traffic. The driver said there was nothing he could do about it unless he let loose with his siren. Beigler accepted this, cursing. It maddened him that the boulevard was choked with loafing drivers who were showing off their cars and themselves and watching the capers of the people on the beach.

  Meg left the Buick and walked into the Greyhound bus station.

  Booth 4 was occupied.

  The young woman in her early thirties, using the telephone, was the type Meg hated and despised: married with a cheap hairdo, a dress not just good enough and junk costume jewellery. She would have spawned a child of course about who m she would talk incessantly, concealing the fact the child was a monster without discipline and made her life a misery. She would be married to a drag of a man who could only talk about money and golf and was scared witless of losing his job.

  Hating her, Meg watched her as she talked, waving her hand . . . yak . . .yak . . . yak. Her shrill laugh came through the dusty glass door. Yak . . . yak . . . yak.

  Losing patience, Meg opened the booth door, shoved the woman aside, felt under the coin box, found the envelope, jerked it loose and put it in her bag.

  “Well! Excuse me!” the woman said, her eyes popping wide open.

  “Screw you,” Meg said, then walked away to where Chuck was waiting.

  “No trouble?” Chuck said as Meg put the envelope into the glove compartment.

  She looked stonily at him.

  “Would I be here if there was?”

  Chuck drew in a long breath.

  Two thousand dollars!

  “What’s the matter with you?” he demanded as he drove onto the highway. “Just what the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “I wish I knew,” Meg said. “How I wish I knew!”

  Well, he would soon be rid of her, Chuck told himself. She’s as crazy as the Indian! But what did it matter so long as he was shot of them both? The airport the next stop! Even if there was no envelope waiting, he now had two thousand six hundred dollars! Man! Could you have a ball with that kind of bread!

  They arrived at the airport as the hands of the big clock in the lobby showed 12.15.

  Chuck found parking space among the many cars drawn up in orderly rows in the big parking lot. He could smell his own sweat as he yanked the pistol grip brake lever.

  “Here we go, baby . . . last round up! Come on . . . come on, get moving
!”

  Meg got out of the car and started across the tarmac towards the airport.

  Chuck checked to see there was no one nearby, then taking the envelopes from the glove compartment, he slit them open with his knife.

  Money spilt out on his knees.

  Milking a cow! Picking cherries! What a sweet racket!

  Having counted the money, he put the hills into one envelope and balling the other three envelopes, he tossed them on the back seat. Then he put the heavily stuffed envelope in the glove compartment.

  If this last one jelled, he would have three thousand one hundred dollars!

  Man! Man! Man!

  He thumped his fist on the steering wheel.

  Come on! Come on! he thought. Come on, you zombie bitch! Let’s get the hell out of here!

  Then he thought of the moment when he would pull up on the highway, open the off-side door and throw her out.

  He thought of her standing by the side of the highway, looking after him as he drove away.

  Man! Would that be the moment!

  ***

  Lepski had been on duty since 11.00. There was nothing to report so far, Jacoby had told him. The envelope was still in place. The other detectives had been relieved and were now back on the scene.

  “We could wait here for weeks,” Lepski said sourly as he lit a cigarette and settled in the chair.

  “I’m going to get a cup of coffee . . . okay?” Jacoby made a move to the door.

  Then Beigler’s voice came in over the radio. The two men stiffened to attention.

  Beigler told them the man and the woman . . . not the Indian had been spotted and could be heading their way. The patrol cars had lost them for the moment.

  “Get down to the lobby, Max,” Lepski said when Beigler had switched off. “This could be action.”

  As Jacoby left the office, Lepski alerted the other four detectives over the radio.

  But it wasn’t until 12.15 that the long wait was rewarded. Jacoby spotted her first, then as she walked purposely across to the line of telephone booths, Lepski saw her.

  He stared searchingly at her: a tall girl with blonde lank hair, dirty, with a sullen face and a tallow complexion. As he watched her push open the door to Booth B he was certain this was the woman they were waiting for.