The Man Who Stayed Alive Read online

  With the peak pulled low over his eyes, ostensibly and reasonably against the sun, most of his face was in shadow; an added security.

  No one took the slightest notice of him, not even to get out of his path. No one seemed remotely interested in anything except getting through the day. At the newspaper stands, the placards talked of UNO, of Murder, of Murder Aboard the Queen B., but even that couldn’t stir up interest.

  Whittaker bought a Daily Mirror, whose placards and headlines shrieked the loudest, but didn’t stand reading it, just put it under his arm. He took a bus from Broadway at 46th Street, and sat down as the doors hissed to and the driver glowered when he asked for change. He got off at a stop near 85th Street. The crowds were thinner here, but just as limp.

  The Lamprey Hotel, where Olive Johns and Maisie Greg-son were to have stayed, was only just on Broadway. In fact, a corner of it was; the entrance was some distance along 61st Street, with its tail houses, its grey sidewalks. It looked dark inside, and also cool. He went in, carrying his case; no porter was waiting. A dozen armchairs stood about, a uniformed boy lounged at the door of an open elevator, there was a brown carpet, the place was as cool as it looked. A door led to a snack bar, a flight of narrow stairs led upwards, out of sight.

  A girl sat at the reception desk, with a book open in front of her. The Register was open, too, facing Whittaker. He didn’t glance at it; if Olive Johns were coming here, she wouldn’t arrive until the police had cleared the Queen B., and that certainly wouldn’t be until later today.

  The girl was not only big but blonde, amiable-looking, cushiony.

  ‘You want something?’

  ‘Do you have a room?’

  ‘For one person?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘For how long, mister?’

  ‘Maybe a week, maybe two.’

  ‘You like it high, or you like it low?’

  ‘I like it in between,’ he said, and grinned.

  ‘Sure,’ the girl nodded. ‘Register, please, and you can take a look at two or three rooms, the bell-boy will show you.

  Anyone still alive outside?’

  To look at them,’ Whittaker said, ‘no.’

  She gave a rather nice smile, with big white teeth and bright red lips.

  He signed as P. E. White, and when the girl called the bell-boy over, handing him the keys, she said:

  ‘Hope you find one of them to your liking Mr. White.’

  ‘I’m sure I will.’

  ‘Just let me know.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Whittaker.

  When he reached the lift, she wasn’t looking at him, which meant that she had not found him out of the ordinary. Well, why should she ? If he didn’t make any major mistake, he would get through. If he hadn’t felt sure of himself, he dared not have tried.

  He had seen no police, but it was early for them to get round to the hotel, wasn’t it?

  He couldn’t be sure; just had to be careful.

  The coloured boy was bright and eager in his smart, puce uniform.

  ‘De best room is Forty-eight, sah, ah’m sure yo’ll agree about that,’ he said. ‘On de fourth floor, and with a good window which oberlook both ways. That seem right to yo’, sah?’

  ‘It sounds fine.’

  “This way,’ the boy said.

  The window had a bay. One side of the bay showed Whittaker Broadway, with a cake-shop and a delicatessen just in sight; the other bay showed him the stretch of blue water of the Hudson River; it shimmered in the sun, two or three blocks away. Traffic on the parkway flashed by, like vari-coloured beetles being chased by vari-coloured beetles in an unending stream. The room was a fair size, with a double bed, a corner partitioned off with the bath, shower, everything he needed. The two armchairs looked comfortable.

  ‘Sure, I’ll have this,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, sah,’ said the boy. ‘I’ll tell Miss Mary.’

  “Thanks. Do that.’ Whittaker took the room key, and put fifty cents into the gloved hand: it was the right tip, as much as the boy expected and enough to make him flash his teeth. He went out and closed the door.

  Whittaker put his case on the bed, and then moved to the window. He stood looking out for several minutes. Traffic slid by; he could hear the whine of buses as they stopped and started up just round the corner. There was a flower-shop in sight, too, and a milliner’s, with a dozen hats on show. A few people drooped past. Some children looked almost spritely, as if they didn’t care about the weather. Whittaker realised that it was pleasantly cool in the room, and that anyone who knew the Lamprey Hotel knew value. » He turned away, and opened the New York Daily Mirror.

  There it was: the whole story, as far as the Press could get it, and the simple fact that the police wanted to find Neil Whittaker. There was no picture of him, or the man he had killed, but there was one of Bob Gann, and there was one of Maisie Gregson; a beauty, too; she looked sweet and even innocent! The story half suggested that it wouldn’t be long before sensations developed; the fact that Gann had served the F.B.I, was a guarantee of that?

  Whittaker put the paper aside.

  For a while he wanted just to think; to try to get everything crystal clear in his mind; to work out the essentials as he saw them, to check that he was right in thinking that the quickest way to results was to have a long talk with Olive Johns in the hope that she could tell him where to find Pirran.

  He must find Pirran; and apart from the man at Scars-dale, Olive was the one possible informant.

  He hadn’t much time. He had to explain facts which were only just becoming obvious. Pirran surely hadn’t been really nervous on board the Queen B., whatever nervousness he had shown before. He had tried every trick he knew to have company for the night.

  What had caused that change of mood?

  The two women themselves !

  Whittaker’s mind switched from them to the man at Scarsdale; to talk of a packet, and to fear of what Pirran might have told Gann and Whittaker.

  Whittaker finished his cigarette.

  A shower and a change of clothes would give him a good start. He could check from time to time if Olive Johns registered here. He could seek ways of finding out where Pirran went after he left the Queen B. A Stop Press in the Mirror said that the passengers were still being detained but that it was hoped that they would all be ashore by dinner-time.

  That was about right, Whittaker thought. . . if they were lucky.

  He went for the shower.

  He sat in one of the armchairs in the corner in the entrance hall, away from the reception desk. There was another door which led into a restaurant, dark and hushed on the other side of the hall; he had a steak there which was surely the steak of a century.

  Two or three people had come in, but no one else had signed on. Mary the girl with big white teeth and full red lips, still spread her amplitude, and read her book. Whittaker had a newspaper on his knees, ready to raise it if there should be the slightest need.

  The swing doors opened again.

  A little woman came in, breathing hard, looking as if she would drop. Her forehead was wet and streaked with damp, grey hair. She fanned her damp face with a newspaper as she plodded towards the desk. Something about her attracted Whittaker’s attention, and he didn’t notice the man come in until he was halfway to the desk.

  Whittaker put the paper up, quickly.

  He was having luck. The hard-voiced man who had waited for him at Mrs. Gann’s was striding after the woman.

  He caught her up just before she reached the desk, and stretched out his hand to the girl sitting there. He didn’t speak. She didn’t, either, but took a key off a hook and dropped it into his hand, her fingers crooked, as if to make sure that she shouldn’t touch him.

  He grunted and turned away.

  He was less than medium height, thin enough to be ugly, with deep-set eyes, a swarthy skin, and a nervous springy kind of walk. He went to the unattended elevator and the doors slid to behind him.

  Whitta
ker lowered the newspaper.

  Something which had been frozen in him, since he had first seen the back of Gann’s head, began to melt now. This was a start; this was the place from which he could go a long way. There was no hurry. He didn’t believe in coincidence to the degree that this man would come by chance to the Lamprey Hotel.

  The cushiony girl dealt smoothly with the hot and flustered woman.

  Whittaker got up and sauntered across to the desk, money jangling in his hand; by the girl’s side were stacks of cigarettes and a wire rack filled with twenty-five cent books, mostly salacious, sexy or sadistic, if the pictures could be believed.

  ‘You keep Pall Mall?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure.’ She had to go beneath the desk for the big red packet of Pall Malls. ‘Why don’t you buy yourself a whole pack, mister, and save yourself a quarter?’

  ‘That’s exactly how I’ll buy them from this day on.’

  She slid a long box of two hundred cigarettes towards him, and he gave her a five-dollar bill. She fiddled for change. He watched the movement of her long, white arm and her snugly filled white blouse.

  ‘That man who came in a few minutes ago,’ he said, ‘he reminded me of a guy I don’t like at all.’

  She said, ‘He reminds me of a guy I don’t like, too.’

  ‘That so? He a regular?’

  ‘He booked in this morning. It won’t break my heart if he books out tonight.’

  ‘He wouldn’t be my guy, would he?’ Whittaker asked. ‘Name of Karney?’

  ‘I don’t know what his name is,’ she said, ‘but here he calls himself Blick.’

  ‘Blick?’

  ‘There,’ she said, and stabbed a finger at the entry immediately above Whittaker’s; and she told him everything he wanted to know. ‘David Blick,’ he had signed in an untidy hand, ‘from Kenton, New Jersey. Room 34.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Whittaker said. ‘Not my man; just too bad.’

  He sauntered back to his chair and sat down. He had no objection to waiting, because he was quite clear in his mind what he was going to do, and he didn’t feel in any great hurry about it.

  It was ten o’clock when Olive Johns arrived.

  She came by taxi, she had a heap of luggage, and another coloured porter sprang to action when he knew that. She looked, tired. Her demureness was still there, but it was badly jaded. Her hair, under a silly little hat, looked as if she hadn’t given it any serious attention today. Her nose was shiny, and her shoulders drooped.

  Whittaker waited.

  She was given room 35, booked by, letter by Maisie.

  ‘I hope you’ll be comfortable,’ said the girl clerk. ‘Will Miss Gregson be coming, Miss Johns?’

  Olive Johns said flatly, ‘She won’t be coming.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ the clerk said; ‘the room will be fine for one person.’

  Whittaker watched the porter open the elevator door, and then heard the squeal of brakes outside. There was no crash, but there was a lot of shouting. That stopped. The revolving doors opened, and a little man appeared, breathing very hard.

  ‘What’s going on out there?’ the clerk asked.

  ‘Two guys and a fight,’ the little man said. ‘You’d think it was too hot.’ He grinned, and went to the door leading to the restaurant.

  Whittaker stood up.

  He went to the stairs, and started up them with long strides; and the bell-boy, Sam, saw him and looked astounded as if he didn’t expect to see any resident walking up stairs. Whittaker winked. He reached the third floor, and reached room 34 — Blick’s room. It was next door to room 35 — the girl’s; the two cream-painted doors were close together in a narrow passage. Somewhere, a radio or a television was on, with a musical. Whittaker went to the nearest corner.

  He hadn’t to wait long.

  The lift stopped, the doors opened with a hiss which travelled all along the passage. Then came footsteps, the girl’s and the porter’s. Whittaker didn’t look round, but the voices told him all he wanted to know; with the help of an opening door, the thump as if cases were being put down heavily.

  The porter said, ‘I’ll be right back, miss, with the other trunks.’

  “Thank you,’ Olive Johns said in that flat, lifeless voice.

  The porter went off.

  A door closed.

  Whittaker shifted to a position where he could see the two doors. Number 34 didn’t open; he doubted if it would until the rest of the luggage was up here. It came in less than ten minutes, and this time when the door closed there was a kind of finality about it; the silence which followed seemed absolute.

  Whittaker could see but not be seen unless someone stared hard along this way.

  He waited for perhaps five minutes; long enough to wonder whether he had been wrong, and whether the long arm of coincidence had stretched out.

  It had not.

  The door of room 34 opened, and next moment the man named Blick tapped at the door of the adjoining room. A faint sound followed, as if Olive Johns were calling out, ‘Who is it?’ The man answered in a rounded voice, rather like the bell-boy’s, ‘It’s the bell-boy, ma’am.’

  His hands were out of his pocket; Whittaker saw that, so he didn’t stop Blick from going in. He heard the door open. He heard the sharp exclamation from the girl, clear enough to betray its rising note of fear. Then Blick moved, swiftly, with the kind of movements he would make if he were grabbing the girl to keep her quiet and to thrust her into the room. He followed, with a flurrying sound.

  The door slammed.

  Whittaker moved, and was outside it almost before it had stopped quivering. Without losing a second, he selected a skeleton key from the bunch in his hip pocket, and used it swiftly, nimbly. Sounds from inside the room drowned any he was making.

  He opened the door a fraction.

  He heard Blick say: ‘You can have it the hard way, or you can have it easy, sister. Pirran gave you a packet, and that’s the packet I’ve come here for.’

  ‘I tell you he didn’t give me anything!’

  ‘Isn’t that too bad?’ Blick sneered. There was a sharp sound; the kind that would come if her face .was being slapped. ‘Don’t give me more trouble, sister. Which case is it in?’

  ‘I don’t — I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Olive Johns said hoarsely. ‘Honestly, I don’t.’

  ‘Give me that,’ said Blick; and Whittaker heard faint sounds, believed that the man had snatched her handbag.

  He heard a footstep, as if Blick had backed away a pace. There was the sound of heavy breathing, but nothing else. Other little noises followed, which Whittaker couldn’t make out.

  He opened the door wider and stepped into the room.

  Neither of the others saw him.

  Blick stood with his back to him, almost hiding Olive. He was tossing things about the room. A compact hit the wall and dropped heavily, powder billowing out. A purse struck the arm of a chair and burst open, showering coins into the chair and on the floor. A lipstick lodged neatly in a drawer in the dressing-table which was open an inch or so.

  Then Blick swung the empty handbag round, to strike the girl’s face. She dodged. In her alarm she didn’t see Whit-taker, but once on the move she went more quickly. The door of the bathroom was open, all she could think of was getting there, for Blick blocked her way to the passage door. Sobbing, she turned and ran towards it, but Blick was quick. He didn’t get there first, but slid out a leg, and she tripped. She flung her arms out to save herself, and both her hands struck the bathroom door with a hollow boom. Then she fell and Blick raised a foot viciously.

  ‘Must you?’ inquired Whittaker mildly.

  Blick’s foot wavered.

  The girl didn’t hear the words, but Blick did. He turned round, gaping, and as he moved, his right hand was moving towards his pocket with rattlesnake speed. He wouldn’t trouble to draw, but would fire through the pocket of his snug-fitting brown coat.

  Whittaker didn’t give him the chance, but
moved and swung his right arm. His fist caught Blick on the side of the jaw. It was probably the first time that anyone had hit Blick so hard that he was lifted clean off the floor. His feet actually left the carpet, and he pitched sideways; a chair got between him and the wall, or he would probably have died in much the way of the stranger on the Queen B. staircase. As it was, his body concertina’d into the armchair, and had no time to straighten out before Whittaker reached it.

  Whittaker grabbed at waving legs.

  He gripped the ankles tightly and lifted Blick up by them. Blick hadn’t even started to recover from the blow, and probably did not realise what was happening to him.

  ‘He was killed last night,’ she said shakily. ‘He killed

  Maisie and Bob Gann; then someone——’ She couldn’t finish.

  Blick stirred and Whittaker glanced at him. Both the man’s feet were drooping over the chair, and he was sitting there as if quite normally, with his eyes partly open and his mouth no longer slack. He offered no threat for the next five minutes, except that he had ears. Whittaker moved towards him and he hardly blinked. Whittaker hesitated, then looked at the girl.

  ‘Do you have any cotton wool?’

  ‘There’s — there’s some in my handbag.’

  Whittaker let her get it. She tried no tricks and pulled no gun. He rolled two small balls of cotton wool and pressed them into Blick’s ears; the man made only a grunting protest, was vaguely aware of what was happening.

  Whittaker turned back to Olive.

  ‘So his name was Camponi; he killed Bob Gann and Maisie, and you took his orders.’ His voice was hard and cold.

  Olive said thinly helplessly: ‘I didn’t know what he was doing. He — he had a hold over me.’

  ‘What kind of hold?’

  She closed her eyes.

  ‘I’d — I’d killed a man. Oh, I didn’t mean to; it was really — really an accident. But he died. Camponi knew. He was a friend of Maisie’s — lived with her in London when he was there; when he wasn’t home, Maisie and I shared a flat.’

  She was making sense.

  Whittaker said, ‘Keep going, Olive.’