1971 - Want to Stay Alive (14 page)

She stared at him.

“I won’t buy one goddamn flower for your funeral,” he concluded.

“Hi, mister!”

The kid was back again.

Chuck grinned at him.

“You want another kick, mister?”

Chuck looked at Meg.

“Piss off . . . I’ve got company.”

He got out of the car and taking the ball he kicked it high into the air. Then he ran with the kid towards the sea and as the ball bounced, he let the kid have it, then snatched the ball away and again kicked it towards the sea.

Meg watched them.

Loneliness, the hopelessness of facing a future without anything and fear kept her in the car.

She was still there when Chuck had finished the ball game with the kid and came strolling back to her.

***

The half mile of stalls along the waterfront made up the City’s market: everything of local produce was sold there from bananas, oranges to turtles, shrimps and even sponges. Each stall had its gay multi-coloured awning.

Most of the stall holders were Indians.

Poke Toholo stood behind a stall loaded with oranges. The stall was owned by an Indian named Jupiter Lucie.

Lucie was a small happy rubber ball of a man who hated rich people and hated the police, but he had been smart enough to steer clear of trouble. He was known as a ‘safe’ man on the waterfront as he never asked questions nor busied himself with any affairs except his own. When Poke came to him and said he wanted a job without pay, Lucie had made an instant decision.

He knew Poke’s father. He knew Poke was a rebel. He knew Poke would never ask him for a job without pay unless he wanted a cover. He agreed, without hesitation.

So when two sweating plain clothes detectives finally came around to the stall, Lucie was there to explain away Poke’s presence.

The detectives knew their assignment was hopeless anyway. They had trudged down the hot half mile, pausing at the stalls, asking questions and taking names but they knew a check up on the Indians was just so much waste of time.

“He’s my cousin,” Lucie said, showing his gold capped teeth in a happy smile when the detectives asked about Poke. “He’s a very good boy . . . like me. We have the same name . . . Lucie. He’s Joe and I’m Jupiter.”

The detectives wrote the names down and moved on, knowing it was so much water under the bridge.

Lucie and Poke exchanged smiles.

But Detective Max Jacoby who had been detailed to check all outlying motels was a little more successful.

Mrs. Bertha Harris disliked all policemen. Some thirty years ago, she had been caught stealing goods from a Self-service store and she was never to forget the treatment she had received from the cop who took her in. So when Jacoby arrived at the Welcome motel, she decided to be as bloody minded as she could.

As usual she was munching a hamburger. She liked hamburgers the way old Sam made them with more onions than meat, but they were messy things to eat: she had to admit that.

“We’re looking for an Indian,” Jacoby said without much hone. “Age around twenty-five: thick black hair, tall and wearing a flowered shirt and dark hipsters.” He had said the same thing thirty times during the day and had got nowhere, but he was a trier . . . this, he kept telling himself, was police work. “Have you had a man like that staying with you?”

Bertha belched behind her hand.

“What was that again?”

Jacoby repeated what he had said.

Bertha thought while she breathed onion fumes in Jacoby’s face.

“I get people,” she said finally. “They come and go. If I could remember everyone who stays here I could make a fortune as an act on the telly, couldn’t I?”

“Does that mean you have a lot of Indians staying here?” Jacoby asked, recognising that this fat old bitch was going to be difficult.

Bertha bit into the hamburger, chewed and stared vacantly past Jacoby.

“No . . . can’t say I do.”

“This is important,” Jacoby said, his voice hardening. “We’re investigating a murder case. I’m asking you if you have had a young Indian staying with you.”

Bertha chased a slab of meat from a back tooth with the aid of her little finger.

“I don’t know anything about murder: that’s for the cops to handle.”

“I’m asking you: have you had a young Indian staying with you recently?”

Murder!

Bertha suddenly lost her cool. As much a she wanted to remain uncooperative she realised this was serious.

“Sure . . . I did have an Indian staying here.”

It took Jacoby ten minutes to drag from her a description but when he got it, it so fitted the man they were looking for, he had to restrain his excitement.

“Did he sign in?”

“Everyone has to sign in,” Bertha said virtuously and handed over a tattered book.

“Harry Lukon? This his name?”

“Yeah.”

“And these other two: Mr. and Mrs. Jack Allen?”

“Nice young people. They came with him in the car.”

“Cabins 4 and 5 . . . right?”

Bertha sighed.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll use your phone,” Jacoby said.

“Just make yourself at home,” Bertha said bitterly.

Jacoby talked to Beigler back at headquarters. Beigler listened, then said he would send the Homicide squad down to the motel right away.

“Stick around, Max . . . this sounds good.”

Jacoby hung up.

“Don’t tell me,” Bertha said in disgust. “Now I’m going to have cops around here like flies.”

Jacoby smiled at her.

“That is an understatement, Mrs. Harris,” he said.

***

At this time in the afternoon, the luxurious bar at the Fifty Club was deserted.

Lepski found Boca Toholo on his own. He was quietly arranging dishes of olives, salted almonds and the like in cut glass dishes for the rush hour which would begin in a couple of hours.

Boca Toholo was a small, thin man with greying hair, his eyes like jet beads. When he saw Lepski come into the dimly lit room, he put down a can of salted almonds and his wrinkled dark face became expressionless. He knew a police officer when he saw one. The very idea that a police officer should be here in this holy of holies warned him that this was something serious. But he had a clear conscience and he faced Lepski without flinching.

“You Toholo?” Lepski asked.

“Yes, sir . . . that is my name,” the old man said quietly.

“I’m Lepski . . . police headquarters.” Lepski climbed on a stool. He rested his elbows on the polished bar and regarded the Indian with a searching, but not hostile stare.

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve been talking to Mr. Hansen,” Lepski said. “His memory doesn’t seem so good. I thought maybe you might help me.”

The old man filled another dish with almonds.

After a pause, Lepski went on, “I asked Mr. Hansen if a young Indian, around twenty-three with thick black hair ever worked here. Mr. Hansen couldn’t remember. Can you tell me?”

Toholo looked up.

“Would you be speaking of my son, sir?”

Lepski hadn’t imagined it would be this easy.

“Your son? Does he work here?”

The old man shook his head.

“He had a promising career here. He is an excellent barman: better than I am. He has talent, but Mr. Hansen thought he was too young so he was sent away.”

Lepski looked searchingly at the old man. The stoney look of hatred in the Indian’s eyes wasn’t lost on him.

“Where is your son now, Toholo?”

“That I don’t know, sir. He left the City. I haven’t heard from him for four or five months. I am hoping he has a good job in some bar. He has talent.”

“How long did he work here before Mr. Hansen decided he was too young?”

“How long? About nine weeks.”

“Did anyone else besides Mr. Hansen think he was too young for the job?”

“No sir. No one complained about my son.”

Lepski chewed his thumbnail while he thought.

“Was there some kind of trouble between Mr. Hansen and your son?” he asked finally.

“That is not my business, sir.”

That shut that door, Lepski thought.

“Tell me about your son, Toholo. Why hasn’t he written to you? Didn’t you and he get along?”

Toholo stared down at his dark, thin hands.

“Is my son in trouble, sir?”

Lepski hesitated. Then he decided he had everything to gain by putting his cards face up. He would risk the doors being slammed in his face, but he could he lucky.

“You’ve read about the Executioner?”

The old man looked up and stared at Lepski.

“Yes, sir.”

“We know this killer is an Indian,” Lepski said gently. “He has killed two members of this club and a woman connected with another member of the club. This man is sick in the head. We’ve got to find him before he kills someone else. We know he is young. We’re hunting for a lead. So I’m asking you what kind of boy your son is?”

The old man’s face turned a mottled grey.

“You think my son could have done such things, sir?”

“I’m not saying that. We have to check. We’re trying to find a sick Indian who seems to have inside information about the members of this club. Just what was the trouble between Hansen and your son?”

With a look of despair on his face, Toholo picked up a glass and began to polish it. Lepski saw his hands were unsteady.

“I know nothing about trouble, sir. Mr. Hansen thought my son was too young for a position here.”

“Have you a photograph of your son?”

The old man stiffened. He put down the glass, then forced himself to pick up another.

“No, sir. We Indians seldom have our photographs taken.”

“How did your son get along with the members of this Club?”

Watching the old man, Lepski felt instinctively that his questions were breaking him down. If he kept at it, he told himself, something would come out.

“What was that, sir?” Toholo asked huskily.

Lepski repeated his question.

Toholo seemed to shrink a little.

“I had hopes, sir, that my son would accept the conditions one must accept to be a good servant here, but, at times, he found it difficult.”

Lepski turned this over in his mind.

“What you’re saying is your son found these rich old jerks hard to take?”

Toholo looked shocked.

“No, sir . . . nothing like that. My son is young. Young people . . .” He stopped, making a helpless gesture.

Lepski was feeling sorry for this old man. He saw he was trying so hard to be loyal to his son.

“Has he ever been in trouble with the police?”

The jet black eyes widened.

“Thank God, no, sir.”

Lepski paused, then asked, “Has he been in any kind of trouble?”

Toholo put down the glass he was polishing. He stared down at the glass and the sadness on his face made Lepski uneasy. After a long pause, Lepski repeated his question.

“My son has a difficult temper, sir,” the old man said huskily. “He has been difficult at home. I had to speak to our doctor. He did speak to Poke, but . . .young people are difficult these days.”

“Who is your doctor?”

“My doctor?” Toholo looked up. “Why, Dr. Wanniki.”

Lepski took out his notebook and wrote the name down, then he leaned forward and looked directly at Toholo.

“Is your son sick, Mr. Toholo?”

The old man suddenly sank onto a stool and put his hands to his face.

“Yes, God help his mother and me . . . yes, he could be.”

SIX

W
hile the Homicide squad were systematically turning over the two cabins at the Welcome motel, Lepski drove back to headquarters.

With the siren screaming, Lepski stormed down the busy boulevard, imagining himself to be Jim Clark coming into the last lap. If there was one thing Lepski loved more than anything else it was to cut a swathe through the Rolls, and Bentleys and the Cadillacs of the rich. He watched the sleek, glittering cars pull to one side in panic as his siren hit their drivers. He flashed by the wealthy with their fat plum-coloured faces and their immaculate clothes and grinned his wolf’s grin. This was, he thought, as he whipped his car by a semi-paralysed owner of a Silver Shadow Rolls, a compensation for the dreary, hard toil he had saddled himself with as a police officer.

He had to restrain himself from leaning out of his car window and yelling, “Up yours,” as he swept down the boulevard.

He arrived outside headquarters, swept through the gateway and into the police yard. He shut off the siren, wiped his face with the back of his hand and scrambled out of the car. He ran across the yard and started up the stairs, then suddenly he realised how tired he was.

He paused for a moment to think. It occurred to him he hadn’t been home for two nights and for fifty-eight hours, he hadn’t thought of his wife. He also realised he had had only four hours’ sleep since he had left her and those four hours had been spent on a truckle bed at headquarters.

He shook his head, then started up the steps again. He arrived in the Charge room where Sergeant Charlie Tanner was coping with the everyday events of a busy cop house.

“Charlie! Did you think to call my wife?” Lepski demanded, coming to a skidding stop before Tanner’s desk.

“How could I forget?” Tanner said with some bitterness. “I didn’t have to call her. She has been calling me! You’ll have to speak to her, Tom. She’s blocking our lines.”

“Yeah.” Lepski ran his fingers through his hair. “Did she sound worked up?”

Tanner considered this while he sucked the end of his biro.

“I wouldn’t know what you call worked up,” he said finally, “but to me, she sounded like a tiger with a bee up its arse.”

Lepski closed his eyes, then opened them.

“Look, Charlie, be a pal. Call her: tell her I’m working nonstop. Will you do that for me?”

“Not me!” Tanner said firmly. “I want to keep my ear drums intact.”

Lepski released a snort down his nostrils that would have startled El Cordes.

“Who cares about your goddamn ear drums? Call her! Didn’t I call your wife when you had your back to the wall? Didn’t I?”

Tanner wilted. He remembered the awful occasion when he had had it off with a strawberry blonde and Lepski, by barefaced lying, had saved his marriage.