1971 - Want to Stay Alive (22 page)

Now Poke realised this past urge to survive was paying off.

He was sure the police knew he was the Executioner. Somehow they had discovered he was working with Jupiter Lucie. Before they could come after him, they had to identify him. So Branzenstein was the one they had asked to betray him.

As he climbed through the skylight onto the roof, he was glad that he had killed yet another of the rich slobs belonging to the Fifty Club.

For a long moment he paused in the hot sunshine, trying to think clearly.

His mind reacted like the mind of a man lost in a labyrinth: not sure whether to turn right or left or go straight ahead.

Then he decided he must go to Ocida. Chuck would be there now with the money. Then he would leave the City. He would have over two thousand five hundred dollars! With a thousand dollars he would be able to bribe the head barman at the Panama Hotel in Miami to give him a job as second barman. A job like that was worth in tips alone two hundred dollars a week!

The barman had promised him the job if he gave him a thousand dollars.

It didn’t occur to Poke that every policeman in Florida would now be hunting for him. He imagined that once he got away from Paradise City he would be safe.

Cautiously he moved to the edge of the roof and looked down at the teaming waterfront. The scene below was like an overturned anthill.

Women were screaming. People were jostling each other. An ambulance, its siren moaning, had arrived. Policemen, sweating and cursing, were trying to control the crowd. Hundreds of oranges, on which people stepped and slipped, made a carpet around Branzenstein’s dead body.

Out of this confusion, Poke saw and recognised Jack Hatchee and he immediately knew this man was deadly dangerous to him. This Cop was an Indian. He knew the waterfront as well as Poke did.

For a brief moment Poke hesitated, then the cell in his brain again exploded like a flashlight bulb.

Resting the gun barrel on his arm, sighting for Hatchee’s head, he squeezed the trigger.

***

“You take care of this mess, Jack,” Lepski was saying. “I’ll . . .” That was as far as he got.

He saw Hatchee stagger and a line of blood appear on the side of his greying hair. Then as the big man fell, Lepski heard the shot.

Whirling around, he saw a movement on the roof of one of the many tiny shops that lined the waterfront. His hand flashed to his gun. He drew and fired in a single flowing movement.

Then Andy Shields came through the crowd and reached him.

“He’s up there!” Lepski said. “Come on!”

Dave Farrell barged his way through the crowd and Lepski waved to Hatchee who was stirring.

“Take care of him, Dave,” he said and followed by Shields, he started towards Micco’s junk shop. He hadn’t taken more than ten steps, fighting his way through the milling crowd when he trod on an orange and took a fall that shook the breath out of him. Shields, trying to break Lepski’s fall, skidded on another orange and came down flat on Lepski as Lepski, cursing, was struggling to his feet.

Lepski’s shot had been close.

The bullet whistled by Poke’s head and chipped cement from a chimney stack spraying splinters back at Poke as he ducked away. A cement splinter caught him under his left eye and he began to bleed.

Keeping low he ran across the roof, holding his handkerchief to his bleeding face. He scrambled down an iron fire escape, paused for a moment as he arrived in a narrow, evil smelling alley, got his bearings, then ran to the right. With the movement of a cat, he slid over a brick wall, landed in another alley, again checked his bearings, then ran left. At the end of the alley was an open doorway. Still holding the bloodstained handkerchief to his face, he went through the doorway and ran up narrow, steep stairs. At the head of the stairs an Indian girl child was playing with a doll on the landing. Poke paused and looked at her, then went on past her. The gun in his hand and the bloodstained handkerchief struck her silent with terror.

At the far end of the passage, Poke found a door. He opened it and again emerged into sunlight. Ducking low, he ran across the flat roof, paused to drag open a skylight, slid down into darkness, leaving bloody fingerprints on the skylight frame.

Moving silently, he ran down the steep, narrow stairs, through a door leading to yet another alley. He climbed a wall and dropped into a yard where an enormously fat Indian woman was sitting on a box, plucking a chicken. For a brief moment they stared at each other, then the woman lowered her eyes and continued to pluck the chicken as Poke moved past her and into the shack she called her home.

From there he reached another alley, climbed another wall and finally arrived at the back door of Ocida’s rooming house.

By now the cut on his face had ceased to bleed and he stuffed the bloodstained handkerchief into his pocket. He paused in the passage, listening, then moved forward and gently opened a door he knew led into Ocida’s sitting room.

Ocida was sitting in a broken down armchair, his hands resting on his fat knees. He was talking to Manatee who had just arrived.

It took a moment, in semi-darkness, for Poke to recognize Manatee. With a quick, sly movement, Poke slid his gun into the back pocket of his hipsters.

He moved into the room and closed the door.

Ocida leaned back in his chair. His fat face unsmiling, his eyes shifty.

“This has become bad for you, Poke,” he said. “Manatee will tell you.”

Briefly, Manatee told Poke what had happened at the airport. Poke listened, his eyes glittering.

“The white man is dead?”

Manatee nodded.

“The car?”

“Finished.”

“And the girl?”

“I brought her as far as the waterfront. She walked away.”

Poke stood thinking. Had the money gone up in flames with the car? Had the girl got it? A vicious spurt of rage ran through him.

He jerked his thumb towards the door.

“Get out!”

Manatee looked at Ocida who nodded. He went quickly from the room.

There was a long pause, then Ocida said quietly, “You must go away, Poke. I’m sorry it has ended like this. It was a good idea. The accident was bad luck.”

Poke stared at the fat Indian, then he said, “I need money. I need a thousand dollars.”

Ocida flinched. Looking at Poke, seeing the expression on his face and the glitter in his eyes, he realised he was in a dangerous situation.

He thought of the gun he always kept in the top drawer of his desk. The desk stood four yards from where he was sitting. The gun was a .45 Colt automatic which he had bought from an Army sergeant and which he never believed he would use. He had taken pride in the gun. Every so often he cleaned and oiled it. Now, looking at Poke’s face, he realised this gun . . . if he could reach it . . . could save his life for he was suddenly certain his life was in danger. But sitting in this broken down armchair, he knew he couldn’t reach the gun before Poke killed him. He must, he told himself, use a little bluff.

“If I had so much money, you would have it,” he said. “Your father and I are good friends. It would be my pleasure to give it to you.”

“Never mind about my father . . . give me the money,” Poke said and his hand went behind him and reappeared, holding his gun.

Ocida nodded. He got slowly to his feet and walked over to the desk. As he reached to pull open the top drawer where the gun was, his big body shielding his movement, he felt Poke’s gun dig into his back and he knew he was defeated. His hand moved from the top drawer to the second drawer which he opened. It was in this drawer that he kept his cash.

“There . . . that is all I have,” he said. “Help yourself.”

Poke shoved him aside and snatched up a thick packet of dollar bills. He thrust the bills into his shirt and moved quickly to the door.

Ocida, still sensing danger, stood motionless.

“Remember, Poke, your father and I are good friends,” he said, a quaver in his voice.

“Open the top drawer,” Poke said. “Go on . . . open it!”

They looked at each other for a long moment and Ocida saw the madness in Poke’s eyes. Slowly, his heart beginning to hammer, Ocida opened the drawer.

Poke saw the gun lying on a sheet of oil stained blotting paper.

“Good friends?” Poke said and squeezed the trigger of his gun. The bang of the gun echoed through the building and out onto the waterfront.

As Ocida fell, Poke stepped to the desk, snatched up the .45 Colt, dropped his own gun which was now empty and ran out of the room.

Hearing the shot Detective Alec Horn who was covering this section of the waterfront arrived at the end of the alley leading to Ocida’s back entrance as Poke came through the doorway.

For a fraction of a second, Horn hesitated, not sure if this Indian was Poke Toholo. Then seeing the gun in Poke’s hand, his own gun flashed up.

Poke was just that fraction of a second ahead of him. Poke’s bullet smashed Horn’s shoulder and dropped him.

Horn’s bullet cut a groove in Poke’s left ann.

Poke swung around and ran blindly down the alley. The pain in his arm threw him off balance. For the first time, he felt he was hunted and panic seized him. He reached a door of a two-storey, ramshackled house at the end of the alley, kicked it open and blundered into a dark passage. His one thought now was to hide. Stairs faced him. He raced up them two at the time, reached a landing, then paused. To his right was a lone door and there was no skylight. He realised he had run into a trap.

Then the door swung open and he lifted his gun.

An Indian girl, tall, thin, her skin pock marked, her hair in a plait, coiled around her head, came out on the landing. She froze at the sight of him.

Poke covered her with his gun.

They stared at each other. Blood was dripping from Poke’s fingers, making a puddle on the floor.

“Fix this!” He tapped his wounded arm and again threatened her with the gun.

Her eyes opened very wide and she nodded. She moved back into the room, beckoning to him.

***

When Poke had told Manatee to get out, he had only gone as far as Ocida’s store room because he feared for his boss. When he heard the shot, he knew his fear had been realised. He had watched Poke come down the passage, then he had darted into the living room and had seen the vast body lying on the floor. He had shuddered with horror, then turned and had run down the passage to the back door. He heard the two shots as Poke and Horn had fired at each other.

Cautiously, he peered into the alley. He was in time to see Poke running away, pause, then enter the last house at the end of the alley.

Manatee then saw the wounded detective, struggling to sit up.

If Poke hadn’t killed Ocida, Manatee would never have considered for a moment betraying him, but by killing Ocida, Poke had severed the cord that linked him to the fraternity of Indian protection.

Manatee went to the fallen detective as Lepski and Andy Shields swung themselves over the wall.

Lepski’s hand dropped on Shields’ gun, pushing it down.

“It’s not him!” He shoved Manatee aside and knelt by Horn who was now sitting up and grimacing with pain. “Are you hurt bad?”

Horn shook his head.

“He went down there.”

Lepski looked along the filthy cul-de-sac.

“Take care of him, Andy. Radio for help! He must have gone over the wall.”

“Sir!” Manatee was standing now with his back pressed against the wall of the alley. “He is in the last house at the end of the alley. There’s no way out except the way he went in. I know the house. Manee, Ocida’s granddaughter, lives there.”

Lepski stared at the Indian, wondering if he could trust him. He knew all the Indians along the waterfront were loyal to each other. This could be a trick to give Poke time to get away.

“He killed my boss, sir,” Manatee said as if knowing how Lepski was thinking. “He’s crazy. He must now be caught. He is in there!”

“You’re sure there’s no other way out?”

Manatee nodded.

Two police officers came over the wall.

“You two take care of Alec,” Lepski said to them. “Come on, Andy, let’s get him!”

Guns in hand, the two detectives ran down the alley, paused at the open door of the house, then Lepski moved in while Shields covered him.

Lepski saw bloodstains on the floor and he looked up the narrow stairs.

He moved back and switched on his radio.

Terrell came on the air.

Lepski reported what was happening and pin pointed where he was.

“We have him bottled up, Chief,” Lepski concluded. “Andy and I are going up there to take him.”

“Can he get away?” Terrell asked.

“No . . . we have him bottled up.”

“Then hold it, Tom, until I get there. I’m taking him.”

Lepski grimaced. He remembered what Beigler had said about keeping Terrell out of this mess.

“Okay, Chief,” and he switched off. He hesitated for a long moment, then he looked at Shields, “Let’s go get this sonofabitch,” and moving silently, he started up the stairs.

The Indian girl, Manee, finished bandaging Poke’s arm. While she worked, he sat on the bed, looking around the tiny, hot room. The door of the room stood open. Over the head of the bed hung a large crucifix. He looked at it, then his eyes shifted away with a pang of guilt. The crucifix made him think of his father and brought back the memory of when they used to kneel together in the church with its smell of incense, the flickering candle light and the peace on his father’s face.

“You are Poke Toholo, the son of my grandfather’s great friend,” Manee said as she moved away from him. “Please go now to my grandfather who will help you get away. He never refuses anyone help.”

“Your grandfather?” He sat upright, his eyes widening. “Ocida?”

She nodded.

“Of course. Go to him. He will help you.”

A wave of utter despair washed over Poke. For a long time now he had been frightened that there was something wrong with his brain. He had refused to believe he couldn’t cure himself by willpower. Now, he realised he was really sick. Why had he killed Ocida? He knew now that if he had only asked Ocida to hide him, Ocida would have done so and he would have been safe.