Free 1971 - Want to Stay Alive by James Hadley Chase Page B

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