1971 - Want to Stay Alive Read Free Page B

offered the handle to Chuck.
    “Take it.”
    Bewildered, Chuck snatched at the knife. Poke watched him. “Take my money if you can.”
    Chuck looked at the Indian. The glittering eyes and his stillness like a snake waiting to strike frightened him. His nerve failed. The knife slid out of his fingers and dropped onto the grass.
    “So you’re not stupid,” Poke said. “Go and wash. You smell.”
    Cowed, Chuck took the piece of soap Poke was now offering him and went down the bank into the water. When he had washed and dried himself, Poke was dressed and sitting on the bank, smoking a cigarette. He watched Chuck get into his dirty clothes, then beckoned to him.
    Like a hypnotised rabbit, Chuck came and sat by his side. “I’ve been looking for a man like you,” Poke said. “A man without a conscience. You would have killed me for two hundred and twenty dollars . . . how many people would you kill for two thousand dollars?”
    Chuck licked his lips. This Indian was out of his head. He thought of the moment when the knife could have slit his throat and he shivered.
    “You live like a neglected pig,” Poke went on. “You are dirty, you are hungry, you stink. Look at me! When I want something I take it. I shave because I stole a razor. I stole the chicken and the ham from a Self Service store. I stole this money.” He tapped his waist. “Two hundred and twenty dollars! Do you know how I stole all that money? It was easy. A man gave me a ride and I threatened him. I have a gun. When people are frightened they pay up. All I had to do was to show him the gun and he gave me the money. It’s very simple. Fear is the key that unlocks the wallets and handbags of the rich.” He turned to stare at Chuck. “I have the formula for fear.”
    Chuck didn’t understand. All he knew was he wanted to get away from this Indian. He was sure he was crazy.
    Poke took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and offered it. After hesitating, Chuck took one and lit up.
    “Tell me about yourself,” Poke said. “I don’t want lies. I think I can use you. Tell me about yourself.”
    “Use me? What do you mean?”
    Chuck had a creepy feeling this Indian wasn’t bluffing. Two thousand dollars!
    “How do I do that?”
    “Tell me about yourself.”
    Confident he had nothing to lose, Chuck talked.
    He admitted he was semi-illiterate. He could read, but wrote with difficulty. His mother was a prostitute. He never knew his father. At the age of eight, he was a leader of a gang of kids who stole from stores. Later, he acted as his mother’s pimp. He was continually being chased by the cops and at the age of eighteen he had killed a cop. This cop had been the most hated man on the block and finally Chuck had ambushed him and had battered him to death with an iron bar. At twenty, he had come up against another youth who imagined he could take over Chuck’s mob. There had been a knife fight and Chuck had won. His opponent’s body had been fed into a cement mixer and his bones and flesh had gone into the foundations of a new slum tenement. His mother had met a violent end. Chuck had found her with her throat slit. She had left him a hundred dollars and he had cleared out of the district and taken to the road. He had been on the road for the past year, picking up a living here and there, living rough and not giving a damn about anything.
    He tossed his cigarette butt into the canal.
    “That’s the photo. What’s this you said about two thousand dollars?”
    “So you’ve killed two men.” Poke stared at him. “If you join up with me there will be other killings. That bother you?”
    “I don’t want to stick my neck out,” Chuck said after a long moment. “Tell me about the money.”
    “That will be your cut.”
    Chuck drew in a deep breath.
    “What’s the racket then?”
    “Something I have been planning for months: an idea that will work, but I can’t handle it alone. Tell me about this girl you have with you. I could use