Ross Macdonald - Lew Archer 01 - The Moving Target(aka Harper)(1949) (16 page)

 
          
Beside
the adobe there was a galvanized iron shed with a padlocked door. “Before you
go, open the shed.”

 
          
Sighing,
he took some keys from the folds of his body cloth. The shed contained a pile
of bags and cartons, most of which were empty. There were several sacks of
beans, a case of condensed milk, some overalls and work boots in a few of the
cartons.

 
          
Claude
stood in the doorway watching me. “My disciples sometimes work in the valley by
the day. Such work in the vegetable fields is a form of worship.”

 
          
He
moved back to let me out. I noticed the imprint of a tire in the clay at the
edge of the gravel where his foot had been. It was a wide truck tire. I’d seen
the herringbone pattern of the tread before.

 
          
“I
thought you didn’t let mechanical trappings come inside the fence?”

 
          
He
peered at the ground and came up smiling.
“Only when
necessary.
A truck delivered some provisions the other day.”

 
          
“I
hope and trust it was purified?”

 
          
“The
driver has been purified, yes.”

 
          
“Good.
I suppose that you’ll be doing some housecleaning now that we’ve contaminated
the place.”

 
          
“It
is between you and the god.” With a backward glance at the declining sun he
returned to his perch on the roof.

 
          
On
the way back to the state highway I memorized the route so that I could drive
it blind at night if I had to.

 
          
Before
we crossed the valley the red sun had plunged behind the clouds over the
coastal range. The shadowed fields were empty. We passed a dozen truckloads of
field-workers returning to their bunkhouses on the ranches. Crammed like cattle
in the rattling vans of the trucks, they stood in patient silence, men, women,
and children waiting for food and sleep and the next day’s sunrise. I drove
carefully, feeling a little depressed, stalled in the twilight period when day
has run down and night hasn’t picked up speed.

 
          
The
clouds flowed in the pass like a torrent of milk and preceded us down the other
side of the mountain, blending with the gradual night and the deepening cold.
Once or twice on a curve Miranda leaned against me, trembling. I didn’t ask her
whether she was cold or afraid. I didn’t want to force her to make a choice.

 
          
The
clouds had rolled down the mountain all the way to U.S .101. From far up the
pass road I could see the headlights on the highway blurred enormous by the
fog. While I was waiting at the stop sign for a break in the highway traffic, a
pair of bright lights came up fast from the direction of Santa Teresa. They
suddenly swung toward us like wild eyes. The speeding car was going to try to
turn into the pass road. Its brakes screamed, its rubber skittered and snarled.
It wasn’t going to get past me.

 
          
“Head
down,” I said to Miranda, and tightened my grip on the wheel.

 
          
The
other driver straightened out, roared into second gear at forty-five or fifty,
spun in front of my bumper, and passed on my right in the seven-foot space
between me and the stop sign. I caught a flashing glimpse of the driver’s face,
a thin, pale face jaundiced by my fog lights, under a peaked leather cap. His
car was a dark limousine.

 
          
I
backed and turned and started after it. The black-top was slick from the wet,
and I was slow in getting under way. The red rear light hightailing up the road
was swallowed by the fog. It was no use anyway. He could turn off on any one of
the county roads that paralleled the highway. And perhaps the best thing I
could do for Sampson was to let the limousine go. I stopped so fast that
Miranda had to brace both hands on the dashboard. My reflexes were getting
violent.

 
          
“What
on earth’s the matter? He didn’t actually crash us, you know.”

 
          
“I
wish he had.”

 
          
“He’s
reckless, but he drives very well.”

 
          
“Yeah.
He’s a moving target I’d like to hit some time.”

 
          
She
looked at me curiously. Shadowed from below by the
dashlights
,
her face was dark, with huge bright eyes. “You’re looking grim, Archer. Have I
made you angry again?”

 
          
“Not
you,” I said. “It’s waiting for a break in this case. I prefer direct action.”

 
          
“I
see.” She sounded disappointed. “Please take me home now. I’m cold and hungry.”

 
          
I
turned in the shallow ditch and drove back across the highway to Cabrillo
Canyon. Beyond the plow of yellow light that the fog lamps pushed ahead of us
the trees and hedges hung in the thick air, ash-gray emanations abandoned by
the sun. The landscape matched the clouded pattern in my skull. My thoughts
were blind and slow, groping for a lead to the place where Ralph Sampson was
hidden.

 
          
The
lead was waiting in the mailbox at the entrance to Sampson’s drive, and it took
no cunning to find it. Miranda noticed it first. “Stop the car.”

 
          
When
she opened the door, I saw the white envelope stuck in the slot of the mailbox.
“Wait. Let me handle it.”

 
          
My
tone held her still with one foot on the ground, one hand reaching for the
envelope. I took it by one corner and wrapped it in a clean handkerchief.
“There may be fingerprints.”

 
          
“How
do you know it’s from Father?”

 
          
“I
don’t. You drive up to the house.”

 
          
I
unwrapped
the envelope in the kitchen. The fluorescent
tube in the ceiling cast a white morgue glow on the white enameled table. There
was no name or address on the envelope. I slit one end and drew out the folded
sheet it contained with my fingernails.

 
          
My
heart dropped when I saw the printed letters pasted to the sheet of paper. The
letters had been cut out individually and arranged in words, in the classic
tradition of kidnapping. These were the words: Mr. Sampson is well in good
hands put one
hunderd
thousan
dollars in plain paper
parsel
ty
with string put
parsel
on grass in middle of road at
south end of highway division
oposite
Fryers Road one
mile south of Santa Teresa limits do this at nine
oclock
tonite
after you leave
parsel
drive away
imediately
you will be watched drive away
north direction Santa Teresa do not
attent
pollice
ambush if you value
Sampsons
life you will be watched he will come home tomorrow if no ambush no
attent
to chase no marked bills too bad for Sampson if you
dont
freind
of the family “You
were right,” Miranda said, in a half whisper.

 
          
I
wanted to say something consoling. All I could think of was - too bad for
Sampson.

 
          
“Go
and see if Graves is around,” I said. She went immediately.

 
          
I
leaned over the sheet of paper without touching it, and examined the cut-out
letters. They varied widely in size and type, and were printed on smooth paper,
probably cut from the advertising pages of a big-circulation magazine. The
spelling pointed at semi-literacy, but you couldn’t always tell. Some pretty
welleducated
people were poor spellers. And it might have
been faked.

 
          
I
had memorized the letter when Graves came into the kitchen with Taggert and
Miranda trailing behind. He came toward me on heavy piston-quick legs, with an
iron gleam in his eyes.

 
          
I
pointed to the table. “That was in the mailbox -.”

 
          
“Miranda
told me.”

 
          
“It
may have been dropped a few minutes ago by a car that passed me on the
highway.”

 
          
Graves
leaned over the letter and read it aloud to himself. Taggert stayed by Miranda
in the doorway, uncertain whether he was wanted but quite at ease. Though
physically they could have been sibs, Miranda was his temperamental opposite.
Ugly blue patches had blossomed under her eyes. Her wide lips drooped sullenly
over her fine, prominent teeth. She leaned against the doorjamb in a jagged,
disconsolate pose.

 
          
Graves
raised his head. “This is it. I’ll get the deputy.”

 
          
“Here
now?”

 
          
“Yes.
In the study with the money.
And I’ll call the
sheriff.”

 
          
“Has
he got a fingerprint man?”

 
          
“The
D. A
.‘s
is better.”

 
          
“Call
him too. They’re probably too smart to leave fresh prints, but there may be
latent ones. It’s hard to do cut-outs with gloves on.”

 
          
“Right.
Now what was that about a car that passed you?”

 
          
“Keep
it to yourself for now. I’ll handle that end.”

 
          
“I
guess you know what you’re doing.”

 
          
“I
know what I’m not doing. I’m not getting Sampson bumped if I can help it.”

 
          
“That’s
what’s worrying me,” he said, and went through the door so fast that Taggert
had to jump back out of his way.

 
          
I
glanced at Miranda. She looked ready to drop. “Make her eat something,
Taggert.”

 
          
“If I can.”

 
          
He
crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator. Her eyes followed him. I hated her for
an instant. She was like a dog, a bitch in the rutting season.

 
          
“I
couldn’t possibly eat,” she said. “Do you think he’s alive?”

 
          
“Yes.
But I thought you barely liked him.”

 
          
“This
letter makes it so real. It wasn’t real before.”

 
          
“It’s
too damned real! Now go away. Go and lie down.” She wandered out of the room.

 
          
The
deputy sheriff came in. He was a heavy, dark man in his thirties, wearing brown
store clothes that didn’t quite fit his shoulders, a lopsided look of surprise
that didn’t quite fit his face. His right hand rested on the gun in his hip
holster as if to remind him that he had authority.

 
          
He
said with tentative belligerence: “What goes on out here?”

 
          
“Nothing much.
Kidnapping and extortion.”

 
          
“What’s
this?” He reached for the letter on the table. I had to take hold of his wrist
to keep him from touching it.

 
          
His
black eyes glared dully into my face. “Who do you think you are?”

 
          
“The
name is Archer. Settle down, officer. You have an evidence case?”

 
          
“Yeah, in the car.”

 
          
“Get
it, eh? We’ll hold this for the fingerprint men.”

 
          
He
went out and came back with a black metal box. I dropped the letter into it,
and he locked it. It seemed to give him great satisfaction.

 
          
“Take
good care of it,” I said, as he left the room with the box under his arm.
“Don’t let it out of your hands.”

 
          
Taggert
was standing by the open refrigerator with a half-eaten turkey drumstick in his
fingers. “What do we do now?” he asked me, between bites.

 
          
“You
stick around. You may see a little excitement. Got your gun?”

 
          
“Sure thing!”
He patted the pocket of his jacket. “How do
you think it was done? You think they grabbed Sampson when he left the airport
in Burbank?”

 
          
“I
wouldn’t know. Where’s a phone?”

 
          
“There’s
one in the butler’s pantry. Right through here.” He opened a door at the end of
the kitchen and closed it after me.

 
          
It
was a small room lined with cupboards, with a single window over the copper
sink, a wall telephone by the door. I asked long distance for Los Angeles.
Peter Colton would be off duty, but he might have left a message.

 
          
The
operator gave me his office, and Colton answered the phone himself.

 
          
“Lew speaking.
It’s a snatch. We got the ransom note a few
minutes ago. The letter from Sampson was a gimmick to loosen things up. You
better talk to the D. A. It probably happened in your territory when Sampson
left the Burbank airport day before yesterday.”

 
          
“They’re
taking things slow for kidnappers.”