Ross Macdonald - Lew Archer 01 - The Moving Target(aka Harper)(1949) (24 page)

 
          
“What
do you want to talk about?” He still had perfect control. His puzzled smile was
natural, and his voice was easy. Only his muscles gave him away, bunched at the
shoulders, quivering in the thighs.

 
          
“Kidnapping,”
I said. “We’ll leave the murder till later. Kidnapping is just about as serious
in this state. I’ll give you my version of the kidnapping, and then I’ll listen
to yours. A great many people will be eager to listen to yours.”

 
          
“Too bad.
I haven’t any version.”

 
          
“I
have. I’d have seen it sooner if I hadn’t happened to like you. You had more
opportunity than anyone, and more
motive
. You resented
Sampson’s treatment of you. You resented all the money he had. You hadn’t much
yourself -.”

 
          
“Still
haven’t,” he said.

 
          
“You
should be well fixed for the present. Half of the hundred thousand is fifty
thousand.
The very temporary present.”

 
          
He
spread his hands humorously. “Am I carrying it with me?”

 
          
“You’re
not that dull,” I said. “But you’re dull enough. You’ve acted like a rube,
Taggert. The city slickers sucked you in and used you. You’ll probably never
see your half of the hundred grand.”

 
          
“You
promised me a story,” he said smoothly. He was going to be hard to break down.

 
          
I
showed him my best card. “Eddie Lassiter phoned you the night before you flew
Sampson out of Las Vegas.”

 
          
“Don’t
tell me you’re psychic, Archer. You said the man was dead.” But there was a new
white line around
Taggert’s
mouth.

 
          
“I’m
psychic enough to tell you what you said to Eddie. You told him you’d be flying
into Burbank about three o’clock the next day. You told him to rent a black
limousine and wait for your phone call from the Burbank airport. When Sampson
phoned the
Valerio
for a limousine, you canceled the
call and sent for Eddie instead. The operator at the
Valerio
thought it was Sampson calling back. You do a pretty good imitation of him,
don’t you?”

 
          
“Go
on,” he said. “I’ve always been fond of fantasy.”

 
          
“When
Eddie turned up at the front of the airport in the rented car, Sampson got in
as a matter of course. He had no reason to suspect anything. You had him so
drunk he wouldn’t notice the difference in drivers - so drunk that even a
little guy like Eddie could handle him when they got to a private place. What
did Eddie use on him, Taggert?
Chloroform?”

 
          
“This
is supposed to be your story,” he said. “Is your imagination getting tired?”

 
          
“The
story belongs to both of us. That canceled telephone call was important,
Taggert. It was the thing that tied you into the story in the first place.
Nobody else could have known that Sampson was going to phone the
Valerio
. Nobody else knew when Sampson was going to fly in
from Nevada. Nobody else was in a position to give Eddie the tip-off the night
before. Nobody else could have made all the arrangements and run them off on
schedule.”

 
          
“I
never denied I was at the airport with Sampson. There were a few hundred other
people there at the same time. You’re hipped on circumstantial evidence, like
any other cop. And this business of the records isn’t even circumstantial
evidence. It’s a circular argument. You haven’t got anything on Betty Fraley,
and you haven’t proved any connection between us. Hundreds of collectors have
her records.”

 
          
His
voice was still cool and clear, bright with candor, but he was worried. His
body was hunched and tense, as if I had forced him, into a narrow space. And
his mouth was turning ugly.

 
          
“It
shouldn’t be hard to prove a connection,” I said. “You must have been seen
together at one time or another. And wasn’t it you that called her the other
night when you saw me in the
Valerio
with Fay
Estabrook? You weren’t really looking for Sampson at the Wild Piano, were you?
You were going to see Betty Fraley. You put me off when you pulled
Puddler
out of my hair. I thought you were on my side.
So much so that I put it down to stupidity when you fired at the
blue truck.
You were warning Eddie off, weren’t you, Taggert? I’d call
you a smart boy if you hadn’t dirtied your hands with kidnapping and murder.
Stupidity like that cancels out the smartness.”

 
          
“If you’re through calling me names,” he said, “well get down to
business.”

 
          
He
was still sitting quietly in the canvas chair, but his hand came up from beside
him with a gun. It was the.32 target pistol I had seen before, a fight gun but
heavy enough to make my stomach crawl.

 
          
“Keep
your hands on your knees,” he said.
‘ “
I didn’t think
you’d give up so easily.”

 
          
“I
haven’t given up. I’m simply guaranteeing my freedom of action.”

 
          
“Shooting
me won’t guarantee it. It’ll guarantee something else.
Death
by gas.
Put your gun away and we’ll talk this over.”

 
          
“There’s
nothing to talk over.”

 
          
“You’re
wrong, as usual. What do you think I’m trying to do in this case?”

 
          
He
didn’t answer. Now that the gun was in his hand, ready for violence, his face
was smooth and relaxed. It was the face of a new kind of man, calm and
unfrightened
, because he laid no special value on human
life.
Boyish and rather innocent, because he could do evil
almost without knowing it.
He was the kind of man who had grown up and
found himself in war.

 
          
“I’m
trying to find Sampson,” I said. “If I can get him back, nothing else counts.”

 
          
“You’ve
gone about it the wrong way, Archer. You forgot what you said last night: if
anything happens to the people that kidnapped Sampson, it’s the end of him.”

 
          
“Nothing
has happened to you - yet.”

 
          
“Nothing
has happened to Sampson.”

 
          
“Where
is he?”

 
          
“Where
he won’t be found until I want him to be.”

 
          
“You
have your money. Let him go.”

 
          
“I
intended to, Archer. I was going to turn him loose today. But that will have to
be postponed - indefinitely. If anything happens to me, it’s good-bye Sampson.”

 
          
“We
can reach an understanding.”

 
          
“No,”
he said. “I couldn’t trust you. We have to get clear away. Don’t you see that
you’ve spoilt it? You have the power to spoil things, but you haven’t the power
to guarantee that we’ll get clear. There’s nothing I can do with you but this.”

 
          
He
glanced down at the gun, which was pointed at the middle of my body, then
casually back at me. Any second he could shoot, without preparation, without
anger. All he had to do was pull the trigger.

 
          
“Wait,”
I said. My throat was tight. My skin felt desiccated, and I wanted to sweat. My
hands were clutching my knees.

 
          
“We
don’t want to stretch this out.” He stood up and moved toward me.

 
          
I
shifted the weight of my body in the chair. One shot wouldn’t kill me, unless
my luck was bad. Between the first and the second I could reach him. As I drew
back my feet I talked rapidly.

 
          
“If
you’ll give me Sampson, I can guarantee that I
wont
try to hold you and I won’t talk. You’ll have to
take your chances with the others. Kidnapping is like other business
enterprises: you have to take your chances.”

 
          
“I’m
taking them,” he said, “but not on you.”

 
          
His
rigid arm came up with the gun at the end like a hollow blue finger. I looked
sideways, away from the direction I was going to move in. I was halfway out of
the chair when the gun went off. Taggert was listless when I got to him. The
gun slid out of his hand.

 
          
Another
gun had spoken. Albert Graves was in the doorway with the twin of
Taggert’s
pistol in his hand. He poked the end of his
little finger through a round hole in the screen.

 
          
“Too
bad,” he said; “but it had to be done.”

 
          
The
water ran down my face.

 
          
I
caught
Taggert’s
limber body as it fell, and laid it
out on the grass rug. The dark eyes were open and glistening. They didn’t react
to the touch of my fingertips. The round hole in the right temple was
bloodless. A death mark like a little red birthmark, and Taggert was thirty
dollars’ worth of organic chemicals shaped like a man.

 
          
Graves
was standing over me. “He’s dead?”

 
          
“He
didn’t fall down in a fit. You did a quick, neat job.”

 
          
“It
was you or Taggert.”

 
          
“I
know,” I said. “I don’t like to quibble. But I wish you’d shot the gun out of
his hand or smashed the elbow of his gun arm.”

 
          
“I
couldn’t trust myself to do that kind of shooting any more. I got out of
practice in the Army.” His mouth twisted wryly, and one of his eyebrows went
up. “You’re a carping son of a bitch, Lew. I save your life, and you criticize
the method.”

 
          
“Did
you hear what he said?”

 
          
“Enough.
He kidnapped Sampson.”

 
          
“But
he wasn’t alone. His friends aren’t going to like this. They’ll take it out on
Sampson.”

 
          
“Sampson
is alive, then?”

 
          
“According
to Taggert he is.”

 
          
“Who
are these others?”

 
          
“Eddie
Lassiter was one. Betty Fraley is another. There may be more. You’ll be calling
the police about this shooting?”

 
          
“Naturally.”

 
          
‘Tell
them to keep it quiet.”

 
          
“I’m
not ashamed of it, Lew,” he told me sharply, “though you seem to think I should
be. It had to be done, and you know the law on it as well as I do.”

 
          
“Look
at it from Betty Fraley’s point of view. It won’t be the legal one. When she
hears what you’ve done to her sidekick she’ll beeline for Sampson and
make
a hole in his head.

 
          
Why
should she bother keeping him alive? She’s got the money -.”

 
          
“You’re
right,” he said. “We’ve got to keep it out of the papers and off the radio.”

 
          
“And
we’ve got to find her before she gets to Sampson. Watch yourself, too, Bert.
She’s dangerous, and I have an idea that she was gone on Taggert.”

 
          
“Her,
too?” he said, and after a pause: “I wonder how Miranda’s going to take it.”

 
          
“Pretty hard.
She liked him, didn’t she?”

 
          
“She
had a crush on him. She’s a romantic, you know, and awfully young. Taggert had
the things she thought she wanted, youth and good looks and a hell of a combat
record. This thing is going to shock her.”

 
          
“I
don’t shock easily,” I said, “but it took me by surprise. I thought he was a
pretty sound kid, a little self-centered but solid.”

 
          
“You
don’t know the type like I do,” Graves said. “I’ve seen this same thing happen
to other boys, not to such an extreme degree, of course, but the same thing.
They went out of high school into the Army or the Air Corps and made good in a
big way. They were officers and gentlemen with high pay, an even higher opinion
of themselves, and all the success they needed to keep it blown up. War was
their element, and when the war was finished, they were finished. They had to
go back to boys’ jobs and take orders from middle-aged civilians. Handling pens
and adding machines instead of flight sticks and machine guns. Some of them
couldn’t take it and went bad. They thought the world was their oyster and
couldn’t understand why it had been snatched away from them. They wanted to
snatch it back. They wanted to be free and happy and successful without laying
any foundation for freedom or happiness or success. And there’s the hangover.”

 
          
He
looked down at the new corpse on the floor. Its eyes were still open, gazing up
through the roof at the empty sky. I bent down and closed them.

 
          
“We’re
becoming very elegiac,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

 
          
“In a minute.”
He laid his hand on my arm. “I want you to do
me a favor, Lew.”

 
          
“What
is it?”

 
          
He
spoke with diffidence. “I’m afraid if I tell Miranda about this, she won’t see
it the way it happened. You know what I mean - she might blame me.”

 
          
“You
want me to tell her?”

 
          
“I
know it’s not your baby, but I’d appreciate it.”

 
          
“I
can do that,” I said. “I suppose you did save my life.”

 
          
Mrs.
Kromberg
was running a vacuum cleaner in the big
front room. She glanced up when I entered, and switched it off. “Mr. Graves
find you all right?”

 
          
“He
found me.”

 
          
Her
face sharpened.
“Anything wrong?”

 
          
“It’s
over now. Do you know where Miranda is?”

 
          
“She
was in the morning room a few minutes ago.”

 
          
She
led me through the house and left me at the door of a sun-filled room. Miranda
was at a window that overlooked the patio. She had daffodils in her hands and
was arranging them in a bowl. The yellow flowers clashed with her somber
clothes. The only color on her body was a scarlet bow at the neck of her black
wool suit. Her small sharp breasts pressed angrily against the cloth.

 
          
“Good
morning,” she said. “I am expressing a wish, not making a statement.”

 
          
“I
understand that.” The flesh around her eyes was swollen and faintly blue. “But
I have some moderately good news for you.”

 
          
“Moderately?”
She raised her round chin, but her mouth
remained doleful.

 
          
“We
have some reason to think that your father is alive.”

 
          
“Where
is he?”

 
          
“I
don’t know.”

 
          
“Then
how do you know he’s alive?”

 
          
“I
didn’t say I knew. I said I thought. I talked to one of his kidnappers.”

 
          
She
came at me headlong, clutching at my arm. “What did he say?”

 
          
“That
your father is alive.”

 
          
Her
hand released my arm and took hold of her other hand. Her brown fingers
interlocked and strained against each other. The daffodils fell to the floor
with broken stems. “But you can’t trust what they say? They’d naturally claim
he’s alive. What did they want? Did they phone you?”

 
          
“It
was just one of them I talked to.
Face to face.”

 
          
“You
saw him and let him go?”

 
          
“I
didn’t let him go. He’s dead. His name is Alan Taggert.”

 
          
“But
that’s impossible. I
- ”
Her lower lip went slack and
showed her lower row of teeth.

 
          
“Why
is it impossible?” I said.

 
          
“He
couldn’t do it. He was decent. He was always honest with me - with us.”

 
          
“Until the big chance came.
Then he wanted money more than
anything else. He was ready to murder to get it.”

 
          
A
question formed in her eyes. “You said Ralph was alive?”

 
          
“Taggert
didn’t murder your father. He tried to murder me.”

 
          
“No,”
she said. “He wasn’t like that. That woman twisted him. I knew she’d ruin him
if he went with her.”

 
          
“Did
Taggert tell you about her?”

 
          
“Of
course he told me. He told me everything.”

 
          
“And
you still loved him?”

 
          
“Did
I say I loved him?” Her mouth was firm again and curved with pride.

 
          
“I
understood you did.”

 
          
“That stupid gawk?
I used him for a while. He served the
purpose.”

 
          
“Stop
it,” I said violently. “You can’t fool me, and you can’t fool yourself. You’ll
tear
yourself to pieces.”

 
          
Yet
her hands were motionless in each other, her tall body was still. Still as a
tree bent out of line and held there by a continuous wind. The wind pushed her
against me. Her feet trampled the daffodils. Her mouth closed over mine. Her
body held me close from breast to knee, too long and not long enough.

 
          
“Thank
you for killing him, Archer.’

 
          
‘ Her
voice was anguished and soft, the kind of voice a
wound would have if it could speak.

 
          
I
took her by the shoulders and held her off. “You’re wrong. I didn’t kill him.”

 
          
“You
said he was dead, that he tried to murder you.”

 
          
“Albert
Graves shot him.”

 
          
“Albert?”
Her giggle passed back and forth like a quick spark between laughter and
hysteria. “Albert did that?”

 
          
“He’s
a dead shot - we used to do a lot of target-shooting together,” I said. “If he
wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here with you now.”

 
          
“Do
you like being here with me now?”

 
          
“It
makes me a little sick. You’re trying to swallow these things without going to pieces,
and you can’t get them down.”

 
          
Her
glance traveled down my body, and she grinned as much like a monkey as a pretty
girl could. “Did it make you sick when I kissed you?”

 
          
“You
could tell it didn’t. But it’s confusing to be in a room with five or six
competing personalities.”

 
          
“Sick-making,
you mean,” she said with her monkey grin.

 
          
“You’ll
be the sick one if you don’t settle down. Find out what you feel about this
business, and have a good cry, or you’ll end up
schizo
.”

 
          
“I
always was a schizoid type,” she said. “But why should I cry, Herr Doktor?”

 
          
“To
see if you can.”

 
          
“You
don’t take me seriously, do you, Archer?”

 
          
“I
can’t afford to put my hand in a cleft tree.”

 
          
“My
God,” she said. “I’m sick-making, I’m
schizo
, I’m
split wood. What do you really think of me?”