Ross Macdonald - Lew Archer 01 - The Moving Target(aka Harper)(1949) (25 page)

 
          
“I
wouldn’t know. I’d have a better idea if you’ll tell me where you went last
night.”

 
          
“Last
night?
Nowhere.”

 
          
“I
understand you did a lot of driving in the red Packard convertible last night.”

 
          
“I
did, but I didn’t go anywhere. I was just driving. I wanted to be by myself to
make up my mind.”

 
          
“About what?”

 
          
“About what I’m going to do.
Do you know what I’m going to
do, Archer?”

 
          
“No.
Do you?”

 
          
“I
want to see Albert,” she said. “Where is he?”

 
          
“In the bathhouse, where it happened.
Taggert’s
there, too.”

 
          
“Take
me to Albert.”

 
          
We
found him on the screened veranda sitting over the dead man. The sheriff and
the District Attorney were looking at
Taggert’s
face,
which was still uncovered, and listening to Graves’s story. All three stood up
for Miranda.

 
          
She
had to step over Taggert in order to reach Albert Graves. She did this without
a downward glance at the uncovered face. She took one of Graves’s hands between
hers and raised it to her lips. It was his right hand she kissed, the one that
had fired the gun.

 
          
“I’ll
marry you now,” she said.

 
          
Whether
Graves knew it or not, he’d had his reason for shooting Alan Taggert through
the head.

 
          
For
half a minute nobody spoke. The lovers stood together above the body. The
others stood and watched them.

 
          
“We’d
better get out of here, Miranda,” Graves said finally. He glanced at the
District Attorney.
“If you’ll excuse us?
Mrs. Sampson
will have to be told about this.”

 
          
“Go
ahead, Bert,” Humphreys said.

 
          
While
a man from his office took notes, and another photographed the body on the
floor, Humphreys questioned me. His questions covered the ground quickly and
thoroughly. I told him who Taggert was, how he died, and why he had to die.
Sheriff Spanner listened restlessly, biting a cigar to shreds.

 
          
“There
will have to be an inquest,” Humphreys said. “You and Bert are in the clear, of
course. Taggert had a deadly weapon in his hand and was obviously intending to
use it. Unfortunately this shooting leaves us worse off than before. We have
practically no leads.”

 
          
“You’re
forgetting Betty Fraley.”

 
          
“I’m
not forgetting her. But we haven’t caught her, and even if we do, we can’t be
certain that she knows where Sampson is. The problem hasn’t changed, and we’re
no nearer to its solution than we were yesterday. The problem is to find
Sampson.”

 
          
“And
the hundred thousand dollars,” Spanner said.

 
          
Humphreys
looked up impatiently. “The money is secondary, I think.”

 
          
“Secondary,
yes, but a hundred thousand in cash is always important.” He tugged at his
elastic lower lip. His gray eyes shifted to me. “If you’re finished with Archer
here, I want to have a talk with him.”

 
          
“Take
him,” Humphreys said coldly. “I’ve got to get back to town.” He took the body
with him.

 
          
When we were alone the sheriff got up heavily and stood over me.

 
          
“Well?”
I said. “What’s the trouble, Sheriff?”

 
          
“Maybe
you can tell me.” He folded his thick arms across his chest.

 
          
“I’ve
told you what I know.”

 
          
“Maybe so.
You didn’t tell me everything you should of last
night. I heard from your friend Colton this morning. He told me about the
limousine this
Lassister
was driving: it came from a
car-rental in Pasadena, and you knew it.” He raised his voice suddenly, as if
he hoped to startle me into a confession. “You didn’t tell me you saw it
before, when the ransom note was delivered.”

 
          
“I
saw one like it. I didn’t know it was the same car.”

 
          
“But
you guessed it was. You told Colton it was. You gave the information to an
officer that couldn’t use it because he’s got no jurisdiction in this county.
But you didn’t tell me, did you? If you had, we could have taken him. We could
have stopped the shooting and saved the money -.”

 
          
“But
not Sampson,” I said.

 
          
“You’re
not the judge of that.” His face was bursting at the seams with angry blood.
“You took things in your own hands and interfered with my duty. You withheld
information. Right after Lassiter got shot, you disappeared. You were the only
witness, and you disappeared. A hundred thousand dollars disappeared at the
same time.”

 
          
“I
don’t like the implication.” I stood up. He was a big man, and our eyes were
level.

 
          
“You
don’t like it. How do you think I like it? I’m not saying you took the money -
that remains to be seen. I’m not saying you shot Lassiter. I’m saying you could
have. I want your gun, and I want to know what you were doing when my deputy
caught up with you down south. And I want to know what you were doing after
that.”

 
          
“I
was looking for Sampson.”

 
          
“You
were looking for Sampson,” he said, with heavy irony. “You expect me to take
your word for that.”

 
          
“You
don’t have to take my word. I’m not working for you.”

 
          
He
leaned toward me with his hands on his hips. “If I wanted to be ugly, I could
put you away this minute.”

 
          
My
patience broke. “Don’t look now,” I said, “but you are ugly.”

 
          
“Do
you know who you’re talking to?”

 
          
“A sheriff.
A sheriff with a tough case on
his hands, and no ideas.
So you’re looking for a goat.”

 
          
The
blood went out of his face, leaving it haggard with rage. “They’ll hear about
this in Sacramento,” he stuttered.
“When your license comes
up -.”

 
          
“I’ve
heard that one before. I’m still in business, and I’ll tell you why. I’ve got a
clean record, and I don’t push people around until they start to push me.”

 
          
“So
you’re threatening me!” His right hand fumbled for the holster on his hip.
“You’re under arrest, Archer.”

 
          
I
sat down and crossed my legs. “Take it easy, Sheriff. Sit down and relax. We’ve
got some things to talk over.”

 
          
“I’ll
talk to you at the courthouse.”

 
          
“No,”
I said. “
Here.
Unless you want to
take me to the immigrant inspector.”

 
          
“What’s
he got to do with it?” He wrinkled up his eyelids in an effort to look shrewd,
and succeeded in looking puzzled. “You’re not an alien?”

 
          
“I’m
a native son,” I said. “Is there an immigrant inspector in town?”

 
          
“Not
in Santa Teresa. The nearest ones are at the federal office in Ventura. Why?”

 
          
“Do
you do much work with them?”

 
          
“A fair amount.
When I pick up an illegal alien I turn him
over.
You trying
to kid me, Archer?”

 
          
“Sit
down,” I said again. “I didn’t find what I was looking for last night, but I
found something else. It should make you and the inspectors very happy. I’m
offering it to you as a free gift, no strings.”

 
          
He
lowered his haunches into the canvas chair. His anger had passed off suddenly,
and curiosity had taken its place. “What is it? It better be good.”

 
          
I
told him about the closed blue truck, the brown men at the Temple, Troy and
Eddie and Claude. “Troy is the head of the gang, I’m pretty sure. The others
work for him. They’ve been running an underground railway on a regular schedule
between the Mexican border and the Bakersfield area. The southern end is
probably at Calexico.”

 
          
“Yeah,”
Spanner said. “That’s an easy place to cross the border. I took a trip down
there with the border guard a couple of months ago. All they got to do is crawl
through a wire fence from one road to the other.”

 
          
“And
Troy’s truck would be waiting to pick them up. They used the Temple in the
Clouds as a receiving station for illegal immigrants. God knows how many have
passed through there. There
were
twelve or more last
night.”

 
          
“Are
they still there?”

 
          
“They’re
in Bakersfield by now, but they shouldn’t be hard to round up. If you get hold
of Claude I’m pretty sure he’ll talk.”

 
          
“Jesus!”
Spanner said. “If they brought over twelve a night, that’s three hundred and
sixty a month. Do you know how much they pay to get smuggled in?”

 
          
“No.”

 
          
“A
hundred bucks apiece. This Troy has been making big money.”

 
          
“Dirty
money,” I said.
“Trucking in a bunch of poor Indians, taking
their savings away, and turning them loose to be migrant laborers.”

 
          
He
looked at me a little queerly. “They’re breaking the law, too, don’t forget. We
don’t prosecute, though, unless they got criminal records. We just ship them
back to the border and let them go. But Troy and his gang are another matter.
What they been doing is good for thirty years.”

 
          
“That’s
fine,” I said.

 
          
“You
don’t know where he hangs out in Los Angeles?”

 
          
“He
runs a place called the Wild Piano, but he won’t be showing there. I’ve told
you what I know.” With two exceptions: the man I had killed, and the blond
woman who would still be waiting for Eddie.

 
          
“You
seem to be on the level,” the sheriff said slowly. “You can forget what I said
about arrest. But if this turns out to be a song-and-dance you gave me, I’ll
remember it again.”

 
          
I
hadn’t expected to be thanked, and I wasn’t disappointed.

 
          
I
parked in the lane under the eucalyptus trees. The marks of the truck tires
were still visible in the dust. Further down the lane a green A-model sedan,
acned
with rust, was backed against a fence post. On the
registration card strapped to the steering gear I read the name, “Mrs. Marcella
Finch.”

 
          
The
moonlight had been kind to the white cottage. It was ugly and mean and
dilapidated in the noon sun, a dingy blot against the blue field of the sea.
Nothing in sight lived or moved, except the sea itself and a few weak puffs of
wind in the withered grass on the hillside. I felt for my gun butt. The dry
dust muffled my footsteps.

 
          
The
door creaked partly open when I knocked.

 
          
A
woman’s voice said dully: “Who’s that?”

 
          
I
stood aside and waited, in case she had a gun. She raised her voice. “Is
somebody there?”

 
          
“Eddie,”
I whispered. Eddie had no further use for his name, but it was a hard thing to
say.

 
          
“Eddie?”
A hushed and wondering word.

 
          
I
waited. Her sibilant feet crossed the floor. Before I could see her face in the
dim interior, her right hand grasped the edge of the door. Under the peeling
scarlet polish, her fingernails were dirty. I took hold of her hand.

 
          
“Eddie!”
The face that looked around the door was blind with the sun and a desperate
hopefulness. Then she blinked and saw I wasn’t Eddie.

 
          
She
had aged rapidly in twelve hours. She was puffed around the eyes, drawn at the
mouth, drooping at the chin. Waiting for Eddie had drained away her life. A
kind of galvanic fury took its place.

 
          
Her
nails bit into my hand like parrot’s claws. She squawked like a parrot: “Dirty
liar!”

 
          
The
name hit me hard, but not as hard as a bullet. I caught her other wrist and
forced her back into the house, slamming the door with my heel. She tried to
knee me, then to bite my neck. I pushed her down on the bed.

 
          
“I
don’t want to hurt you, Marcie.”

 
          
From
a round open mouth she screamed up into my face. The scream broke down in dry
hiccuping
. She flung herself sideways, burrowing under the
covers. Her body moved in a rhythmic orgasm of grief. I stood above her and
listened to the dry
hiccuping
.

 
          
Filtered
through dirty windows, reflected from rain-stained walls and shabby furniture,
the light in the room was gray. On top of an old battery radio beside the bed
there were a handful of matches and a pack of cigarettes. She sat up after a
while and lit a brown cigarette, dragging deep. Her bathrobe
gaped
open as if her slack breasts didn’t matter
any more
.

 
          
The
voice that came out with the smoke was contemptuous and flat. “I should stage a
crying jag to give a copper his kicks.”

 
          
“I’m
no copper.”

 
          
“You
know my name.
I been
waiting all morning to hear from
the law.” She looked at me with cold interest. “How low can you bastards get?
You blow Eddie down when he ain’t even heeled. Then you come and tell me you’re
Eddie at the door. For a minute you make me think the newscast was wrong or you
bastards
was
bluffing again. Can you get any lower
than that?”

 
          
“Not
much,” I said. “I thought you might answer the door with a gun.”

 
          
“I
got no gun.
I never carried a gun, nor Eddie neither.
You wouldn’t be walking around if Eddie was heeled last night.
Jumping for joy on his grave.”
The flat voice broke again.
“Maybe I’ll waltz on yours, copper.”

 
          
“Be
quiet for a minute. Listen to me.”

 
          
“Gladly, gladly.”
The voice recaptured its tinny quality.
“You’ll be doing all the talking from now on. You can lock me up and throw away
the key. You won’t get
nothing
out of me.”

 
          
“Douse
the
muggles
, Marcie. I want you to talk some sense.”

 
          
She
laughed and
blew
smoke in my face. I took the
half-burned cigarette from her fingers and ground it under my heel. The scarlet
claws reached for my face. I stepped back, and she lapsed onto the bed.

 
          
“You
must have been in on it, Marcie. You knew what Eddie was doing?”

 
          
“I
deny everything. He had a job driving a truck. He trucked beans from the
Imperial Valley.” She stood up suddenly and threw off her bathrobe. “Take me
down to headquarters and get it over. I’ll deny everything formal.”

 
          
“I
don’t belong to headquarters.”

 
          
When
she raised her arms to pull a dress over her head, her body drew itself up, the
breasts erect, the belly taut and white. The hair on her body was black.

 
          
“Like
it?” she said. She pulled the dress down with a vicious gesture and fumbled
with the buttons at the neck. Her streaked blond hair was down around her face.

 
          
“Sit
down,” I said. “We’re not going anywhere. I came here to tell you a thing.”

 
          
“Aren’t
you a copper?”

 
          
“You
repeat yourself like
Puddler
. Listen to me. I want
Sampson. I’m a private cop hired to find him. He’s all I want - do you
understand? If you can give him to me, I’ll keep you in the clear.”

 
          
“You’re
a dirty liar,” she said. “I wouldn’t trust a cop, private or any other kind.
Anyway, I don’t know where Sampson is.”

 
          
I
looked hard into her bird-brown eyes. They were shallow and meaningless. I
couldn’t tell from them if she was lying.

 
          
“You
don’t know where Sampson is -.”

 
          
“I
said I didn’t.”

 
          
“But
you know who does.”

 
          
She
sat down on the bed. “I don’t know a damn thing. I told you that.”

 
          
“Eddie
didn’t do it by himself. He must have had a partner.”

 
          
“He
did it by himself. If he didn’t - would you take me for a squealer? Do I go to
work for the cops after what they done to Eddie?”

 
          
I
sat down in the barrel chair and lit a cigarette. “I’ll tell you a funny thing.
I was there when Eddie was shot. There wasn’t a cop within two miles, unless
you count me.”

 
          
“You
killed him?” she said thinly.

 
          
“I
did not. He stopped on a side road to pass the money to another car. It was a
cream-colored convertible. It had a woman in it. She shot him. Where would that
woman be now?”

 
          
Her
eyes were glistening like wet brown pebbles. The red tip of her tongue moved
across her upper lip and shifted to her lower lip. “Ever since she was on the
white stuff,” she said to herself. “They
allus
hate
us vipers.”

 
          
“Are
you going to sit and take it, Marcie? Where is she?”

 
          
“I
don’t know who you’re talking about.”

 
          
“Betty
Fraley,” I said.

 
          
After
a long silence she repeated: “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

 
          
I
left her sitting on the bed and drove back to The Corner. I parked in the
parking lot and lowered the sun screen over the windshield. She knew my face
but not my car.

 
          
For
half an hour the road from White Beach was empty. Then a cloud of dust appeared
in the distance, towed by a green A-model sedan. Before the car turned south
toward Los Angeles I caught a glimpse of a highly painted face, a swirl of gray
fur, an aggressively tilted hat with a bright-blue feather. Clothes and
cosmetics and half an hour alone had done a lot for Marcie.

 
          
Two
or three other cars went by before I turned into the highway. The A-model’s top
speed was under fifty, and it was easy to keep in sight. Driving slow on a hot
day, down a highway I knew too well, the only trouble I had was staying awake.
I narrowed the distance between us as we approached Los Angeles and the traffic
increased.

 
          
The
A-model left the highway at Sunset Boulevard and went through Pacific Palisades
without a pause. It labored and trailed dark-blue oil smoke on the hills below
the Santa Monica Mountains. On the edge of Beverly Hills it left the boulevard
suddenly and disappeared.

 
          
I
followed it up a winding road lined on both sides with hedges. The A-model was
parked behind a laurel hedge in the entrance to a gravel drive. In the instant
of passing I saw Marcie crossing the lawn toward a deep brick porch screened
with oleanders. She seemed to be thrust forward and hustled along by a deadly
energy.