Ross Macdonald - Lew Archer 01 - The Moving Target(aka Harper)(1949) (26 page)

 
          
I
turned at the next drive and parked on the shoulder of the road, waiting for a
signal to break the suburban peace. The seconds piled up precariously like a
tower of poker chips.

 
          
I
had the car door open and one foot in the road when the Ford engine coughed. I
drew in my leg and crouched down behind the wheel. The Ford engine roared and
went into gear, then died away. A deeper sound took its place, and the black
Buick backed out of the drive. A man I didn’t know was at the wheel. The eyes
in his fleshy face were like raisins stuck in unbaked dough. Marcie was beside
him in the front seat. Gray
hearselike
curtains were
drawn over the rear windows.

 
          
At
the boulevard the Buick turned back toward the sea. I followed as closely as I
dared. Between Brentwood and Pacific Palisades it went off to the right, up a
climbing road that led into a canyon. I had the feeling that there wasn’t much
mileage left in the Sampson case. We were coming into a narrow place for the
end.

 
          
The
road was cut in the western wall of the canyon. Below its unfenced edge was a
tangle of underbrush. Above the road to my left a scattering of houses stood in
roughly cleared patches. The houses were new and raw-looking. The opposite
slope was scrub-oak-wilderness.

 
          
From
the top of a rise I caught a glimpse of the Buick climbing over the crest of
the next hill. I accelerated on the downhill grade, crossed a narrow stone
bridge that spanned a dry
barranca
, and climbed the
hill after it. It was moving slowly down the other side, like a heavy black
beetle feeling its way in unfamiliar territory. A rutted lane branched off to
the right. The beetle paused and followed it.

 
          
I
parked behind a tree, which half hid my car from below, and watched the Buick
diminish down the lane. When it was no larger than an actual beetle, it stopped
in front of a yellow matchbox house. A matchstick woman with a black head came
out of the house. Two men and two women got out of the car and surrounded her.
All five went into the house like a single insect body with many legs.

 
          
I
left my car and climbed down through the underbrush to the dry river bed at the
bottom of the canyon. It wound among boulders from which small lizards
scampered as I came near. The gnarled trees along the bank hid me from the
yellow house until I was directly behind it. It was an unpainted wooden shack
with its rear end resting on short field-stone columns.

 
          
Inside
it a woman screamed, very loudly, again and again. The screams raked at my
nerves, but I was grateful for them. They covered the noises I made climbing
the bank and crawling under the house. The screaming died away after a while. I
lay flat and listened to scrabbling movements on the floor above me.
The silence under the house seemed to be crouched and waiting for
another scream.
I smelled new pine, damp earth, my own sour sweat.

 
          
A
soft voice began to talk over my head. “You don’t quite understand the
circumstances. You seem to feel that our motive is pure sadism or simple
revenge. Certainly if we were inclined to harbor vengeful motives, we might
feel that your conduct had justified them.”

 
          
“Tie
a can to it, for Christ’s sake!” said Mrs.
Estabrook’s
voice. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

 
          
“I’ll
make my point if you don’t mind. My point is,
Betty, that
you’ve acted very badly. Without consulting me, you went into business for
yourself, a thing I seldom approve in my employees. To make matters worse, you
made an incautious choice of enterprise and failed in it. The police are
looking for you
now,
and for me and Fay and Luis as
well. Furthermore, you chose a valuable associate of mine as the victim of your
wretched little plot. And to cap the climax you showed yourself devoid, not
only of esprit de corps, but of sisterly affection. You shot and killed your
brother Eddie Lassiter.”

 
          
“We
know you swallowed the dictionary,” Fay Estabrook said. “Get on with it, Troy.”

 
          
“I
didn’t kill him.”
The whine of a hurt cat.

 
          
“You’re
a liar,” yapped Marcie.

 
          
Troy
raised his voice. “Be quiet, all of you. We’re going to let bygones be bygones,
Betty -.”

 
          
“I’m
going to kill her if you don’t,” Marcie said.

 
          
“Nonsense,
Marcie. You’ll do exactly as I say. We have a chance to recoup, and we won’t
allow our more primitive passions to destroy it. Which brings us to the
occasion of this pleasant little party, doesn’t it, Betty? I don’t know where
the money is, but of course I am going to. And when I do, you’ll have bought
your absolution, so to speak.”

 
          
“She
ain’t fit to live,” Marcie said. “I swear I’ll kill her if you don’t.”

 
          
Fay
laughed contemptuously. “You haven’t got the guts,
dearie
.
You wouldn’t have called us in if you had the guts to tackle her yourself.”

 
          
“Hold
your tongue, both of you.” Troy lowered his voice to a gentle monotone again.
“You know I can handle Marcie, don’t you, Betty? I think you know by now I can
handle even you. You might just as well come clean, I think. Otherwise you’ll
suffer rather terribly. You may never walk
again,
in
fact, I think I can promise you that you never shall.”

 
          
“I’m
not talking,” she said.

 
          
“But
if you decide to co-operate,” Troy went on smoothly, “to put the welfare of the
group ahead of your selfish interest, I’m sure the group will be glad to help
you in turn. We’ll take you out of the country tonight, in fact. You know that
Luis and I can do that for you.”

 
          
“You
wouldn’t do it,” she said. “I know you, Troy.”

 
          
“More intimately by the moment, dear.
Take off her other
shoe, Luis.”

 
          
Her
body squirmed on the floor. I could hear its breathing. A dropped shoe rapped
the floorboards. I calculated my chances of ending it there. But there were
four of them, too many for one gun. And Betty Fraley had to come out alive.

 
          
Troy
said: “Well test the plantar reflex, I think it’s called.”

 
          
“I
don’t like this,” Fay said.

 
          
“Neither
do
I, my dear. I quite abhor it. But Betty is being
most dreadfully obdurate.”

 
          
A
moment of silence stretched out like membrane on the point of tearing. The
screaming began again. When it ended I found that I had closed my teeth in the
earth.

 
          
“Your
plantar reaction is very fine,” Troy said. “It’s a pity that your tongue
doesn’t work so well.”

 
          
“Will
you let me go if I give it to you?”

 
          
“You
have my word.”

 
          
“Your word!”
She sighed horribly.

 
          
“I
do wish you’d take it, Betty. I don’t enjoy hurting you, and you can’t possibly
enjoy being hurt.”

 
          
“Let
me up, then. Let me sit up.”

 
          
“Of course, my dear.”

 
          
“It’s
in a locker in the bus station in
Buenavista
. The key
is in my bag.”

 
          
As
soon as I was out of sight of the house I began to run. When I reached my car
the Buick was still standing at the end of the lane below me. I backed down the
hill to the stone bridge and halfway up the grade on the other side. I waited
for the Buick with one foot on the clutch and the other on the brake.

 
          
After
a long while I heard its motor whining up the other side of the hill. I went
into gear and moved ahead in low. Its chromium flashed in the sun at the top of
the hill. I held the middle of the road and met it on the bridge. Brakes
screeched above the bellow of the horn. The big car came to a stop five feet
from my bumper. I was out of my seat before it stopped rolling.

 
          
The
man called Luis glared at me over the wheel, his fat face twisted and shiny
with anger. I opened the door on his side and showed him my gun. Beside him Fay
Estabrook cried out in fury.

 
          
“Out!”
I said.

 
          
Luis
put one foot down and reached for me. I moved back. “Be careful.
Hands on your head.”

 
          
He
raised his hands and stepped into the road. An emerald ring flashed green on
one of his fingers. His wide hips swayed under his cream gabardine suit. “You
too, Fay.
This side.”
She came out, teetering on her
high heels. “Now turn around.”

 
          
They
rotated cautiously, watching me over their shoulders. I clubbed the gun and
swung it to the base of Luis’s skull. He went down on his knees and collapsed
softly on his face. Fay cowered away with her arms protecting her head. Her hat
slipped forward dowdily over one eye. On the road her long shadow mocked her
movements. “Put him in the back seat,” I said.

 
          
“You
dirty little sneak!” she said. Then she said other things. The rouge stood out
on her cheekbones.
“Hurry.”

 
          
“I
can’t lift him.”

 
          
“You
have to.” I took a step toward her. She stooped awkwardly over the fallen man.
He was inert, and heavy. With her hands in his armpits she raised the upper
part of his body and dragged him to the car. I opened the door, and together we
slung him into the back seat.

 
          
She
stood up gasping for breath, the colors running in her face. The rustic
stillness of the sun-filled canyon made a queer setting for what we were doing.
I could see the two of us as if from a height, tiny foreshortened figures alone
in the sun, with blood and money on our minds.

 
          
“Now
give me the key.”

 
          
“The key?”
She overdid her puzzled frown, making her face a
caricature. “What key?”

 
          
“The key to the locker, Fay.
Hurry.”

 
          
“I
haven’t got any key.” But her gaze had flickered almost imperceptibly toward
the front seat of the Buick.

 
          
There
was a black suede purse on the seat. The key was in it. I transferred it to my
wallet.

 
          
“Get
in,” I said.
“No, on the driver’s side.
You’re going
to do the driving.”

 
          
She
did as I said, and I got in behind her. Luis was slumped in the far corner of
the back seat. His eyes were partly open, but the pupils were turned up out of
sight His face looked more than ever like dough.

 
          
“I
can’t get past your car,” Fay said petulantly.

 
          
“You’re
backing up the hill.”

 
          
She
went into reverse gear with a jerk.

 
          
“Not
so fast,” I said. “If we have an accident you won’t survive it.”

 
          
She
cursed me, but she also slowed down. She backed cautiously up the hill and down
the other side. At the entrance to the lane I told her to turn and drive down
to the cottage.