Moving Targets

by William J. Reynolds

  It was nothing unusual, as houses go. Front door; side door into the garage; sliding-glass doors from the walk-out basement to, probably, a patio now buried under eighteen inches of snow; a similar arrangement above it, with the doors opening onto a redwood deck.

  Welcome to middle-class middle America, I thought glumly. If only I had become a pusher like Mom wanted …

  The only item of interest was a small gold-foil decal pasted to the permanent window on the aluminum outer door in front. The decal was in the shape of a shield, over which were printed the words: this home protected by AMERICAN STANDARD SECURITY SYSTEMS. I smiled to myself in the darkness. There was no such animal, at least not in these parts. The sticker was a phony. They’re supposed to scare away burglars. I imagine they do have some utility: The sight of one may paralyze a professional with laughter and render him helpless until the cops arrive. Beyond that, all they really do is let the cognoscenti know that the place is not wired.

  It was quickly obvious that the basement doors were my best bet, because they were located away from the sleeping and living quarters of the house and because sliding doors typically offer little challenge. These were no exception. They were standard-issue aluminum-frame Webster doors. On the right, as you stood in the yard, was an outer screen door, which had no lock, and an inner double-pane glass door, which did. The doors slid to the left, sandwiching the stationary panes on that side. I slowly slid the screen out of the way and threw my flashlight beam on the glass door’s lock.

  No surprises there, either. Recessed in the door frame, I knew, was a steel hook. When you pushed up a latch set in the frame on the inside, the hook caught a notch in a nub of steel set in the outermost frame, which was bolted to the wall right and left, floor and ceiling. On my side of the door there was no latch, only a tiny depression about the size and depth of a dime, with a small keyhole in the center of it. When you turned the key the hook would unhook and the latch would unlatch and the lock would unlock. I had no key, of course, but a great thinker like me doesn’t allow himself to get hung up on petty details.

  I put out the light and stuck it in my back pants pocket, while from the parka I pulled my impromptu do-it-yourself burglarly kit: a handful of tools and a roll of duct tape from the ever-growing emergency-repair box in the trunk of my old Chevy. With the care of a surgeon contemplating the first incision, I selected a plastic-handled screwdriver with a long and narrow blade. The rest of the equipment went back into my pockets, which bulged like Captain Kangaroo’s.

  I bent over and inspected the keyhole again, as if it were going to change. It didn’t, but that was okay. I’m not much of a locksmith, but this wasn’t much of a lock.

  The blade of the screwdriver angled easily enough into the top part of the lazy S shape of the keyhole. I gave it a little twist to the right, slowly and gently at first, then more persistently, until the curve had flattened out enough to allow me to push the blade in farther until it met resistance about an eighth of an inch later. I pushed. Nothing. I pushed harder. More nothing. I braced my feet, grabbed the handle of the screwdriver with both hands, and leaned against it with all my weight while wiggling it slightly. Suddenly there was a sharp metallic snap and I stumbled forward as the lock mechanism gave, catching myself before I thumped into the glass.

  It was to catburglary what rape is to romance, but it produced the desired result. I gripped the handle of the screwdriver with the pliers and, again using both hands, turned the blade slowly in the ruined lock. There was another, much duller sound from within the frame; when I tried the door, it slid back easily in its floor track.

  I stepped through and closed the door after me, returned the tools to my pockets, and filled my hands with the flashlight and my revolver.

  Apparently I was in some kind of large, long rec room. A Ping-Pong table—no, a pool table, I decided—stood immediately before me perhaps three feet. Beyond that I could make out the vacant, greenish stare of a television screen. As my eyes adjusted further to the darkness I could pick out the dark outlines of furniture, crouched in the gloom like big jungle animals, and an open stairwell at the far end of the room. I moved toward it slowly, gingerly, and risked a quick flash of the beam. The stairs were carpeted, which was a break.

  The stairway door opened into a roomy eat-in kitchen partially walled off from the dining area, which in turn was not partitioned from the living room beyond it. The redwood deck was off the dining room; cold, pale light stabbed through a gap in the drapery over the sliding doors.

  I started across the linoleum, then froze at the sound of footsteps upstairs. I heard running water, as the novelists so delicately put it, and the creak and tick and hiss of the house’s plumbing. I relaxed marginally, then tensed again as I heard the footsteps on the front stairs, coming down into the living room.

  If Kirby was staying here alone, then Sleepless here would be the great man himself. I wouldn’t even have to coax him out of the arms of Morpheus with my .38. If, on the other hand, he had a baby-sitter or two on the premises … Well, I’d known that was a likelihood, one that I’d have to deal with.

  I ducked behind the chairs of a large round table in a corner of the kitchen and held my breath while the footsteps continued down the stairs, through the living room, and into the dining room. He—I didn’t know who; all I could see was a silhouette—quickly crossed the carpeted dining area to a large china cabinet against the far wall. Sleepless went up on tiptoes reaching for a squat, long, deep box atop it. I squinted through the posts of a chair back. He appeared to reach around the back of the box and grope for something, but when he turned away from the wall a second later, I was certain his hands were empty.

  Ultrasonic alarm, I thought sickly. The place wasn’t wired, but the box threw an invisible “net” across the room. A net that I had been but a fraction of a minute from wandering into. Thirty or sixty seconds later—thirty, judging by Sleepless’s fleetness of foot—and it would have been goodbye eardrums, hello trouble.

  A little shaken, I returned my attention to my unknowing savior. He had padded into the kitchen on stockinged feet and now yanked open the refrigerator door. I blinked against the sudden brightness as he tried to make a selection. He was one of the T-bird boys, all right, the bigger of the two, the one who had relieved me of Kirby’s gun that afternoon. He was fully dressed—slacks and dress shirt—and the glossy tan leather of his shoulder holster glinted softly in the refrigerator light. The man was on duty, obviously; his twin was either upstairs sleeping or would be reporting for duty later. Either way, it was probably a good tactical move to get Sleepless out of the way now. Besides, what choice did I have?

  I started to come out from around the table, the idea being that I’d slide up silently like the fog rolling in and get the drop on the guy while he had his head in the fridge. However, he made up his mind too quickly and turned away from the icebox with a couple of plastic containers that he deposited on the edge of the table. I became as motionless as the chairs I still half-hid behind. Sleepless didn’t notice me in the darkness. He turned back to the icebox, grabbed a paper milk carton, and kneed shut the door. Then he flipped a wall switch and a fluorescent tube over the sink kicked into life.

  I dived between two chairs and under the table.

  Sleepless hunted through cupboards until he located a glass, through drawers until he found a fork. He filled the glass, left the carton on the counter, and came over to the table with the milk in one hand and the fork in another. He hooked a foot around a chair leg and slid it away from the table.

  I came out with the chair, the bore of my gun three inches from his groin. Sleepless gasped and jumped—a splash of milk dampened my sleeve—then froze.

  “Gently, gently,” I murmured. “Slowly and quietly.” I smiled up at him. “Or you become Sam Spayed.” I chuckled silently, deep in my throat. Good one, boy; who cares if the gender’s wrong?

  The rest was fairly simple: I disencumbered him a bit and tucked his automatic into my w
aistband, the parka’s one undamaged pocket being stuffed to the breaking point. I signaled for him to set the glass and fork on the counter and secured his wrists with the duct tape I hadn’t needed for the break-in. Finally I sliced off a long strip and wrapped it around his head, covering his mouth.

  “Do not open till Xmas,” I breathed, prodding him into the chair he’d selected for himself. When he was seated I leaned in close. “Kirby’s upstairs?”

  He nodded, after a brief hesitation.

  “Anyone else?”

  He wagged his head. No hesitation whatsoever.

  I took my left thumb and forefinger and pinched his nostrils. After a few seconds Sleepless started spluttering, and since I didn’t want him waking up the whole house, I let go.

  “Positive?”

  He nodded vigorously.

  I taped his ankles to the front legs of the chair, put out the sink light, and slipped into the dining area, where I reset the alarm. Then I hotfooted it through the living room and up the front stairs.

  The stairs doubled back on themselves at a wide landing, then climbed on up to a short and narrow hallway. I made out four doors—three bedrooms and a bath, I guessed. The first door I came to was slightly ajar, and a soft yellow light spilled out through the gap. I inched open the door. The room was empty. A tiny lamp on a nightstand produced the amber glare; the spread on the twin bed was rumpled and two pillows were propped against the headboard. An open magazine lay on the bed. A folded blanket was draped over the room’s only window. This, then, had been the command post—until the hum of the refrigerator had had to be answered.

  I swung closed the door and edged down the hallway. The bathroom and the other bedroom were empty, black. That left me the master bedroom.

  This door was closed but not completely. I pushed at it with the fingertips of my left hand and it gave easily. The room was dark and in the darkness someone breathed deeply, the slight trace of a snore on the intake. I moved toward the sound while working the flashlight from my back pocket. Flashlights, guns, screwdrivers, pliers, tape, Boy Scout knife—I was not traveling light this evening. I got the thing out and scanned it across Kirby’s sleeping form, fast, too fast to disturb the beautiful dreamer but not so fast that it failed to show the black automatic on the table at bedside. I put away the light and picked up the gun—one more for the collection—and, for want of anyplace to put it, kept it in my left hand. Two-Gun Kid.

  I stepped back a pace and hit the wall switch with an elbow. The glass bowl in the ceiling sparked and lit the room and I said loudly, “Rise and shine, Francis,” and Kirby made a loud noise and jumped as if his bed were on fire and made a grab for the little gun that wasn’t there.

  He sat bolt upright, chest heaving, mouth gaping, eyes bulging, forehead glistening—very dramatic. I smiled. “Good day, sunshine; can I get you a cup of hemlock?” It sounded like something Simon Templar would say, which is why I said it.

  “You again,” he managed eventually.

  “Still.”

  “Jesus Christ, what’re you trying to do to me? Gimme a heart attack?” He rubbed his flabby chest even as the light of understanding began to flicker dimly in his brain. “Hey, wait a minute—how’d you get in here—how’d you get past Novitt?”

  “I have the ability to cloud men’s minds so they cannot see me. You know, like the Shadow. Now if only I could get it to work on women …”

  “Aw, come on, Nebraska, I already told you everything I know …” He started to get out of bed and I leveled my six-shooters at him.

  “Just stay comfortable, friend, and so will I. I don’t figure you for a great repository of knowledge, Frank, but I doubt you’ve told me everything you know. Like, for instance, you omitted the little fact that the Greater Omaha Vending and Amusements Corporation is actually little more than a front for your real trade in controlled substances. And you forgot to tell me that the local Knights of the Black Hand are real interested in that business, and may be looking to buy you out. Though not with money. And somehow you neglected to mention that you not only knew Walt Jennings, but that he’d been your bag man; and not only had he been your bag man, you were hiding him from the cops, who were and are sort of interested in talking to him about the murder of Jack Castelar—your full-service banker. Very forgetful there, Frank; you’ve got to start taking that lecithin.”

  I leaned against a tall dresser near the door. There are a few occasions in every detective story where the square-jawed, even-toothed, clear-eyed hero gets to stand around appreciating the music of his own voice. This was one of them. And as long as I had a captive audience—albeit a decidedly twitchy one, in Kirby’s case—I was going to enjoy it.

  “So,” I said expansively, “I asked myself, in very much these words: What in hell is going on around here? And I think I’ve got a line on it, Frank, though maybe you can help out by filling in one or two minor gaps.”

  I frowned in rumination. “Our story begins,” I declaimed, “with the murder of a reasonably prominent small banker, Jack Castelar. Everyone is quick to suspect a penny-ante hustler, one Walt Jennings, who is known to have hated Castelar and who is among the missing, his whereabouts unaccounted for at the time in question. So far, we’re on solid ground.

  “It’s soon discovered that the banker’s daughter, Kate, has vanished, too—we know not when, we know not where, we know not why. Once again, everyone blames Jennings, and once again that’s not unreasonable. He and Kate were lovers; Kate was through with him, but these things are not always reciprocal. Maybe he thought he could change her mind if he took her on the lam with him; maybe she was just insurance.

  “That’s the synopsis. Oh, sure, a lot of other stuff clouds up the picture, stuff that may or may not have anything to do with the main event—and you know, Frank, that’s a big problem with mystery stories. Too many of ’em assume that nothing happens that doesn’t have some bearing to some extent on The Case—and that just ain’t so. Life goes on, the world keeps on a-turning, and things happen. Separating the pertinent from the impertinent, that’s the tricky part.”

  I paused, for effect. “I had a problem for a while with you in that regard,” I resumed slowly while Kirby gulped and swallowed and swabbed his moist forehead with his pajama sleeve for perhaps the ninety-ninth time. “I was quite sure you hadn’t just fallen off the turnip truck—I guessed that at the very least your vending-machine business wasn’t completely on the up-and-up—but as far as involvement in the Castelar thing …” I shrugged. “I had a lot of doubt, and what could I do but give you the benefit of it?”

  “Now hold on—” Kirby squawked.

  “Shut up,” I barked. “This is the monologue. When we get to audience-participation time I’ll let you know.”

  He closed his mouth with an audible click and sat back heavily against the headboard.

  “Thank you. Now where was I? Oh yeah, benefit of the doubt. That pretty much expired this evening, during a little midnight special with none other than the elusive Mr. Jennings himself.”

  “Hey, I don’t know what that son of a bitch tol—”

  “The only items of interest to you that that son of a bitch told me are, number one, that he had nothing to do with either murder or the disappearance—a claim I tend to believe because there’s no good reason for him to risk coming above ground to lie to me, especially when it’s the lie you’d expect him to tell—and, number two, that you, Frank Kirby, are the biggest independent drug supplier in the state, you modest son of a gun, you.

  “So that leaves us with a double-murderer-slash-kidnaper still at large, and no neat hospital corners at the edges of the case. You can come up with people who may have wanted to kill Castelar—relatives who’ll benefit from his death, other foreclosure victims, business rivals, all kinds of stuff that the cops are checking into—but why would any of them have kidnaped Kate? And if they had some unknown reason for killing the father and kidnaping the daughter, why kill Christina? What did she have to do with anyth
ing? See, the connections are incomplete; once you eliminate Jennings, none of the rest of the dramatis personae seems to meet the prerequisite, that link to all three of the victims.” All four, I corrected myself silently, if you include Amy.

  “Except, perhaps, you.”

  He looked at me, but that was about it.

  I let my eyes travel the room. It was smallish, but warm and comfortable. On the tall dresser I leaned against was a collection of framed photographs. The largest was a portrait of Kirby and a striking white-haired woman I took to be the late Mrs. K. Near it was the same woman, but with dark hair, and a small girl. Beyond it, the same girl, years later, in high-school cap and gown. One man’s family. You don’t think of guys like Kirby living in middle-class neighborhoods, cooking burgers on the grill, going to father-daughter breakfasts at the local junior high. You think of them as chiselers and cheats, pushers and murderers and kidnapers—all-around fiends, twenty-four hours a day. But we all have our various hats, our masks, our personas. Office buildings are loaded with guys who must be quick about stabbing their colleagues in the back because they’re late for choir practice down at the church.

  I turned away from the pictures. “When I found out about your pharmaceutical sideline, I got to thinking that it would bring a lot of cash rolling in, and in that regard the vending-machine angle was inspired, because it means a heavy cash flow, too, a legitimate one. If a guy was to salt the clean money with a little of the dirty, cook the books slightly, and live fairly modestly—well, who’d be any the wiser?

  “But that works only as long as the sideline stays small and the front stays big. If the amount of dirty money begins to far exceed the amount of clean, then you have a problem. Because the IRS, the Organized Crime Unit, the district attorney—all kinds of people, really—are going to start wondering. Meanwhile it’s only getting harder and harder to handle the money that’s coming in hand over fist. The stuff just keeps piling up. And it’s all dirty. Sooner or later, you’ve got to get it laundered.”