The Moving Target

by Ross Macdonald

  “I said button your lip.”

  “How many jails you seen the inside of, dim brain?”

  “Fa Christ sake!” he yelled. “I warned you.” He slouched toward me.

  “It takes a lot of guts,” I said, “to threaten a man when his hands are tied behind him.”

  His open hand stung my face.

  “The trouble with you is you’re yellow,” I said. “Just like Marcie said. You’re even afraid of Marcie, aren’t you, Puddler?”

  He stood there blinking, overshadowing me. “I kill you, hear, you talk like that to me. I kill you, hear.” The words came out disjointed, moving too fast for his laboring mouth. A bubble of saliva formed at one corner.

  “But Mr. Troy wouldn’t like that. He told you to keep me safe, remember? There’s nothing you can do to me, Puddler.”

  “Beat your ears off,” he said. “I beat your ears off.”

  “Not if my hands were free, you poor palooka.”

  “Who you calling palooka?” He drew back his hand again.

  “You fifth-rate bum,” I said. “You has-been. Down-and-outer. Hit a man when he’s tied—it’s all you’re good for.”

  He didn’t hit me. He took a clasp knife out of his pocket and opened it. His little eyes were red and shining. His whole mouth was wet with saliva now.

  “Stand up,” he said. “I show you who’s a bum.”

  I turned my back to him. He cut the ropes on my wrists and snapped the knife shut. Then he whirled me toward him and met me with a quick right cross that took away the feeling from my face. I knew I was no match for him. I kicked him in the stomach, and he went to the other side of the room.

  While he was coming back I picked up the file from the bench. Its point was blunt, but it would do. I clinched with him. Holding the file near the point in my right hand, I cut him across the forehead with it from temple to temple. He backed away from me. “You cut me,” he said incredulously.

  “Pretty soon you won’t be able to see, Puddler.” A Finnish sailor on the San Pedro docks had taught me how Baltic knife-fighters blind their opponents.

  “I kill you yet.” He came at me like a bull.

  I went to the floor and came up under him, jabbing with the file where it would hurt him. He bellowed and went down. I made for the door. He came after me and caught me in the opening. We staggered the width of the pier and fell into space. I took a quick breath before we struck. We went down together. Puddler fought me violently, but his blows were cushioned by the water. I hooked my fingers in his belt and held on.

  He threshed and kicked like a terrified animal. I saw his air come out, the silver bubbles rising through the black water to the surface. I held on to him. My lungs were straining for air, my chest was collapsing. The contents of my head were slowing and thickening. And Puddler wasn’t struggling any more.

  I had to let go of him to reach the surface in time. One deep breath, and I went down after him. My clothes hampered me, and the shoes were heavy on my feet. I went down through strata of increasing cold until my ears were aching with the pressure of the water. Puddler was out of reach and out of sight. I tried six times before I gave him up. The key to my car was in his trousers pocket.

  When I swam to shore my legs wouldn’t hold me up. I had to crawl out of reach of the surf. It was partly physical exhaustion and partly fear. I was afraid of what was behind me in the cold water.

  I lay in the sand until my heartbeat slowed. When I got to my feet the derricks on the horizon were sharply outlined against a lightening sky. I climbed the bank to the shelter where my car was and turned on the lights.

  There was a piece of copper wire attached to one of the poles that held the tarpaulin. I pulled it loose and wired my ignition terminals under the dash. The engine started on the first try.

  chapter 23 The sun was over the mountains when I reached Santa Teresa. It put an edge on everything, each leaf and stone and blade of grass. From the canyon road the Sampson house looked like a toy villa built of sugar cubes. Closer up I could feel its massive silence, which dominated the place when I stopped the car. I had to unwire the ignition to cut the motor.

  Felix came to the service entrance when I knocked. “Mr. Archer?”

  “Is there any doubt about it?”

  “You were in an accident, Mr. Archer?”

  “Apparently. Is my bag still in the storeroom?” I had fresh clothes in it, and a duplicate set of car keys.

  “Yes, sir. There are contusions on your face, Mr. Archer. Should I call a doctor?”

  “Don’t bother. I could do with a shower, though, if there’s one handy.”

  “Yes, sir. I have a shower over the garage.”

  He led me to his quarters and brought my bag. I showered and shaved in the dinky bathroom, and changed my sea-sodden clothes. It was all I could do not to stretch out on the unmade bed in his neat little cell of a room and let the case go hang.

  When I returned to the kitchen he was setting a tray with a silver breakfast set. “Do you want something to eat, sir?”

  “Bacon and eggs, if possible.”

  He bobbed his round head. “So soon as I have finished with this, sir.”

  “Who’s the tray for?”

  “Miss Sampson, sir.”

  “So early?”

  “She will breakfast in her room.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “I do not know, sir. She had a very little sleep. It was past midnight when she came home.”

  “From where?”

  “I do not know, sir. She left at the same time as you and Mr. Graves.”

  “Driving herself?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What car?”

  “The Packard convertible.”

  “Let’s see, that’s the cream one, isn’t it?”

  “No, sir. It is red. Bright scarlet. She drove over two hundred miles in the time she was gone.”

  “You keep a pretty close watch on the family, don’t you, Felix?”

  He smiled blandly. “It is one of my duties to check the cars for gas and oil, sir, since we have no regular chauffeur.”

  “But you don’t like Miss Sampson very well?”

  “I am devoted to her, sir.” His opaque black eyes were their own mask.

  “Do they give you a rough time, Felix?”

  “No, sir. But my family is well known on Samar. I have come to the United States to attend the California Polytechnic College when I am able to do this. I resent Mr. Graves’s assumption that I am suspect because of the color of my skin. The gardeners also resent it for themselves.”

  “You’re talking about last night?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t think he meant it that way.”

  Felix smiled blandly.

  “Is Mr. Graves here now?”

  “No, sir. He is at the sheriff’s office, I think. If you will excuse me, sir?” He hoisted the tray to his shoulder.

  “You know the number? And do you have to say ‘sir’ every second word?”

  “No, sir,” he said with mild irony. “23665.”

  I dialed the number from the butler’s pantry and asked for Graves. A sleepy deputy called him.

  “Graves speaking.” His voice was hoarse and tired.

  “This is Archer.”

  “Where in God’s name have you been?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Any trace of Sampson?”

  “Not yet, but we’ve made some progress. I’m working with a major case squad from the F.B.I. We wired the classification of the dead man’s prints to Washington, and we got an answer about an hour ago. He’s in the F.B.I. files with a long record. Name’s Eddie Lassiter.”

  “I’ll be over as soon as I eat. I’m at the Sampson place.”

  “Perhaps you’d better not.” He lowered his voice. “The sheriff’s peeved at you for running out last night. I’ll come there.” He hung up, and I opened the door to the kitchen.

  Bacon, was making cheerful noises in a pan. Fe
lix transferred it to a warming-dish, inserted bread in the toaster beside the stove, broke the eggs in the hot grease, poured me a cup of coffee from a steaming Silex maker.

  I sat down at the kitchen table and gulped the scalding coffee. “Are all the phones in the house on the same line?”

  “No, sir. The phones in the front of the house are on a different line from the servants’ phones. Do you wish your eggs turned over, Mr. Archer?”

  “I’ll take them the way they are. Which ones are connected with the phone in the pantry?”

  “The one in the linen closet and the one in the guest cottage above the house. Mr. Taggert’s cottage.”

  Between mouthfuls I asked him: “Is Mr. Taggert there now?”

  “I do not know, sir. I think I heard him drive in during the night.”

  “Go and make sure, will you?”

  “Yes, sir.” He left the kitchen by the back door.

  A car drove up a minute later, and Graves came in. He had lost some of his momentum, but he still moved quickly. His eyes were red-rimmed.

  “You look like hell, Lew.”

  “I just came from there. Did you bring the dope on Lassiter?”

  “Yeah.”

  He took a teletype flimsy out of his inside pocket and handed it to me. My eye skipped down the closely printed sheet.

  Brought before Children’s Court, New York, March 29, 1923, father’s complaint, truancy. Committed to New York Catholic Protectory, April 4, 1923. Released August 5, 1925.… Brooklyn Special Sessions Court, January 9, 1928, charged with bicycle theft. Received suspended sentence and placed on probation. Discharged from probation November 12, 1929.… Arrested May 17, 1932, and charged with possession of a stolen money order. Case dismissed for lack of evidence on recommendation U. S. Attorney.… Arrested for car theft October 5, 1936, sentenced to 3 years in Sing Sing.… Arrested with sister Betty Lassiter by agents of the U. S. Narcotics Bureau, April 23, 1943. Convicted of selling one ounce of cocaine, May 2, 1943, sentenced to year and a day in Leavenworth.… Arrested August 3, 1944, for participating in holdup of General Electric payroll truck. Pleaded guilty, sentenced to 5 to 10 years in Sing Sing. Released on parole September 18, 1947. Broke parole and disappeared, December 1947.

  Those were the high points in Eddie’s record, the dots in the dotted line that marked his course from a delinquent childhood to a violent death. Now it was just as if he had never been born.

  Felix said at my shoulder: “Mr. Taggert is in his cottage, sir.”

  “Is he up?”

  “Yes, he is dressing.”

  “How about some breakfast?” Graves said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Graves turned to me. “Is there anything useful in it?” “Just one thing, and it isn’t nailed down. Lassiter had a sister named Betty who was arrested with him on a narcotics charge. There’s a woman named Betty in Los Angeles with narcotics in her record, a pianist in Troy’s clipjoint. She calls herself Betty Fraley.”

  “Betty Fraley!” Felix said from the stove.

  “This doesn’t concern you,” Graves told him unpleasantly.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “What about Betty Fraley, Felix? Do you know her?”

  “I do not know her, no, but I have seen her records, in Mr. Taggert’s cottage. I have noticed the name when I dusted there.”

  “Are you telling the truth?” Graves said.

  “Why should I lie, sir?”

  “We’ll see what Taggert has to say about that.” Graves got to his feet.

  “Wait a minute, Bert.” I put my hand on his arm, which was hard with tension. “Bulldozing won’t get us anywhere. Even if Taggert has the woman’s records, it doesn’t have to mean anything. We’re not even certain she’s Lassiter’s sister. And maybe he’s a collector.”

  “He has quite a large collection,” Felix said.

  Graves was stubborn. “I think we should take a look at it.”

  “Not now. Taggert may be as guilty as hell, but we won’t get Sampson back by being blunt about it. Wait until Taggert isn’t there. Then I’ll look over his records.”

  Graves let me pull him back into his seat. He stroked his closed eyelids with his fingertips. “This case is the wildest mess I’ve ever seen or heard of,” he said.

  “It is.” Graves only knew the half of it. “Is the general alarm out for Sampson?”

  He opened his eyes. “Since ten o’clock last night. We’ve alerted the highway patrol and the F.B.I., and every police department and county sheriff between here and San Diego.”

  “You’d better get on the phone,” I said, “and put out another state-wide alarm. This time for Betty Fraley. Take in the whole Southwest.”

  He smiled ironically, with his heavy jaw thrust out. “Doesn’t that fall under the category of bluntness?”

  “In this case I think it’s necessary. If we don’t get to Betty fast there’ll be somebody there ahead of us. Dwight Troy is gunning for her.”

  He gave me a curious look. “Where do you get your information, Lew?”

  “I got that the hard way. I talked to Troy himself last night.”

  “He is mixed up in this, then?”

  “He is now. I think he wants the hundred grand for himself, and I think he knows who has it.”

  “Betty Fraley?” He took a notebook out of his pocket.

  “That’s my guess. Black hair, green eyes, regular features, five foot two or three, between twentyfive and thirty, probable cocaine addict, thin but well stacked, and pretty if you like to play with reptiles. Wanted on suspicion of the murder of Eddie Lassiter.”

  He glanced up sharply from his writing. “Is that another guess, Lew?”

  “Call it that. Will you put it on the wires?”

  “Right away.” He started across the room to the butler’s pantry.

  “Not that phone, Bert. It’s connected with the one in Taggert’s cottage.”

  He stopped and turned to me with a shadow of grief on his face. “You seem pretty sure that Taggert’s our man.”

  “Would it break your heart if he was?”

  “Not mine,” he said, and turned away. “I’ll use the phone in the study.”

  chapter 24 I waited in the hall at the front of the house until Felix came to tell me that Taggert was eating breakfast in the kitchen. He led me around the back of the garages, up a path that became a series of low stone steps climbing the side of the hill. When we came within sight of the guest cottage, he left me.

  It was a one-story white frame house perched among trees with its back to the hillside. I opened the unlocked door and went in. The living-room was paneled in yellow pine and furnished with easy chairs, a radio-phonograph, a large refectory table covered with magazines and piles of records. The view through the big western window took in the whole estate and the sea to the horizon.

  The magazines on the table were Jazz Record and Downbeat I went through the records and albums one by one, Decca and Bluebird and Asch, twelve-inch Commodores and Blue Notes. There were many names I had heard of: Fats Waller, Red Nichols, Lux Lewis, Mary Lou Williams—and titles I never had heard of: Numb Fumblin’ and Viper’s Drag, Night Life, Denapas Parade. But no Betty Fraley.

  I was at the door on my way to talk to Felix when I remembered the black disks skipping out to sea the day before. A few minutes after I saw them, Taggert had come through the house in bathing trunks.

  Avoiding the house, I headed for the shore. From the glassed-in pergola on the edge of the bluff a long flight of concrete steps descended the cliff diagonally to the beach. There was a bath house with a screened veranda at the foot of the steps, and I went in. I found a rubber-and-plate-glass diving mask hanging on a nail in one of the bathhouse cubicles. I stripped to my shorts and adjusted the mask to my head.

  A fresh offshore breeze was driving in the waves and blowing off their crests in spray before they broke. The morning sun was hot on my back, the dry sand warm against the soles of my feet. I stood for a minute in the zone of
wet brown sand just above the reach of the waves and looked at them. The waves were blue and sparkling, curved as gracefully as women, but I was afraid of them. The sea was cold and dangerous. It held dead men.

  I waded in slowly, pulled the mask down over my face, and pushed off. About fifty yards from shore, beyond the surf, I turned on my back and breathed deeply through my mouth. The rise and fall of the swells, and the extra oxygen, made me a little dizzy. Through the misted glass the blue sky seemed to be spinning over my head. I ducked under water to clear the glass, surface-dived, and breast-stroked to the bottom.

  It was pure white sand broken by long brown ribs of stone. The sand was roiled a little by the movement of the water, but not enough to spoil the visibility. I zigzagged forty or fifty feet along the bottom and found nothing but a couple of undersized abalones clinging to a rock. I kicked off and went to the surface for air.

  When I raised the mask I saw that a man was watching me from the cliff. He ducked down behind the wild-cherry windbreak by the pergola, but not before I had recognized Taggert. I took several deep breaths and dived again. When I came up, Taggert had disappeared.

  On the third dive I found what I was looking for, an unbroken black disk half buried in the sand of the bottom. Holding the record against my chest, I turned on my back and kicked myself to shore. I took it into the shower and washed and dried it with tender care, like a mother with an infant.

  Taggert was on the veranda when I came out of the dressing-rooms. He was sitting in a canvas chair with his back to the screen door. In flannel slacks and a white T-shirt, he looked very young and brown. The black hair on his small head was carefully brushed.

  He gave me a boyish grin that didn’t touch his eyes. “Hello there, Archer. Have a nice swim?”

  “Not bad. The water’s a little cold.”

  “You should have used the pool. It’s always warmer.”

  “I prefer the ocean. You never know what you’re going to find. I found this.”

  He looked at the record in my hands as if he was noticing it for the first time. “What is it?”

  “A record. Somebody seems to have scraped the labels off and thrown it in the sea. I wonder why.”

  He took a step toward me, long and noiseless on the grass rug. “Let me see.”