The Moving Target

by Ross Macdonald

  “Don’t touch it. You might break it.”

  “I won’t break it.”

  He reached for it. I jerked it out of his reach. His hand grasped air.

  “Stand back,” I said.

  “Give it to me, Archer.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I’ll take it away from you.”

  “Don’t do that,” I said. “I think I can break you in two.”

  He stood and looked at me for ten long seconds. Then he turned on the grin again. The boyish charm was very slow in coming. “I was just kidding, man. But I’d still like to know what’s on the bloody thing.”

  “So would I.”

  “Let’s play it then. There’s a portable player here.” He moved around me to the table in the center of the veranda and opened a square fiber box.

  “I’ll play it,” I said.

  “That’s right—you’re afraid I’ll break it.” He went back to his chair and sat down, stretching his legs in front of him.

  I cranked the machine and placed the record on the turntable. Taggert was smiling expectantly. I stood and watched him, waiting for a sign, a wrong move. The handsome boy didn’t fit into the system of fears I had. He didn’t fit into any pattern I knew.

  The record was scratched and tired. A single piano began to beat, half drowned in surface noise. Three or four hackneyed boogie chords were laid down and repeated. Then the right hand wove through them, twisting them alive. The first chords multiplied and built themselves around the room. The place they made was half jungle, half machine. The right hand moved across it and back again like something being chased. Chased through an artificial jungle by the shadow of a giant.

  “You like it?” Taggert said.

  “Within limits. If the piano was a percussion instrument it would be first-rate.”

  “But that’s just the point. It is a percussion instrument if you want to use it that way.”

  The record ended, and I turned it off. “You seem to be interested in boogie-woogie. You wouldn’t know who made this record?”

  “I wouldn’t, no. The style could be Lux Lewis.”

  “I doubt it. It sounds more like a woman’s playing.”

  He frowned in elaborate concentration. His eyes were small in his head. “I don’t know of any woman who can play like that.”

  “I know of one. I heard her in the Wild Piano night before last. Betty Fraley.”

  “I never heard of her,” he said.

  “Come off it, Taggert. This is one of her records.”

  “Is it?”

  “You should know. You tossed it in the sea. Now why would you do that?”

  “The question doesn’t arise, because I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t dream of throwing good records away.”

  “I think you dream a great deal, Taggert. I think you’ve been dreaming about a hundred thousand dollars.”

  He shifted slightly in his chair. His stretched-out pose had stiffened and lost its air of casualness. If someone had lifted him by the nape of the neck, his legs would have stayed as they were, straight out before him in the air.

  “Are you suggesting that I kidnapped Sampson?”

  “Not personally. I’m suggesting that you conspired to do it—with Betty Fraley and her brother Eddie Lassiter.”

  “I never heard of them, either of them.” He drew a deep breath.

  “You will. You’ll meet one of them in court, and hear about the other.”

  “Now just a minute,” he said. “You’re going too fast for me. Is this because I threw those records away?”

  “This is your record, then?”

  “Sure.” His voice was vibrantly frank. “I admit I had some of Betty Fraley’s records. I got rid of them last night when I heard you talking to the police about the Wild Piano.”

  “You also listen to other people’s telephone conversations?”

  “It was purely accidental. I overheard you when I was trying to make a phone call of my own.”

  “To Betty Fraley?”

  “I told you I don’t know her.”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I thought perhaps you phoned her last night to give her the green light on the murder.”

  “The murder?”

  “The murder of Eddie Lassiter. You don’t have to act so surprised, Taggert.”

  “But I don’t know anything about these people.”

  “You knew enough to throw away Betty’s records.”

  “I’d heard of her, that’s all. I knew she played at the Wild Piano. When I heard the police were interested in the place, I got rid of her records. You know how unreasonable they can be about circumstantial evidence.”

  “Don’t try to kid me the way you’ve kidded yourself,” I said. “An innocent man would never have thought of throwing those records away. People all over the country have them, haven’t they?”

  “That’s just my point. There’s nothing incriminating about them.”

  “But you thought there was, Taggert. You’d have had no reason to think of them as evidence against you, if you really weren’t in this thing with Betty Fraley. And it happens that you threw them in the sea a good many hours before you heard my phone call—before Betty was ever mentioned in connection with this case.”

  “Maybe I did,” he said. “But you’re going to have a time hanging anything on me on the basis of those records.”

  “I’m not going to try to. They put me on to you and served their purpose. So let’s forget about the records and talk about something important.” I sat down in a wicker chair across the veranda from him.

  “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. “I
s 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, “we’ll 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 light 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 won’t 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.

  chapter 25 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 ar
my 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.”