Ross Macdonald - Lew Archer 01 - The Moving Target(aka Harper)(1949) (13 page)

 
          
“I
beg your pardon?” I said. “I was admiring your private view.”

 
          
“Yes,
lovely, isn’t it?” She called to Miranda, who had started out of the room:
“Stay if you wish, dear. I’m going upstairs.”

 
          
She
lifted a silver
handbell
that stood on the table
beside her. Its sudden peal was like the bell at the end of a round. Miranda
completed the picture by sitting down, with her face averted, in a far corner
of the room.

 
          
“You’ve
seen us at our worst,” Mrs. Sampson said to me. “Please don’t judge us by it.
I’ve decided to do as you say.”

 
          
“Shall
I call the police?”

 
          
“Bert
Graves will do it. He’s familiar with all the Santa Teresa authorities. He
should be here any minute.”

 
          
Mrs.
Kromberg
, the housekeeper, entered the room and
wheeled the rubber-tired chair across the carpet. Almost effortlessly she
raised Mrs. Sampson in her arms and placed her in the chair. They left the room
in silence.

 
          
An
electric motor murmured somewhere in the house as Mrs. Sampson ascended toward
heaven.

 
          
I
sat down beside Miranda on the divan in the corner of the room. She refused to
look at me. “You must think we’re terrible people,” she said.
“To fight like that in public.”

 
          
“You
seem to have something to fight about.”

 
          
“I
don’t really know. Elaine can be so sweet at times, but she’s always hated me,
I think. Bob was her pet. He was my brother, you know.”

 
          
“Killed
in the war?”

 
          
“Yes.
He was everything I’m not. Strong and controlled and good at everything he
tried. They gave him the Navy Cross posthumously. Elaine worshipped the ground
he walked on. I used to wonder if she was in love with him. But of course we
all loved him. Our family’s been quite different since he died and since we
came out here. Father’s gone to pieces, and Elaine’s come up with this fake
paralysis, and I’m all mixed up. But I’m talking much too much, aren’t I?” The
turning of her half-averted head to me was a lovely gesture. Her mouth was soft
and
tremulous,
her large eyes were blind with thought.

 
          
“I
don’t mind.”

 
          
“Thank
you.” She smiled. “I have no one to talk to, you see. I used to think I was
lucky, with all of Father’s money behind me. I was an arrogant little bitch -
maybe I still am. But I’ve learned that money can cut you off from people. We
haven’t got what it takes for the Santa Teresa social life, the
international-Hollywood set, and we have no friends here. I suppose I shouldn’t
blame Elaine for that, but she was the one that insisted we come here to live
during the war. My mistake was leaving school.”

 
          
“Where
did you go?”

 
          
“Radcliffe.
I didn’t fit in too well, but I had friends in Boston. They fired me for
insubordination last year. I should have gone back. They would have taken me,
but I was too proud to apologize.
Too arrogant.
I
thought I could live with Father, and he tried to be good to me, but it didn’t
work out. He hasn’t got along with Elaine for years. There’s always tension in
the house. And now something’s happened to him.”

 
          
“We’ll
get him back,” I said. But I felt that I should hedge. “Anyway, you have other
friends.
Alan and Bert, for example.”

 
          
“Alan
doesn’t really care for me. I thought he did once - no, I don’t want to talk
about him. And Bert Graves isn’t my friend. He wants to marry me, and that’s
quite different. You can’t relax with a man that wants to marry you.”

 
          
“He
loves you, by all the signs.”

 
          
“I
know he does.” She raised her round, proud chin. “That’s why I can’t relax with
him. And why he bores me.”

 
          
“You’re
asking for a hell of a lot, Miranda.” And I was talking a hell of a lot,
talking like somebody out of Miles Standish. “Things never work out quite
perfectly no matter how hard you push them. You’re romantic, and an egotist.
Some day you’ll come down to earth so hard you’ll probably break your neck. Or
fracture your ego, anyway, I hope.”

 
          
“I
told you I was an arrogant bitch,” she said, too lightly and easily. “Is there
any charge for the diagnosis?”

 
          
“Don’t
go arrogant on me now. You already have once.”

 
          
She
opened her eyes very wide in demure parody. “Kissing you yesterday?”

 
          
“I
won’t pretend I didn’t like it. I did. But it made me mad. I resent being used
for other people’s purposes.”

 
          
“And
what were my sinister purposes?”

 
          
“Not
sinister.
Sophomore stuff.
You should be able to think
of better ways to fascinate Taggert.”

 
          
“Leave
him out of this.” Her tone was sharp, but then she softened it. “Did it make
you very mad?”

 
          
“This mad.”

 
          
I
took hold of her shoulders with my hands, of her mouth with mine. Her mouth was
half open and hot. Her body was cool and firm from breast to knee. She didn’t
struggle. Neither did she respond.

 
          
“Did
you get any satisfaction out of that?” she said, when I released her.

 
          
I
looked into her wide green eyes. They were candid and steady, but they had
murky depths. I wondered what went on in those sea depths, and how long it had
been going on.

 
          
“It
salved my ego.”

 
          
She
laughed. “It salved your lips, at least. There’s lipstick on them.”

 
          
I
wiped my mouth with my handkerchief. “How old are you?”

 
          
“Twenty.
Old enough for your sinister purposes.
Do you think I
act like a child?”

 
          
“You’re
a woman.” I looked at her body deliberately - round breasts, straight flanks,
round hips, straight round legs - until she squirmed. “That involves certain
responsibilities.”

 
          
“I
know.” Her voice was harsh with self-reproach. “I shouldn’t fling myself
around. You’ve seen a lot of life, haven’t you?”

 
          
It
was a girlish question, but I answered her seriously.
‘Too
much, of one kind.
I make my living seeing a lot of life.”

 
          
“I
guess I haven’t seen enough. I’m sorry for making you mad.” She leaned toward
me suddenly and kissed my cheek very lightly.

 
          
I
felt a letdown, because it was the kind of kiss a niece might give to an uncle.
Well, I had fifteen years on her. The letdown didn’t last. Bert Graves had
twenty.

 
          
There
was the sound of a car in the drive, then movement in the house.

 
          
“That
must be Bert now,” she said.

 
          
We
were standing well apart when he entered the room. But he gave me a single
glance, veiled and questioning and hurt, before he found control of his face.
Even then there were vertical lines of anxiety between his eyebrows. He looked
as if he hadn’t slept. But he moved with speed and decision, cat-footed for a
heavy man. His body, at least, was glad to get into action. He said hello to
Miranda and turned to me.

 
          
“What
do you say, Lew?”

 
          
“Did
you get the money?”

 
          
He
took the calfskin brief case from under his arm; unlocked it with a key, and
dumped its contents on the coffee table - a dozen or more oblong packages
wrapped in brown bank paper and tied together with red tape.

 
          
“One
hundred thousand dollars,” he said.
“A thousand fifties and
five hundred hundreds.
God knows what we’re going to do with it.”

 
          
“Put
it in the safe for now. There’s one in the house, isn’t there?”

 
          
“Yes,”
Miranda said.
“In Father’s study.
The combination’s in
his desk.”

 
          
“And another thing.
You need protection for this money and
the people in this house.”

 
          
Graves
turned to me with the brown packages in his hand. “What about you?”

 
          
“I’m
not going to be here. Get one of the sheriff’s deputies to come out. It’s what
they’re for.”

 
          
“Mrs.
Sampson wouldn’t let me call them.”

 
          
“She
will now. She wants you to turn the whole thing over to the police.”

 
          
“Good!
She’s getting some sense. I’ll put this stuff away and get on the phone.”

 
          
“See
them in person, Bert.”

 
          
“Why?”

 
          
“Because,”
I said, “this has some of the earmarks of an inside job. Somebody in this house
could be interested in the conversation.”

 
          
“You’re
ahead of me, but I see what you mean. The letter shows inside knowledge, which
they might or might not have got from Sampson. Assuming there is a ‘they,’ and
he has been kidnapped.”

 
          
“We’ll
work on that assumption till another turns up. And for God’s sake make the cops
go easy. We can’t afford to frighten them. Not if we want Sampson alive.”

 
          
“I
understand that. But where are you going to be?”

 
          
“This
envelope is postmarked Santa Maria.” I didn’t bother telling him about the
other envelope in my pocket. “There’s a chance he may be there on legitimate
business.
Or illegitimate business, for that matter.
I’m going there.”

 
          
“I’ve
never heard of his doing any business there. Still, it might be worth looking
into.”

 
          
“Have
you tried the ranch?” Miranda said to Graves.

 
          
“I
called the superintendent this morning. They haven’t heard from him.”

 
          
“What
ranch is that?” I said.

 
          
“Father
has a ranch on the other side of Bakersfield.
A vegetable
ranch.
He wouldn’t be likely to go there now, though, on account of the
trouble.”

 
          
“The
field workers are out on strike,” Graves said. “They’ve been out for a couple
of months, and there’s been some violence. It’s a nasty situation.”

 
          
“Could
it have anything to do with this one?”

 
          
“I
doubt it.”

 
          
“You
know,” Miranda said, “he may be at the Temple. When he was there before, his
letters came through Santa Maria.”

 
          
‘The Temple?”
Once or twice before, I’d caught myself
slipping off the edge of the case into a fairy tale. It was one of the
occupational hazards of working in California, but it irked me.

 
          
“The
Temple in the Clouds, the place he gave to Claude. Father spent a couple of
days there in the early spring. It’s in the mountains near Santa Maria.”

 
          
“And
who,” I said, “is Claude?”

 
          
“I
told you about him,” Graves said. “The holy man he gave the mountain to. He’s
made the lodge over into some kind of temple.”

 
          
“Claude’s
a phony,” Miranda put in. “He wears his hair long and never cuts his beard and
talks like a bad imitation of Walt Whitman.”

 
          
“Have
you been up there?” I asked her.

 
          
“I
drove Ralph up, but I left when Claude started to talk. I couldn’t bear him.
He’s a dirty old goat with a foghorn voice and the nastiest eyes I ever looked
into.”

 
          
“How
about taking me there now?”

 
          
“All right.
I’ll put on a sweater.”

 
          
Graves’s
mouth moved silently as if he was going to protest. He watched her anxiously as
she left the room.