Ross Macdonald - Lew Archer 01 - The Moving Target(aka Harper)(1949) (21 page)

 
          
I
heard a knife whisper through fiber. The tension in my arms and legs was
released. They thudded on the cement like pieces of wood. A terrier chill took
hold of the back of my neck and shook me.

 
          
“Do
get up, old fellow.”

 
          
“I
like it here.” Sense was returning to the nerves in my arms and legs, burning
like a slow fire.

 
          
“You
mustn’t give way to the sulks, Mr. Archer. I warned you once about, my
associates. If they’ve dealt with you rather violently, you must admit that you
asked for it. And may I suggest that you sell insurance in a highly unusual
way.
On a mountaintop, in the very early morning, with a gun
in your hand.
Among men whose life expectancy is
considerably better than yours.”

 
          
I
moved my arms on the pavement and kicked my feet together. The blood was moving
through them now, like coarse hot rope. Troy stepped back in two quick tapping
movements.

 
          
“The
gun in my hand is aimed at the back of your head, Mr. Archer. You may get up
slowly, however, if you feel quite able.”

 
          
I
gathered my arms and legs under me and forced my body off the pavement. The
room spun and lurched to rest. It was one of the bare cells off the court of
the Temple. An electric lantern stood on a bench against one wall. Troy was
beside it, as dapper and well groomed as ever, with the same nickel-plated gun.

 
          
“I
gave you the benefit of the doubt last night,” he said. “You’ve rather
disappointed me.”

 
          
“I’m
doing my job.”

 
          
“It
seems to conflict with mine.” He moved the gun in his hand as if to punctuate
the sentence. “Just what exactly is your job, old man?”

 
          
“I’m
looking for Sampson.”

 
          
“Is
Sampson missing?”

 
          
I
looked into his impassive face, trying to judge how much he knew. His face
didn’t say.

 
          
“Rhetorical
questions bore me, Troy. The point is that you won’t gain anything by pulling a
second snatch on top of the first. It will pay you to let me go.”

 
          
“Are
you offering me a deal, my dear fellow? You’re rather low on bargaining power,
aren’t you?”

 
          
“I’m
not working alone,” I said. “The cops are in the Piano tonight. They’re
watching Fay’s. Miranda Sampson will be bringing them here today. No matter
what you do to me, your racket is finished. Shoot me, and you’re finished.”

 
          
“Perhaps
you overestimate your importance.” He smiled carefully. “You wouldn’t be
considering a percentage of tonight’s gross?”

 
          
“Wouldn’t
I?” I was trying to think my way around the gun in his hand. My mind was a
little vague. I was putting too much effort into standing up.

 
          
“Consider
my position,” Troy said. “A small-time private eye blunders into my business,
not once, but twice in rapid succession. I grin and bear it. Not cheerfully,
but I bear it. Instead of killing you, I offer you a one-third cut of tonight’s
gross.
Seven hundred dollars, Mr. Archer.”

 
          
“A
one-third cut of tonight’s gross is thirty-three grand.”

 
          
“What?”
He was startled, and his face showed it.

 
          
“You
want me to spell it out for you?”

 
          
He
recovered his poise immediately. “You mentioned thirty-three thousand. That’s a
rather grandiose estimate.”

 
          
“One
third of a hundred thousand is thirty-three thousand three hundred and
thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents.”

 
          
“What
kind
of a shakedown are
you trying to pull?” His voice
was anxious and harsh. I didn’t like all that tension converging on the gun.

 
          
“Forget
it,” I said. “I wouldn’t touch your money.”

 
          
“But
I don’t understand,” he said earnestly. “And you mustn’t talk in riddles. It
makes me jumpy. It makes my hands nervous.” The gun moved in illustration.

 
          
“Don’t
you know what goes on, Troy? I thought you knew the angles.”

 
          
“Assume
that I don’t know anything. And talk fast.”

 
          
“Read
it in the papers.”

 
          
“I
said talk fast.” He raised the gun and let me look into its eye. “Tell me about
Sampson and a hundred grand.”

 
          
“Why
should I tell you your business? You kidnapped Sampson two days ago.”

 
          
“Go
on.”

 
          
“Your
driver picked up the hundred grand last night. Wasn’t it enough?”

 
          
“
Puddler
did that?” His impassivity had gone for good. A new
expression had taken charge of his face, a killer’s expression, cruel and
intent.

 
          
He
went to the door and opened it, holding the gun between us.
“
Puddler
!”
His voice rose high and cracked.

 
          
“The
other driver,” I said. “Eddie.”

 
          
“You’re
lying, Archer.”

 
          
“All right.
Wait for the cops to come and tell you in person.
They know by now who Eddie was working for.”

 
          
“Eddie
hasn’t the brains.”

 
          
“Enough
brains for a fall guy.”

 
          
“What
do you mean?”

 
          
“Eddie’s
in the morgue.”

 
          
“Who
killed him?
Coppers?”

 
          
“Maybe
you did,” I said slowly. “A hundred grand is a lot of money to a small-timer.”

 
          
He
let it pass. “What happened to the money?”

 
          
“Somebody
shot Eddie and took it away.
Somebody in a cream-colored
convertible.”

 
          
Those
three words hit him behind the eyes and turned them blank for an instant. I
moved to my right and swatted his gun with the palm of my left hand. It spun to
the floor without discharging, and slid to the open door.

 
          
Puddler
was in at the door and on the gun before me. I
backed away.

 
          
“Do
I let him have it, Mr. Troy?”

 
          
Troy
was shaking his injured hand. It fluttered like a white moth in the circle of
light from the lantern.

 
          
“Not
now,” he said. “We’ve got to clear out of here, and we don’t want to leave a
mess behind us. Take him to the pier on the Rincon. Use his car. Hold him there
until I send word. You follow me?”

 
          
“I
get it, Mr. Troy. Where are you going to be?”

 
          
“I
don’t quite know. Is Betty at the Piano tonight?”

 
          
“Not
when I left.”

 
          
“Do
you know where she lives?”

 
          
“
Naw
- she moved the last couple weeks. Somebody lent her
a cabin
somewheres
, I don’t know
where -.”

 
          
“Is
she driving the same car?”

 
          
“The convertible?
Yeah. She was last night, anyway.”

 
          
“I
see,” Troy said. “I’m surrounded by fools and knaves as usual. They can’t keep
their heads out of trouble, can they? We’ll show them trouble,
Puddler
.”

 
          
“
Yessir
.”

 
          
“Move,”
Troy said to me.

 
          
They
marched me out to my car. Troy’s Buick was standing beside it. The truck was
gone. Claude and the brown men were gone. It was still black night, with the
moon at its lower edge now.

 
          
Puddler
brought a coil of rope from the shack beside the
adobe.

 
          
“Put
your hands behind you,” Troy said to me.

 
          
I
kept my hands at my sides.

 
          
“Put
your hands behind you.”

 
          
“So
far I’ve been doing my job,” I said. “If you push me around some more, I’ll
have a grudge against you.”

 
          
“You
talk a great fight,” Troy said. “Quiet him,
Puddler
.”

 
          
I
turned to face
Puddler
, not fast enough. His fist
struck the nape of my neck. Pain whistled through my body like splintered
glass, and the night fell on me solidly again. Then I was on a road. The road
was crowded with traffic. I was responsible for the occupants of every car. I
had to write a report on each, giving age, occupation, hobby, religion, bank
balance, sexual proclivities, politics, crimes, and favorite eating places. The
passengers changed cars frequently, like people playing musical chairs. The
cars changed numbers and color. My pen ran out.
of
ink. A blue truck picked me up and changed to funeral black. Eddie was at the
wheel, and I let him drive. I was planning to kill a man.

 
          
The
plan was half complete, when I came to. I was wedged on the floor of my car
between the front and back seats. The floor was vibrating with motion, and the
pain in my head kept time. My hands were bound behind me again.
Puddler’s
wide back was in the front seat, outlined by the
reflection of the headlights. I couldn’t get to my feet, and I couldn’t reach
him.

 
          
I
tried to work my hands loose from the rope, twisting and pulling until my
wrists were raw and my clothes were wet. The rope held out better than I did. I
threw my plan away and started another.

 
          
By
dark untraveled roads we came down out of the mountains and back to the sea. He
parked the car under a tarpaulin stretched on poles. As soon as the engine died
I could hear the waves below us beating on the sand. He lifted me out by my
coat collar and set me on my feet. I noticed that he pocketed my ignition key.

 
          
“
Don’t make no
noise,” he said, “unless you want it again.”

 
          
“You’ve
got a lot of guts,” I said. “It takes a lot of guts to hit a man from behind
while somebody else holds a gun on him.”

 
          
“You
shut up.” He spread his fingers across my face and hooked them downward. They
tasted of sweat, as rank as a horse’s.

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

 
          
“You
shut up,” he said. “I shut you up for good.”

 
          
“Mr.
Troy wouldn’t like that.”

 
          
“You
shut up. Get moving.” He put his hands on my shoulders, turned me, and pushed
me out from under the tarpaulin.

 
          
I
was at the shore end of a long pier that was built out over the water on piles.
There were oil derricks on the skyline behind me, but no lights. No movement
but the sea’s, and the systole and diastole of an oil pump at the end of the
pier. We walked toward it in single file, with
Puddler
at the rear. The planks of the
footwalk
were warped
and badly put together. Black water gleamed in the cracks.

 
          
When
we were about a hundred yards from shore I made out the pump at the end of the
pier, rising and falling like a mechanical teeter-totter. There was a tool shed
beside it, nothing but ocean beyond.

 
          
Puddler
unlocked the door of the shed, lifted a lantern off
a nail, and lit it.

 
          
“Sit
down, mug.” He swung the lantern toward a heavy bench that stood against the
wall. There was a vise at one end of the bench and a few tools scattered along
it: pincers, wrenches of various sizes, a rusty file.

 
          
I
sat down on a clear space.
Puddler
shut the door and
set the lantern on an oil drum. Lit from below by the yellow flaring light, his
face was barely human. It was low-browed and
prognathous
like a Neanderthal man’s, heavy and forlorn, without thought. It wasn’t fair to
blame him for what he did. He was a savage accidentally dropped in the
steel-and-concrete jungle, a trained beast of burden, a fighting machine. But I
blamed him. I had to. I had to take what he’d handed me or find a way to hand
it back to him.

 
          
“You’re
in a rather unusual position,” I said.

 
          
He
didn’t hear me, or refused to answer. He leaned against the door, a thick stump
of a man blocking my way. I listened to the thump and creak of the pump
outside, the water lapping below against the piling. And I thought over the
things I knew about
Puddler
.

 
          
“You’re
in a rather unusual position,” I said again.

 
          
“Button
your lip.”

 
          
“Acting
as jailer, I mean. It’s usually the other way around, isn’t it? You sit in the
cell while somebody else watches you.”

 
          
“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
wasnt
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.