Ross Macdonald - Lew Archer 01 - The Moving Target(aka Harper)(1949) (4 page)

 
          
We
rose into the offshore wind sweeping across the airport and climbed toward the
southern break in the mountains. Santa Teresa was a colored air map on the
mountains’ knees, the sailboats in the harbor white soap chips in a tub of
bluing. The air was very clear. The peaks stood up so sharply that they looked
like
papier-mache
I could poke my finger through.
Then we rose past them into chillier air and saw the wilderness of mountains
stretching to the fifty-mile horizon.

 
          
The
plane leaned gradually and turned out over the sea. It was a four-
seater
equipped for night flying. I was in the back seat.
Miranda was in front on
Taggert’s
right. She watched
his right hand, careful on the stick. He seemed to take pride in holding the
plane quiet and steady.

 
          
We
hit a downdraft and fell a hundred feet. Her left hand grasped his knee. He let
it stay there.

 
          
What
was obvious to me must have been obvious to Albert Graves. Miranda was
Taggert’s
if he wanted her, brain and body. Graves was
wasting his time, building himself up to a very nasty letdown. I knew enough
about him to understand it. Miranda was everything he’d dreamed about - money,
youth, bud-sharp breasts, beauty on the way. He’d set his mind on her and had
to have her.
All his life he’d been setting his mind on
things - and getting them.

 
          
He
was a farmer’s son from Ohio. When he was fourteen or fifteen his father lost
his farm and died soon after. Bert supported his mother by building tires in a
rubber factory for six years. When she died he put himself through college and
came out a Phi Beta Kappa. Before he was thirty he had taken his law degree at
the University of Michigan. He spent one year in corporation law in Detroit and
decided to come west. He settled in Santa Teresa because he had never seen mountains
or swum in the sea. His father had always intended to retire in California, and
Bert inherited the Midwestern dream - which included the daughter of a Texas
oil millionaire.

 
          
The
dream was intact. He’d worked too hard to have any time for women. Deputy D.
A., City Attorney, D. A. He prepared his cases as if he were laying the
foundations of society. I knew, because I’d helped him. His courtroom work had
been cited by a state-supreme-court judge as a model of forensic jurisprudence.
And now at forty Graves had decided to beat his head against
a wall.

 
          
But
perhaps he could scale the wall, or the wall would fall down by itself. Taggert
shook his leg like a horse frightening flies. The plane veered and returned to
its course. Miranda removed her hand.

 
          
With
a little angry flush spreading to his ears, Taggert pulled the stick and
climbed - climbed as if he could leave her behind and be all alone in the heart
of the sky. The thermometer in the roof sank below forty. At eight thousand
feet I could see Catalina far down ahead to the right. After a few minutes we
turned left toward the white smudge of Los Angeles.

 
          
I
shouted over the roar: “Can you set her down at Burbank? I want to ask some
questions.”

 
          
“I’m
going to.”

 
          
The
summer heat of the valley came up to meet us as we circled in. Heat lay like a
fine ash on the rubbish lots and fields and half-built suburbs, slowing the
tiny cars on the roads and boulevards, clogging the air. The impalpable white
dust invaded my nostrils and dried my throat. Dryness of the throat went with
the feeling I always had, even after half a day, when I came back to the city.

 
          
The
taxi starter at the airport wore steel-wire armbands on the sleeves of his
red-striped shirt. A yellow cap hung almost vertically from the back of his
gray head. Seasons of sun and personal abuse had given him an angry red face
and an air of great calm.

 
          
He
remembered Sampson when I showed him the photograph.

 
          
“Yeah,
he was here yesterday. I noticed him because he was a little under the weather.
Not blotto, or I would of called a guard.
Just a couple of
drinks too many.”

 
          
“Sure,”
I said. “Was anybody with him?”

 
          
“Not
that I saw.”

 
          
A
woman wearing two foxes that looked as if they had died from the heat broke out
of the line at the curb. “I have to get downtown right away.”

 
          
“Sorry, madam.
You got to wait your turn.”

 
          
“I
tell you this is urgent.”

 
          
“You
got to wait your turn,” he said monotonously. “We got a cab shortage, see?”

 
          
He
turned to me again. “Anything else, bud?
This guy in trouble
or something?”

 
          
“I
wouldn’t know. How did he leave?”

 
          
“By car - a black limousine.
I noticed it because it didn’t
carry
no
sign.
Maybe from one of the
hotels.”

 
          
“Was
there anybody in it?”

 
          
“Just the driver.”

 
          
“You
know him?”

 
          
“
Naw
.
I know some of the hotel
drivers, but they’re always changing. This was a little guy, I think, kind of
pale.”

 
          
“You
don’t remember the make or the license number?”

 
          
“I
keep my eyes open, bud, but I ain’t a genius.”

 
          
“Thanks.”
I gave him a dollar. “Neither am I.”

 
          
I
went upstairs to the cocktail bar, where Miranda and Taggert were sitting like
strangers thrown together by accident.

 
          
“I
called the
Valerio
,” Taggert said, “The limousine
should be here any minute.”

 
          
The
limousine, when it came, was driven by a pale little man in a shiny blue-serge
suit like an umpire’s and a cloth cap. The taxi starter said he wasn’t the man
who had picked up Sampson the day before.

 
          
I
got into the front seat with him. He turned with nervous quickness, gray-faced,
concave-
chested
,
convex
-eyed.
“Yes, sir?”
The question trailed off gently and
obsequiously.

 
          
“We’re
going to the
Valerio
. Were you on duty yesterday
afternoon?”

 
          
“Yes, sir.”
He shifted gears.

 
          
“Was
anybody else?”

 
          
“No, sir.
There’s another fellow on the night shift, but he
doesn’t come on till six.”

 
          
“Did
you have any calls to the Burbank airport yesterday afternoon?”

 
          
“No, sir.”
A worried expression was creeping into his eyes
and seemed to suit them. “I don’t believe I did.”

 
          
“But
you’re not certain.”

 
          
“Yes, sir.
I’m certain. I didn’t come out this way.”

 
          
“You
know Ralph Sampson?”

 
          
“At the
Valerio
?
Yes, sir. Indeed
I do, sir.”

 
          
“Have
you seen him lately?”

 
          
“No, sir.
Not for several weeks.”

 
          
“I
see. Tell me, who takes the calls for you?”

 
          
“The switchboard operator.
I do hope there’s nothing wrong,
sir. Is Mr. Sampson a friend of yours?”

 
          
“No,”
I said. “I’m one of his employees.”

 
          
All
the rest of the way he drove in tight-mouthed silence, regretting the wasted
sirs. When I got out I gave him a dollar tip to confuse him. Miranda paid the
fare.

 
          
“I’d
like to look at the bungalow,” I told her in the lobby. “But first I want to
talk to the switchboard operator.”

 
          
“I’ll
get the key and wait for you.”

 
          
The
operator was a frozen virgin who dreamed about men at night and hated them in
the daytime. “Yes?”

 
          
“Yesterday
afternoon you had a call for a limousine from the Burbank airport.”

 
          
“We
do not answer questions of that nature.”

 
          
“That
wasn’t a question. It was a statement.”

 
          
“I’m
very busy,” she said. Her tone clicked like pennies; her eyes were small and
hard and shiny like dimes.

 
          
I
put a dollar bill on the desk by her elbow. She looked at it as if it was
unclean
. “I’ll have to call the manager.”

 
          
“All right.
I work for Mr. Sampson.”

 
          
“Mr.
Ralph Sampson?” She lilted, she trilled.

 
          
“That’s
correct.”

 
          
“But
he was the one that made the call!”

 
          
“I
know. What happened to it?”

 
          
“He
canceled it almost immediately, before I had an opportunity to tell the driver.
Did he have a change of plan?”

 
          
“Apparently.
You’re sure it was him both times?”

 
          
“Oh
yes,” she said. “I know Mr. Sampson well. He’s been coming here for years.”

 
          
She
picked up the unclean dollar lest it contaminate her desk, and tucked it into a
cheap plastic handbag. Then she turned to the switchboard, which had three red
lights on it.

 
          
Miranda
stood up when I came back to the lobby. It was hushed and rich, deep-carpeted,
deep-chaired, with mauve-coated bellboys at attention. She moved like a live
young nymph in a museum. “Ralph hasn’t been here for nearly a month. I asked
the assistant manager.”

 
          
“Did
he give you the key?”

 
          
“Of course.
Alan’s gone to open the bungalow.”

 
          
I
followed her down a corridor that ended in a wrought-iron door. The grounds
back of the main building were laid out in little avenues, with bungalows on
either side, set among terraced lawns and flower beds. They covered a city
block, enclosed by high stone walls like a prison. But the prisoners of those
walls could lead a very full life. There were tennis courts, a swimming pool, a
restaurant, a bar, a night club. All they needed was a full wallet or a blank
checkbook.

 
          
Sampson’s
bungalow was larger than most of the others and had more terrace. The door at
the side was standing open. We passed through a hall cluttered with
uncomfortable-looking Spanish chairs into a big room with a high oak-beamed
ceiling.

 
          
On
the chesterfield in front of the dead fireplace Taggert was hunched over a
telephone directory. “I thought I’d call a buddy of mine.” He looked up at
Miranda with a half smile.
“Since I have to hang around
anyway.”