Ross MACDONALD - The Moving Target

“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.

“I’ll bring her home safely,” I said. I should have held my tongue.

He moved toward me with his head down like a bull’s, a big man and still hard. His arms were stiff at his sides. The fists were clenched at the end of them.

“Listen to me, Archer,” he said in a monotone. “Wipe the lipstick off your cheek or I’ll wipe it off for you.”

I tried to cover my embarrassment with a smile. “I’d take you, Bert. I’ve had a lot of practice handling jealous males.”

“That may be. But keep your hands off Miranda, or I’ll spoil your good looks.”

I rubbed my left cheek where Miranda had left her mark. “Don’t get her wrong–”

“I suppose it was Mrs. Sampson you were playing kissing games with?” He uttered a small heartbroken laugh. “No soap!”

“It was Miranda, and it wasn’t a game. She was feeling low and I talked to her and she kissed me once. It didn’t mean a thing. Purely a filial kiss.”

“I’d like to believe you,” he said uncertainly. “You know how I feel about Miranda.”

“She told me.”

“What did she say?”

“That you were in love with her.”

“I’m glad she knows that, anyway. I wish she’d talk to me when she’s feeling low.” He smiled bitterly. “How do you do it, Lew?”

“Don’t come to me with your heart problems. I’ll foul you up for sure. I have one little piece of advice, though.”

“Shoot.”

“Take it easy,” I said. “Just take it easy. We’ve got a big job on our hands and we’ve got to pull together. I’m no threat to your love life and I wouldn’t be if I could. And while I’m being blunt, I don’t think Taggert is, either. He simply isn’t interested.”

“Thanks,” he said in a harsh, forced voice. He wasn’t the kind of man who went in for intimate confessions. But he added miserably: “She’s so much younger than I am. Taggert has youth and looks.”

There was a soft plopping of feet in the hall outside the door, and Taggert appeared in the doorway as if on cue. “Did somebody take my name in vain?”

He was naked except for wet bathing trunks, wide-shouldered, narrow-waisted and long-legged. With the wet dark hair curling on his small skull, the lazy smile on his face, he could have posed for the Greeks as a youthful god. Bert Graves looked him over with dislike and said slowly: “I was just telling Archer how handsome I thought you were.”

The smile contracted slightly but stayed on his face. “That sounds like a left-handed compliment, but what the hell! Hello, Archer, anything new?”

“No,” I said. “And I was telling Graves that you’re not interested in Miranda.”

“Right you are,” he answered airily. “She’s a nice girl but not for me. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll put on some clothes.”

“Gladly,” Graves said.

But I called him back: “Wait a minute. Do you have a gun?”

“A pair of target pistols. .32’s.”

“Load one and keep it on you, eh? Stick around the house and keep your eyes open. Try not to be trigger happy.”

“I learned my lesson,” he said cheerfully. “Do you expect something to break?”

“No, but if something does, you’ll want to be ready. Will you do what I said?”

“I sure will.”

“He’s not a bad kid,” Graves said, when he was gone, “but I can’t stand the sight of him. It’s funny; I’ve never been jealous before.”

“Ever been in love before?”

“Not until now.” He stood with his shoulders bowed, burdened by fatality and exaltation and despair. He was in love for the first time and for keeps. I was sorry for him.

“Tell me,” he said, “what was Miranda feeling low about? This business of her father?”

“Partly that. She feels the family’s been going to pieces. She needs some sort of steady backing.”

“I know she does. It’s one reason I want to marry her. There are other reasons, of course; I don’t have to tell you that.”

“No,” I said. I risked a candid question. “Is money one of them?”

He glanced at me sharply. “Miranda has no money of her own.”

“She will have, though?”