Ross MACDONALD - The Moving Target

“Stop gabbling,” I said, to the cement. “You’ll be up against two kidnapping raps instead of one.”

“Bum raps, Mr. Archer.” He made a clucking sound, tongue against palate. By straining my neck I could see his gnarled sandaled feet on the floor near my head.

“You misunderstand the situation,” he said, putting on his vocabulary like a garment. “You invaded our retreat by armed force, assaulted me, attacked my friends and disciples–”

I tried to laugh mirthlessly, and succeeded. “Is Puddler one of your disciples? He’s a very spiritual type.”

“Listen to me, Mr. Archer. We might with perfect justification have killed you in self-defense. Your life is still our gift.”

“Why don’t you climb up the chimney and ride away?”

“You fail to understand the seriousness of this–”

“I understand that you’re a smelly old crook.” I tried to think of subtler insults, but my brain wasn’t functioning properly.

He stamped with his heel in my side, just above the kidney. My mouth opened, and my teeth ground on the cement. No sound came out.

“Think about it,” he said.

The light receded and a door slammed. The pain in my head and body pulsated like a star. Small and remote, then large and near, then dwindling down to a whirring point, the tip of a restless drill.

On the threshold of consciousness my mind swarmed with images from beyond the threshold: uglier faces than I’d seen in any street, eviler streets than I’d seen in any city. I came to the empty square in the city’s heart. Death lurked behind the muttering windows, an old whore with sickness under her paint. A face looked down at me, changing by the second: Miranda’s brown young face sprouting gray hair, Claude’s mouth denuded to become Fay’s smile, Fay shrinking down, all but the great dark eyes, to the Filipino’s head, which was withered by rapid age to the silver head of Troy. Eddie’s bright dead gaze came back again and again, and the Mexican faces repeated themselves, each one like the other, with flat black eyes and shining teeth curved downward in a smile of anger and fear. With my arms roped tight behind me, my heels pressed into my buttocks, I slid over the threshold into a bad sleep.

Light against my eyelids brought me back to a closed red world. I heard a voice above me and kept my eyes closed. The voice was Troy’s soft purr.

“You’ve made a serious error, Claude. I know this chap, you see. Now why shouldn’t you have told me about his earlier visit?”

“I didn’t think it was important. He was looking for Sampson, that was all. Sampson’s daughter was with him.” Claude was speaking naturally for the first time. His voice had lost its orotundity and risen a full octave. He made sounds like a frightened woman.

“You didn’t think it was important, eh? I’ll tell you just how important it is for you. It means that your usefulness is ended. You can take your brown-skinned doxy and get out.”

“This is my place! Sampson said I could live here. You can’t order me out.”

“I’ve already done so, Claude. You’ve bungled your piece of the line, and that means you’re finished. Probably the whole thing is finished. We’re clearing out of the Temple, and we’re not leaving you behind to turn stool pigeon.”

“But where can I go? What can I do?”

“Open another store-front church. Go back to Gower Gulch. What you do is no concern of mine.”

“Fay won’t like this,” Claude said hesitantly.

“I don’t propose to consult her. And we’ll have no more argument, or I’ll turn you over to Puddler to argue it out with him. I don’t want to do that, because I have one more job for you.”

“What is it?” Claude’s voice tried to sound eager.

“You can complete the delivery of the current truckload. I’m not at all sure you’re competent even for that, but I must risk it. The risk will be largely yours in any case. The ranch foreman will meet you at the southeast entrance to give them safe conduct. Do you know where the southeast entrance is?”

“Yes. Just off the highway.”

“Very good. When you’ve unloaded, drive the truck back to Bakersfield and lose it. Don’t try to sell it. Leave it in a parking lot and disappear. Can I trust you to do that?”

“Yes, Mr. Troy. But I have no money.”

“Here’s a hundred.”

“Only a hundred?”

“You’re lucky to get that, Claude. You can start now. Tell Puddler I want him when he’s finished eating.”

“You’re not going to let him hurt me, Mr. Troy?”

“Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t let him disarrange a hair of your filthy head.”

Claude’s sandals scraped away. This time the light remained. Something pulled at the rope that held my wrists. My hands and forearms were numb, but I could feel the strain in my shoulders.

“Lay off!” The movement of my jaw set off a fit of chattering. I had to clench my teeth to stop it.

“You’ll be perfectly all right in a jiffy,” Troy said. “They’ve trussed you up like a fowl for market, haven’t they?”

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.”