Ross MACDONALD - The Moving Target

“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.

The sun was over the mountains when I reached Santa Teresa. It put an edge on everything, each leaf and stone and blade of grass. From the canyon road the Sampson house looked like a toy villa built of sugar cubes. Closer up I could feel its massive silence, which dominated the place when I stopped the car. I had to unwire the ignition to cut the motor.

Felix came to the service entrance when I knocked. “Mr. Archer?”

“Is there any doubt about it?”

“You were in an accident, Mr. Archer?”

“Apparently. Is my bag still in the storeroom?” I had fresh clothes in it, and a duplicate set of car keys.

“Yes, sir. There are contusions on your face, Mr. Archer. Should I call a doctor?”

“Don’t bother. I could do with a shower, though, if there’s one handy.”

“Yes, sir. I have a shower over the garage.”

He led me to his quarters and brought my bag. I showered and shaved in the dinky bathroom, and changed my sea-sodden clothes. It was all I could do not to stretch out on the unmade bed in his neat little cell of a room and let the case go hang.

When I returned to the kitchen he was setting a tray with a silver breakfast set. “Do you want something to eat, sir?”

“Bacon and eggs, if possible.”

He bobbed his round head. “So soon as I have finished with this, sir.”

“Who’s the tray for?”

“Miss Sampson, sir.”

“So early?”

“She will breakfast in her room.”

“Is she all right?”

“I do not know, sir. She had a very little sleep. It was past midnight when she came home.”

“From where?”

“I do not know, sir. She left at the same time as you and Mr. Graves.”

“Driving herself?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What car?”

“The Packard convertible.”

“Let’s see, that’s the cream one, isn’t it?”

“No, sir. It is red. Bright scarlet. She drove over two hundred miles in the time she was gone.”

“You keep a pretty close watch on the family, don’t you, Felix?”

He smiled blandly. “It is one of my duties to check the cars for gas and oil, sir, since we have no regular chauffeur.”

“But you don’t like Miss Sampson very well?”

“I am devoted to her, sir.” His opaque black eyes were their own mask.

“Do they give you a rough time, Felix?”

“No, sir. But my family is well known on Samar. I have come to the United States to attend the California Polytechnic College when I am able to do this. I resent Mr. Graves’s assumption that I am suspect because of the color of my skin. The gardeners also resent it for themselves.”

“You’re talking about last night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t think he meant it that way.”

Felix smiled blandly.

“Is Mr. Graves here now?”

“No, sir. He is at the sheriff’s office, I think. If you will excuse me, sir?” He hoisted the tray to his shoulder.

“You know the number? And do you have to say ‘sir’ every second word?”

“No, sir,” he said with mild irony. “23665.”

I dialed the number from the butler’s pantry and asked for Graves. A sleepy deputy called him.

“Graves speaking.” His voice was hoarse and tired.

“This is Archer.”

“Where in God’s name have you been?”

“I’ll tell you later. Any trace of Sampson?”

“Not yet, but we’ve made some progress. I’m working with a major case squad from the F. B. I. We wired the classification of the dead man’s prints to Washington, and we got an answer about an hour ago. He’s in the F. B. I, files with a long record. Name’s Eddie Lassiter.”

“I’ll be over as soon as I eat. I’m at the Sampson place.”