Ross Macdonald - Lew Archer 01 - The Moving Target(aka Harper)(1949) (20 page)

 
          
A
few miles north of
Buenavista
the blue truck left the
highway, turning off to the right. I stopped to let it get well ahead. A sign
at the intersection said “Lookout Road.” Before I turned up after it, I
switched to my fog lamps. The fog had blown out to sea, but I didn’t want
Puddler
to see the same headlights behind him all the way.

 
          
All
the way was close to seventy miles, two hours of rough driving through
mountains. One five-mile stretch, along a ridge so high that my ears hurt, was
as bad as any road I’d driven by daylight: two ruts along a black cliff edge,
with dark eternity waiting below each curve. The truck highballed along as if
it was safe on rails. I let it get out of sight, switched my lights again, and
tried to feel like a new man driving a different car.

 
          
We
came by a different route into the valley Miranda and I had crossed in the
afternoon. On the straight valley road I turned out my car lights entirely and
drove by the light of the moon, eked out by memory. I thought I knew where the
truck was going. I had to be certain.

 
          
On
the other side of the valley it climbed into the mountains, up the twisting
black-top which led to the Temple in the Clouds. I had to use my lights again
to follow it. When I reached Claude’s mailbox the wooden gate beside it had
been closed. The truck was far above me, a glowworm crawling up the mountain.
Higher still, above the jagged black horizon, the cleared sky was salted with
stars. The unclouded moon was motionless among them, a round white hole in the
night.

 
          
I
was tired of waiting, of following people down dark roads and never seeing
their faces. So far as I knew, there were only the two of them there,
Puddler
and Claude. I had a gun - and the advantage of
surprise.

 
          
I
opened the gate and drove through, up the winding lane to the rim of the mesa,
and down toward the Temple. Above its white mass there was a faint glow from an
interior light.

 
          
The
truck was standing inside the open wire gate, its back doors swinging wide. I
parked at the gate and got out. There was nothing inside the truck but crouched
shadows, a wooden bench padded with burlap along each side, the pungent odor of
men who have sweated and dried in their clothes.

 
          
The
ironbound door of the Temple creaked open then. Claude came out, a moonlit
caricature of a Roman senator. His sandals crunched in the gravel. “Who is
that?” he said.

 
          
“Archer.
Remember me?”

 
          
I
moved from behind the truck and let him see me. He had an electric lantern in
his hand. It shone on the gun in mine.

 
          
“What
are you doing here?” His beard waggled, but his voice was steady.

 
          
“Still
looking for Sampson,” I said.

 
          
As
I approached he backed toward the door. “You know he is not here. Was one
sacrilege not enough for you?”

 
          
“Skip
the mumbo jumbo, Claude. Did it ever fool anybody at all?”

 
          
“Come
in if you must, then,” he said. “And I see you must.”

 
          
He
held the door for me and closed it after me.
Puddler
was standing in the center of the court.

 
          
“Get
over there with
Puddler
,” I said to Claude.

 
          
But
Puddler
came towards me in a shuffling run. I shot
once at his feet. The bullet made a white scar in the stone in front of him and
whined into the adobe wall on the other side of the court.
Puddler
stood still and looked at me.

 
          
Claude
made a half-hearted try to knock down my gun. I took him in the stomach with my
elbow. He doubled up on the pavement.

 
          
“Come
here,” I said to
Puddler
. “I want to talk to you.”

 
          
He
stayed where he was. Claude sat up hugging his torso and cried out loudly in a
Spanish dialect I didn’t understand. A door sprang open as if it knew Spanish,
on the other side of the court. A dozen men came out. They were small and
brown, moving quickly toward me. Their teeth flashed in the moonlight. They
came on silently, and I was afraid of them. Because of that, or something else,
I held my fire. The brown men looked at the gun and came on anyway.

 
          
I
clubbed the gun and waited. The first two got bloody scalps. Then they swarmed
over me, hung on my arms, kicked my legs from under me,
kicked
consciousness out of my head. It slid like a disappearing tail light down the
dark mountainside of the world.

 
          
I
came to fighting. My arms were pinned, my raw mouth kissing cement. I realized
after a while that I was fighting myself. My arms were tied behind me, my legs
bent up and tied to my waist. All I could do was rock a little and beat the
side of my head against cement. I decided against this policy.

 
          
I
tried yelling. My skull vibrated like live skin on a drumhead. I couldn’t hear
my voice above the roar. I gave up yelling. The roar went on in my head, rising
higher and higher until it was out of my range, a silent screech. Then the real
pain began, pounding my temples in syncopated rhythm like roustabouts driving
stakes. I was grateful for any interruption, even Claude.

 
          
“The
wrath of the god is heavy,” he said, above and behind me. “You may not
desecrate his temple with impunity.”

 
          
“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 storefront 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?”