Ross Macdonald - Lew Archer 01 - The Moving Target(aka Harper)(1949) (3 page)

 
          
“Did
he have many friends in Los Angeles?”

 
          
“Business acquaintances mostly.
Ralph’s never been much of a
mixer.”

 
          
“Can
you give me their names?”

 
          
She
moved her hand in front of her face as if the names were insects. “You’d better
ask Albert Graves. I’ll call his office and tell him, you’re coming. Felix will
drive you in. And then I suppose you’ll be going back to Los Angeles.”

 
          
“It
looks like the logical place to start.”

 
          
“Alan
can fly you.” She stood up and looked down at him with a flash of half-learned
imperiousness. “You’re not doing anything special this afternoon, are you,
Alan?”

 
          
“Glad
to,” he said. “It’ll keep me from getting bored.”

 
          
She switch-tailed into the house, a pretty piece in a rage.

 
          
“Give
her a break,” I said.

 
          
He
stood up and overshadowed me. “What do you mean?”

 
          
He
had a trace of smugness, of high-school arrogance, and I
needled
it. “She needs a tall man. You’d make a handsome pair.”

 
          
“Sure, sure.”
He wagged his head negatively from side to
side. “More people jump to conclusions about me and Miranda.”

 
          
“Including
Miranda?”

 
          
“I
happen to be interested in somebody else. Not that it’s any of your business.
Or that Goddamn eight ball’s either.”

 
          
He
meant Felix, who was standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen. He
suddenly disappeared.

 
          
“The
bastard gets on my nerves,” Taggert said. “He’s always hanging around and
listening in.”

 
          
“Maybe
he’s just interested.”

 
          
He
snorted. “He’s just one of the things that
gripes
me
about this place. I eat with the family, yeah, but don’t think I’m not a
servant when the chips are down. A bloody flying chauffeur.”

 
          
Not
to Miranda, I thought, but didn’t say it “It’s an easy enough job, isn’t it?
Sampson can’t be flying much of the time.”

 
          
“The
flying doesn’t bother me. I like it. What I don’t like is being the old guy’s
keeper.”

 
          
“He
needs a keeper?”

 
          
“He
can be hell on wheels. I couldn’t tell you about him in front of Miranda, but
the last week in the desert you’d think he was trying to drink himself to
death.
A quart and a pint a day.
When he drinks like
that he gets delusions of grandeur, and I get sick of taking chicken from a
lush. Then he goes sentimental. He wants to adopt me and buy an airline for
me.” His voice went harsh and loose, in satiric mimicry of a drunk old man’s
: ”
‘I’ll look after you, Alan boy. You’ll get your
airline.’”

 
          
“Or a mountain?”

 
          
“I’m
not kidding about the airline. He could do it, too. But he doesn’t give
anything away when he’s sober. Not a thin dime.”

 
          
“Strictly
schizo
,” I said. “What makes him like that?”

 
          
“I
wouldn’t know for sure. The bitch upstairs would drive anybody crazy. Then he
lost a son in the war. That’s where I come in, I guess. He doesn’t really need
a full-time pilot. Bob Sampson was a flier, too. Shot down over
Sakashima
. Miranda thinks that that’s what broke the old
man up.”

 
          
“How
does Miranda get along with him?”

 
          
“Pretty
well, but they’ve been feuding lately. Sampson’s been trying to make her get
married.”

 
          
“To anybody in particular?”

 
          
“Albert
Graves.” He said it deadpan, neither pro nor con.

 
          
The
highway entered Santa Teresa at the bottom of the town near the sea. We drove
through a mile of slums: collapsing shacks and storefront tabernacles, dirt
paths where sidewalks should have been, black and brown children playing in the
dust. Nearer the main street there were a few tourist hotels with neon signs
like icing on a cardboard cake, red-painted chili houses,
a
series of shabby taverns where the
rumdums
were
congregating. Half the men in the street had short Indian bodies and morocco
faces. After Cabrillo Canyon I felt like a man from another planet. The
Cadillac was a space ship skimming just above the ground.

 
          
Felix
turned left at the main street, away from the sea. The street changed as we
went higher. Men in colored shirts and seersucker suits, women in slacks and
midriff dresses displaying various grades of abdomen, moved in and out of
California Spanish shops and office buildings. Nobody looked at the mountains
standing above the town, but the mountains were there, making them all look
silly.

 
          
Taggert
had been sitting in silence, his handsome face a blank. “How do you like it?”
he asked me.

 
          
“I
don’t have to like it.
How about you?”

 
          
“It’s
pretty dead for my money. People come here to die, like elephants. But then
they go on living - call it living.”

 
          
“You
should have seen it before the war. It’s a hive of activity compared with what
it was. There was nothing but the rich old ladies clipping coupons and pinching
pennies and cutting the assistant gardener’s wages.”

 
          
“I
didn’t know you knew the town.”

 
          
“I
worked on a couple of cases with Bert Graves - when he was District Attorney.”

 
          
Felix
parked in front of a yellow stucco archway that led into the courtyard of an
office building. He opened the glass partition. “Mr. Graves’s office is on the
second floor. You can take the elevator.”

 
          
“I’ll
wait out here,” Taggert said.

 
          
Graves’s
office was a contrast to the grimy cubicle in the courthouse where he used to
prepare his cases. The waiting-room was finished in cool green cloth and
bleached wood. A blond receptionist with cool green eyes completed the color
scheme and said: “Do you have an appointment, sir?”

 
          
“Just
tell Mr. Graves it’s Lew Archer.”

 
          
“Mr.
Graves is busy at the moment.”

 
          
“I’ll
wait.”

 
          
I
sat down in an overstuffed chair and thought about Sampson. The blonde’s white
fingers danced on her typewriter keys. I was restless and still feeling unreal,
hired to look for a man I couldn’t quite imagine.
An oil
tycoon who consorted with holy men and was drinking himself to death.
I
pulled his photograph out of my pocket and looked at it again. It looked back
at me.

 
          
The
inner door was opened, and an old lady backed out bobbing and chortling. Her
hat was something she’d found washed up on the beach. There were diamonds in
the watch that was pinned to her purple silk bosom.

 
          
Graves
followed her out. She was telling him how clever he was, very clever and
helpful. He was pretending to listen. I stood up. When he saw me he winked at
me over the hat.

 
          
The
hat went away, and he came back from the door. “It’s good to see you, Lew.”

 
          
He
didn’t slap backs, but his grip was as hard as ever. The years had changed him,
though. His hairline was creeping back at the
temples,
his small gray eyes peered out from a network of little wrinkles. The heavy
blue-shadowed jaw was drooping at the sides in the beginning of jowls. It was
unpleasant to remember that he wasn’t five years older than I was. But Graves
had come up the hard way, and that was an aging process.

 
          
I
told him I was glad to see him. I was. “It must be six or seven years,” he
said. “All of that. You’re not prosecuting
any more
.”

 
          
“I
couldn’t afford to.”

 
          
“Married?”

 
          
“Not
yet.
Inflation.”
He grinned. “How’s Sue?”

 
          
“Ask
her lawyer. She didn’t like the company I kept.”

 
          
“I’m
sorry to hear it, Lew.”

 
          
“Don’t
be.” I changed the subject. “Doing much trial work?”

 
          
“Not
since the war. It doesn’t pay off in a town like this.”

 
          
“Something
must.” I looked around the room. The cool blond girl permitted herself to
smile.

 
          
“This
is just my front. I’m still a straggling attorney. But I’m learning to talk to
the old ladies.” His smile was wry. “Come inside, Lew.”

 
          
The
inner office was bigger, cooler, more heavily furnished. There were hunting
prints on the two bare walls. The others were lined with books. He looked
smaller behind his massive desk.

 
          
“What
about politics?” I said. “You were going to be Governor, remember?”

 
          
“The
party’s gone to pieces in California. Anyway, I’ve had my fill of politics. I
ran a town in Bavaria for two years.
Military Government.”

 
          
“Carpetbagger, eh?
I was Intelligence.
Now
what about Ralph Sampson?”

 
          
“You
talked to Mrs. Sampson?”

 
          
“I
did. It was quite an experience. But I don’t quite get the point of this job.
Do you?”

 
          
“I
should. I talked her into it.”

 
          
“Why?”

 
          
“Because Sampson might need protection.
A man with five
million dollars shouldn’t take the chances he does. He’s an alcoholic, Lew.
He’s been getting worse since his boy was killed, and sometimes I’m afraid he’s
losing his mind. Did she tell you about Claude, the character he gave the
hunting-lodge to?”

 
          
“Yeah.
The holy man.”

 
          
“Claude
seems to be harmless, but the next one might not be. I don’t have to tell you
about Los Angeles. It isn’t safe for an elderly lush by himself.”

 
          
“No,”
I said. “You don’t have to tell me. But Mrs. Sampson seemed to think he’s off
on a round of pleasures.”

 
          
“I
encouraged her to think that. She wouldn’t spend money to protect him.”

 
          
“But
you would.”

 
          
“Her money.
I’m just his lawyer. Of course, I rather like
the old guy.”

 
          
And
hope to be his son-in-law, I thought.

 
          
“How
much is she good for?”

 
          
“Whatever you say.
Fifty a day and
expenses?”

 
          
“Make
it seventy-five. I don’t like the imponderables in this case.”

 
          
“Sixty-five.”
He laughed. “I’ve got to protect my client.”

 
          
“I
won’t argue. There may not even be a case. Sampson could be with friends.”

 
          
“I’ve
tried them. He didn’t have many friends here. I’ll give you a list of contacts,
but I wouldn’t waste time on it except as a last resort. His real friends are
in Texas. That’s where he made his money.”

 
          
“You’re
taking this pretty seriously,” I said. “Why don’t you go one step further and
take it to the police?”

 
          
“Trying
to talk
yourself
out of a job?”

 
          
“Yes.”

 
          
“It
can’t be done, Lew. If the police found him for me, he’d fire me in a minute.
And I can’t be sure he isn’t with a woman. Last year I found him in a
fifty-dollar house in San Francisco.”

 
          
“What
were you doing there?”

 
          
“Looking for him.”

 
          
“This
smells more and more like divorce,” I said. “But Mrs. Sampson insisted that
isn’t it. I still don’t get it - or her.”

 
          
“You
can’t expect to. I’ve known her for years and I don’t understand her. But I can
handle her, up to a point. If anything ticklish comes up, bring it to me. She
has a few dominant motives, like greed and vanity. You can count on them when
you’re dealing with her. And she doesn’t want a divorce. She’d rather wait and
inherit all his money - or half of it. Miranda gets the other half.”

 
          
“Were
those always her dominant motives?”

 
          
“Ever
since I’ve known her, since she married Sampson. She tried to have a career
before that: dancing, painting,
dress
-designing. No
talent. She was Sampson’s mistress for a while, and finally she fell back on
him, married him as a last resort. That was six years ago.”

 
          
“And
what happened to her legs?”

 
          
“She
fell off a horse she was trying to train, and hit her head on a stone. She
hasn’t walked since.”

 
          
“Miranda
thinks she doesn’t want to walk.”

 
          
“Were
you talking to Miranda?” His face lit up. “Isn’t she a marvelous kid?”

 
          
“She
certainly is.” I stood up. “Congratulations.”

 
          
He
blushed and said nothing. I had never seen Graves blush before. I felt slightly
embarrassed.

 
          
On
the way down in the automatic elevator he asked me: “Did she say anything about
me?”

 
          
“Not
a word. I plucked it out of the air.”

 
          
“She’s
a marvelous kid,” he repeated. At forty he was drunk on love.

 
          
He
sobered up in a hurry when we reached the car. Miranda was in the back seat
with Alan Taggert. “I followed you in. I decided to fly down to Los Angeles
with you. Hello, Bert.”

 
          
“Hello,
Miranda.”

 
          
He
gave her a hurt look. She was looking at Taggert. Taggert was looking nowhere
in particular. It was a triangle, but not an equilateral one.