The Moving Target

21

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 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.”

“A one-third cut of tonight’s gross is thirty-three grand.”

“What?” He was startled, and his face showed it.

“You want me to spell it out for you?”

He recovered his poise immediately. “You mentioned thirty-three thousand. That’s a rather grandiose estimate.”

“One third of a hundred thousand is thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents.”

“What kind of a shakedown are you trying to pull?” His voice was anxious and harsh. I didn’t like all that tension converging on the gun.

“Forget it,” I said. “I wouldn’t touch your money.”

“But I don’t understand,” he said earnestly. “And you mustn’t talk in riddles. It makes me jumpy. It makes my hands nervous.” The gun moved in illustration.

“Don’t you know what goes on, Troy? I thought you knew the angles.”

“Assume that I don’t know anything. And talk fast.”

“Read it in the papers.”

“I said talk fast.” He raised the gun and let me look into its eye. “Tell me about Sampson and a hundred grand.”

“Why should I tell you your business? You kidnapped Sampson two days ago.”

“Go on.”

“Your driver picked up the hundred grand last night. Wasn’t it enough?”

“Puddler did that?” His impassivity had gone for good. A new expression had taken charge of his face, a killer’s expression, cruel and intent.

He went to the door and opened it, holding the gun between us. “Puddler!” His voice rose high and cracked.

“The other driver,” I said. “Eddie.”

“You’re lying, Archer.”

“All right. Wait for the cops to come and tell you in person. They know by now who Eddie was working for.”

“Eddie hasn’t the brains.”

“Enough brains for a fall guy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Eddie’s in the morgue.”

“Who killed him? Coppers?”

“Maybe you did,” I said slowly. “A hundred grand is a lot of money to a small-timer.”

He let it pass. “What happened to the money?”

“Somebody shot Eddie and took it away. Somebody in a cream-colored convertible.”

Those three words hit him behind the eyes and turned them blank for an instant. I moved to my right and swatted his gun with the palm of my left hand. It spun to the floor without discharging, and slid to the open door.

Puddler was in at the door and on the gun before me. I backed away.

“Do I let him have it, Mr. Troy?”

Troy was shaking his injured hand. It fluttered like a white moth in the circle of light from the lantern.

“Not now,” he said. “We’ve got to clear out of here, and we don’t want to leave a mess behind us. Take him to the pier on the Rincon. Use his car. Hold him there until I send word. You follow me?”

“I get it, Mr. Troy. Where are you going to be?”

“I don’t quite know. Is Betty at the Piano tonight?”

“Not when I left.”

“Do you know where she lives?”

“Naw – she moved the last couple weeks. Somebody lent her a cabin somewheres, I don’t know where–”

“Is she driving the same car?”

“The convertible? Yeah. She was last night, anyway.”

“I see,” Troy said. “I’m surrounded by fools and knaves as usual. They can’t keep their heads out of trouble, can they? We’ll show them trouble, Puddler.”

“Yessir.”

“Move,” Troy said to me.