The Moving Target

24

I waited in the hall at the front of the house until Felix came to tell me that Taggert was eating breakfast in the kitchen. He led me around the back of the garages, up a path that became a series of low stone steps climbing the side of the hill. When we came within sight of the guest cottage, he left me.

It was a one-story white frame house perched among trees with its back to the hillside. I opened the unlocked door and went in. The living-room was paneled in yellow pine and furnished with easy chairs, a radio-phonograph, a large refectory table covered with magazines and piles of records. The view through the big western window took in the whole estate and the sea to the horizon.

The magazines on the table were Jazz Record and Downbeat. I went through the records and albums one by one, Decca and Bluebird and Asch, twelve-inch Commodores and Blue Notes. There were many names I had heard of: Fats Waller, Red Nichols, Lux Lewis, Mary Lou Williams – and titles I never had heard of: Numb Fumblin’ and Viper’s Drag, Night Life, Denapas Parade. But no Betty Fraley.

I was at the door on my way to talk to Felix when I remembered the black disks skipping out to sea the day before. A few minutes after I saw them, Taggert had come through the house in bathing trunks.

Avoiding the house, I headed for the shore. From the glassed-in pergola on the edge of the bluff a long flight of concrete steps descended the cliff diagonally to the beach. There was a bathhouse with a screened veranda at the foot of the steps, and I went in. I found a rubber-and-plate-glass diving mask hanging on a nail in one of the bathhouse cubicles. I stripped to my shorts and adjusted the mask to my head.

A fresh offshore breeze was driving in the waves and blowing off their crests in spray before they broke. The morning sun was hot on my back, the dry sand warm against the soles of my feet. I stood for a minute in the zone of wet brown sand just above the reach of the waves and looked at them. The waves were blue and sparkling, curved as gracefully as women, but I was afraid of them. The sea was cold and dangerous. It held dead men.

I waded in slowly, pulled the mask down over my face, and pushed off. About fifty yards from shore, beyond the surf, I turned on my back and breathed deeply through my mouth. The rise and fall of the swells, and the extra oxygen, made me a little dizzy. Through the misted glass the blue sky seemed to be spinning over my head. I ducked under water to clear the glass, surface-dived, and breast-stroked to the bottom.

It was pure white sand broken by long brown ribs of stone. The sand was roiled a little by the movement of the water, but not enough to spoil the visibility. I zigzagged forty or fifty feet along the bottom and found nothing but a couple of undersized abalones clinging to a rock. I kicked off and went to the surface for air.

When I raised the mask I saw that a man was watching me from the cliff. He ducked down behind the wild-cherry windbreak by the pergola, but not before I had recognized Taggert. I took several deep breaths and dived again. When I came up, Taggert had disappeared.

On the third dive I found what I was looking for, an unbroken black disk half buried in the sand on the bottom. Holding the record against my chest, I turned on my back and kicked myself to shore. I took it into the shower and washed and dried it with tender care, like a mother with an infant.

Taggert was on the veranda when I came out of the dressing-rooms. He was sitting in a canvas chair with his back to the screen door. In flannel slacks and a white T-shirt, he looked very young and brown. The black hair on his small head was carefully brushed.

He gave me a boyish grin that didn’t touch his eyes. “Hello there, Archer. Have a nice swim?”

“Not bad. The water’s a little cold.”

“You should have used the pool. It’s always warmer.”

“I prefer the ocean. You never know what you’re going to find. I found this.”

He looked at the record in my hands as if he was noticing it for the first time. “What is it?”

“A record. Somebody seems to have scraped the labels off and thrown it in the sea. I wonder why.”

He took a step toward me, long and noiseless on the grass rug. “Let me see.”

“Don’t touch it. You might break it.”

“I won’t break it.”

He reached for it. I jerked it out of his reach. His hand grasped air.

“Stand back,” I said.

“Give it to me, Archer.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ll take it away from you.”

“Don’t do that,” I said. “I think I can break you in two.”

He stood and looked at me for ten long seconds. Then he turned on the grin again. The boyish charm was very slow in coming. “I was just kidding, man. But I’d still like to know what’s on the bloody thing.”

“So would I.”

“Let’s play it then. There’s a portable player here.” He moved around me to the table in the center of the veranda and opened a square fiber box.

“I’ll play it,” I said.

“That’s right – you’re afraid I’ll break it.” He went back to his chair and sat down, stretching his legs in front of him.

I cranked the machine and placed the record on the turntable. Taggert was smiling expectantly. I stood and watched him, waiting for a sign, a wrong move. The handsome boy didn’t fit into the system of fears I had. He didn’t fit into any pattern I knew.

The record was scratched and tired. A single piano began to beat, half drowned in surface noise. Three or four hackneyed boogie chords were laid down and repeated. Then the right hand wove through them, twisting them alive. The first chords multiplied and built themselves around the room. The place they made was half jungle, half machine. The right hand moved across it and back again like something being chased. Chased through an artificial jungle by the shadow of a giant.

“You like it?” Taggert said.

“Within limits. If the piano was a percussion instrument it would be first-rate.”

“But that’s just the point. It is a percussion instrument if you want to use it that way.”

The record ended, and I turned it off. “You seem to be interested in boogie-woogie. You wouldn’t know who made this record?”

“I wouldn’t, no. The style could be Lux Lewis.”

“I doubt it. It sounds more like a woman’s playing.”

He frowned in elaborate concentration. His eyes were small in his head. “I don’t know of any woman who can play like that.”

“I know of one. I heard her in the Wild Piano night before last. Betty Fraley.”

“I never heard of her,” he said.

“Come off it, Taggert. This is one of her records.”

“Is it?”

“You should know. You tossed it in the sea. Now why would you do that?”

“The question doesn’t arise, because I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t dream of throwing good records away.”

“I think you dream a great deal, Taggert. I think you’ve been dreaming about a hundred thousand dollars.”

He shifted slightly in his chair. His stretched-out pose had stiffened and lost its air of casualness. If someone had lifted him by the nape of the neck, his legs would have stayed as they were, straight out before him in the air.

“Are you suggesting that I kidnapped Sampson?”

“Not personally. I’m suggesting that you conspired to do it – with Betty Fraley and her brother Eddie Lassiter.”

“I never heard of them, either of them.” He drew a deep breath.

“You will. You’ll meet one of them in court, and hear about the other.”

“Now just a minute,” he said. “You’re going too fast for me. Is this because I threw those records away?”

“This is your record, then?”

“Sure.” His voice was vibrantly frank. “I admit I had some of Betty Fraley’s records. I got rid of them last night when I heard you talking to the police about the Wild Piano.”

“You also listen to other people’s telephone conversations?”

“It was purely accidental. I overheard you when I was trying to make a phone call of my own.”

“To Betty Fraley?”

“I told you I don’t know her.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “I thought perhaps you phoned her last night to give her the green light on the murder.”

“The murder?”

“The murder of Eddie Lassiter. You don’t have to act so surprised, Taggert.”

“But I don’t know anything about these people.”

“You knew enough to throw away Betty’s records.”

“I’d heard of her, that’s all. I knew she played at the Wild Piano. When I heard the police were interested in the place, I got rid of her records. You know how unreasonable they can be about circumstantial evidence.”

“Don’t try to kid me the way you’ve kidded yourself,” I said. “An innocent man would never have thought of throwing those records away. People all over the country have them, haven’t they?”

“That’s just my point. There’s nothing incriminating about them.”

“But you thought there was, Taggert. You’d have had no reason to think of them as evidence against you, if you really weren’t in this thing with Betty Fraley. And it happens that you threw them in the sea a good many hours before you heard my phone call – before Betty was ever mentioned in connection with this case.”

“Maybe I did,” he said. “But you’re going to have a time hanging anything on me on the basis of those records.”

“I’m not going to try to. They put me on to you and served their purpose. So let’s forget about the records and talk about something important.” I sat down in a wicker chair across the veranda from him.

“What do you want to talk about?” He still had perfect control. His puzzled smile was natural, and his voice was easy. Only his muscles gave him away, bunched at the shoulders, quivering in the thighs.

“Kidnapping,” I said. “We’ll leave the murder till later. Kidnapping is just about as serious in this state. I’ll give you my version of the kidnapping, and then I’ll listen to yours. A great many people will be eager to listen to yours.”

“Too bad. I haven’t any version.”

“I have. I’d have seen it sooner if I hadn’t happened to like you. You had more opportunity than anyone, and more motive. You resented Sampson’s treatment of you. You resented all the money he had. You hadn’t much yourself–”

“Still haven’t,” he said.

“You should be well fixed for the present. Half of the hundred thousand is fifty thousand. The very temporary present.”

He spread his hands humorously. “Am I carrying it with me?”

“You’re not that dull,” I said. “But you’re dull enough. You’ve acted like a rube, Taggert. The city slickers sucked you in and used you. You’ll probably never see your half of the hundred grand.”

“You promised me a story,” he said smoothly. He was going to be hard to break down.

I showed him my best card. “Eddie Lassiter phoned you the night before you flew Sampson out of Las Vegas.”

“Don’t tell me you’re psychic, Archer. You said the man was dead.” But there was a new white line around Taggert’s mouth.

“I’m psychic enough to tell you what you said to Eddie. You told him you’d be flying into Burbank about three o’clock the next day. You told him to rent a black limousine and wait for your phone call from the Burbank airport. When Sampson phoned the Valerio for a limousine, you canceled the call and sent for Eddie instead. The operator at the Valerio thought it was Sampson calling back. You do a pretty good imitation of him, don’t you?”

“Go on,” he said. “I’ve always been fond of fantasy.”

“When Eddie turned up at the front of the airport in the rented car, Sampson got in as a matter of course. He had no reason to suspect anything. You had him so drunk he wouldn’t notice the difference in drivers – so drunk that even a little guy like Eddie could handle him when they got to a private place. What did Eddie use on him, Taggert? Chloroform?”

“This is supposed to be your story,” he said. “Is your imagination getting tired?”

“The story belongs to both of us. That canceled telephone call was important, Taggert. It was the thing that tied you into the story in the first place. Nobody else could have known that Sampson was going to phone the Valerio. Nobody else knew when Sampson was going to fly in from Nevada. Nobody else was in a position to give Eddie the tip-off the night before. Nobody else could have made all the arrangements and run them off on schedule.”

“I never denied I was at the airport with Sampson. There were a few hundred other people there at the same time. You’re hipped on circumstantial evidence, like any other cop. And this business of the records isn’t even circumstantial evidence. It’s a circular argument. You haven’t got anything on Betty Fraley, and you haven’t proved any connection between us. Hundreds of collectors have her records.”

His voice was still cool and clear, bright with candor, but he was worried. His body was hunched and tense, as if I had forced him, into a narrow space. And his mouth was turning ugly.

“It shouldn’t be hard to prove a connection,” I said. “You must have been seen together at one time or another. And wasn’t it you that called her the other night when you saw me in the Valerio with Fay Estabrook? You weren’t really looking for Sampson at the Wild Piano, were you? You were going to see Betty Fraley. You put me off when you pulled Puddler out of my hair. I thought you were on my side. So much so that I put it down to stupidity when you fired at the blue truck. You were warning Eddie off, weren’t you, Taggert? I’d call you a smart boy if you hadn’t dirtied your hands with kidnapping and murder. Stupidity like that cancels out the smartness.”

“If you’re through calling me names,” he said, “well get down to business.”

He was still sitting quietly in the canvas chair, but his hand came up from beside him with a gun. It was the .32 target pistol I had seen before, a fight gun but heavy enough to make my stomach crawl.

“Keep your hands on your knees,” he said.

“I didn’t think you’d give up so easily.”

“I haven’t given up. I’m simply guaranteeing my freedom of action.”

“Shooting me won’t guarantee it. It’ll guarantee something else. Death by gas. Put your gun away and we’ll talk this over.”

“There’s nothing to talk over.”

“You’re wrong, as usual. What do you think I’m trying to do in this case?”

He didn’t answer. Now that the gun was in his hand, ready for violence, his face was smooth and relaxed. It was the face of a new kind of man, calm and unfrightened, because he laid no special value on human life. Boyish and rather innocent, because he could do evil almost without knowing it. He was the kind of man who had grown up and found himself in war.

“I’m trying to find Sampson,” I said. “If I can get him back, nothing else counts.”

“You’ve gone about it the wrong way, Archer. You forgot what you said last night: if anything happens to the people that kidnapped Sampson, it’s the end of him.”

“Nothing has happened to you – yet.”

“Nothing has happened to Sampson.”

“Where is he?”

“Where he won’t be found until I want him to be.”

“You have your money. Let him go.”

“I intended to, Archer. I was going to turn him loose today. But that will have to be postponed – indefinitely. If anything happens to me, it’s good-bye Sampson.”

“We can reach an understanding.”

“No,” he said. “I couldn’t trust you. We have to get clear away. Don’t you see that you’ve spoilt it? You have the power to spoil things, but you haven’t the power to guarantee that we’ll get clear. There’s nothing I can do with you but this.”

He glanced down at the gun, which was pointed at the middle of my body, then casually back at me. Any second he could shoot, without preparation, without anger. All he had to do was pull the trigger.

“Wait,” I said. My throat was tight. My skin felt desiccated, and I wanted to sweat. My hands were clutching my knees.

“We don’t want to stretch this out.” He stood up and moved toward me.

I shifted the weight of my body in the chair. One shot wouldn’t kill me, unless my luck was bad. Between the first and the second I could reach him. As I drew back my feet I talked rapidly.

“If you’ll give me Sampson, I can guarantee that I wont try to hold you and I won’t talk. You’ll have to take your chances with the others. Kidnapping is like other business enterprises: you have to take your chances.”

“I’m taking them,” he said, “but not on you.”

His rigid arm came up with the gun at the end like a hollow blue finger. I looked sideways, away from the direction I was going to move in. I was halfway out of the chair when the gun went off. Taggert was listless when I got to him. The gun slid out of his hand.

Another gun had spoken. Albert Graves was in the doorway with the twin of Taggert’s pistol in his hand. He poked the end of his little finger through a round hole in the screen.

“Too bad,” he said; “but it had to be done.”

The water ran down my face.