Wyatt - 06 - The Fallout

by Garry Disher

  For this meeting, Raymond was back in his apartment. Fuck Wyatt. He watched as Vallance cleared a space on the coffee table and stacked it with brochures and photocopied price lists. I can get this stuff in Geelong, Williamstown, Devonport, Port Melbourne.

  He spread the documents over the table and tapped with a bony finger. This heres your up-market scuba gear and tanks. Tough, good air capacity. Okay, this is an underwater scooter.

  The brochure showed a clumsy machine trailing a diver. Raymond leaned over the table for a better look. Allie was next to him on the couch. That was good, heat from her long thigh.

  I know it looks like a handful of buckets and tubes welded together, Vallance said, but you can cover a lot of ground quickly. Plus its fitted with a metal detector. A scooters good for backing up a visual search in clearish water less than fifteen metres, which part of our area is.

  Vallance slid another brochure across the table. This heres your proton magnetometer.

  Raymond saw a diver in murky water, holding the centre point of a transverse bar to which two sensor heads, shaped like small torpedoes, had been fitted. How does it work?

  See this cable? It connects with a monitor in the boat. The boat tows you in a predetermined search pattern over the seabed. The sensors pick up anything made of iron or steel, like cannon or anchors, even if theyre a hundred and fifty metres under. One of these babies will pick up a large steel ship up to a quarter of a mile away.

  Raymond leaned forward and indicated a different brochure. What about this? Looks like a vacuum cleaner.

  Good one, Vallance said. Thats more or less what it is and how it works. Depending where you come from its called a dredger or an airlift. Operated by a compressor on the surface. Well have a lot of sand and sediment to clear away.

  Where Vallance couldnt see it, Allie was scratching her bare toes against Raymonds ankle again. He returned the pressure. Pretty impressive.

  Vallance nodded. So you can see how it all mounts up. Equipment, plus a boat with plenty of deck and hold area, doesnt take long to eat up a quarter of a million bucks in this game.

  Raymond was fascinated by the machines. Whats this?

  He indicated a photograph of a diver dwarfed by two massive hollow tubes, suspended on either side of him at the rear of a ship.

  Its a prop wash, Vallance said. You anchor your salvage vessel thoroughly fore and aft, so she doesnt move, place these tubes over each propeller, then run the motors. The wash effect gets directed downwards, like a whirlpool, and it blows away the bottom sediment. Clears a large area molto quickly. Not much good in water over fifteen metres, but I thought we should get one, given that we cant afford to hang around the wreck for too long.

  Raymond said, But if its just lying there, like the stuff we saw the other day, why all the bother?

  Its not just lying there. If you took the trouble you might pick up twenty or thirty grands worth of gold coins just wearing scuba gear, but the bulk of it will be intact, buried deep somewhere.

  Raymond nodded. So all this equipments available now?

  It is.

  None of its cheap?

  Not if its top grade. Vallance numbered his fingers. Youve got your hiring fee, insurance, transport costs, incidentals like our accommodation and ferry charges. I wont lie to you, its going to cost. But consider the return. Jesus Christ, unimaginable.

  Raymond felt more alive than hed ever been. Part of him wondered if his judgement was shot, but mostly he itched for Allie Roden, itched for the treasure. Need a big boat for all this stuff.

  Thats right.

  So have you got one lined up?

  Down in Geelong, Vallance said. Look, Raymond, I wont bullshit you, we have to move fast on this. Most of the syndicates money is already accounted for. Plus, one guy pulled out at the last minute, putting more pressure on us. Ill need at least a deposit from you, as soon as possible. I mean, no offence, but Ill have to look elsewhere for funding if you decide you cant

  I can pay.

  Sorry, put it another wayif you dont wish to get involved.

  You said someone pulled out?

  Allie spoke for the first time, rolling her eyes in exasperation at what fate had delivered. We were this close to finalising the deal, and he pulled the plug. Now we have to start again, put out feelers, make approaches . . .

  So theres nothing to stop me buying two syndicate shares? Raymond asked.

  She looked at him doubtfully, mouth open, thinking about it. No reason why not, she said slowly. What do you think, Brian?

  Vallance was sharper. When I see some hard cash, Ray, then we can discuss whether or not you buy one share, two shares or none at all.

  Raymond swallowed. Denise Meickle swam into his thoughts again, her unappealing face, her slack body flipping into the hole hed dug for her. He tried to shrug her away. He was a few days away from fifty grand. Hundred grand, if he had Wyatts share. Fucking Wyatt, big man with a reputation, sneaks a look at his private things and puts a match to his memories. What did Wyatt want with fifty grand, anyway, considering he had the jewels and God knows what else stashed away in his house across Bass Strait. Wyatt, a bully and a coward, just like his brother, Raymonds father.

  Youll get your money, Raymond said.

  There was another scenariopay Vallance with a million bucks worth of paintings.

  Vallance was staring at him disbelievingly, but then smiled and folded away the brochures. I know you will. I have every faith.

  Not all my assets are liquid at the moment, Raymond said. Like, a lot of its tied up in art.

  Vallance peered doubtfully at Raymonds walls: a Formula 1 racing car, a Ken Done print.

  Not this crap, Raymond said. The real thing, stored in a vault. Family heirlooms. He named the artists Chaffey had listed.

  Vallance looked interested. Dinkum?

  My Dobell, Raymond said, could fucking buy you a boat, let alone rent it.

  Well, Vallance said, climbing to his feet, Im certainly interested, but, like I said, I need cash. He looked at his watch. Be back in a couple of hours. Theres some other people I want to show these brochures to.

  Allie showed him to the door, kissed him on his leathery cheek, closed the door and leaned her long back against it, smiling a languid smile at Raymond. Two hours.

  She uncoiled from the door. She loped across the carpet on her bare feet and pulled his head to hers, periodically laughing with pleasure, a dark laugh deep in her throat. They undressed. She breathed, What would you like me to do? and Raymond stroked her, feeling her moist heat. Wash me with your cunt, he said, and heard the laugh again, her sheer delight in him. He gave himself up to the sensations, a kind of floating. She was good for him. She had the power to drive Denise Meickle from his head.

  At the end of it she propped herself on her elbow and moodily traced his ribcage. I wish I could see you all the time, instead of snatching an hour here and there.

  Me too.

  She laughed shyly. For the first time in a long while Ive been thinking more than one week ahead, you know?

  Do I figure in your plans?

  She said simply, Yes.

  Dump old Brian?

  She sighed. Its run its course anyway.

  He wont like it.

  She shrugged. So? It happens all the time.

  Make sure you dump him after he pays me, Raymond said.

  She looked at him. He tried to fathom it. Or dump him permanently at the site, if you know what I mean.

  Raymond found himself saying, You know the paintings I said I owned?

  Yes.

  Raymond told her about the university, the R.J.L. Hawke School of Burmese Studies. He told her about Wyatt and the bush bandit and the prison break, not bragging, just wanting her to know.

  Awe and excitement settled in her face. Is that who you are? she said.

  * * * *

  Twenty-seven

  Why a van? Raymond wanted to know. Why not something fast?

  Were going to attra
ct attention if we walk out with a heap of paintings and try to stuff them into the boot of your Jag. Not that theyd fit in the boot.

  So concealment is the issue.

  Yes.

  They were sitting across from the R.J.L. Hawke building again, ham sandwiches and cans of mineral water between them on the grass, talking it through. Seagulls wanted their crusts. Students sauntered past, the women with books clasped to their chests, the men with no books at all.

  Raymond concentrated, biting his lower lip. You know when you stole that Picasso?

  Wyatt nodded.

  The word is you hid in the building overnight, walked out with it the next day.

  Yes.

  In 1986 a bent art dealer from Prahran had hired Wyatt to steal Weeping Woman from the National Gallery on St Kilda Road. His story was that a rich man with a grudge was putting up the money. The painting was bound for Europe. Wyatt had got the painting out, concealed as a folio purchased from the Gallerys bookshop, but the job had gone sour after that and the painting had found its way back to the gallery.

  We could do the same, Raymond said.

  Wyatt wanted his nephew to think it through. But in this case well have on our hands fifteen paintings, some the size of the top of a kitchen table. For that we need a van, whether we stay on the premises overnight or not.

  Raymond mused glumly for a while. Is there anything to say the paintings have to stay in their frames?

  Youre on the right track.

  We roll them up in something.

  Yes.

  Plumbers, electricians, they carry stuff around in long PVC cylinders.

  Youre getting there, Wyatt said.

  Raymond flung a crust to the gulls. How come we have to go through this rigmarole? If you already know what you want, how come you dont just tell me and Ill do it.

  Im not telling you anything. Youre arriving at the answers yourself.

  Am I a kid? Is this school? Arsehole.

  Wyatt looked away. He was learning how young Raymond was, after all. He wanted, by asking questions, to encourage thought. He wanted Raymond to identify problems and offer solutions, to inquire and speculate. In Wyatts game, working well was at once thinking well, perceiving well and acting well.

  And he couldnt deny that Raymond had badly unsettled him. That box of photographs, letters and clippingsamateurish and oddly human and ordinary. It was an aspect of human nature that Wyatt could not understand. But the boys most damaging bombshell concerned Steer. Steer was a problem, and, because hed helped Steer to escape, so was Raymond. Wyatt wondered if, even now, as he sat watching workmen come in and out of the target building, the police had a firm idea who was behind Steers escape. When this job was over, hed cut all ties with the boy.

  He watched the ducks among the reeds, watched the students, watched a pigeon settle on the temporary power cable at the building site. Okay, when would you do it?

  Overnight Saturday.

  Why?

  Not many people around.

  And?

  The robbery wouldnt be discovered till the Monday morning.

  True. Though we could also go in on Friday night.

  I wouldnt.

  Why not?

  Raymond indicated the workmen. Those blokes will be working there the next morning.

  Wyatt nodded. On the other hand, there wont be any students or staff around on Saturday, not when theyd have to endure drills and hammers and transistor radios all day, and that means thered be no-one to spot that the paintings were gone. The workmen are unlikely to notice or care one way or the other.

  So theres no reason for anyone to go into the library storeroom until Monday.

  Exactly.

  What it boils down to, how do we get them out, and when? Raymond shrugged. At least we dont have to think about alarms and cameras.

  But we do have to think about nightwatchmen.

  Concealment, Raymond muttered. Conceal the paintings in the PVC cylinders, conceal who we are.

  Yes.

  They fell into silence. Eventually Raymond said, We need to look like we belong.

  Clearly.

  Silence.

  Cleaning staff? Raymond suggested.

  Wyatt shook his head. Not in a building thats still being renovated.

  Irritation came quickly over Wyatts nephew. Chaffey should have thought of all this.

  Wyatt sensed that the irritation owed itself more to the palpable sense of competition and resentment that had developed between them than to Chaffeys lack of solid information. He said nothing. If he put things right for the people he dealt with, then hed never get any work done, thats how he saw it.

  Besides, Raymond had to learn: the job came first. He had to curb his impulses. Wyatt tried to look back along the years. Had he ever been impatient? Had he ever been young? It sometimes seemed to him that hed landed on the earth fully formed and always this age, always this careful. If there had been a time when he was a child, a youth, it was according to the calendar, not character. He supposed that that was a shame.

  Now he did say something. Ray, ultimately its up to us.

  But Raymond wasnt listening. His eyes were narrow and sharp. When I was at school we had an asbestos scare.

  Asbestos?

  These blokes came and looked in the ceilings. Nothing happened, the place was clean, but it scared the shit out of everyone.

  Go on.

  Raymond rubbed his hands together, thinking. Right. Lets say we pose as electricians. We run the risk of meeting the real ones. If we go in as asbestos inspectors, not only will we be alone in that, well look as if we belong and everyone will avoid us.

  Wyatt turned, smiled a snatched smile. It was his way of praising Raymond, but Raymond misread it.

  So? You do better.

  Its good, Ray.

  The heat subsided in Raymond. He turned away, muttering, Lets go get that van.

  * * * *

  Twenty-eight

  Raymond took them to a multi-level car park in Chadstone. They had the number plates, from a wrecked Volkswagen gathering dust outside a crash repairers in Altonanow all they needed was the vehicle.

  Check that panel van, Raymond said, some time later.

  A white Falcon, with a roof rack and windows in the rear compartment. It wasnt a commercial vehicle, but could be adapted without much trouble. They tailed it to the upper level and watched the driver, an elderly man, park, lock up and shuffle across to the lift.

  When the man was gone, Raymond approached the drivers door with a tyre iron. He levered a gap between the door frame and the pillar, then slid a loop of stiff plastic binding tape behind the glass. Wyatt looked intently both ways along the sloping ramp. Wednesday, early afternoon. They needed to be in the campus grounds by four on Friday, giving them two days in which to alter the van.

  He turned back, just as Raymond caught the latch with the plastic hook and pulled upwards. There was a click. You little beauty.

  Raymond slipped behind the wheel. Wyatt had stiffened, expecting an alarm, but there was silence. Raymond broke it. Suddenly all elbows and clenched teeth, he wrenched at the ignition with the tyre iron, splintering the plastic casing and laying bare the electronics behind it. He fired up the motor, grinning at Wyatt from amidst the wreckage. Piece of cake.

  And obvious to anyone who takes a gander through the window, Wyatt said. Wait there.

  He went to the front of the van and then to the rear, hooking the stolen plates over the originals. He ran his hand inside the rear wheel arch. The box was small, metal, with a sliding lid and a magnetised base. The elderly mans spare house and van keys nestled inside the box and Wyatt dropped them in his nephews lap as he slid into the passenger seat. He said nothing, just buckled his seat belt, but his silence was hard and cold.

  Raymond stared at the keys. There was always a smile close to the surface and it broke out over his sulky face now. Ahh, he scoffed, more fun this way.

  That afternoon they repaired the ignition lock a
nd took the panel van to be resprayed green at a place in Richmond$999 of Wyatts dwindling reserves. On Thursday they stencilled the sides of the van with the words Asbestos Removal Services, and filled the rear compartment with empty boxes, a stepladder and several lengths of PVC tubing.

  They went in on Friday afternoon at 4 oclock. They wore overalls and Wyatt carried a clipboard and an aluminium document case. They parked the van inside the enclosure as though they belonged to the place, got out, and asked around for the foreman.