by Garry Disher
Then Joe appeared from the yard, saying, ‘All done.’ He had dry, whistling lips and bloodshot eyes and wore jeans, a T-shirt that read ‘What Did Your Last Slave Die Of?’ and gaudy purple, white and yellow running shoes. And sunglasses, resting on top of his shaved head. He looked nothing like a man who dealt in fine jewellery.
But he did look like a van driver. Henri glanced at his watch, then at Joe. ‘Will we need fuel?’
‘Filled up yesterday,’ Joe said.
Danielle continued to arrange the display cabinets. She was enveloped on both sides by powerful odours: Henri’s expressive body lotions, and Joe’s perspiration, the latter leaching various toxins into the air—alcohol and amphetamines, at a guess.
‘Got your mobile?’
‘Yep,’ said Joe.
‘Fully charged?’
‘Yep.’
‘Clothes, toothbrush...’
‘I’m not a kid, Henri,’ said Joe Furneaux.
Danielle kept a straight face and loaded the till with coins and banknotes as Henri said, ‘That’s all, then.’
He was stepping from one foot to the other.
Joe was supremely relaxed, maybe chemically so. ‘No worries, bro.’
Henri snapped his fingers. ‘Snackbars? Bottled water? I don’t want you falling asleep at the wheel.’
Joe shrugged.
‘You need sustenance, Joe,’ Henri said. ‘Danielle?’
She straightened and looked at her boss. ‘Yes, Mr Furneaux?’
‘Staffroom fridge. Grab a few protein bars and bottles of mineral water, take them out to the Audi.’
What am I? thought Danielle. Clearly not the manager of an exclusive shop on High Street. She knew that in a certain light she looked her age—twenty-five—and wasn’t the brightest jewel in the store, but she had the legs and breasts of an eighteen-year-old, and that had been enough for Henri Furneaux to hire her and teach her the job. Which included being treated like shit.
‘Come on, gorgeous, get a move on.’
‘Yes, Mr Furneaux.’
When she got to the yard she saw Henri’s soft-top Mercedes and the open gate but not the four-wheel-drive. Then she heard hissing, and a soft, metallic complaint, and realised the Mercedes was sinking gently on its suspension. There was a faint hint of diesel hanging in the air. Maybe the Audi was in the alley? No, empty in both directions. She dragged her heels for a while, wondering if she’d misheard Henri, before wandering back inside with a worried look and an armful of snack bars and bottled water. ‘Excuse me, Mr Furneaux.’
He gave her his empty smile, then spotted the snacks and drinks and his true nature showed itself: irritation and a hint of the bully. ‘Out to the Audi, I said.’
‘Not there.’
It took him a few seconds to register this. He went white. ‘What do you mean, it’s not there?’
Joe put in, ‘It was there five minutes ago.’
‘It’s not there now,’ Danielle said. ‘The gate’s open and the Audi’s not there.’
The French guy gave her a long, flat look, then strode past her with a kind of creepy grace, the Furneaux brothers pushing after him. Joe’s boot clipped her ankle. She spun and teetered from the force of it and her ankle began to drip blood. The three men disappeared through the door leading to the rear of the building and the alleyway.
A moment later Henri and Joe came barging back, Joe insisting, ‘But the gate was locked, Henri. I swear it was locked.’
Danielle gazed at the brothers—Joe perplexed and sulky, Henri transformed by anger and panic—and ventured a question. ‘Would you like me to call the police?’
Furneaux snarled. ‘Sure, I can just see them dropping everything to tend to a stolen four-wheel-drive.’
‘Maybe it was kids,’ Danielle said. ‘You know, opportunistic. Maybe the gate was open and they thought, “Hey, cool.’“
‘Then wouldn’t they be more likely to steal my car?’ screamed Furneaux, while Joe looked aggrieved and said, ‘The gate was fucking locked, I tell ya.’
Henri ducked behind the cash register and came out with an automatic pistol. ‘Mr Furneaux!’ said Danielle, her hand to her mouth, although she thought that everything was suddenly way cool.
He ignored her, patting his suit for his car keys, pulling them from a pocket and saying, ‘Let’s go.’
‘Are you going after them?’ Danielle said.
‘Too right we are,’ Joe said.
Henri nodded, telling Danielle, ‘Sit tight here until we get back. Don’t call the police yet. In fact, shut up shop and wait in the staffroom.’
But Henri, they let down your tyres. ‘How will you know which direction they took?’ said Danielle, enjoying herself.
Joe touched his nose, trying for clever but looking comical. ‘Global positioning.’
‘Shut the fuck up, Joe,’ Furneaux said, shoving his brother towards the back door.
But Le Page materialised there, holding the tracking monitor from Henri’s Mercedes and looking so hard at Danielle that she buried her emotions. He turned to Henri. ‘They have slashed your tyres.’
Danielle, far removed from it all, watched Joe gape and heard Henri snarl, ‘Fuck.’ Meanwhile Le Page continued to stare, and to deflect it she said, ‘Shall I ring the police?’
Le Page shook his head. ‘No. Stay here.’
Henri and Joe followed him out onto High Street, where they climbed into Le Page’s car, a black BMW from Prestige Rental. Danielle watched them tear away. Switching the front door sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed’, she figured they’d lost about ten minutes. A big part of her wanted that to be enough.
* * * *
14
‘Anything?’ said Eddie in the passenger seat of the Audi.
Wyatt glanced at the rear view mirror again. ‘No.’
It was 8.50 and they were clear of Armadale now, heading east through Malvern along the side streets. Here and there they encountered glossy Volvo and BMW wagons, but it was local traffic, mothers on the school run. Everyone else was in a train, bus, tram or car, choking the main routes into the centre of the city, another day at the treadmill. No one was heading east.
‘Anything?’ said Eddie again.
The guy was too antsy. Wyatt didn’t like it. ‘When there is something,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you.’
He said it in a way that would shut Eddie up. He never talked for the sake of talking. People like Eddie talked to fill some gulf, he supposed. He checked the mirror, feeling very alive. He never ate or drank before a job and so the blood was flowing smoothly within him and all of his synapses were firing.
Eddie pitched about in his seat, tugging at his upper clothing. ‘Hate these bloody vests.’
Wyatt ignored him. If Eddie didn’t know to expect this level of outfitting, he’d been out of the game for too long.
‘Fucking uncomfortable,’ Eddie said.
Wyatt drove along Wattletree Road, but got caught behind a tram. The tram made every stop, and there were plenty of those, and it seemed to wallow at every stop for extended periods, so Wyatt turned right into a region of leafy streets, box hedges and red tiles, then headed east again. They passed Central Park. He’d examined it as a place to torch the Audi, just as he had many other parks in a five-kilometre radius of Furneaux Brothers, but Central Park was too small and public. Only one park had what he needed. He got onto Malvern Road for a short while, then crossed the freeway and Gardiner’s Creek. He was heading in stages for Buckingham Park, on Glen Iris Road. Lydia was already there, monitoring the police band.
‘Check your phone,’ he said.
Lydia would send a text message if she had to abort her part of the operation or heard anything that would endanger them. Eddie fished out the mobile and pressed buttons and said, ‘Nothing.’
Wyatt thought about the location. The well-heeled people who lived out here had the wallet power to demand stretches of public grassland yet you’d not see many of them out walking or running at this hour on a w
eekday morning. The other benefit of Buckingham Park, confirmed yesterday, was that it offered plenty of cover from the nearby streets.
He slowed the Audi, ready to turn off, and said, ‘We’ve got company.’
Eddie contorted in his seat, trying to find the tail in his side mirror. ‘The black Mercedes? But you let the fucker’s tyres down.’
Wyatt concentrated. ‘Get your gun out.’
Eddie patted himself. ‘Shit, left it behind.’
It was an icy silence Wyatt gave him, and he babbled, ‘Must have been subconscious. You know I hate guns.’
‘Watch the Merc.’
‘Okay, all right,’ Eddie said. Then relief shuddered in his voice. ‘False alarm, it turned onto a side road.’
Wyatt drove on. ‘I bet we have a GPS transmitter somewhere on board, if not with the jewellery then on the vehicle.’
‘Meaning?’
‘We hurry.’
Reaching the park, Wyatt jerked the wheel to take the Audi bumping over gutter and footpath and down across a grassy slope to wind among trees. As he understood it, navigation, tracking and global positioning systems are mostly logical and unimaginative, seeing a city as a series of grid patterns. Supposing Henri Furneaux or the police got their act together quickly, and started tracking the Audi, there was no way a monitor screen could pick a route off the bitumen and down through trees and rocks.
He bumped across the grass, over walking tracks and around park benches, and came to a little grove enclosed by vast, leafy trees. He braked hard. ‘Lydia’s up there somewhere,’ he said, indicating a grassy bank leading up to guardrails and a street.
They got out and hurried to the rear door of the bulbous Audi. Wyatt swung it open and stood back for Eddie, who ducked in, fiddled with clips and lifted the false floor to reveal the concealed compartments. Inside them were a pair of titanium cases. He shoved these into a gym bag, and stepped away to let Wyatt toss petrol around the interior and throw in a match.
Wyatt retreated, turned, saw that Eddie wasn’t alone. Then he saw the gun. Then a bullet smashed into his chest and he went down and out.
* * * *
15
‘Head shot, remember?’ shouted Eddie. ‘Not body.’
Khandi Cane shrugged, animating her unholstered breasts. ‘This time I tried to anticipate the kick, but it threw my aim off.’
‘What do you mean, this time?’
But she was straddling Wyatt’s prone body, her long legs in a micro skirt and slinky boots. Her smile was glassy. ‘Taking a bead on his head, Khandi squeezes the trigger.’
Voices beyond the trees, somewhere up on the road above the hollow, and Khandi was just standing there. ‘Shoot,’ urged Eddie.
‘I did.’ She looked at the end of the barrel. ‘This gun is shit. It just jammed on me.’
Wyatt groaned on the ground. ‘We haven’t got time for this,’ screamed Eddie, close to hyperventilating. He grabbed Khandi’s arm. ‘Where’s the fucking car?’
She pointed. ‘Up there, where you told me.’
Parked where Lydia wouldn’t spot it. ‘We need to move.’
Leaving Eddie to carry the titanium cases, Khandi strode up a parkland slope to a faded white Commodore and got behind the wheel. Eddie, gasping after her, stowed the cases in the boot and climbed into the passenger seat. ‘Go!’
But Khandi merely grinned at him, the white streak in her hair more demonic than ever.
‘Will you fucking go?’ shouted Eddie, peering down into the park, certain Wyatt was after them, the unstoppable cunt.
‘Don’t be such a wuss,’ said Khandi, pulling away from the kerb, leaving rubber on the road. ‘Everything’s cool.’ She placed her hand and her gaze on his cock.
Eddie grabbed the dash. ‘Watch where you’re going.’
He’d been wheelman on a couple of hold-ups a long time ago and one day it had all gone wrong: he’d clipped a bus, flipped the getaway car, and had never quite got his nerve back. Now here was his sweetheart driving like a maniac.
He shrugged off his bullet-proof vest and tried for calmness. ‘We don’t want to get noticed by the cops. We don’t want Wyatt after us.’
Khandi smirked but removed her hand. ‘Can’t help it, I’m all wet,’ she said, glancing at him, making a feint at his groin, shooting them off course.
‘Time and place, babe.’
‘You’re no fun,’ Khandi said.
She corrected the car with a flick of her wrist and told him how she’d swiped the Commodore from the all-day zone of an outer suburban railway station and fitted it with plates swiped from another Commodore parked in the next station along, to fool the cops. A Commodore because you saw them everywhere.
‘Good one,’ nodded Eddie.
Suddenly she braked, swung to the kerb. He couldn’t believe she was doing that. ‘Fuck’s sake, Khandi, get us out of here.’
Instead, Khandi swung the car around in a squealing U-turn that took them back to a point in the road above the scene of the shooting. Not only that, she braked again. Eddie could see the screen of trees, evil black smoke roiling out of the little glade, a couple of curious onlookers.
Sirens in the distance.
And there was the getaway Camry, Lydia still waiting.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’
‘You’ll see,’ Khandi said, pulling up next to the Camry.
He saw, all right: Lydia slumped over the wheel, blood splashed on the glass, the shattered driver’s window. ‘You shot her?’
Khandi smiled one of her smiles and floored the accelerator.
He shook his head. ‘You shot her.’
Her crazy jealousy, that’s what it was. Not part of the plan.
The plan was, he and Khandi would kill Wyatt, grab the gear, hop into the Commodore and speed off.
All over in less than two minutes.
Meanwhile he’d call Lydia by mobile phone, tell her it had all gone pear-shaped. He’d say Wyatt had tried to doublecross them and he’d been forced to shoot the guy. He’d say they struggled and the vehicle caught fire before he could grab the gear. He was on foot, couldn’t risk joining her. ‘Get out now,’ he’d tell her. ‘I’ll contact you in a few days.’
Instead, he’d be with Khandi somewhere tropical, long beaches, palm trees and pina coladas. Lydia would start to wonder after a while, discover that he’d sold his house, feel betrayed, but she’d get over it. He was nothing to her any more. No real pain for anyone—except Wyatt, and he didn’t count.
Simple.
Except for the Khandi factor.
Eddie chewed on his bottom lip. Lydia hadn’t deserved to die. She’d been a good sort, game for anything, and she’d dropped the Furneaux job in his lap. He’d loved her once, and yeah, thought for about five minutes they could get back together, but that was a non-starter. She’d changed anyway, and then Khandi came along.
‘You didn’t have to kill her.’
Whack. Khandi backhanded him.
Eddie rubbed his cheek. Big mistake, telling her about Lydia. Jealousy at the insane end of the spectrum.
He glanced back over his shoulder, expecting to see Wyatt on their tail. ‘Quit twitching,’ Khandi said.
‘Quit hitting me in the face.’
‘I haven’t seen you for days and—’
‘I told you, we had to keep our heads down.’
‘Haven’t seen you for days,’ growled Khandi, ‘and all you can talk about is your fucking ex-wife.’
Eddie swallowed. He’d met Khandi at Blue Poles, a club in the city. She’d begun paying him special attention one night, writhing around her pole before crossing to the edge of the little stage, which was slightly above his ringside table, and squatting, legs wide apart, to present her gorgeous, shaven slit.
He fell for her, fell hard. He liked women, liked sex, and even Lydia had been hot in her way, but no one was ever hot like Khandi. He’d tried explaining this to Khandi and she’d got it into her head that he still loved Lydia. ‘You�
��re the one I love,’ he insisted.
‘So how come you’re seeing so much of the bitch?’ she screamed.
Doing homework, Khandi. Preparation for the job.
Twisting again in the passenger seat, squinting through the rear window, Eddie said, ‘You don’t know Wyatt. He’ll come after us.’
‘He’s just a guy,’ Khandi said.
