by Garry Disher
‘I don’t know where you come from, pal, but here you won’t get far without a helmet.’
‘Throw one in,’ Wyatt said.
‘It’ll cost you.’
Wyatt paid the extra and at five-twenty he was riding out of Gawler with a black helmet on his head and the pack on his back. When he was clear of the local traffic he opened the throttle full out. He wanted to be on the back roads behind Belcowie before sunset.
The white line flashed by under him. A bike was better than a car for what he had in mind. He’d be covering rough ground. He’d need speed and manoeuvrability when he was in the open, and he needed a vehicle he could hide at a moment’s notice.
The sun was low in the sky when he reached the crossroads where the Broken Hill bus had set him down a few weeks earlier. He turned off toward Belcowie, dropping his speed because the road surface was treacherous and this was the time of day when bone-weary farmers drove home in the centre of the road in utilities with bald tyres and faulty lights.
Wyatt had a specific place in mind. He’d spent a week with the surveyor when he first started work with Brava Construction, checking sight-lines across a small range of scrubby hills. They’d gone in along dirt tracks and followed fences and seen only kangaroos and nervy sheep the whole week, but there had also been an abandoned farm in there, tucked away in a valley between two arms of the range of hills. He wouldn’t know how good the place was until he got up close, but he did know it had a north exit and a south exit and two exit lines was the first thing he demanded of any hideout.
‘Why not rent a place?’ Leah had said. ‘That way we’d get somewhere comfortable and look legitimate.’
‘Names, faces, paperwork,’ Wyatt replied. He’d said it quietly, not looking at her.
‘You’re obsessive, you know that?’ she said.
The shadows were lengthening now. Wyatt turned on the headlights, picking up a couple of rabbits and a cat on the prowl. Insects were mashing against the visor of the helmet. He came to a landmark he recognised, a roofless tin hut surrounded by pepper trees, and turned off the Belcowie road onto a smaller one. He slowed right down, steering the bike over channels that had been there since last winter or since the last time the council grader went through-and that might have been a decade ago. He was concentrating. He didn’t want to miss the track that led to the farm. He had a nylon tent in his backpack, together with a camping stove and a sleeping bag, but he’d rather sleep in a shed than at the side of the road. He didn’t want some mountain man turning a spotlight and a hunting rifle on him during the night, and he didn’t want a crop duster buzzing him in the morning.
He got to the farm gate just as the sun was setting. Next to it was a stock ramp, sealed with a tangle of barbed wire. Wild oats were growing at the base of the fence and gateposts and choking the metal grid of the ramp. The track beyond it was stony so he was unable to tell if it had been used recently. He dragged the gate open, being careful not to flatten the weeds, and wheeled the bike in.
He left the bike behind a boxthorn hedge and approached the farm buildings on foot. It was a five-minute walk. There were trees and rocky outcrops between the buildings and the road gate. Wyatt hoped that these had muted the sound of the bike; if anyone was camped at the farm they might not realise that the bike had stopped.
There was sufficient light for him to see that the first farm building was an implement shed. It was empty, facing the next building, a hayshed constructed of gum tree logs and rusty iron. The roof, of mouldy, weather-stained thatch, had collapsed. The yard around the shed and the distant farmhouse was a mess. Empty drums, tangled fencing wire, engine blocks and rusty harrows and ploughs were trapped in the stiff, dry grass. A small tree was attempting to grow through the roof of an outside toilet.
Then he examined the house. The walls were standing and most of the roof was up. That was all Wyatt needed to know about the farm-room for vehicles and a team of men.
He walked back to collect the bike.
****
EIGHT
That was Wednesday. On Thursday Wyatt woke with the dawn, feeling stiff and bruised from the hard ride the previous afternoon and the unyielding floor that had been his bed. He’d heard rats in the night. This morning there were rat droppings near the sleeping bag. He could smell dust and the damp staleness of the walls and floors. Outside, the sparrows and finches were making a racket, but he didn’t mind that, and the sunlight was soft and warm.
His breakfast was black coffee, sweet and strong, and muesli bars. He explored the area around the house and assessed the surrounding hills. The farmhouse was set higher than he’d remembered it, which was good, for it gave a clear view of the approach roads. There was a way out of the valley behind the farm along a twisting, rutted track. The implement shed had doors on it and room for a couple of vehicles. The house itself was habitable enough to shelter three or four men for a few days.
Wyatt had a delayed getaway in mind. Instead of running, and risking roadblocks, they’d hide in the area until the heat was off. The roadblocks would come down after two or three days, and they’d make their run then.
He washed and shaved in a zinc bucket, put on clean jeans, a leather jacket and the helmet, and rode out of the valley. According to the road and ordinance survey maps that Leah had bought for him in Adelaide, Goyder was seventy kilometres from Belcowie, making it ninety kilometres from the farmhouse. Wyatt didn’t bother with back roads. He headed for the bitumen and made Goyder well before the shops and banks had opened.
Goyder called itself a city, and reinforced the notion with parking meters, three sets of traffic lights and a pedestrian mall. There were branches of Myer and David Jones in the mall, and a convent, a high school, a TAFE college and a hospital on the outer edges. It had fast-food and video joints, and service stations on every corner. Trigg Motors sprawled over an entire block. There were coin barbecues and a Christ-in-the-Manger scene in the memorial park. Goyder was vulgar and it would have been smug if the local landowners had had more money to spend in it.
Wyatt found Steelgard on a street behind Trigg Motors. There was a motor accessories shop opposite, so he propped the bike outside that and watched the Steelgard place in the window reflections. The time was eight o’clock and Steelgard was opening its shutters and doors. He saw people go in the front door, and then the gate at the side was opened, revealing an open garage and a parking apron. As Wyatt watched, drivers got into three of the Steelgard vans and drove them out and across the street to the diesel bowsers at Trigg Motors.
Just then a pimply kid came along the footpath. He stopped next to Wyatt and unlocked the front door of the shop. He wore moleskins, desert boots and a skinny leather tie over a khaki shirt. He smiled at Wyatt. ‘Great day,’ he said.
‘Sure is,’ Wyatt replied. Although he still had the helmet on, he kept his face averted. Who knows, the kid might have a photographic memory.
‘Help you with anythink?’ the kid asked.
‘Just riding through.’
‘Fair enough,’ the kid said, and he went inside and opened up the shop.
Wyatt fired up the Suzuki again, swung round so that he could see the Steelgard place more clearly, and rode out of the city.
He didn’t know where else Steelgard went on Thursdays, but he did know there was only one road out for the van delivering the Belcowie payroll. He waited for it in a layby on the outskirts of Goyder. A fruit and vegetable stall was set up there, so he ate an apple while he waited. The land here was richer than around Belcowie. Small wineries and horse studs patterned the flats and nearby hills.
The Steelgard van went by shortly after eight-thirty. Wyatt gave it a minute, then tossed away the apple and set off after it. He stayed well back. He didn’t use the headlight. If the driver was alert-and Wyatt had to allow for a reasonable degree of alertness-he’d see only a distant, intermittent shape on the road behind, if anything.
By the time the Steelgard van was nearing the end of its run in Belc
owie, Wyatt had followed it for three and a half hours. It stopped at eight banks and two building society agencies in nine different towns. Each pick-up and delivery took ten minutes. There was only one other stop, at ten o’clock, when the driver pulled over in a busy town to buy takeaway coffee. The van kept to the speed limit, obeyed all the road rules and stayed on the main roads.
Between stops, Wyatt thought about the van itself. It was the same short-wheel-base Isuzu, with the same two-man crew he’d seen in Belcowie. The bodywork looked to be one-centimetre steel plate. The smoked-glass windows were probably bullet-proof. The rear doors looked more promising. The locks were concealed but the hinges weren’t. They could be prised off with the right tools. The ventilators also looked promising. If he could be sure that Steelgard was too lax to carry gasmasks, he’d try dropping tear gas down the ventilators.
He recalled other security van snatches that he’d pulled. There had been the time his gang came in underneath, forcing a way through the mesh floor of the van, and the time they’d forced a way through the engine bay to gas the driver. Both methods had worked, but required time and a great deal of effort, starting with detour signs to lure the van somewhere quiet, and experts to work the expensive, noisy cutting gear.
But you couldn’t rely on using the same method twice. The security firms had got wise. Soon drivers were always varying the route and never straying off the main roads. If confronted with a detour sign they radioed in for the okay before taking it. The vans themselves became harder to penetrate. Wyatt had heard of concealed aerials in the wing mirrors, sirens that could wake the dead, sonar tracking signals and complete shutdowns where the brakes locked and none of the doors would open.
He wondered if Steelgard had moved up to that kind of protection. He doubted it somehow. But that didn’t mean it would be easy. He still had to find a way in. There was still the radio link the van would maintain with the Goyder base. There were still witnesses to consider. The main roads here couldn’t be called busy, but even one car every five minutes was one car too many.
The solution to the problem of witnesses presented itself on the last stage of the Steelgard run. Wyatt was following the van along a firm dirt road that looped around to Belcowie when he saw flaring brake lights and a back-up of dust. The van was turning off the good dirt road and onto a lesser dirt road. It was taking a short cut.
Wyatt throttled back. He didn’t go in but stopped to examine the van’s tyre tread pattern in the dust. He would follow again next Thursday. If they used the same route he would hit them the following week.
The way into the money itself he’d worry about later. The van’s radio was a different matter. He’d call Melbourne tonight, ask Eddie Loman to send him someone who’d have the equipment and know-how to jam it.
****
NINE
‘Gabe?’
‘Yeah,’ Gabe Snyder said.
‘Eddie Loman here.’
Snyder didn’t reply for a moment. He was braking gently, the car phone at his ear, allowing the moron ahead of him to cut left into Waiora Road instead of Lower Plenty Road. Snyder didn’t want to hit anything. His Toyota van was the latest model and it was full of the latest radio and cellular phone gear. He waited for the moron to get a few car lengths ahead and said, ‘Eddie. Long time no see.’
Eddie Loman’s voice faded in and out. Snyder attributed it to distance and to the hills in this part of Melbourne. ‘Say again?’ he said.
‘Busy tonight?’ Eddie Loman repeated, and this time his voice came through loud and clear.
‘Well, you know, Friday,’ Snyder said. ‘Catch the action at the Cadillac Bar, maybe.’
‘Can you drop in and see us first? I might have something for you.’
It was freaky. Snyder could hear Eddie Loman clearly now. He accelerated through the intersection at the corner of La Trobe University then slowed on the other side. ‘La Salle Park Psychiatric Hospital’ a sign said. Snyder looked at his watch. It was four o’clock, visiting time. There’d be a few cars in the grounds, perfect cover, just as he liked it. ‘Six o’clock all right?’ he asked.
Then the signal faded again. There was a crackle that he hoped was Eddie Loman signing off, and the line went dead. Snyder replaced the handset of the car phone and concentrated on his driving. His mouth dropped open when he did that. It was a large, damp mouth in a loose, pouchy face. The pouchiness helped to conceal the acne a little. The hair helped too. It was curly, salt and pepper coloured, and he wore it to his shoulders. In 1969 he’d been called up for national service in Vietnam. He’d opted for a radio course so he wouldn’t have to fight, but the army barbers had still cut off all his hair. He’d spent the years since then making up for the indignity.
Normally he wore overalls, always dazzling white Yakkas, great-looking against the tan he kept topped up in the Lifestyle solarium. But he’d discovered, the first time he cruised the La Salle grounds, what a drag the overalls were, so today it was green Stubbie shorts, Reeboks and a T-shirt. He also wore Nepalese rings and bracelets, bought cheap from weekend stalls on the Esplanade.
He turned the Toyota into the hospital grounds. Lawns stretched for miles, interrupted by walking paths, seats, flowerbeds and clumps of European trees. Most visitors turned right, taking them to the main buildings. Snyder took the left fork, which circled the hospital perimeter. Staff and visitors rarely ventured where he was going.
He rolled down his window and listened. The Toyota echoed off the bluestone wall on his left and the belt of weeping willows on his right, sounding like a sewing machine. Snyder was disgusted. The trouble with all the greenhouse shit they bolted to engines these days was not only loss of power but also loss of a decent exhaust note.
Then Alice stepped out from the trees and waved. Snyder looked at his watch: four fifteen. When he’d come here on Monday he’d said to her, ‘I’ll be back Friday, okay? Friday, quarter-past- four.’ He’d said each word slowly and clearly, hoping they’d register but knowing they mightn’t. After all, she was in here because her brains were scrambled.
But she had understood him, and here she was, four-fifteen, waiting for him. He stopped the van where it was screened from the hospital administration block by trees and watched her approach. Her hair had been washed this time. It floated free from her head like bits of spider web in a breeze. Her jaws were busy with chewing gum again. He’d smelt it on her breath on Monday, Juicy Fruit or something. She looked doped to the eyeballs again, her skin blotchy, a bit of dribble on her chin.
Forget the face, Snyder thought. Put a bag over it. He smiled at her through the glass and opened the passenger door. Jesus Christ. She was actually blushing and moving her shoulders around as if she was a teenager getting into her boyfriend’s car for the first time. She’d been around, though. She looked to be about thirty. Now and then on Monday she’d almost made sense some of the time.
‘Alice,’ he said.
Alice got in and shut the door and slid across the seat and put her tongue in his ear and her hand inside the leg of his shorts. Snyder was glad he didn’t have the overalls on. ‘Did you bring them?’ she asked.
Snyder played with her. ‘Bring what?’
Instantly her arms went around herself, her mouth turned down and her eyes went ugly with tears. ‘Smokes,’ she said. ‘Nice things.’
‘Oh, that,’ Snyder said.
‘Please.’
‘Smoking’s bad for you.’
The mouth opened again and wailed, ‘You promised.’
‘Settle down,’ Snyder muttered. He managed a smile. ‘You’re not being fair,’ he said. ‘If I give you nice rings and nice smokes, you have to give me something in return. It’s not fair otherwise.’
It was amazing how easy it was to switch her off and on. She’d said on Monday that she’d been in La Salle for fifteen months. Snyder felt the shrinks should have done something for her in that time, but she was still fucked up. As he talked, he watched her face. A flooding look of relief and gra
titude passed across it, followed by dismay, followed by a look of lust that was almost enough to turn him right off. Her hands and tongue started to go all over him as they had on Monday, and he told himself again, forget the face.
He showed her the carton of cigarettes inside the shopping bag in the back of the van. That set her going again. She climbed over the seat, pulling her pants off, tugging at his hand. Although he was only with her for fifteen minutes, the atmosphere was so hot and feverish that he was able to do it twice.
Then he pushed her out with the cigarettes and a $12.95 necklace. He drove back to the main entrance, keeping his eyes open for hospital security. As usual, there was none.
By six o’clock he was in Eddie Loman’s back room, hearing about a job he was needed for over in South Aussie.
The interesting thing about it was, Wyatt was behind it.
****
TEN
Snyder could see that Eddie Loman was hedging. Loman wouldn’t meet his eye, and he kept rubbing his gammy leg. Snyder waited, testing him, then said, ‘Aren’t you missing something?’
‘What?’
‘There’s a fucking contract out on him.’
Loman’s face twisted. ‘You heard.’
‘Course I fucking heard. Twenty grand to the guy that fingers him.’
Loman continued to rub his leg. The movement pulled his trousers up, revealing pink plastic skin. He’d lost the leg ten years ago in a collision between a getaway car and a divisional van. Maybe he still gets ghost feelings in it, Snyder thought.
‘I mean,’ Snyder continued, ‘you begin to wonder why Wyatt’s putting an outfit together if it means all these guys are going to know where he is. You’d have to be mad, right?’
He watched Loman pour beer into their glasses and put the bottles under the coffee table. There were three bottles there now, Melbourne Bitter, resting on their sides. Loman had neat habits. His living quarters behind his hardware supply business looked to be tacked together from mismatching building materials and fire-sale furniture, but there wasn’t a speck of dust or a bad smell in the place.
