by Garry Disher
Wyatt returned her smile abstractedly and looked away again. Now that they were ready to go, he felt concentrated and still. He’d eaten little, not from nerves but because food didn’t interest him just then. It would be different afterwards. Afterwards he would be high on adrenalin and in need of food to bring himself down. He would also need Leah. But he didn’t think about any of that. At this stage he had no emotional stake in what they were doing or what the results would be. He was waiting like a piece of machinery that won’t activate itself until after other machinery has been set in motion.
He got up and left the room. He stood on the verandah for a while, drinking coffee, looking out across the valley. Visibility was good, the sky clear and windless. There was no indication of storms or other atmospheric conditions that might interfere with radio transmissions. A sparrowhawk floated on the air currents some distance away. A fieldmouse, he thought. Maybe a quail or plover chick. As he watched, the bird seemed to close up with a snap and plunge earthwards, coming out of the dive at the last second with the creature in its talons.
Leah joined him, trailing her fingers briefly across the seat of his pants before standing there dreamily, both hands clutching her cup of coffee. ‘The waiting game,’ she said.
It was always like this before a job. Wyatt had never worked with anyone who hadn’t got jumpy and needed to talk. Normally he kept out of their way and if that wasn’t possible, he closed his eyes until they shut up and left him alone. Something told him now not to do that to Leah. For the sake of her peace of mind, he said the sort of thing he knew people expected to hear. ‘Yep, always the same.’
In fact he had no feelings one way or the other about waiting. He knew that waiting rattled other people, and he knew why, but not because he’d experienced it himself. It was the machine part of him again.
‘You must be used to it by now,’ Leah went on.
‘It doesn’t do to get too relaxed,’ he replied, playing the part. ‘You have to stay alert.’
She nodded as if he’d expressed an essential truth. She jerked her head. ‘It’s going to be hard spending time here with those two afterwards. It’s going to be like an anti-climax.’
Wyatt nodded. She was talking sense now, not platitudes. A lot of jobs go sour if waiting is involved after the hit has been made. That’s when the bickering and dissension start. The hotheads decide they deserve a bigger cut and have to be placated. The cowboys want to take off and start spending their money and have to be stopped before they get caught and lead the cops back to you. It came down to psychology.
‘It’s the way they watch me,’ Leah continued. ‘They’ll be high after this. We’ll have to watch our backs.’
‘If there’s any bullshit,’ Wyatt said, ‘we hit hard and fast.’
At nine o’clock they changed into brown overalls and Wyatt directed them in a detailed clean-up of the farm. They buried tins, paper and food scraps in the pit, then raked it over and disguised it with stones and rusty fencing wire and strainers. The fold-up chairs, sleeping bags, camping stove and personal belongings were stacked in the tray of the utility, ready to be taken out and used again when and if they did return. They put on latex gloves then and wiped their prints off every surface in the house. They spread a fine layer of dirt over the floors. Finally Wyatt distributed the balaclavas and hand-held radios. Snyder already had his radio and jammer tuned to the Steelgard frequency. The signal was clear. The driver was reporting in every five minutes and he was on schedule.
Wyatt sent Leah off first. She had thirty minutes to reach Vimy Ridge on the Suzuki and pick up the Steelgard van. Then he and Snyder left in the Holden utility, followed by Tobin in the truck. Twenty minutes later they turned onto the short cut and Snyder placed a road-closed sign across the entrance. Tobin pulled over into the grass at the side of the track near the creek bed, letting Wyatt and Snyder edge past him. They saw no one on the track, and at the junction near Belcowie, Snyder put the second sign in place. Then they drove back to Tobin. When the utility was concealed, Tobin blocked the road with the truck. The rear was in the centre of the track. All they had to do when they had the van blocked was drop the ramp and winch it aboard.
The three men settled down to wait. Every five minutes the Steelgard van announced its position and progress. Wyatt checked his watch: eleven twenty-five. As if on cue, the radio came to life again: ‘Steelgard One.’
‘Go ahead, Steelgard One.’
‘Leaving Vimy Ridge. On schedule. ETA Belcowie approximately twelve midday.’
‘Roger, Steelgard One.’
Tobin sniggered and adjusted his reflective orange lenses. ‘Just like the movies.’
‘Go and wait in the truck,’ Wyatt said. ‘Any last minute questions?’
‘Not me, mate.’
Wyatt settled back in his seat. Leah would be following the van now. He calculated that they had about twenty minutes before the van reached the short cut. He didn’t need to look at his watch to know. When he was operating at this level of concentration, he knew how to judge time.
The radio crackled. It was Leah. She didn’t use names; she simply said, ‘Move.’
‘Moving,’ Wyatt said.
He got out of the utility and jogged back along the track to the first road sign. He hid it where Leah could find it in the long grass of the roadside ditch then returned to the utility. Five minutes.
‘So,’ Snyder said.
Wyatt almost frowned. Here it was again, the need to make an effort to keep someone happy or calm. But he usually did make the effort. He knew people found him solid and reassuring. He was impersonal, so nothing about him threatened them. When he was wasn’t working he made no particular effort to get along with people, and that was the time he liked best.
‘Not long now,’ he said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Thought what you’re going to do with your cut?’
‘Holiday,’ Wyatt said. ‘Buy a new place.’
‘I heard you had to dump everything after that job in Melbourne.’
Wyatt’s senses tingled. There it was again, oblique references to his last job. ‘It happens.’
‘Me, I’m investing in real estate,’ Snyder said. ‘The market’s low at the moment. Good time to buy.’
‘Yes,’ Wyatt said.
Something about Snyder bothered Wyatt. It wasn’t what Snyder was saying, it was something about his attitude. He seemed to be playing a game-almost. Wyatt thought, as if he’s going through the motions, as if he’s not listening. Snyder’s face was giving nothing away, but something was there.
He pushed that away. He sensed it was time for Leah’s signal. He began to prepare himself for it.
When her voice did come over the radio it was breathless and panicky.
‘Something’s wrong. It didn’t stop. It’s gone on past the turn-off.’
****
TWENTY-FIVE
‘We abandon,’ Wyatt said.
He looked at them in turn. Leah had just ridden up on the Suzuki. She looked bleak, defeated, scraping her palms down her cheeks as if to rid herself of tiredness. Tobin paced next to the truck, landing occasional kicks on the rear tyres. Only Snyder was still, staring at Wyatt, his eyes hard and suspicious.
‘All that time and effort,’ Leah said.
‘It happens.’
‘We could try next week.’
‘No chance,’ Wyatt said. ‘They’ve changed the route.’
‘But why?’
‘I can think of a lot of reasons. It’s routine; the driver wanted a change of scenery; something’s made them suspicious.’
Snyder sharpened at that. ‘Suspicious?’
‘It doesn’t matter what the reason is,’ Wyatt said. And it didn’t, to him-no: when saving their necks was more important than dwelling on what went wrong or what might have been. The analysis could come later. ‘We have to clear out, the sooner the better.’
‘Like where?’
‘Wherever you like.
Come on, let’s get moving, or someone’s going to wonder about the road signs and extra traffic’
The radio crackled again. ‘Steelgard One.’
‘Go ahead, Steelgard One.’
‘On schedule, nothing to report, ETA Belcowie unchanged.’
The exchange was brief and sudden, and for a few moments it froze them to the spot. Wyatt stirred first. ‘We split up. Snyder, take the bike. Catch the first plane home. Leah, you come with me. Tobin, you take the truck. Dump it somewhere and catch a train or a bus home.’
Snyder stepped forward. ‘Hang on, I don’t like this.’
Wyatt tensed. ‘What don’t you like?’
‘Splitting up, pissing off I don’t think we should leave until we know what went wrong.’
‘Leave me out of this,’ Tobin said. He climbed quickly into the cabin, started the engine and eased the big truck across the dry creek bed. Soon he was a dust cloud receding from them.
Wyatt turned his attention to Snyder again. He wondered if Snyder had lost all his commonsense. He looked at the heavy, acned face, trying to read behind it. Snyder looked confused and anxious.
‘Plus,’ Snyder went on, ‘I’m out of pocket on this bloody deal.’
This was more like it. ‘You’ll all get a kill fee,’ Wyatt said.
‘How much?’
‘Five thousand on top of your expenses.’
Snyder held out his hand. ‘Let’s see it first.’
‘Don’t be stupid. You’ll get it later.’
‘Not good enough,’ Snyder said, and he reached into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out a small automatic pistol. The sky above them was vastly blue and still, so the sound of Snyder jacking a round into the firing chamber was like a twig snapping. No one moved. Then, as Wyatt was about to speak, the Steelgard van reported in again. On schedule. Nothing to report.
Snyder gestured with his pistol. He looked flushed and edgy, as if rolling with a plan that might come unstuck at any minute.
Wyatt stood, his body loose, ready to take Snyder. He was starting to read the other man. Snyder had been expecting a hundred grand. Compared to that, a fee of five thousand dollars was peanuts. Killing Wyatt was the only thing that would satisfy him now. ‘Put the gun away, Snyder,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk this over.’
Snyder shook his head. ‘Uh, uh. Chuck me your gun before we do anything. Barrel first, that’s right, now drop it on the ground and kick it out of the way.’
Wyatt did as he was told. Snyder was too far back for him to try anything. ‘You’ll regret this,’ Leah said.
Snyder’s agitation was getting more pronounced. He seemed to be running against the clock. ‘Shut up. Help Wyatt load the bike.’
‘There’s no need for this,’ she said, dropping the tailboard of the utility. ‘We’ll pay you when we get to my place. We don’t want to hang around here.’
Snyder grinned again, a nervy grimace as he stepped from one foot to the other. ‘Bugger your place.’
Wyatt had clicked the Suzuki into neutral with his foot and was wheeling it toward the rear of the Holden. He stopped, looking hard at Snyder, thinking it through. If Snyder intended to kill them, it made sense to do it at the farmhouse where their bodies might never be found.
Snyder swung around on him, the gun arm taut and quivering. ‘Who told you to stop? Load the fucking bike.’
Leah chose that moment to reach into the tray of the utility, haul out one of the folding chairs, and toss it at Snyder. It flew on its side, spinning end to end, and hit Snyder low, the edge of the frame mashing him between the legs. He doubled over, his knees together, and cried out. He had the automatic raised to fire blindly at them when Wyatt, ducking low, pushed the bike at him. Snyder went down onto his hip, pinned by the bike. Wyatt rushed him. He stamped on Snyder’s fingers, prised the pistol out of his hands and shot him twice in the head.
Then he backed away and watched Snyder die. He was not breathing heavily or showing other signs of heightened emotion. If anything, he was frowning, as though some minor hitch was bugging him.
****
TWENTY-SIX
Then he turned around. ‘Leah,’ he said.
He made the word sharp and clear, to get her attention. She was looking down, paralysed, at Snyder. People see killings on films all the time, but it never prepares them for the real thing. The real thing- even one man punching another-is shocking: the sound, the suddenness and emptiness. Wyatt didn’t want her to slide into depression again. He had to snap her out of it ‘Leah.’
She continued to look down at the body. ‘Just like that.’
‘He was going to kill us.’
She gestured helplessly. ‘Everything’s changed.’
‘Nothing’s changed. We bury him first, that’s all.’
‘Where?’
‘The farm, fuck it. We can’t leave him out here, and we can’t risk carting him around.’
At that moment, the Steelgard driver called in again, gabbling a little as if relieved to be near the end of the line. ETA Belcowie, fifteen minutes.
Wyatt turned the radio off. He had to get Leah moving, get her thinking about survival, not emotions. ‘Grab his feet.’
‘His feet?’
‘Help me put him in the ute. Grab his feet.’
He thought she might lose it again. Her face was strained. But then she bent down, grabbed Snyder’s feet, and they lifted together. It brought the colour back to her face. They tumbled Snyder into the tray and Wyatt unzipped the sleeping bags and covered the body. Then he hauled the bike onto its wheels. Fuel had sloshed onto the road and the engine was smeared with dirt but it started immediately, smoking a little before it cleared.
‘You go on ahead,’ he said, ‘while I pick up the road signs. Call me on the radio if you see anything that shouldn’t be there.’
Her face changed again. She seemed to recoil from him. ‘No thanks, I’m going home. I don’t need this.’
She put on her helmet and swung her leg over the bike. Wyatt didn’t say anything. He watched her go. He put her out of his mind then and got into the utility and drove to the far end of the short cut. He found the road sign where Tobin had tossed it into the grass. He loaded it, turned around and doubled back.
This was automatic, taking care of the loose ends. He did it calmly and systematically. Behind it he was thinking hard. Steelgard’s route change bothered him. So did the business with Snyder. He turned on the radio again.
The drive back to the turn-off took him five minutes. He got out, collected the other road sign, and tossed it into the back of the utility. Seven minutes. He turned left onto the main road and accelerated toward the tin-hut corner. Eleven minutes. He felt uneasy, then realised why. There should have been something on the radio by now.
That’s when the voice erupted, tinged with worry. ‘Steelgard One, this is Goyder Base, are you receiving me, over?’
Wyatt leaned forward, listening, imagining the dispatcher hunched over the transmitter dials.
‘Steelgard One, this is Goyder Base, your position please, over.’
There was real concern in the voice now. Wyatt drove on, picturing it from their end. Goyder Base would continue to call the van, but by now they would also be talking to the Brava pay officer in Belcowie. They would spend a couple of minutes debating whether or not it was too soon to call the cops. The cops would spend a few minutes asking questions before deciding to send a car out. It would take the cops thirty minutes to arrive and begin the search.
Perhaps forty minutes altogether. Leah would be okay. She’d be long gone by then. Wyatt slowed, turned the utility around and retraced the van’s route past the turn-off. He took it slowly. He knew how deceptive an open country road could be. There are always haystacks, fire-water tanks, clumps of trees, ditches and roadside farm buildings along them. He slowed to a walking pace whenever he passed one of these, accelerating again when he saw there was no Steelgard van sheltering there.
The most likely place was a
side road. He stopped and got out at the first two. There were tracks, but not the tracks he remembered seeing left by the van on the short cut a week ago.
He found the answer at the third side road. A detour sign had been tossed into the grass. The dirt was powdery, registering clearly the tyre tracks of a heavy vehicle. Wyatt remembered from the maps that this track came out four kilometres south of Belcowie.
He went in. He didn’t find the van, but he found where it had stopped. Found the fat driver sprawled in the ditch, the back of his head shot away.
****
TWENTY-SEVEN
Trigg hadn’t been one hundred per cent sure that Tub Venables would do it. He knew Venables wouldn’t take his regular route, not after he’d learnt that a hold up team was waiting for him, but what if the fat driver chickened out and went the long way around to Belcowie?
He’d been wondering what he’d do if that happened when Happy’s voice crackled on the two-way radio. ‘Boss? He just turned in.’
Trigg sat up, peering down the long bonnet of an XJ6 he’d been trying to sell for the past six months. Probably it wasn’t a good idea bringing an XJ6 onto a road like this, but he hated the thought of driving some tin can. ‘Okay. Put the sign up and follow him in.’
Trigg reached into the back seat, slipped a.303 rifle from its zippered bag, and got out to wait. He heard the Steelgard van, then saw it, pitching on the rough track like a ship in mountainous seas.
Venables stopped the van a few metres short of the big car and stepped out. He looked at the rifle, then at Trigg, his eyes bulging a little, the lines on his face loose and deep. For the moment, they were alone. There were only the empty paddocks and distant razorback hills.
Trigg nodded his head at the rear compartment of the security van. ‘Is he out?’
