by Garry Disher
The other man belonged on the grimy streets. He might have been the brother of the bodybuilder who had tried to stop Wyatt in the Carlton alley. About twenty-five, big jawed, his hair tight and black, he was an impassive man with plenty of strength and grace about him-and menace. ‘This is Hami,’ Towns said. He didn’t say what Hami did. New Zealand muscle, Wyatt thought, letting the big man squeeze his hand, throw him a challenge.
‘Sit down,’ Towns said. ‘Coffee’s almost ready.’
Wyatt thought about the Outfit lineup. Towns would do the negotiating with the Mesics; Drew would look at their accounting; Hami would provide the muscle if it came to that. ‘Just you three?’
The man called Drew said, ‘Think we need more?’
It was a nasally voice riddled with sullenness, so Wyatt took another long look at him. Drew had a face driven by ambition and petty resentments. Perhaps he wanted to be where Towns was, but Towns was smart and would live a long time.
Wyatt said, ‘I don’t want you springing fresh faces on me over the next few days, that’s all.’
‘Just us,’ Towns said.
But the man called Drew wasn’t satisfied. ‘What about you? I don’t exactly see a commando team here. You mean to tell me you and your mate are going in alone?’
‘We don’t need an army,’ Wyatt said.
Wyatt had rules and he rarely took on jobs that broke too many of them. Any job involving more than five people was too messy. Any job set up by amateurs or strangers had too many question marks hanging over it. Anything that smacked of Hollywood special effects he left to the dreamers. And he rarely took a job on consignment. He preferred to leave a place with money that went into his pocket and no one else’s.
‘Just two of us,’ he said. ‘Clean, quick and silent.’
Drew scoffed. ‘Alarms, guards, dogs.’
‘I’ve seen where they live. I’m telling you I don’t need an army.’
‘What about equipment? I suppose you want us to supply everything?’
‘Just a bankroll,’ Jardine said. ‘Someone else is doing the shopping for us.’
Towns interrupted. ‘Drew, let him do his job, okay? We’ll do ours.’
The bald accountant shrugged. ‘Sure. Let’s hear what the expert has to say.’
Wyatt knew that he had to keep Drew happy. He had to keep them all happy. He nodded gratefully at Towns and began to describe the job, letting his gaze rest on everyone in turn, making them feel a part of it.
‘The Mesic compound occupies a couple of acres. There are two houses and a security fence. As far as I can tell, there are no guards, no dogs, no servants, just the two Mesic brothers and the wife of one of them.’
Drew was looking at the floor and shaking his head. Hami spoke for the first time. ‘How are you getting in?’
‘Good question,’ Wyatt said, looking at him frankly. ‘I’d rather go in without a fuss-no alarms, no damage- which means through the front gate. But until we know their movements, we can’t decide that. Jardine and I will watch the place for the next few days, rotating shifts, noting who goes where, and when, in which cars, noting when lights go off and on and in which rooms, the usual thing. If possible we’ll hijack one of the cars and get in that way, which may mean going in a day or a few hours in advance. If that doesn’t work, we’ll go through the fence somehow.’
‘That’s their problem, Hami, not ours,’ Drew said, giving Hami a look that said he was hired help and should keep his trap shut.
‘Two houses?’ Towns said. ‘How will you find your way around?’
‘I know where to get plans for the property.’
‘Okay,’ Drew said, ‘suppose you’re in, no hassles. Where does that leave us-sitting back until all the blood’s been spilt?’
Towns said, ‘There won’t be any blood.’
Wyatt turned his attention to the Outfit boss. Towns had the manner of an old-style professional, low key, methodical. The voice was mild; there was no challenge, squaring off or warning in it, no arrogance, just the facts.
‘In and out with a minimum of fuss,’ Wyatt agreed. ‘We’ll cuff the Mesics together in one room. Jardine will blow the safe, we’ll empty it and a few drawers, and clear out, leaving you the Mesics. What you say or do to them is your business.’
‘I don’t trust you,’ Drew said. ‘How do we know you won’t have their files, accounts, names and addresses under your arm?’ He looked at Towns. ‘We should go in with them.’
Towns was clearly irritated with the younger man. ‘Our friends just want cash. If it’s a trap, if things go wrong in some way, they cop the flack, not us. When we get the signal that it’s all clear, we go in, knowing they’ve done all the dirty work and taken most of the risks. Okay?’
‘What sort of signal?’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ Jardine said, ‘a light in a window, a flashing torch, a mobile phone, whatever you like.’
‘He can speak, can he?’ Drew sniped.
Towns put up a hand. ‘Everyone settle down.’
Hami growled softly, ‘Evening, when they’re winding down for the day, had a few relaxing drinks.’
Wyatt nodded. ‘Yes. I don’t want to do it in daylight and risk being seen. I don’t want to do it when they’re in bed, spooked by strange noises. If they’re still up, still awake, noises in the house won’t bother them so much.’
There was silence while they took that in. Then Drew said, still finding holes, ‘How are you getting there, how are you getting away?’
‘We’ll steal a government vehicle from a depot,’ Jardine said. ‘It won’t be missed overnight, if at all, and it won’t look out of place on the street.’
Drew looked at Wyatt. ‘Sounds like you boys have been holed up somewhere, putting your job together.’
Wyatt nodded, knowing what was coming next.
‘Can you give us an address, a number? In case we need to get in touch?’
Wyatt simply stared at the Outfit’s paper shuffler. He was staying with Jardine in a small house in Northcote. Jardine was a man who had uncles and cousins and it was a family that didn’t ask questions.
The silence lengthened, a stony neutrality on Wyatt’s face. Finally Drew said, ‘Suit yourself. Just don’t mess up afterwards, that’s all. Anyone can plan a job, pull it off-it’s avoiding the cops, keeping a low profile, where most crims come unstuck.’
‘You’re forgetting one thing,’ Wyatt said. ‘We’re robbing robbers this time. There won’t be any cops. It’s not cops I have to worry about, it’s people like you.’
****
Twenty-eight
Napper rolled off her and flung himself onto the carpet. Eileen had been with him three times now and knew to expect nothing better. She poked his chest. ‘I feel cold.’
Making a performance of it, he rolled over onto his knees and turned on the heater. It was a narrow electric thing with fake coals glowing in a fake grate. A smell of burning dust spread through the room.
‘I’d like a blanket,’ Eileen said.
Napper planted a smacking kiss on her neck. ‘For you, anything.’ He turned it into a song, crossing the room naked and bulbous, singing, ‘Anything at all, doo doo doo, anything at all.’ At least he was singing now. When he let her in the door an hour ago he’d been tense and snappy with her, as if something had been getting to him.
The blanket he returned with was crusted with stains she didn’t want to think about. Her skin cringed, but rather than offend him she drew it around her shoulders and sat cross-legged looking into his cheap, nasty fire. ‘What’s the story on Niall? He’s been in five days now.’
‘Yes, thanks Mrs R, the sex was fantastic for me too.’
‘Don’t be sarcastic. Just tell me.’
‘These things take time, Eileen.’
‘It’s all been one-way so far, Napper. I’ve given you Wyatt, you’ve had three fucks off me, and for what? I want my boy out.’
Napper hefted her left breast in one hand. ‘Perfection.
Look, what’s your rush? You weren’t exactly complaining just now.’
Inside, she’d been cringing just now. ‘I’m not expecting miracles, I’d just like some idea.’
Napper grinned at her, got up, and crossed the room again. As she watched, he lowered his white behind and dangling genitals into the squashy vinyl beanbag chair, the sight and sound of it carnal and ripe, and flipped open the clasps of a cheap briefcase. He removed a folded document, waved it at her, and rolled sideways out of the clammy embrace of the chair. When he came back he stood and probed her shoulder with a knee. She looked up, the pungent centre of him just centimetres from her face, and took the document. ‘Release notice,’ Napper said, the knee pressed hard against her. ‘Just waiting for my signature.’
Eileen drew her shoulders in and leaned over the stapled sheets. Niall was committed for trial early in the new year; meanwhile, though, he would be released on bail. She muttered.
‘Sorry? Didn’t quite catch that?’
‘Thanks.’
Napper slithered down under the blanket with her. She wondered why it always had to be the floor. Maybe the bed was sacred for his girlfriend. Maybe the floor was dirt, she was dirt, and he liked to wallow now and then. After a while he wanted to see what she looked like from behind. She got on to her hands and knees, drawing comfort from the sensation of her large belly and breasts swinging free beneath her, and let him peer and poke. She blamed Ross for all this. He’d made no effort to help their son. ‘You’re a good-looking woman,’ Napper said as he began to thump against her.
Eileen knew that Niall had a second crossbow hidden away in his room somewhere. God, she’d give anything to shoot Napper with it, right this minute. When the fat policeman was finished with her she huddled, leaking, under the blanket before the fire while he plugged in the electric kettle. He came back with two cups of weak Maxwell House. ‘So Wyatt was worth trading my son for?’ she said.
Napper got a kick out of talking police work. His mouth became a thin slash in his heavy face. ‘Did some homework on him.’
‘And?’
‘It’s mostly rumour, he’s never been caught, but he’s hard all right.’
‘I told you that. What did you learn about him?’
Napper started to count on his fingers. They were short, blunt fingers, the nails bitten back to the quick. ‘One, he’s an old-style crim. He specialises in armed robbery. Two, he puts a team together for each job, he doesn’t work for anybody. Three, apparently some crowd in Sydney wants him dead, he poked his nose in where it wasn’t welcome. Sound pretty right so far?’
Eileen said, ‘I told you all that.’
‘I had to be sure.’
This Napper wasn’t very bright. ‘Don’t underestimate Wyatt,’ Eileen said. ‘He’s hard. My old man reckons he’s hard. He’s been known to kill if he’s crossed or cornered or provoked.’
‘Yeah, sure. What else does your old man say?’
Eileen had been over all this before. She wondered if Napper had a short attention span, or took a while to grasp things. ‘He’s single-minded. You can’t get at him through his family because as far as anyone knows he hasn’t got one. If there’s a woman, no one knows about it.’
‘How did he get started?’
Eileen remembered an old story of Rossiter’s. She didn’t know how true it was. ‘He started ripping off stuff in the army. Equipment, a payroll.’
Napper looked away, concentrating, putting together a profile of a man who had skills and compulsion and hadn’t been stopped. It amused Eileen to see the policeman disconcerted. She rocked playfully against him. ‘So, does he sound like someone who’ll hit the Mesics?’
Napper jerked his shoulders away. ‘Fuck off.’ He looked at her. ‘It’s not his style. He’s never been known to hit other crooks.’
‘I told you, he reckons they ripped him off last year.’ She rocked against him again. ‘Can you stop him?’
Napper stared moodily at the fire. ‘Tell me about his friends.’
‘You think you can get a handle on him that way? I wish you luck. He hasn’t got any.’
‘Your husband gave you a second name.’
‘Jardine,’ Eileen said. ‘He’s not a friend, he’s someone Wyatt’s worked with before. Sydney based.’
‘And you say they both showed up in Melbourne yesterday? Could mean they’re already setting it up. I hope your old man’s got sense enough to stay out of it.’
‘He’s strictly in the background. You lay off him.’
Napper grinned. ‘It would help if I knew their movements.’
Eileen stood up, throwing off the foul blanket. ‘I’ve paid my dues.’
Napper said, staring at the fire, ‘Wouldn’t it be a funny thing if new information came to light about young Niall. It would mean I’d have to cancel his release order. Wouldn’t it be a shame if your old man heard you were talking to the cops? That would really stuff things up.’
Eileen waited but Napper wouldn’t turn his head around to look at her. She went to his bathroom, a region of cracked tiles, grout mould and soap-scummed water-lines, sponged all traces of him from her skin, and returned to her clothes heaped on the dusty carpet. She dragged them on, the comfortable feline grace gone from her movements. She said savagely, ‘I’ll see what I can find out.’
‘Good on you, Mrs R.’
****
Twenty-nine
On Tuesday morning Wyatt directed the Silver Top driver to the end of a side street that ran north from Doncaster Road. When the cab was gone he walked back to Doncaster Road, turned left and set out for the Doncaster and Templestowe municipal offices, ten blocks away.
Cars and buses hurtled by him on Doncaster Road. He seemed to be unaware of them. Drivers and their passengers saw a tall, loose-limbed man wearing cord trousers and a dark windbreaker. Those waiting at traffic lights had time to take in the coiled hands loose at his sides and the dark cast of his face, too forbidding to be called sad or tired. Wyatt didn’t look at them, but he knew they were there. If they meant him harm, he would know it.
The lights changed. He crossed with the traffic, wreathed in exhaust gases. Generally walking relaxed him, helped him to see past the clutter surrounding an operation, helped him to concentrate only on what related to it. But too many things were related to this job. It was messy and he was being bankrolled by people who had reason to kill him when it was all over.
He laughed aloud, a bleak bark, startling a jogger. She marked time with him at the ‘don’t walk’ sign, watching his hands, trying to catch his eye. He ignored her.
The lights changed and he stepped off the kerb. A van turning left braked abruptly, the driver leaning on the horn, trying to bluff him. Wyatt stopped, his knees centimetres from the van’s front bumper, and stared at the driver. Something in his face drained the bluster out of the man, for there was a shrug and a show of teeth in a weak grin. Wyatt crossed the road.
Normally he liked preparing for a hit. Long periods of inactivity induced a lethargy that he sometimes found hard to shake off. The last few days had seen plenty of activity, but it had seemed somehow pointless, not forceful, concentrated or useful. He would be glad when they finally hit the Mesic compound. It would be the final stage; he’d feel compact then, contained, doing what he did best, with the end in sight.
The municipal offices were two blocks ahead. He found himself thinking about the period after the Mesic hit. He would have funds again. He would go to ground somewhere, invest some of the money, live in comfort.
That wouldn’t be enough, though. It never was. He found himself thinking about Rose, the Outfit’s killer. He could feel her out there somewhere. Women like her were not new to him. They were rarely mentioned in the newspapers, but they existed. The sort of women the tabloids got excited about were single-mother welfare cheats, husband poisoners and nightclub singers who faked their disappearance for the sake of a newspaper headline. The papers wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like Rose, a pro
fessional, sharp and low key. They’d trot out stock phrases to describe her figure, her hair, the clothes she liked to wear, but then they’d flounder, unable to imagine what made her tick.
Then he thought about the Mesics. He’d directed the cab driver to take him past the compound and the place had looked as complacent, as ripe for a hit, as it always had. The odds hadn’t lengthened. Jardine was there somewhere, noting movements, times, new faces.
The municipal offices were housed in a glass and cement complex that smelt of yesterday’s cigarette smoke and perfume. Wyatt asked for the planning office and was directed to a boxed-in glass cubicle at the rear of the building.
The planning officer wore blue suit trousers, white shirt and red tie. Several drafting pens were leaking into his top pocket. He had the kind of blurred features that the eye fails to register clearly: watery eyes, pinkish skin, limp, sparse hair.
‘My rights are being infringed upon,’ Wyatt said.
The planning officer looked anxiously at him. ‘Sorry?’
Wyatt rested his hands on the edge of the counter. ‘The man across the road from me has put up an ugly great fence. Not only does it obscure the view, it’s hideous. There should be a law saying if you build something in public view it has to be aesthetically pleasing.’
The clerk stepped back. The ID card attached to his belt said his name was Colin Thomas. ‘The procedure is to appeal at the planning stage,’ Thomas said.
‘Unfortunately I was away, Mr Thomas.’
Thomas relaxed a little, hearing his name. ‘It really is too late. I’m sorry.’
Wyatt leaned forward again. ‘It’s not too late. I’ve checked. You can still be forced to dismantle something.’
‘A fence, you say?’
Wyatt nodded, giving him the address. ‘A big place on Telegraph Road,’ Wyatt said. ‘People called Mesic own it.’
