Cross Kill w-4

by Garry Disher

  Wyatt found the keys to the Peugeot in her coat pocket. He checked that Jardine was sleeping peacefully in the surgery and a minute later he was in the alley at the rear of Ounsted’s house. He circled the block, saw no one. Rose had come without backup. He was the hunter now.

  ****

  Thirty-seven

  East Melbourne was leafy, damp and full of shadows, but a hundred metres away some light leaked into the darkness from the Outfit apartment building. Wyatt checked the time-11.30-and settled against the door of Ounsted’s car to wait.

  Some time later he straightened. He saw the glass door open and a uniformed doorman touched his cap to a man in a hooded grey tracksuit. Wyatt didn’t know who the jogger was. He only knew that twice since Monday’s meeting he and Jardine had met with Towns late at night after watching the Mesics, and each time he’d seen joggers leave the building. The jogger padded past the Peugeot and out of sight.

  A couple of minutes later a second jogger came through the door. He got closer. Wyatt had already removed the car’s interior light, so there was nothing to warn the man that the passenger door was swinging open. He smacked hard against it, the breath gushed from his body, and Wyatt watched him collapse onto the footpath.

  There was no one around. Wyatt got out, poured ether from Ounsted’s surgery onto a handkerchief, and clamped it over the jogger’s face. He finished by stripping off the man’s tracksuit, putting it on over his own clothes, and hauling the man into the back of the car.

  He waited. Fifteen minutes later, the first jogger finished his circuit of the nearby streets and approached the building. Wyatt slipped out of the car and caught up to him. They ran in place on the footpath, marking time, Wyatt with the tracksuit hood concealing his face. He let his breathing sound hoarse and strained. It was a sound of the city, and as necessary to jogging as two hundred dollar shoes, and it worked. The first man glanced around at him, nodded abstractedly, rapped on the glass door a second time. The doorman acknowledged them, the lock clicked open, and they were in.

  The first jogger entered a ground floor apartment. The lift door was at the far end of the foyer. Staying in character, Wyatt trotted across the marble floor, pushed the up button, and touched his toes until the lift arrived.

  The door slid open and he stepped into the lift. The interior walls were mirrors. He was disconcerted to see his reflection, a hooded figure wearing clothes he’d never normally wear. He turned his back on the mirror, stared out across the foyer, waited for the doors to close.

  The lift was whisper quiet. Wyatt took out his.38. He was wearing gloves. The lift shook gently to a stop, the doors pinged open, and he Stepped out into the Outfit’s little entrance hall and pushed the gun under the chin of the man called Drew. There was a pair of suitcases in the bald accountant’s hands. He froze when Wyatt said, ‘Freeze,’ and dropped the cases.

  ‘Inside,’ Wyatt said.

  He followed Drew into the apartment. Apart from Towns, who was in one of the bedrooms stacking shirts in a suitcase, the place was empty. He pushed both men face down onto the floor. ‘You seem to be leaving in a hurry.’

  Towns said, as if that explained it, ‘Rose hasn’t come back.’

  ‘Where’s Hami?’

  ‘Fetching the car around.’

  ‘Towns, we had an agreement. I want my money back.’

  Towns twisted his head around to stare at Wyatt, looking puzzled, his mind working but not finding answers. ‘I haven’t got your money.’

  ‘You knew about the house in Northcote and sent Rose after us,’ Wyatt said. ‘She jumped us and took off with the money.’

  Towns shook his head. ‘There must be another player involved. We haven’t got your money.’

  ‘So she was acting alone?’

  Towns put his cheek back down on the carpet. ‘Not her style.’

  ‘Her gun failed her the first time,’ Wyatt persisted, ‘and she came after us again. I’d like to know how she knew where we’d be both times.’

  ‘I tell you we didn’t know about your Northcote place. As for being at Ounsted’s, about an hour ago we got a tip-off. What have you done to her?’

  Wyatt said levelly, ‘What do you think?’ Then, ‘Was it Kepler’s idea to send Rose in to knock us off?’

  Towns craned his head around again. He was clearly frustrated. ‘I keep telling you, we haven’t got your money, and Rose wasn’t acting alone. You’ve got a fucking nerve, sending us into a trap, then accusing us of taking your lousy money.’

  Wyatt frowned. ‘What do you mean, a trap?’

  Towns said heavily, ‘Aah, knock it off, Wyatt. You killed the Mesic brothers and tried to set us up for it.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Luckily we were still outside the compound when the cops showed. We came back here, got the tip-off you’d be at Ounsted’s, and I sent Rose to knock both of you. She hasn’t come back, she hasn’t contacted us, meaning you got her first, so we’re heading back to Sydney. Fucking end of story.’

  Wyatt sat on the end of the bed. He kept clear of Towns and Drew, but he wasn’t being so zealous with the.38 in his hand. ‘Something’s going on. The Mesics were alive when we left the compound. Tell me what you saw.’

  ‘After you gave the signal, we waited while you got clear. No one was tailing you, so we got ready to move in. Then this cop car shows up.’

  ‘How do you know the brothers are dead?’

  ‘It’s on the news already.’ Towns looked at his watch. ‘Five to twelve. Check for yourself if you don’t believe me.’

  Wyatt took them into the main room. At midnight he turned on the television set and channel hunted with the remote control. The Mesic raid headed the bulletin on Nine. He saw a pool of darkness, the compound lights weak in it, police cars, their flashing red and blue lights spelling alarm and disaster. Then a policeman waved back the cameras and a reporter filled the screen, a microphone at her throat: ‘An armed robbery went terribly wrong in this house in Templestowe earlier this evening, leaving two brothers dead, shot in cold blood as they lay handcuffed on the floor, unable to defend themselves. A third occupant, a woman claimed to be the wife of one of the brothers, is unharmed and said to be staying with friends. Police are searching for two men, believed to be driving a white Toyota van and a Saab. They are armed and dangerous and should not be approached. Back to the studio.’

  Towns said, ‘See it from our point of view, Wyatt. You got your money, killed the Mesics, set us up for it.’

  ‘Then why would I have left the woman alive? Why would I have come here looking for my money? I made a deal and I kept it.’

  Wyatt watched the screen as he spoke. There was more about the Mesic raid on another channel. The victims were named, and police and neighbours talked to the camera. Earlier footage was repeated: ambulances, Stella Mesic being driven away, torches and dogs roaming the grounds.

  Then, if it were possible to freeze-frame the picture, Wyatt would have done it: among the men grouped on the house steps, barely touched by camera lights, was the stranger he’d seen on the first day of his operation against the Mesics. The man was a cop and suddenly a lot of things made sense to Wyatt.

  He pressed a button and the picture gulped and died. He said to Towns, ‘I can still give you the Mesics.’

  ****

  Thirty-eight

  Those early days, when she’d first started seeing Bax, had been great. They’d watch each other’s striving bodies in the ceiling and wall mirrors of her bedroom, their skin gleaming in the curtained afternoon light while Leo was out somewhere. Once she’d even tried a champagne bath; Bax liked to watch oysters slide down her throat; sometimes she splashed brandy around his groin. She’d laugh deep in her throat at times like that and Bax would grow hot-eyed, claiming it turned him on. There’d been no guilt or regret, only appetite. Bax would go home and she would shower and dress, feeling pleasantly battered, glad to be by herself for a few hours, disappointed if Leo came home.<
br />
  But then it began to lose its spark. She watched the old man die, watched Victor come on the scene and work a hold over Leo, saw that she might lose everything. Also, where Bax had once seemed appealingly dangerous-something to do with his job, his corruption by the family, his wolfish looks-in the end he was just weak. She liked him enough when he was in a sharp frame of mind, working out the angles, but somehow, after the old man’s death and Victor’s appearance on the scene, Bax seemed to become less capable of following through with anything.

  He’d seen easily enough how the raid by the man called Wyatt could be used to their advantage, but then at the last minute he had lost his nerve. He said Wyatt was too dangerous-Wyatt would want to shoot it out and everyone could get hurt. He said that if he shot or arrested Wyatt, there was no guarantee that Victor would be impressed. If anything, Bax said, Victor would argue that a raid on the compound showed up the family’s vulnerability and he’d be in a position to talk Leo around to his way of thinking, leaving Stella and Bax out in the cold. And there was still Coulthart breathing down Bax’s neck.

  That’s how Bax saw it. As Stella saw it, the entire Mesic operation was up for grabs and just two things stood in her way-Victor Mesic on the inside, cops eager to break up the Mesics on the outside. The raid by Wyatt and Jardine could still be used. The firm could withstand the loss of two hundred thousand dollars. If Wyatt and Jardine were as good as Bax said they were, they’d never be found, never come forward, never say what state the household was really in when they left it.

  The gun was a.22 target pistol. Bax had confiscated it when he’d worked with the Drug Squad, thinking he’d need it as a throwdown one day, something to cover himself with if he ever happened to shoot an unarmed man.

  Wyatt and Jardine had come in, stripped the place, left again, and it had gone as Napper said it would go. Stella was alone with Leo and Victor for about two minutes, Victor spitting chips, Leo silent, then through the glass of the front door she had seen headlights. It was Bax. He came in through the front door, leaving his police car in the drive. He had a cover story ready to explain his presence in the house. He’d been following up a stolen car lead, had seen that something was wrong, had let himself into the house to investigate.

  Bax had come in and Victor had said instantly, sharply, ‘Look who’s here.’ Stella knew from his voice that he was beginning to put it all together.

  Bax crouched with keys and released her wrists. She stood, rubbing them. The strain showed in Bax’s face. She thought he might lose his nerve again, or change plans on her, so she’d put her hand on his wrist. Her grip was warm and strong, and for Bax everything in the world was reduced to a manageable size. She saw him begin to relax. ‘The gun,’ she said quietly.

  His lean, handsome face wrestled with the notion of what she was about to do. He didn’t say anything, just reached inside the coat of his costly suit and drew out the pistol. He wore gloves. He gave her a large thick handkerchief to wrap around the gun. She jacked a round into the firing chamber. He’d already explained how the gun worked.

  Leo hadn’t wanted to believe it was happening. He jerked the cuffs against the radiator and tried to stand. ‘Come on, Bax, Stel, undo the cuffs, will ya.’

  ‘Save your breath,’ Victor said.

  ‘You need me, Stel,’ Leo said.

  ‘Moron,’ Victor said, ‘can’t you see?’

  Bax had turned away for the next stage. She shot each brother twice in the head and centrally in the chest, then dropped the gun on the floor and gave Bax his handkerchief back. ‘It’s done,’ she said, touching his arm. Then she’d sat on the floor and Bax, avoiding the bodies, the tremors passing through them, had cuffed her to the radiator again.

  ‘Bax,’ she said quietly, holding his eyes, ‘it’s working, all right? All you have to do now is call it in and have your story ready.’

  A divisional van had arrived first, followed by an ambulance, a second ambulance, several police cars. A policeman removed her cuffs, poured her a brandy. She was numb and grieving and robotic. Crime scene officers photographed the bodies, the safe, the open drawers. They dusted for prints. The ambulance officers got restless, said in future call the pathologist before you call us. The pathologist when he got there was irritable, methodical, a white coat over his dinner jacket. Homicide detectives took her to the kitchen, a policewoman made a pot of coffee, they said, ‘A few questions, if you don’t mind.’ They questioned her, questioned her again. Armed robbery detectives questioned her. Homicide again, the same questions worded differently. Finally she said, ‘This is intolerable. I’ve told you all I know,’ and put her head in her hands. She didn’t see Bax again.

  It was ten o’clock before they let her go. They wanted to know where she’d be staying, a number where she could be contacted. She gave them the South Yarra apartment, let a woman detective take her there. It was curious: she was scum in their eyes, the family was scum and the world a better place now, but once or twice the police seemed to remind themselves that her husband and her brother-in-law had been executed before her eyes and that she must have looked death in the face, for they showed her little kindnesses, which she gravely accepted.

  She fitted the role to herself like a cloak and it stayed with her even when the detective was gone and she was alone in the apartment. She felt sombre, reflective and tragic. She poured Scotch over ice in a glass, put Marianne Faithfull on the stereo and pictured all the lonely women driving through Paris in sports cars.

  Bax dissipated all that soon enough. He showed up just before midnight, standing white and agitated outside her door. She took him into the main room and pushed him down onto the sofa. He was like a clockspring ready to break and there it was again, questions, questions.

  ‘I told you not to come here,’ she said. ‘It’s too risky.’

  ‘No one followed me, Stel.’ He leaned his face toward her imploringly. ‘I had to find out what they said to you, what they wanted to know.’

  ‘What do you think? They wanted to know did I get a look at the two men? Could I describe them? Did I have any idea who they were? Did I think robbery was the motive here, or was it murder made to look like a robbery gone wrong? What enemies did the family have?’ She laughed. ‘I told them yeah, sure, only the entire police force. They wanted to know how much was in the safe. Did the two men say anything? Etcetera, etcetera.’ She stopped. ‘What about you? Did they swallow your story?’

  ‘A stolen car inquiry. They bought it.’

  ‘They weren’t curious as to your timing on the scene?’

  Bax rubbed his face with his hands. ‘They were, but I told them the evenings were the only time I’d find the Mesics at home, I gave them Coulthart’s name, told them I’d been working your case for a couple of years.’ He stopped dry-washing his face and said, ‘God, I can’t believe it, you were so cool.’

  Stella looked at him, wishing he would go away.

  ‘The investigation will drag on for a while,’ he said. ‘It will be a few weeks before they stop sniffing around. Meanwhile we’ve scared off the opposition and we can quietly put the firm back together again.’

  The apartment lighting was turned low. Beyond the thick curtains the night was black. Bax, sitting stiffly at the far end of the sofa, edged imperceptibly along it. Stella backed away until her spine was against the arm rest. She tucked her legs under her and clamped a cushion to her chest, body language aimed at telling him to keep his distance. There was a vast gulf between them and it wasn’t only the empty space on the sofa. ‘I don’t know, Bax,’ she said finally.

  He pricked up at that. ‘What do you mean?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I just feel different, things have changed. I feel I could pack it all in, sell up and go overseas or something.’

  He looked away and there was a catch in his voice. ‘Where does that leave me?’

  ‘The Mesics are finished now. That should get your boss off your back.’

  ‘I don’t mean that. I
mean me and you,’ Bax said.

  Somehow she didn’t have the energy for this. There was silence and she let it lengthen, waiting for him to find the answer in it.

  ‘I’d better go,’ he said at last.

  She nodded.

  He got up, seemed to wrestle with the idea of kissing her, and said, ‘I could call in tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘I might not be here.’

  ‘I’ll give you a ring,’ he said.

  She nodded.

  At the door he said, ‘I’ll let myself out.’

  When he was gone she realised that she should have asked him to return her key. She unplugged the telephone, got ready for bed. She didn’t want hassles with him, she didn’t want to see his pained face or see him maudlin or violent or however it would affect him, so when she heard his key in the lock a short time later, real anger flared in her. She marched out to confront him.

  But the man standing in the main room was one of the men who’d robbed her, and the look he directed at her was full of hard and unnerving intelligence. Bax and two strangers were with him. He pushed them toward her. ‘Your new partners, Stella,’ he said. ‘Meet Mr Towns and Mr Drew.’

  ****

  Thirty-nine

  After he left them, Wyatt drove back across the river. Everything led to the house in Abbotsford. Rossiter knew about the Mesic job, there was that unexplained release of Niall from prison, and only the Rossiters knew he’d be at Ounsted’s surgery.

  He left the Peugeot under a plane tree on Gipps Street and entered the alley on foot. There was no easy way about the next step other than to storm the place. He stopped when he reached the granny flat. Its rear wall was incorporated into the alley fence. There was one dusty curtained window, a light on and a radio playing inside. Wyatt went in noiselessly over the fence.