by Garry Disher
‘Exactly,’ Lydia said. ‘We can pose as the legitimate owners and no one’s the wiser.’
‘We can’t pull this without you, pal,’ Oberin said.
Wyatt had heard that before. Other people’s endorsements meant nothing to him. He didn’t even measure himself by himself. He was a thief and hold-up man, that’s all. He was good at it because he thought and planned, and then thought and planned all over again, until he was satisfied. He was honest enough with himself to acknowledge his mistakes, but he rarely had to do that. Other people let him down. Eddie Oberin would let him down eventually.
Still, the well was running dry and the harbourmaster job had failed. ‘There’s something you’re not considering.’
‘What?’
‘It all hinges on who the Furneaux brothers really are. You know as well as I do, organised outfits from the old Iron Curtain countries are moving in: major heists, human trafficking, drugs. Do we want to antagonise these people? Even if the brothers are working freelance, maybe they’ve been sanctioned by one of the organised outfits, kicking back a percentage of their proceeds as payment for protection and sponsorship. We don’t want to hit an operation like that. Sooner or later they’d find one of you and they’d hurt you and you’d give me up. I don’t want to spend my time looking over my shoulder.’
Eddie scowled. ‘I did my homework, bud. You know me: I hear things, I learn things. The Furneaux brothers are running their own operation.’
Wyatt would check that independently. ‘I take it these guys are about to make another trip?’
‘Wednesday next week,’ Eddie said, ‘returning on the Friday.’
‘Gives us ten days,’ brooded Wyatt.
‘Should be enough,’ Eddie said.
Wyatt was thinking about the mystery taxi, about envy and loose lips. ‘From now on we use pre-paid mobile phones and payphones, one use only. And I want you both to drop out of sight until it’s over. Motel, hotel, guesthouse, something like that.’
‘Paranoid, Wyatt,’ Eddie said.
But Lydia Stark was also thinking about the taxi, and said, ‘No, it makes sense.’
Wyatt flipped open his mobile phone. ‘Who are you calling?’ said Eddie suspiciously.
‘Someone who can hurt or help us,’ Wyatt said.
* * * *
9
After tailing Eddie Oberin and some woman to the Botanical Gardens, Tyler Gadd sat for a while, flipping through a skin magazine and watching the spot where they’d disappeared from view.
The taxi belonged to a guy who owed Ma $2000. When Tyler had come to collect, the guy—thick accent, pouchy face, eyes too far apart, garlic stink—blubbered that he didn’t have two grand, didn’t have two bucks. Tyler had been smacking him around out of habit when he paused in mid-punch: a taxi is your perfect surveillance vehicle.
That was four days ago. Tyler had got himself a cab, the ethnic guy an extension on his loan.
Stage two was poking around in Ma’s laptop files. Normally that would have been impossible: Ma was always close by when Tyler helped at the market, or she was sending him out in the van—Gadfly Flowers—to buy from wholesalers or strongarm the losers who owed her money. But the old girl loved the horses, meaning she was often gone for hours, across town at Caulfield or Flemington in her old white Bentley, betting in the thousands and coming home with tens of thousands. So one day, when she was out at the racetrack, he fired up her Toshiba.
And found a North Melbourne address for Eddie Oberin. Given that tailing Wyatt was too risky, Oberin was the next best thing.
Not that he was able to do it full time. Tyler worked as a bouncer at Chaos Theory, so had no idea what Oberin did at night, but late one afternoon he followed him from his rundown little house to a stretch of High Street, Armadale. Here Oberin had paced up and down and stared both ways along the street and even checked the alleyway behind the shops, dressed in a fashionable lightweight suit and narrow glasses with thick black frames, looking as though he belonged to the area. Tyler couldn’t work it out: doors were shut, lights off, blinds drawn. The guy wasn’t on a shopping expedition, and there were none of your usual hold-up targets on that stretch of the street, no banks, credit unions, TABs or Medicare offices. Only a wine bar, a bookshop, a joint full of ricepaper screens and other oriental crap, a shoe shop—and Furneaux Brothers Fine Jewellery.
The more Tyler watched, the more he was convinced. Oberin was scoping the jeweller’s. Trying for nonchalant, but the way he rubbed his neck, and talked on his phone, he had something on the boil.
And now this, Oberin at the Bot Gardens with a chick he’d collected from a house in Abbotsford. Was this a date, a stroll in the spring sunshine, Eddie and his sweetheart? Tyler believed in body language and he hadn’t seen any when the pair entered the park, no hand-in-hand or hand-in-the-crook-of-the-arm or hand-in-the-small-of-the-back.
Tyler was betting on some kind of rendezvous. Curiosity getting the better of common sense, he locked the taxi and crossed the road. A minute later, standing in the speckled shade of a massive tree, the trunk veined and knobbly, roots like anacondas and the air loamy all around it, he spotted Eddie and the woman, and they were with Wyatt.
Tyler swallowed involuntarily and his heart went bang-bang-bang and he retreated from there, quick smart.
He headed back to the house in Abbotsford, where the air is more of your stagnant stink, and learned the woman’s name from the address slip on an unopened RACV magazine lying under a lilac bush in her front yard. Lydia Stark. Meant nothing to him.
Tyler spent the rest of Sunday morning collecting loan repayments for Ma: $500 from a nurse who wailed and scratched because she’d intended to score with it, and $275 from a PhD student who failed to show the proper respect until Tyler ripped the gold hoop out of his earlobe.
Then he returned to the market. ‘Got some money for ya, Ma.’
She whacked him. She had hands like waffle irons and he fell among her buckets of field carnations, two bunches for $5. ‘That’s from Wyatt.’
Tyler blinked to clear his ringing head. ‘What?’
Ma wheezed, ‘He saw you, you moron. Stay away, I mean it, Tyler. This time he did me a courtesy. And you. Next time, well, use your imagination.’
Tyler, awash in scummy water, tasted blood on his tongue.
* * * *
10
As Wyatt heard about the Furneaux Brothers’ jewellery operation, Henri Furneaux was in his cousin’s suite at the Sofitel on Collins Street in the centre of Melbourne, saying, ‘Are you sure?’
Le Page, standing at the window, sighed and repeated, ‘No one followed me from the airport yesterday.’
‘You’re absolutely certain?’ said Henri, his pouchy face working, his hands washing. He was fifty, moistly plump, smooth and sleek with his wealthy customers but nervy around his cousin.
Le Page ignored him. He looked down on Collins Street, insulated by thick glass from car horns, tram bells warning the jaywalkers, shoe leather snapping against the pavement. He’d spent the rest of Saturday sleeping off his jetlag and looked and felt relaxed.
Henri felt unrelaxed. ‘Alain,’ he said, wriggling forward on a club chair, resting his belly on his thighs, ‘I went on-line after you e-mailed me last week. A guy was knifed. Was that you? Interpol will be all over this.’
‘If we act quickly we can move the bonds before they think to look here.’
‘But—’
‘I am a legitimate courier,’ said Le Page over his shoulder, ‘in and out of this country all the time.’
‘But what if they’re already looking for you?’
Le Page pointed down at Collins Street. ‘They call this “the Paris end”?’ He shook his head in disgust.
‘Alain, please.’
Le Page turned from the window and sat on the end of the bed. ‘Listen to me. The Russian is dead. If the police knew anything I would have been arrested by now.’
‘Russian?’ said Henri weakly, glancing at the tre
asury bonds stacked on the coffee table between them.
He chewed the inside of his mouth. As always, his cousin looked fresh, crisp and scary, his bony head severely groomed, his face tight and fleshless. If Furneaux was any judge, Alain was wearing $1000 shoes. Silk jacket, linen trousers, cotton shirt—all slightly baggy, to conceal the 9mm Glock and holster. Every time Alain flew in from Europe, Henri was obliged to provide him with a pistol. Same pistol every time, from his office safe.
‘The Russian is dead’ repeated Alain, ‘so you must not worry.’
The inside of Henri Furneaux’s cheek was raw. ‘Interpol...’
His cousin said, ‘Listen. I have never been arrested. Never. Anywhere. Never questioned or detained. Never suspected of anything.’
He gestured in emphasis. Le Page looked very French to Furneaux, who for thirty years had been no closer to France than his morning croissant. He looked contemptuous and arrogant, an impression reinforced when he went on to say, ‘I will spot any tail. I will lose any tail. That is what I am good at. One of the many things. In fact, I will be the one who watches.’
It was all elegant European gangster bullshit to Furneaux, the thing he’d always hated most about his cousin. He hauled himself out of the chair, crossed to the window and looked out. The view stretched southeast, way down the coastline. Beneath them were the River Yarra, the rail yards at Jolimont, parks and gardens and endless tiled roofs after that. From up here the city seemed dramatic and full of promise. When you were on the ground you felt duped, life reduced to small disappointments and nasty surprises, with little that pleased the eye. Not like Sydney. Furneaux could imagine moving to Sydney. He was wearing a $3000 suit but beside Alain Le Page he felt provincial, as if the suit had dated and was inappropriate anyway. Alain often did that to him.
Returning to the coffee table, Furneaux found his cousin idly fiddling with one of the tiny tracking transponders they used whenever they moved valuables around the country. ‘I get to keep some of the bonds?’
‘Naturally,’ Le Page said, stowing the transponder with the bonds and taking out his Glock.
Furneaux watched him eject the clip from the butt and ram it home again. He closed his eyes, opened them again and said, ‘Look, I honestly think we should wait a few months. Give me time to find more clients.’
In the five days since the e-mail, Henri had made contact with his richest and greediest clients, promising huge potential profits. They were interested, and had funds available, but were suburban and regional jewellers who scarcely knew the difference between a Rolex and a Swatch, and would commit to taking only one or two bonds at a time.
‘Some of these expire soon,’ Le Page said, casting a slender hand over the bonds. ‘Interpol will eventually think to search for them in this country. We must strike while the iron is hot, as they say.’
There was a knock on the door. Room service. Le Page casually scooped the bonds into a couple of document wallets while Furneaux opened the door and watched as a tray was wheeled in. Silver cutlery, a rose stem in a crystal vase, thick starched napkin and tablecloth, an open bagel, salmon and capers, on a broad white plate, and mineral water. Le Page tipped the waiter and tucked into his lunch, Furneaux suddenly ravenous and wishing he’d eaten before coming here.
‘Eat,’ Le Page said, reading his mind.
Henri tore off a corner of bagel and balanced salmon and capers on it. ‘But I’ve only got confirmed buyers for about sixty per cent of the bonds.’
‘Did you play on their greed?’
‘Yes.’
‘All that’s necessary is nerve and an accommodating bank manager,’ Le Page said. ‘The words “Bank of England” will unlock many doors.’
‘Sure, but—’
‘A person of confidence should have no trouble exchanging a Bank of England treasury note for clean money,’ Le Page continued. ‘Or purchasing real estate or valuables. Or paying off debts. Or securing loans.’
‘The clients know all that,’ Henri said.
‘Maybe when I show them the bonds their greed will grow,’ Le Page said.
Furneaux doubted that. Le Page unnerved the clients. ‘You needn’t stick around,’ he told his cousin now.
Le Page masticated, swallowed and dabbed at his lips. His voice when it came was a cold rasp. ‘Don’t be stupid. There is too much at stake. Do you know what to do if a client steals from you or threatens to inform the police? Will you be the one to slice through an ankle tendon, so they do not walk again so well? Then the other ankle, if that should prove to be necessary, followed by one knee, the other knee, one elbow, the other elbow?’ He paused. Patted his lips again with the heavy napkin, so stiff it held its shape from lap to mouth, and said, ‘Although one ankle is generally sufficient, in my experience.’
Furneaux realised that he loathed Alain: the hold that Alain had over him, and what Alain did to him. Spend time with Alain and you started to think like him. ‘Okay.’
At that point the building swayed in the high winds that flowed around it, and that seemed to underscore everything.
* * * *
11
‘Ma promised to put the fear of God into him,’ said Wyatt on Monday morning, ‘but after a day or two he’ll feel hard done by and decide to tail us again.’
‘Or he’ll ask his mates to do it for him,’ Lydia Stark said.
Wyatt nodded. ‘So we keep it low key, watch our backs, stay out of sight.’
It was 10 a.m. and they were in a fast food joint on Swanston Street in the heart of the city. Lydia and Wyatt were nursing coffees; Eddie’s narrow face was hunched over a hamburger, which he’d been eating with tiny nibbles, as though to spin out the pleasure. Wyatt knew it was a prison mannerism. Eddie looked like Mr Suave but the old habits were still there. Wyatt had eaten muesli and bananas for energy some time earlier, and wouldn’t eat again until late afternoon. He knew the gulf between himself and Oberin, but maybe the woman would make a good thief.
They were sitting where Wyatt could see the street. That meant that he couldn’t watch his back, but if anyone came it would be through the front door. He’d been watching the cash register idly. Most people were paying by card. Where could a man like Wyatt lift cash these days? Money was moved around electronically. If cash was used, it was stored and protected by the kinds of hightech security that he couldn’t hope to crack or bypass, not without the help of experts and costly equipment. That left paintings and jewellery, which were also highly protected and could only be shifted by a fence who’d give you a few dollars and then sell you out.
But if Eddie and Lydia were correct and the Furneaux brothers were moving valuables stolen in Europe, some of the risk had been removed.
He opened his other senses. All around him was the cacophony of any diner in the world: plates slamming together, orders being shouted, bloated parents striking their bloated toddlers, who bawled about it and got beaten again for bawling. It was a useful screen for the conversation he was having with Eddie and Lydia. He narrowed his senses without closing them entirely and entered the calm place where his mind operated best.
‘So what first?’ said Lydia.
‘Where do they start the delivery run?’
‘The shop in Armadale.’
‘Have you ever been inside it?’
She shook her head. ‘They’d recognise me.’
‘Both brothers hang out there?’
She nodded. ‘With Le Page, when he’s in town.’
‘They own other stores?’
‘Lygon Street and Chadstone,’ Eddie said, finishing the hamburger.
Wyatt thought it through. ‘We need some elbow room,’ he said, with a smile like a slash in his face.
* * * *
That evening, at six, they staged a car hijacking. The manager of Henri Furneaux’s Lygon Street store had locked the rear door and was heading for her cute little Alfa hatchback when two tall, silent men jumped her from behind, one clamping an arm around her throat, the other snatching the
keys from her hand. Collars up, caps low over their brows, sunglasses and whiskers, that’s all she was able to tell the cops. One man said, ‘All we want is the car.’ She thought to say, ‘In that case, let me go,’ but didn’t say it. Maybe she was their insurance. For a while after that nothing else was said by either man.
They were desperate, possibly on drugs, because the one driving made a mess of it. Too fast, too erratic. She was in the back seat with the other one and screamed at the driver to slow down. The other one jabbed her hard with his elbow, but then he started screaming at the driver, too. In the end they crashed her car and ran away, leaving her badly shaken.