by Garry Disher
‘Security?’ he said.
‘Alarm on the front door, that’s all.’
Wurlitzer was silent. He said, ‘You positive about all this?’
‘Gavin,’ said Leah thrillingly, ‘have Alan and I ever given you a bad tip?’
‘Guess not.’
‘Has to be tonight, Gavin.’
‘Doesn’t give me much time,’ grumbled the burglar.
‘She’s about to put everything in storage,’ Leah said. ‘The removalists are coming in tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, okay,’ Wurlitzer said. Leah gave him the address.
Her last task for the day was to scope out Thomas Ormerod’s house. Before she could leave the office, her uncle called.
Her stomach curdled, hearing his oily voice in her ear. ‘It’s all set. You can expect Wyatt sometime tomorrow.’
‘Saturdays are busy for me, Uncle David.’
He ignored her. ‘He’ll want a place to stay. And he wants a clean phone, something tough. Decent screen.’
‘Whatever.’ What she wanted to say was, why couldn’t she have been in on the meeting, too?
‘Anything he wants, within reason, okay?’
Pimping her out. He’d been doing it since she was thirteen.
‘Fine.’
‘When are you going to Ormerod’s?’
‘I was about to leave when you called.’
‘I don’t want you or Trask doing anything that’ll spook him.’
‘We won’t.’
‘A rough floor plan of the house, snaps of doors, windows, alarms, cameras.’
Leah knew that. She’d been told that. She cut the call, slipped into a cute little miniskirt, grabbed her purse and keys and went to collect Alan Trask.
Trask had spent the morning photographing a Noosa Junction woman, bedridden with a workplace injury but miraculously able to fetch heavy shopping in from the car when she thought no one was looking, and now he was outside Massimo’s on Hastings Street, licking a coconut and raspberry ice-cream, waiting for Leah Quarrell to pick him up. She’d be on time, she was OCD about time.
He wore pants and a jacket with lots of pockets. Cameras, lenses, a tripod and camera bags hung around his neck, equipment rehabilitated from an evidence locker back when he was a policeman. A glorious day for standing around with an ice-cream, teenagers dressed in scraps of material streaming to and from the beach and the bikini and T-shirt boutiques.
A horn brapped, and Leah pulled in to the kerb, driving the Lexus she’d rented at the airport. She was in full sexy lifestyle-reporter mode, a wisp of sultriness dressed in a little black skirt, a tight top, scarlet nail polish, red lipstick, stylish tinted glasses. Trask climbed in, leaned over to kiss her.
She flinched.
‘Anything wrong?’
‘I’m a feature writer,’ she snarled, ‘you’re the photographer, that’s who we are, that’s who we were when we got up this morning.’
‘But we’re not even at the guy’s house yet.’
‘Stick to the script, Alan.’
‘No kissing the hired help.’
‘Exactly.’ She looked him over.
‘Will I do?’
She shrugged, started the car. Her eyes danced from mirror to mirror before she pulled away from the kerb and headed for the bridge. Trask had never met anyone as paranoid as Minto’s niece. ‘We being followed?’
Her eyes on the road, parked cars, rear-view mirror, she said, ‘I phoned Gavin, it’s all set for tonight.’
Trask winced. Wurlitzer was a liability, he had to go. But guess who’d be doing the dirty work. Needing not to think about that, he said, ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, Leah.’ A gorgeous lethal dart there in the driver’s seat.
Leah’s fingers whitened on the wheel. ‘Concentrate. You get a gun, you shoot Gavin Wurlitzer, you hide his body.’
‘Really quite simple when you think about it,’ said Trask.
She sat tightly. Voice pitched close to a scream. ‘He has to go, Alan. You know that. The police get onto him, we’re history.’
Trask sighed. They’d had a nice thing going, Leah identifying unoccupied houses, Trask providing police intel, Wurlitzer breaking and entering. A nice little sideline earner, and no need for Minto to know anything about it. The prick treated them like hired hands anyway.
‘And no handing it off to your bikie mates,’ Leah added.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Trask said. His first thought had been getting one of the guys at the gym to whack Wurlitzer. Scary how Leah could read his mind.
She drove on, eyeing every mirror. Trask settled back in his seat. For a short while—about two seconds—he checked out the shorts and bikini tops, but sexual jealousy was fine-tuned in Leah, so he closed his eyes, settled his head against the door and zoned out for a while.
The Lexus whispered over the bridge and along the Parade briefly and then left into the side street that took them to the Iluka Islet bridge. A narrow ring road on the other side, very few parking spots, costly houses jammed together. Finally there was Thomas Ormerod’s house, the driveway empty. Leah shot in, got out of the car and had the key fob aimed while Trask was still fiddling with his seatbelt.
‘Count to ten,’ he told her.
She bared her sharp little teeth and headed for Ormerod’s door. Rapped it with her knuckles. As Trask joined her, a face appeared between the door and the frame.
Leah immediately morphed from witch to angel, a smile that lit up the world. ‘Mr Ormerod?’
Ormerod seemed to think about it, rheumy features looking for a trap. He cleared his throat. ‘Yes?’
‘Home Flair magazine. We had an appointment?’
Clearly Ormerod had forgotten. He blinked, glanced back along the corridor to the interior of his ugly house as if ticking items on a mental checklist. Maybe he’d left a joint smouldering in an ashtray, thought Trask, a line of coke on a coffee table, a naked woman asleep on the rug.
Ormerod swung his head back to them and tried to smile. ‘Of course, come in. I didn’t sleep well, and…’
His voice trailed away as he stepped back to extend an arm in welcome, revealing one of those skinny, narrow-shouldered, pot-bellied bodies shaped by years of drinking. Slicked hair, lots of aftershave, about sixty. Tan cotton pants, a yellow polo shirt and deck shoes. He didn’t look like a multi-millionaire. Maybe that was the point: if you were a millionaire you could afford not to look like one.
As if picking up on Trask’s thoughts, Ormerod said, ‘I’d prefer not to appear in any of the photographs.’
‘Not a problem, Mr Ormerod,’ gushed Leah.
Relieved, Ormerod led them down the hallway to the main living room at the rear, overlooking the water. The place was immaculate, but Trask wasn’t interested in the decor, he was interested in the child perched on one of the armchairs. Aged about ten, in a swimsuit, a hint of makeup on her face.
‘My granddaughter,’ said Ormerod tightly. ‘Go upstairs and play, dear, I won’t be long.’
She smiled and ran off and Trask thought: you sick bastard.
Meanwhile there was the painting, on the wall above the fireplace. Not huge, a metre by a metre, suffused with an inner radiance, with two peasants at the centre, bending to a chore in a field. Lit by harvest light. An antidote to the sick air of Thomas Ormerod’s house. Before he could stop himself, Trask said, ‘This is beautiful.’
Ormerod blinked. ‘What? Yeah. Family heirloom.’
Ignoring Leah’s gimlet gaze, Trask glanced around at the other paintings: community art fair gumtrees and op-shop horsemen droving sheep. Ormerod’s preferred taste?
‘How do you want to do this?’ Ormerod asked, ignoring Trask as Leah’s legs and cleavage brought him out of his stupor.
‘I thought you and I could sit here,’ she said warmly, gesturing at the nest of armchairs and sofa, ‘and my assistant will take a series of photographs.’
Ormerod addressed the tops of her breasts. ‘It’s for a story entitled “Water Views”,
correct?’
Leah flashed teeth and eyes. ‘Yes!’
There was something else on Ormerod’s mind. ‘So there’s no need to view upstairs?’
Trask stepped in stoutly. ‘Of course not, Mr Ormerod.’
‘Good, good,’ Ormerod said, following Leah to the sofa, Leah sitting pertly, knees together, her gleaming upper thighs inclined towards him.
‘Now, how can I help you?’ Ormerod began, as Trask wandered around, taking in the windows and sliding doors with their strips of security tape, and glancing at the ceiling for cameras, all the while fiddling with lenses from the camera bag, twisting them on and off. He aimed the camera, fired a few shots at the doors and windows, the painting. Put his hand on a sliding door and said, ‘May I?’ stepping out onto the deck when Ormerod said, ‘Of course.’
Trask strolled up and down out there, shooting the slope of lawn to the little dock and the water, the bridge and Lions Park and the buildings on Hastings Street in the distance. Then a few shots of the house from the lawn. Not an attractive house. A cold arrangement of cubes set with glass, plonked down in a jungle of tropical greenery and a single jacaranda tree. In a perfect world, thought Trask, money would coincide with taste. Conclusion: the world wasn’t perfect.
Back into the house. Off the corridor and also facing the water was a smaller room. He stood in the doorway: desk, computer, printer, filing cabinet, shelved books. He wandered deeper into the house, glancing into the sitting room to see that Ormerod was still engrossed in Leah’s thighs.
He found the security keypad by the front door, photographed it. Then, checking the image stored in the camera, Trask headed for the kitchen. It faced a stretch of shrubbery at the side of the house, set with a screen door. And the door was fitted with a pet flap.
Huge pet flap. Was Wyatt a little guy or a big guy?
Trask returned to the main room and fired off a few more photographs, listening in on Leah as she massaged the millionaire’s ego.
Then she was trilling goodbye, Mr Ormerod, thank you so much, Mr Ormerod, reverting to full snarling mode once she was in the Lexus with Trask: ‘You know the drill, I want good-sized prints of the better photos.’
‘Leah, he had a kid in there.’
‘Not our concern,’ Leah said. ‘But if it’s any consolation, he deserves to be robbed.’
8
After Ormerod, after Leah, Trask was relieved to go home, print off and deliver the photographs, and ride his Kawasaki to the gym.
Parked, dismounted, walked past a rank of Harleys and into the foyer, where he paused awhile, looking through the glass. The place was a heaving mass of desperate bodies toiling at exercise machines, punching bags, weights and aerobics classes, their grunts and groans at a counter-rhythm to the music, if you could call it music.
He shook his head and climbed the stairs to Cherub’s office on the mezzanine level. Cherub, the Mongrels’ sergeant-at-arms, was also part-owner of the place and kept business hours. His business being, apart from the gym, extortion, arson, armed robbery, brothel-keeping and human trafficking.
Trask knocked, went in, saying, ‘My man,’ and reached out for fist-to-fist contact above Cherub’s desk.
Cherub did respond, but only barely. Knows I used to be a cop, thought Trask. Hates me on principle. But Trask had no doubts that he was useful to Cherub. He supplied the Mongrels with crucial intelligence about police methods, put them in touch with other useful people, sold them information. He also bought steroids, teenage pussy and guns from them.
Cherub had switched his attention back to his desk work, eyes flickering from his laptop screen to a heap of receipts and invoices. ‘What do you want, Alan?’ A busy man.
‘A gun,’ Trask said.
That woke Cherub up. He leaned back in his ergonomic chair, looking the very antithesis of the other Mongrels, a slim, wiry guy with a soul patch on his chin and cropped hair. Tatts concealed. ‘What kind?’
‘Got a Glock?’
‘I do.’
‘Suppressor?’
‘It’ll cost you.’
‘I’m good for it.’
‘You intend using the Glock?’
‘Do you need to know?’ said Trask.
Cherub swivelled in his chair. ‘If all you’re going to do is wave it around in someone’s face, I’ll buy it back from you. If you’re going to fire the thing, chuck it in the river after. We clear?’
‘Crystal.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yeah,’ Trask said. ‘Can you get me a code reader for this?’
He showed Cherub a photograph of Ormerod’s security keypad.
‘Yep,’ Cherub said. He cocked his head at Trask. ‘Anything in it for me?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, then. Gun and suppressor, seven-fifty.’
‘Christ,’ grumbled Trask, and shrugged.
Cherub told him to wait in the corridor. Trask cooled his heels for no more than a minute: when Cherub called him back in, a shoebox sat on the desk.
‘You got cash on you?’
‘Yes.’
Trask paid and Cherub looked at him. ‘Mate, I’m busy here.’ He went back to his keyboard.
Trask didn’t leave but shoved the shoebox into his gym bag, changed in the locker room downstairs and for an hour pumped iron, whacked a punching bag and paced himself on a treadmill. None of it made him feel any better. Cherub didn’t respect him; Leah, Minto. He was just a hired hand. But if not for him, there wouldn’t have been a client prepared to pay good money to get a painting back. No lawyer from New York, no investigative groundwork, no Wyatt…Barely any thanks, and shunted to the sidelines. And who was this Wyatt character? According to a police mate who still talked to Trask, no one knew much about the guy. Myths, rumours and shadows.
And now fucking Wurlitzer to deal with.
He showered, stepping out of the steam to catch a flash of himself in the mirrors. Liked what he saw: veiny, corded arms, wide shoulders, flat stomach, powerful thighs. He flexed some muscles, watching the tendons, sinews and bones move under the hard flesh.
Looking good. Then some random guy strolled into the change room so Trask covered up, wrapping and tucking his vast white towel. Busied himself at his locker, half an eye on the newcomer, a weedy guy with a long, comma-shaped birthmark under one ear. Looked like he needed a few decades of gym toning. All he did was sit there, on a bench, either taking off or putting on his shoes and taking a while to do it.
Checking out my arse, thought Trask. ‘Help you?’
‘I’m good,’ the guy said.
Trask went home and late afternoon stowed a camping stool, food, beer, flask of coffee, iPod and a laptop loaded with movies into his main set of wheels, a Jeep, and drove to Sunshine Beach.
The trap was a huge house on a slope. Sea views and plenty of trees screened it from the neighbours and the riffraff who visited the beach. The kind of house that would look right to Gavin Wurlitzer, promising high-end electronics, jewellery, silverware, cash—maybe even a woman tucked up in her bed. All the sick fuck’s Christmases coming at once. Leah had sold the house two weeks earlier but still had the keys and the RiverRun Realty FOR SALE sign was still in the front lawn. What mattered was the sign. Gavin Wurlitzer would take one look at that, and the size and seclusion of the house, and know he’d been fed solid information again.
Steering the Jeep into the garage at the side of the house, Trask got out, stretched the kinks in his back, locked the external door. Then he grabbed his stuff from the Jeep and let himself in, glumly aware that Wurlitzer wasn’t likely to appear before midnight. After checking the rooms, cupboards, drawers, nooks and crannies, he settled in to wait, the Glock in his lap. Watched a couple of DVDs, sank a couple of beers, listened to music.
Bored, needing to stay awake, he poured his third beer down the sink and drank coffee. Tried to psych himself up.
Trask first met Wurlitzer not long after he first met Leah Quarrell. Leaving the police force under a cloud
, Brisbane too uncomfortable for him, he’d headed to Noosa and part-time investigative work for a P.I. agency. Mainly shit work, then one day Leah had knocked on his door, saying, ‘You come recommended.’
Trask stared and waited.
She said, ‘There’s a house at Noosa Heads I want to buy.’
‘So buy it.’
‘The owner doesn’t want to sell,’ Leah said, shoving a thousand bucks into Trask’s shirt pocket.
Trask began a campaign of harassment: bricks through the recalcitrant owner’s window, Facebook whispers, cocaine planted in the spare-tyre well of his Range Rover, followed by a tip-off to the cops.
The owner caved, Leah bought the house on behalf of a client. Then she called by to thank him. That might have been that except he’d looked twice at this slip of a woman, and she had looked twice at him. Back when Trask was a cop, love had meant a hand job in return for tearing up a red-light ticket. Fast, nasty, regrettable. This was different.
He started hanging out with Leah, and through her met David Minto, who kept him in work when the agency sacked him. Leah meanwhile needed help with her real-estate activities, and Trask found himself passing out auction brochures, hammering FOR SALE signs into front lawns, handbagging Leah whenever new male clients wanted to view an unoccupied house in a secluded location. ‘You’re my big boy,’ she’d say, coming in close and wrapping him in her little arms—when she wasn’t shrieking at him for some misstep.
One day, early to a showing at Peregian Beach, they heard crashing sounds in the backyard. Trask raced around there and discovered a thin, hyped up forty-year-old man tangled in a tomato trellis along the laneway fence. Bleeding, jeans torn, whimpering in panic, he’d shielded his face, saying, ‘Don’t hurt me.’
Then Leah appeared. She said, ‘Shoot the prick,’ her eyes gleaming, wanting it.
The guy cringed further, trying to shrink into the ground. When nothing happened, he removed his arm from his face, recovered his composure. ‘My dog ran in here,’ he said, looking around the vast garden.
‘Shoot him, Al,’ Leah said.