by Garry Disher
Pedersen spun around, then flattened his back to the wall in shock. His breath was beery. Letterman raised the knife and touched the blade tip under Pedersen’s jaw, watching with interest the gulping motions in Pedersen’s throat. He said softly, ‘Maxie.’
Max Pedersen gulped again. ‘Who are you?’
‘You don’t want to know that, Max,’ Letterman said. He used Pedersen’s first name deliberately. It gave him an extra advantage over Pedersen, who didn’t even have a last name to call him.
For the next two minutes Letterman said nothing. Instead, he put his head on one side and then the other, turning the blade tip under Pedersen’s jaw. The hall light flashed on the steel.
The silence began to work. It always did. ‘What do you want?’ Pedersen asked. ‘Just tell me and I’ll do it. You want money? I got some in my wallet.’
Still Letterman said nothing. He would let the silence do its job, then fire the hard questions so they hit like punches.
He shouted the first one. ‘Where is he?’
Pedersen winced. ‘Who?’
Letterman said nothing. He waited, then asked softly, ‘Where is he?’
‘Who? I don’t know who you mean.’
Almost a caressing whisper this time: ‘Where is he?’
‘Who?’ Pedersen pleaded. ‘Only I live here. Who do you want?’
Letterman stood back at arm’s length and nicked Pedersen’s neck with the blade. When he spoke it was bleak and fast: ‘Wyatt.’
Pedersen’s hand went up and came away with blood on it. He looked at it and then at Letterman, as if the world was spinning too fast for him. ‘Wyatt?’
Ideally Letterman would have another man helping with the questioning, one to hurt the subject where it wouldn’t show, the other to offer a way out of the fear and pain. ‘Where is he?’ he repeated.
‘Wyatt doesn’t live here,’ Pedersen replied. ‘This is my place.’
Letterman was gentle and smiling again, but the knife was beginning to make a Crosshatch of nicks on Pedersen’s neck. ‘I know that. I want to know where he is.’
‘I haven’t seen him for weeks,’ whined Pedersen.
This was clearly the truth. Letterman had known it all along really, but still, he greeted it with total disbelief, another move that usually got results. ‘Bullshit! You’re working with him again.’
‘No, promise, no,’ Pedersen protested. He was close to tears. ‘I swear I haven’t seen him. He got in strife and cleared out and no one’s seen him.’
‘Let’s say I believe you. I don’t, but for argument’s sake, let’s say I do. If he cleared off, where would he go? Has he got some bird stashed away somewhere? Does he like to poke little boys in Manila? Maybe he’s got an old mum over in Perth or something?’
Pedersen began to get his courage back. This maniac didn’t want him, had nothing against him. ‘I hardly know the bloke. He keeps to himself. One or two big jobs a year, then he drops out of sight again.’
Letterman smiled again and let the light flash on the blade. ‘You work with him.’
‘Only the once.’
‘You were with him on his last job.’
Pedersen nodded reluctantly. ‘Yes.’
‘You stepped on some toes with that one,’ Letterman said.
Letterman always used a thin blade. Thin blades slide in easily, avoiding needless hacking and cutting. He always held the knife flat and horizontal, and used a single, direct thrust. When he went in from the front he aimed for the carotid artery. A tough sheath of muscles protects it, and that’s why the thrust has to be strong. He finished with a wriggle to sever the artery, removed the blade, and watched Pedersen slide, twitching, to the floor. It was quick and clean, one of the many things that separated Letterman from the amateurs.
He photographed the body, let himself out and drove back across the city to his motel in St Kilda. On the way he thought about the nature of luck in his profession. Although his leads had amounted to nothing, he believed that it was important that he’d followed them. It could mean good luck would come his way. He might hear something about Wyatt when he least expected it.
That was why he wasn’t surprised to find a ‘While You Were Out’ message under his door. It told him to expect a phone call. The caller would ring every hour until midnight, and again the next day, starting at seven in the morning. Letterman looked at his watch just as the phone rang. Eleven pm. The voice on the other end said he knew where Wyatt was.
****
FIFTEEN
The fountain near the Gertrude Street lights, the caller had said, and Letterman was now watching it from behind a tree. He was in the southern area of the parkland attached to the Exhibition Building, on the city’s edge. The time was five minutes to midnight. The caller said twelve-thirty, but Letterman was staking the place out first, looking for anyone who didn’t belong there. A tramp was sleeping on a bench near the duck pond and another was under an elm, swigging from a bottle in a paper bag, but otherwise the area was deserted. Now and then kids and lovers walked through the park, pausing to watch the splashing water before moving on again.
Lights were strung around the Exhibition Building, and if he half-closed his eyes Letterman could see its shape picked out in pinpricks of light. A Japanese tour party had been in the park when he arrived, taking flash photographs of the possums. They were gone now. A pathetic-looking student wearing an old coat had passed by him twice a few minutes ago, but Letterman had growled, ‘Got a problem, pal?’, scaring him away.
At twelve-thirty a man approached the fountain and stood with his back to it. Although the light was poor, Letterman could see him clearly enough to know that this was his man. ‘I’ll be wearing white overalls,’ the voice on the phone had said. Letterman saw a stocky man, standing confident and alert, the light making his long hair glow. There appeared to be rings on the man’s fingers and chunky sneakers on his feet.
Letterman remained where he was. This was a good place for a meeting-the noise of the fountain would provide some cover if the informant was carrying a wire, there were plenty of exits and places to hide, and it was dark. But he knew that darkness was no protection against fancy cameras and telescopic sights. He wore a rudimentary disguise-the horn-rims, his hat brim low, his collar turned up-but knew that wouldn’t stop a bullet in the back. There were plenty of people who’d want to give him one. Yet the set-up looked okay.
He stepped out from the tree. The contact had devised a stupid recognition signal, but he went along with it. ‘Excuse me, I’m looking for the hospital.’
The contact jerked his head around, recovered, and pointed toward a building opposite the city corner of the park. ‘Over there.’
Letterman left the shadows completely and joined the man at the fountain. He said softly, ‘What do I call you?’
‘Snyder will do. You’re Letterman?’
Letterman nodded. ‘What have you got for me?’
‘Not so fast,’ Snyder said. He sat down on the lawn near the base of the fountain and rested his forearms on his knees. ‘Let’s talk this over.’
Letterman looked down at the bushy head for a few seconds, then sat with Snyder. ‘There’s nothing to talk over. You tell me where to find Wyatt and I pay you twenty grand.’
‘It’s not that simple. How do I know you’re good for it? That’s the first thing. Second, I won’t know exactly where Wyatt is until I make contact with him.’
Letterman stared at Snyder. He didn’t like the man. Snyder looked lumbering and dissipated and too pleased with himself. Letterman felt an urge to slide the knife in, or slice off the absurd hair. ‘You’re telling me he wants you for a job?’
Snyder nodded. ‘Over in South Aussie somewhere. I fly out first thing Monday morning.’
‘He’s meeting you?’
‘Eventually. I fly to Adelaide. I take a taxi to the bus station. There’s a ticket waiting. The bus takes me up the bush somewhere. Now, that’s all you’re getting from me, pal, till I see t
he colour of your money.’
Letterman ignored him. ‘The bush? What sort of job?’
‘Maybe I’m not getting through to you. This isn’t a freebie, you know. I want something up front, and I want it now. The rest you can pay me when you see him, that’s fair.’
Letterman removed the black horn-rims and cleaned them. ‘Look at it from my point of view. I’ve been to South Australia plenty of times, I don’t need to go again. Especially if I’m being set up, the man from Sydney making a fool of himself, walking into a trap, kind of thing. Give me something to go on, something specific’
The last tram rattled by on Nicholson Street, a hundred metres away. Letterman saw the lights go out and on again at the centre of the intersection. He realised that the sound of the traffic was constant, even at this late hour. The air was getting chilly. He felt tired. Killing Pedersen had been a release, but now he felt tense again.
‘All right, look,’ Snyder said. ‘It’s some sort of payroll hit, that’s all I know. He asked Eddie Loman to send him someone who knew about radios and stuff.’
‘When’s the hit?’
‘Next Thursday.’
‘Where’s he meeting you?’
‘Place called Vimy Ridge.’
Letterman took an envelope from his pocket. He didn’t mind paying twenty grand to find Wyatt and he didn’t mind paying an advance on it. What he minded was letting Snyder state the terms. ‘Here’s two thousand,’ he said. ‘Show me Wyatt in the flesh and you get the remainder.’
‘You think you’ve got me, right? You think this way I’ll be sure to get on that plane. Well, I was going anyway. I want a cut of this job. You can pop Wyatt when it’s done, not before, okay?’
‘In other words, I follow you and wait.’
‘Yeah,’ Snyder said, ‘staying out of sight till I give the word.’ He stiffened. ‘Shit, cops.’
Letterman glanced up casually. Two young policemen had entered the park from Nicholson Street and were walking toward them. They were carrying torches.
Letterman made his voice loud and slurred. ‘The goodness is in all of us. The Lord Jesus taught me that. Have you looked inside yourself for the goodness?’
Snyder was reasonably quick. ‘You’re up a gum tree, mate,’ he said, punching Letterman lightly on the upper arm. ‘A flagon’s the only place you’ll find goodness. G’day,’ he said, when the policemen drew near.
Both policemen grinned and continued along the path. Letterman watched them. Now and then they flashed their torches into the shadows. Soon they were out of sight somewhere on the southern flank of the park.
‘Loman,’ he said.
‘What about him? You know him?’
‘We’ve met. The question is, I asked him to pass the word around about Wyatt, so why didn’t he tell me himself?’
‘It’s a mystery, all right,’ Snyder said.
****
SIXTEEN
After meeting with Tobin, Wyatt and Leah went back to the caryards on Main North Road and bought a twelve-year-old Holden utility. Wyatt wanted a vehicle that wouldn’t attract too much attention out in the bush.
The next day they went shopping at supermarkets and army disposal stores before driving north to the hideout. They bought four camp stretchers and sleeping bags, a two-ring camping stove and fuel, enamel cups, disposable plates and cutlery, two shovels, a portable shower, a chemical toilet, lanterns, candles and tinned and dried food. Everything was going to be buried before they left the farm. Wyatt didn’t intend to leave a single clue that they’d been there-no tracks, no garbage, no equipment that might identify them or tie them to the Steelgard hit.
They also bought four radios. Snyder was supplying a powerful unit to monitor the Steelgard van, but Wyatt wanted hand-held VHF/FM transceivers for communication in the field. He bought marine-band transceivers, assuming that no one in the bush would be listening in on that band.
The next few days would be a waiting game-waiting for Thursday, when they would show Tobin the layout, waiting for next Monday to meet Snyder, waiting for the Steelgard hit itself. It didn’t matter that Snyder would miss the trial run. What mattered was feedback from Tobin. Would Tobin think it feasible that the Steelgard van could be carted away? Would he be able to find them a truck that would do the job? Would the narrow roads pose a problem? Were the sheds at the farm too small?
Wyatt lived with these questions in the early part of that week, not because he wanted to but because Leah was there. She was keyed up, anxious to do the job, looking at it from all the angles. Wyatt was calmer about it. He knew what the problems were, but they couldn’t be answered until Tobin saw the layout, so there was no point in worrying until then. When he was working, Wyatt was concentrated and deliberate in all he did. He knew how to wait. He became remote and self-contained, which people often interpreted as arrogance. It was as if a small, chilling draft came off him. But he knew he had this effect on people, and because it was Leah there with him, he made an effort. He looked thoughtful when she raised objections about the job. He discussed the ins and outs with her. It kept them going. It kept up the harmony.
Not that they didn’t have plenty to do. Leah made shopping runs into neighbouring towns-never the same town twice-to buy daily essentials like milk, eggs, bread, butter, fruit, meat and vegetables. While she was shopping Wyatt explored the possible exits from the farm. If something went wrong with this job, if they had to get out in a hurry, it would not be by the road leading to the property. That’s where the trouble would be coming from.
First he checked the track leading back into the hills. He followed it all the way. At times it seemed to peter out, but he always picked it up again. It wound along the valley, around the edge of the hills, and eventually came out onto a secondary road on the other side of the range. He confirmed his earlier impression that it was passable to most vehicles.
But it wasn’t the only exit. If both roads were ever cut off there were the hills themselves. An agile person could make good progress on the smooth slopes. The grass wasn’t too high or dense. The main danger would come from hidden quartz reefs, rabbit holes and tussocks, all of them ankle-sprainers. There was also a reasonable degree of cover-the grass itself, creeks and erosion channels, rocky outcrops, solitary trees, their trunks rubbed smooth by forgotten sheep and cattle. From time to time he climbed to high ground. He was making a mental map of the area, marking topographical features, roads, neighbouring farms and the tin-hut corner, but being high up also gave him a sensation of unconquerability. He put it down to the clean, perfumed air, the blue and olive hills, the wind in the tossing grasses. At other times Leah made him lie with her in the sun. When he was working he tended to forget about sex for long periods, so when she drew him by the hand and began to undress him, he would blink, surprised and gratified.
They also made two survey trips of the district. They had the maps, but maps are never sufficient. Wyatt couldn’t work without pictures in his head. He liked to know about culverts, road signs, bends hidden by trees or farm buildings, overhanging branches, road edges churned and eroded by heavy vehicles, stretches rendered slow or impassable by potholes, sharp stones or washaways.
On Thursday morning they drove to Burra, a town that had grown prosperous on Merino wool after the copper mines had closed down. It had started as a cluster of separate townships on low hills, but they had amalgamated over time. The houses were built of local stone. Huge gums grew along the creek. Two-storey pubs with wrought iron verandahs and vines faced the town square, and the Cornish miners’ cottages in the back streets had been tarted up for the tourists. There were two tourist buses parked outside the tiny museum when Wyatt and Leah arrived. A short distance away they found Tobin.
He was leaning against his delivery van, a bulky Ford painted iridescent blue, its doors and side panels decorated with gold curlicues. He was smoking, watching the locals through his orange lenses. Wyatt noted the way Tobin ignored the men. He was interested only in the women. When a wom
an walked by, he took the cigarette from his mouth and swivelled his head after her, his mouth hanging open. Leah saw it too, as they got out of the ute and approached him. ‘Lovely bloke.’
‘We’re not interested in his personality,’ Wyatt said.
‘I am. The other day I could feel his eyes all over me. He’s the sort who has sweaty hands.’
Tobin saw them approaching and stopped lounging. He threw down his cigarette and grinned. All Wyatt could see of Tobin’s face were the grin, the cricketer’s moustache and the reflection of himself and Leah in the orange lenses.
It’s all psychology, Wyatt thought, working with men like Tobin. Talk their language and you’re halfway there. ‘Good run down?’ he asked.
Tobin slapped the side of his van. ‘Home to here in just under two hours,’ he said. ‘I already unloaded.’ He counted on his fingers: ‘Case of Scotch, latest release videos, souvenirs for the Tourist Centre.’
Wyatt looked at the van. The windows were smoky black; he couldn’t see inside them.
‘What time we getting back here?’ Tobin asked. ‘I got to deliver spare parts to a car place in Goyder this arvo.’
‘About twelve-thirty.’
Tobin rubbed his hands together. ‘No worries then. Let’s hit the road.’
They squeezed together into the Holden utility and left Burra heading north-west. It was ten-thirty. At eleven o’clock they picked up the Steelgard van in Vimy Ridge, Steelgard’s last stop before Belcowie. They tailed it out of the town, staying well back. The traffic was sparse, as it had been the previous week. The only road dust was coming from the van ahead of them.
‘What do you think?’ Wyatt asked.
Tobin was sitting against the passenger door on the other side of Leah his head inclined toward the windscreen. Wyatt was aware of Tobin’s excitement. He’s getting a kick out of this, he thought. The van, the money, Leah’s leg against his.