by Garry Disher
The seconds passed. Wyatt got up from the floor, holding to the back of a chair until he could breathe normally again. The fall, coming so soon after his fall from the bike, made him feel slowed down and clumsy.
He was at least a minute behind them.
He closed the door, sealing in the smoke, and stood in the hall, listening and thinking. Without the light from the fire the house was in absolute darkness. Every curtain was drawn. Would the gunman open them to give himself light to shoot by? Wyatt doubted it. He’d feel too vulnerable.
People in darkness are very sensitive to another person’s presence. Wyatt was relying on that as well as his hearing. He crept down the hallway and stood for some time at the open door to the study. He breathed slowly, quietly, extending his inhalations and exhalations so that the tiny sounds he made did not sound like breathing. He listened for exertions and tension in the other two.
He went through all the downstairs rooms doing this. They were empty. He looked at the stairs. Ten minutes had gone by but when Wyatt climbed the stairs he stopped for long periods on each step. He wanted to be certain. He was also trying to read the gunman. Was he capable of waiting immobile for hours at a time? Or would he want to precipitate action, come out shooting? Wyatt reached the top step. He stood there listening, breathing shallowly, for five minutes.
They were betrayed by a watch. Wyatt heard the faint double beep that indicated the passing of another hour. What hour? Ten, Wyatt guessed. He advanced cautiously to the doorway of the main bedroom.
The angle was bad. He had to get to the other side of the door. But he wondered if the gunman had adjusted to the dark by now, letting him register any shape crossing the gap. Wyatt’s best chance was to present a confusing shape. He dived, rolled and got to his feet again. There was a shot as he passed by the door, but it went high.
Suddenly there were five more shots. Wyatt heard the slugs punch through the plasterboard wall, spaced at groin height. The last one emerged a hand’s breadth from his hip. He didn’t move.
Leah yelled out: ‘Quick, his gun’s empty.’
It was a ruse. But the fact that they were trying it could mean they were off-balance for a moment. Wyatt threw himself through the door and came up with his.38 aimed and ready.
Leah moaned. ‘He’s got a knife.’
Wyatt focused on her, a dim shape against the curtain. The man stood behind her, one arm around her torso, the other at her neck. In struggling they had disturbed the curtain a little. Weak moonlight lit the room; Wyatt could see it glinting on the blade under Leah’s jaw.
‘Throw your gun down,’ the man said, ‘or I cut her throat.’
‘Go ahead,’ Wyatt said, ‘cut.’
He could hear the next-door neighbours beneath the window outside. ‘Should we knock and see?’ one of them said. ‘It’s just the wind,’ the other said. Wyatt looked around the room, sizing up the walls and furniture abstractedly. The gunman had only his arms and half his face showing. A voice outside said, ‘Come inside for God’s sake.’ A door banged.
‘Drop it,’ the man said again, ‘or she dies.’
‘Fine,’ Wyatt said.
It didn’t matter to Wyatt which one he killed first. Killing Leah first would give him a clear shot at the man. But the man had the weapon. He might throw the knife. Wyatt raised the.38. He turned a little to one side, held his arm fully out, and pulled the trigger. It was quick, practised, tight, like a dance step.
The bullet caught the man in the throat, jerking him back against the wall. The arm around Leah stiffened, then relaxed, and she pushed free of him. The blood welled in his throat.
Wyatt said nothing. He turned the gun on Leah.
But she was a bad target. The gunman, sitting on the floor now, raised the knife to throw it. As Wyatt followed Leah with the gun, he saw her dart down, wrestle the knife away, and jerk back.
That was when he saw the handcuff. He took his finger from the trigger but kept the.38 trained on her. The man on the floor coughed, a liquid sound in his throat, and fell sideways, twitching once or twice.
Leah looked at Wyatt. ‘You might have hit me.’
Wyatt nodded. ‘But I didn’t.’
She held her arms around herself. ‘But you might have.’
****
THIRTY-SIX
Wyatt knew that he was being unfair. He knew how his coldness discouraged people and coloured the way he saw the world. He pocketed the gun as a way of saying that he was disarming himself, then slumped back against the wall to wait, knowing it was too soon to touch her.
Leah shivered, her arms wrapped around her chest. The hand-cuffs swung on her left wrist. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute.’
‘I doubted you,’ Wyatt said. ‘I shouldn’t have.’
She didn’t approach him but let go of her arms and seemed to notice him properly. ‘You’ve changed your appearance,’ she said. She shivered. ‘Everything’s weird.’
Wyatt sat on the bed and pointed at the body. ‘Did he tell you anything?’
‘He said his name was Letterman and he was hired to kill you. Apparently you trod on somebody’s toes.’
Wyatt gestured in frustration. ‘A Sydney mob. It’s so stupid. Clearly they’re not going to let go of it, so now I’ll have to talk to them.’
Leah sat next to him on the bed. ‘Talk to them? Will they listen?’
‘They’ll listen.’
‘Do you know who?’
‘I’ll find out.’
They were silent, looking at the body. ‘He was waiting at the farm,’ Leah said. ‘Snyder had been in contact with him.’
‘That figures. It’s my guess Letterman put the word out offering big bucks to anyone who knew where to find me.’
‘He must have followed Snyder from Melbourne.’
Wyatt nodded. ‘And he wouldn’t have paid Snyder the full amount until he was sure he’d found me. That’s why Snyder was so keen for us to go back to the farm instead of running. He’d missed out on the payroll-he didn’t want to miss out completely.’
By now their shoulders were touching. It calmed Wyatt and seemed to calm Leah. She rested more heavily against him. ‘What went wrong?’ she asked. ‘Judging by the way Snyder and Letterman acted, they were just as surprised as we were.’
Wyatt told her what he’d found on the road. ‘They hijacked our job, copying it detail for detail.’
Leah looked closely at his face. ‘Because I brought in Tobin,’ she said, ‘you thought I was behind the whole thing?’
‘It’s happened before. Tell me about him.’
She rolled her shoulders in embarrassment. ‘You know that guy you got the bike from, the one who pissed you off? I got Tobin’s name from him. I thought you’d get mad if you knew I’d gone to him again.’
Wyatt didn’t push it. Tobin was a distributor of bootleg booze, videos and cigarettes. Maybe his supplier was behind it. He put his arm around Leah’s shoulders. She made a noise in her throat.
Then he felt her stiffen and jerk away from him. ‘I can’t stay in the room with him there.’
She got to her feet and went downstairs. Wyatt changed into his own clothes and shoes, the searched Letterman’s pockets until he’d found the keys to the handcuffs. But something about the big man’s shape bothered him. A minute later he was counting out thirty thousand dollars from Letterman’s moneybelt. He pocketed twenty thousand and went downstairs. The bottom half of the house was full of smoke. He gave Leah the keys and ten thousand dollars. ‘Take the cuffs off,’ he said. ‘Pour yourself a drink I’ll be back in a moment.’
Checking that no one was standing in the garden next-door, he climbed to the roof and removed the chimney cap. When he got back inside Leah had opened all the doors and windows. She handed him a glass of Scotch. It was fiery and reviving. ‘What do we do now?’ she asked.
‘Dump the body,’ Wyatt said simply, ‘and get our money back.’
She drank deeply from the glass. ‘Just like that.’
&
nbsp; ‘Did the neighbours see Letterman?’
‘No.’
‘All the same, you’d better have a story ready in case they ask about him or his car or the noise tonight. Meanwhile help me put him in the boot. I’ll dump him and the car in the city somewhere.’
Leah had the look of someone who knows that the relaxing is still a long way off. ‘What if they ask me about you? What if they recognise your picture?’
‘I look different now and I kept out of sight whenever I stayed here. But the short answer is, distract them. Don’t just say I’m a brother or something, you have to make them feel embarrassed for asking. Tell them I’m your Jesuit priest brother, your detective cousin.’ He put down his glass. ‘I’d better be going. Help me with Letterman.’
They loaded the body into the boot of the Valiant. The wind-tossed street was dark; no one saw them.
‘Let me go with you,’ Leah said.
The coldness grew in Wyatt again. ‘No. Wait here.’
‘You think I’ll get in the way,’ she said. ‘You think I’ll get hurt.’
He was uncomprehending. He hadn’t been considering her at all. He knew only that he’d been crossed and he had to do something about it and he could best do it alone. ‘Get some rest,’ he said. ‘Air the house. Reassure the neighbours.’
He got into the driver’s seat of Letterman’s car and wound down the window. Leah put her face to the gap and clasped the top of the glass. ‘Are you going to Tobin’s?’
He started the engine. ‘It’s the only link we have.’ He looked at her strained face. He was unused to smiling. He touched her wrist briefly. ‘Okay?’
She stood back. ‘Good luck.’
Luck wouldn’t come into it but he said thanks and started the engine.
He drove out of the hills and down into the centre of Adelaide. It was midnight when he passed through Enfield and the streets were quiet. The industrial estate was deserted. Cheerless lights were burning outside most of the buildings, throwing shadows into the door and window recesses. He turned off the headlights and drove once around the perimeter. There was no sign of security guards but he knew a patrol would be along later. He remembered seeing the Mayne Nickless calling cards in Tobin’s doorframe.
Wyatt parked the Valiant behind a stack of empty crates. Tobin’s office and shed were in darkness but he approached quietly, keeping to the shadows. He got to the side wall and waited, listening for two minutes. The side window was locked. He checked the front door. It was also locked. A thumbtacked note said, ‘Back next week.’ Scribbled under it were the words, ‘No cash on premises.’
There were no external indications that Tobin had fitted an alarm system. Wyatt cast back in his mind to the day when he and Leah had first met him. He was sure there were no wires, cameras or electric eyes.
The glass in the side window was fused to wire netting, and he didn’t want to be spotted at the front of the building, so he broke in through the back door.
Tobin wasn’t there. The air was stale, as if no one had been in the place for several days.
Wyatt began a search of the office. There was nothing else he could do. Checking that no headlights had appeared outside, he turned on Tobin’s planet lamp and adjusted the shade until it was an inch from the desktop. In the muted light he began to go through the drawers and files.
He didn’t know what he was looking for but he knew he’d found it when he opened the grubby ruled desk diary and learned what kind of company Tobin had been keeping.
****
THIRTY-SEVEN
The car was legitimate so there was no point in stealing one. His face and clothing were different so he wasn’t expecting second looks from nosy cops and civilians. But he’d be put away for life if he was found with a body in the boot. Checking again for Mayne Nickless patrols, Wyatt dragged Letterman inside and dumped him in a back room.
It turned midnight as he drove away from the industrial estate. He went left at Gepps Cross and settled in for the two-hour haul to Goyder. The traffic was light-a lonely taxi, a couple of panel vans drag-racing away from the lights, a big semitrailer with Western Australian plates. If Wyatt were an ordinary citizen he might have been tempted to put his foot down. He didn’t. He slowed for yellow lights, used his indicators, sat just under the posted speed limits. He turned on the heater and set the radio to an all-night jazz program. Thirty minutes after dumping Letterman he had left the city lights behind and was driving through orchard country lit by the stars in the black sky.
Trigg must have thought all his Christmases had come at once when Tobin came to pick up his regular consignment of bootleg videos, booze and cigarettes and told him about the Steelgard hit. Trigg was already linked to Steelgard: Wyatt remembered seeing the Steelgard vans refuelling in Goyder, remembered the day he saw Venables talking to Trigg in Belcowie.
He pushed on through the dark farmland, fitting the pieces together. Now and then he passed through small towns At night they appeared to flatten their bellies to the ground. The shopfronts seemed to hide under drooping verandahs. Dewy cars turned their backs away and the street lamps were meek and blanketed. It was all depressing. Wyatt preferred the open road, where he had the sensation of riding across the roof of the world.
He reached Goyder at two o’clock in the morning. Trigg Motors was lit up like a strip of pinball parlours. The big Ford sign glowed blue and white like a sail above the entrance and someone had been liberal with fluorescent paint on the showroom windows. The cars bared their chrome teeth at Wyatt as he cruised slowly along the front of the building. He turned right, and right twice again, circling the block. There was no sign of life-no security guards, cranky Alsatians or randy teenagers.
A couple of cars were parked outside the service bay. Wyatt guessed they’d been left there for a service or a tune-up in the morning. He parked Letterman’s Valiant next to them and got out, quietly closing the driver’s door behind him.
He ignored the administration block. The money might be stashed away there but first he wanted to satisfy himself that he was right about what had happened a day and a half ago.
He started with the buildings at the rear of the block-two corrugated iron sheds, each large enough to hold a truck, and a small prefab hut next to an iron shipping container. The prefab building was raised a foot off the ground. It had aluminium frame doors and windows and two cement steps leading to the front door. The windows were curtained in some frilly domestic material. It puzzled Wyatt until he heard the unmistakable squeak of bedsprings. Someone was asleep in there.
It wasn’t the sort of place Trigg would live in. A guard mechanic or odd job man, Wyatt thought.
It told him to go slow and quiet. He crossed to the first of the long sheds. There were several windows high off the ground, and a roller door and a small metal door, both padlocked.
He tried the second shed. It was the same as the first. He knew both sheds would have a legitimate purpose-major mechanical repairs, panel-beating, spray painting-but there were no signs up.
He circled the second shed, looking at the ground. He rejected the first piece of wire as being too thick. The second seemed about right. He was fashioning it into a hooked shape when the sky seemed to fall on him. Strong hands grabbed him by the collar and belt and ran him head-on into the wall of the shed. He collapsed onto his knees and toppled over. Someone searched his pockets and found the.38. A boot thudded hard into his stomach and stamped on his fingers.
Wyatt looked up, feeling pain tug inside him. Blood ran from his scalp into his eyes. He coughed and focused on the figure who had hit him.
The man had no neck. His head was like a knob squeezed from a piece of rock. He was tall and watched Wyatt in a loose-muscled way. Despite his size he looked fast and flexible. He wore overalls and had the unhappiest expression Wyatt had ever seen on anybody.
Wyatt wondered about his.38. He guessed the big man had it tucked away in his overalls. He started to get to his feet wondering if he’d be allowed to get
that far. When nothing happened he realised the big man wanted a bit of sport with him.
The big man had the advantage of size. Wyatt hoped to make it a disadvantage by getting him tired. He edged away from the wall and began to circle around, goading him into wasted effort.
The big man was having none of it. He simply stayed on the spot, turning with small movements as Wyatt wasted energy on the outer circle.
Wyatt went on the offensive. He darted in, feinted with his left hand and side-armed with his right. Instead of crushing the big man’s windpipe the flat of his hand glanced off the thick upper arm. He felt a jabbing blow to the cut on his head.
Wyatt retreated, knowing the big man would work on that cut if he could. He circled again, skipping from one foot to the other like a boxer, holding himself tight, looking for an opening. He darted in, squared up as if to repeat his earlier mistake, then dropped to his knees and punched his left fist hard under the big man’s belt.
Again he stepped back and circled. He saw that he’d hurt the big man. There was a rictus grin of pain. The breathing sounded forced. Wyatt danced in, landed hard blows to the big man’s eyes, backed off. He did it again. The big man shook his head, baffled, but never took his eyes off Wyatt. Wyatt watched the massive arms, waiting for them to drop, a sign of fatigue. Wyatt felt good now, concentrated, his breathing and movements rhythmic and loose.
He went in a third time, going for the eyes again. The big man managed a stinging blow to Wyatt’s ribs, but Wyatt knew his own punches were beginning to do real damage. This time he stepped just out of range, then in again before the man realised he wasn’t circling out of reach again. The man blocked with his forearms but Wyatt was expecting that. He turned side on and lashed the side of his shoe down the big man’s shin bones. It was hard and sharp and caught him by surprise. Wyatt saw him curl and tighten as if he’d bitten into a lemon.
He took advantage of that and went hard at the man’s head, a succession of rapid punches left and right. His aim was to confuse-make the man dizzy, blur his vision, make his head ring. It was working. Wyatt stepped back out of reach. The big man was soaked with sweat, swaying, shaking his head as if something were clinging to it. Blood had run into his eyes. Ribbons of mucus clung to his lips and chin.