by Garry Disher
He climbed in, began to paddle. His bruised ribs shot pain that made his eyes water, but the little outrigger was like an arrow, skimming him across the calm surface, past the wrecked steamer, between the rusty buoys, toward De Lisle on the other side.
****
Forty
The black water was not so black once he was upon it. Wyatt found a style with the paddle that would not swamp the canoe or waste energy in spurts and misdirections, and began to see phosphorescence boiling around him, shoreline reflections, and a low, sombre tone in the water itself, a colour he couldn’t name. Far to his left there were shouts, incoherent above the restless ping of sail rigging slapping the masts of the big yachts as they gently tossed at anchor.
Wyatt recalled a heist he’d pulled off the northern Australian coast a decade earlier. Salvage divers had found a Dutch DC3 in forty metres of water near Broome. The DC3 had been there since 1942 and a member of the salvage team had made the mistake of telling a pub crowd that it had been carrying a handful of fleeing Dutch colonial officers from Java and a box full of diamonds. Wyatt and a professional diver had got to the wreckage first. At a little over thirty metres, burdened with an air tank, torch, hatchet and knife, Wyatt began to feel the first, subversive lightheadedness as nitrogen built up in his blood, brought on by water pressure. He’d heard the term ‘rapture of the deep’, and now it made sense to him. He felt loose, forgetful, in a state to be playful and take chances, dangerous attitudes at that sort of depth. Fortunately the professional diver with him had not taken chances but brought him back to the surface in five stages, waiting three minutes at each stage for him to decompress. At the surface they’d seen a salvage ship with a police escort, so that had been the end of that.
He steered in a wide half-circle around the yachts now, aware that people could be awake aboard them, curious about the commotion on the island. The crossing took ten minutes. When he was a few metres short of De Lisle’s water frontage he stopped paddling, allowing the outrigger canoe to glide in against the little dock just aft of the yacht moored there. The area was dimly illuminated by the lights in the house above.
According to a nameplate bolted on the stern, above the rudder, the yacht was the Stiletto, home port Panama.
Wyatt needed a weapon. Perhaps there was one on board the yacht. He reached for the short chrome ladder on the starboard flank of the yacht and climbed aboard. He could just as easily have climbed the steps to the dock and stepped onto the yacht, but the risk of standing exposed under the light was greater that way.
There was no one on deck. He crouched at the steps that led below and listened. Nothing.
The cabin was empty. There was a light switch but he drew open the curtains rather than turn it on.
It was clear at once that De Lisle was intending to flee. The first thing Wyatt found was the original name-plate, Pegasus, home port Coffs Harbour.
The second thing he found was a Very pistol and a box of signal flares. He loaded one flare and stuck a further two into his waistband and went looking for a knife.
The galley offered some cheap alloy cutlery but nothing sharper than a bread knife. Wyatt felt there had to be a decent knife somewhere. How did De Lisle cut rope or sailcloth? How would he clean fish?
Wyatt went through the boat quickly and systematically, tapping the bulkhead, checking inside sail lockers, cupboards, the space under the benches. The knife showed up in a door rack, along with a small axe and a handsaw. It had a thick rubber grip and a broad flat tempered steel blade with a short, curved, slicing edge and a sharp stabbing tip. But Wyatt felt that there had to be a handgun, too. He kept looking.
And that’s how he found the safe. He tugged on the black glass door of a small wall oven, the whole unit slid out, and he found himself looking into the open space behind it. De Lisle had left the safe unlocked. That could mean he was still packing to go and didn’t want to bother with unlocking the oven every time he came down to the yacht with a handful of whatever he was running with.
Wyatt rocked back on his heels. Rings, bracelets, necklaces, tiaras; diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls; platinum, gold. That was on the lower shelf. On the top shelf were a number of files and Wyatt saw that De Lisle had kept a record of every robbery bis team had pulled, together with dirt on the men who had worked for him.
There was a garbage compactor under the sink in the galley. Wyatt fed the files into it, piece by piece, then left the yacht. He didn’t lock the safe, just pushed the oven home so that it wouldn’t excite attention. The jewels could wait: he didn’t want to go up against De Lisle with his pockets weighing him down. And later, when he left on the run, he didn’t want to waste time trying to force the safe open to get at what he now considered to be his property.
The final problem solved itself. De Lisle hadn’t locked the gate. Wyatt propped it open with a rock, then ran up the steps to the house. There were no dogs. If there were guards, none came at him from the seaward side of the house.
The steps stopped at a coral-chip path that made a lazy loop left then right through the final stretch of terraced garden. It ended at a long, low verandah. The path wound through a ground cover of fleshy-leafed plants and Wyatt cut across that way, avoiding the noisy coral.
There were two doors and several windows along the verandah. Wyatt didn’t go in but circled the house a couple of times quickly, once to locate other doors and windows, the second time to come back to a well-lighted room where he’d heard a voice that was pitched on the wrong side of reason.
****
Forty-one
The window was open. He looked in. Liz Redding had reached De Lisle before he had but it hadn’t done her any good at all. She sat slumped in a chair, blood clogging her nose, while the magistrate quivered on the carpet a metre in front of her. There was more blood on her shirt, a spill of it that had none of the sheen of blood recently spilled. Her head lolled and once or twice she tipped it back and shuddered.
‘Again, how did you get in?’
‘Walked in.’
De Lisle reddened, a fat, easily aggravated man who welcomed anger as a natural condition. He sucked on an asthma spray and said: ‘I haven’t got time for this.’ He darted forward, punching her inexpertly in the stomach and darting back out of reach.
Wyatt felt his hands clench. He wanted to slice through the flywire and wade among the fussy antiques between the window and where De Lisle was ranting, shove the flare pistol down the man’s throat. The feeling came naturally, surprising him with its intensity.
He fought down the impulse and watched De Lisle slap at the cop’s upper arms. It puzzled Wyatt. De Lisle had the vicious tendencies of a torturer but none of the technique.
‘Tell me.’
Liz Redding controlled the slackness in her neck for long enough to say, ‘The gate was open,’ and spit blood at a point near De Lisle’s shoes.
‘Open? Grace, that bloody cow.’
De Lisle paced up and down. He looked at his watch. ‘Why did you have to come here? Look what it’s got you.’
‘Mr De Lisle, if you cooperate, if you fly back with me now, I’ll see to it that the court takes it into account.’
De Lisle put his face close to hers. “There’s no underestimating the stupidity of people like you, is there? Missy, you’re in no position to bargain.’
She went on doggedly: ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life running and hiding?’
De Lisle was growing tired of playing with her. He looked at his watch, glanced at the window, seemed to listen for something. Suddenly he tipped back his head and bellowed: ‘Come on, Springett. What’s going on out there?’
Too late, Wyatt understood. He began to back away from the window. He stopped when the man whom De Lisle had been calling said softly: ‘That’ll do.’
Wyatt began to turn. The voice grew harsher. ‘No you don’t. Drop whatever it is you’ve got there, then straighten up and walk slowly around the corner. I don’t want to discuss it, I don’t w
ant to see your face, just go on ahead of me into the house. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you, and there’s a suppressor on the barrel, so I’m not worrying about noise.’
Wyatt dropped the flare pistol. Springett snorted. ‘What good was that going to do you? Go on, get moving.’
Wyatt took three crushing steps along the coral-grit path before he heard the start of footsteps behind him. That put Springett three metres back, out of range for a spin and kick, in range for getting a bullet in the spine.
He did as he’d been told and walked around the corner and onto a verandah, ducking under latticework choked with bougainvillea.
In along a broad, dark hallway, toward an open door spilling light at the end. Springett was moving stealthily; Wyatt listened but could not place him in the geography of floorboards, carpet runner and hallstand behind him.
Into the room where De Lisle was waiting. De Lisle looked at him with satisfaction, then past him to Springett. ‘I told you I heard something.’
‘Also your gate’s open. The alarm system’s off.’
‘My servant, bloody cow. She thinks the local cops are coming for me, only I’ve paid them off for twenty-four hours.’
‘You’re a fuckup, De Lisle.’
Wyatt felt the gun for the first time, prodding him across the room. De Lisle danced out of his way. He stopped next to Liz Redding. He gazed curiously at her. It would look suspicious if he ignored her. She was breathing through her mouth; he saw a plug of blood in each nostril. The nose itself didn’t look broken. ‘Can I turn around?’
‘Yeah, let’s look at you.’
Wyatt had discounted De Lisle as the immediate threat. His eyes went straight to Springett. The gun was a Glock, mostly ceramic, maybe smuggled past the metal detectors. Springett himself stared back, full of forbearance and contemplation, taking Wyatt’s measure. He made no movement, and Wyatt began to ready himself for a pointless contest of wills, but it was over before it had begun. Springett wore the ease of a man in charge. He said, ‘All paths lead to Rome.’
Wyatt stayed neutral, limber, putting his weight on the balls of his feet. De Lisle said abruptly, jerking his head at Springett, ‘Come on, mate. Help me get rid of them.’
Springett snarled, ‘Fuckups like you, you invoke mateship whenever it suits, but you’d shop your own mother to stay out of gaol.’
The differences and tension between the two men became palpable to Wyatt. Some things united them- they were about to go on the run, there was desperation underneath the swagger, they’d swipe at threats-but they didn’t trust each other and Springett clearly thought that De Lisle had been cheating him.
De Lisle flushed. He said stubbornly, ‘We have to get rid of these two.’
‘Like, leave a couple of bodies behind, kind of thing? Give the local cops an extra incentive to track us down?’
‘Well, you sort something out.’
Springett gestured. ‘Simple. We take them with us. Burial at sea.’
‘We can’t leave till the morning, not till after the banks open.’
Wyatt heard Liz Redding cough and spit again. She said, ‘You won’t get far. Why don’t you just give yourselves over to my custody, fly back with me and we’ll forget the assault. You don’t want murder charges on top of everything else.’
She was going through the motions. Still, it would suit Wyatt if Springett and De Lisle did go back with her, leaving him behind to loot the yacht.
But it wasn’t going to happen. Wyatt had only one thing in his favour-he knew about the concealed safe on the yacht and what was in it. Springett and Liz Redding clearly didn’t. Springett was expecting to collect when the banks opened in the morning. For reasons of his own, De Lisle had chosen not to tell Springett that he hadn’t got around to depositing the jewel collection in one of his safety-deposit boxes.
‘Springett,’ Liz Redding was saying, ‘don’t stuff up more than you have already.’
Springett said nothing. He stepped forward and smacked the edge of his hand on the bridge of her damaged nose. He knew what he was doing. He also sensed something in Wyatt, for he swung the gun around warningly: ‘Don’t even think about it.’
He turned to De Lisle. ‘How much is in the house?’
‘I told you, nothing. Walter Erakor cleaned me out.’
‘You trust him?’
‘We mistrust each other. The thing is, he wants the deeds to this house as well. He can’t get them until the banks open in the morning, so meanwhile he’s keeping the cops off my back.’
Springett mused on it. ‘We’ll take these two down to the boat now. Out of sight, out of mind.’
De Lisle spread his arms fatly. ‘At last, movement at the station.’
With barely concealed fury, Springett moved behind Wyatt and Liz Redding. ‘Let’s go.’
They began the descent through the steeply terraced garden, stepping carefully in the light of the moon, De Lisle leading, then Wyatt, supporting Liz Redding, Springett in the rear. Wyatt had reached the halfway point when a voice screamed ‘De Lisle!’ and a fiery light leapt at him from the shadowy house above.
****
Forty-two
Crystal had been halfway to the crew’s quarters at the Palmtree Lodge after the latest delivery for Huntsman when on impulse he told the driver to turn around and go back. ‘Reriki,’ he said.
Thirty minutes later he was admiring how the other half lived. All he’d ever been able to see from his room at the Lodge were a smudgy coconut-oil soap factory at the rear and an ugly strip of corally beach at the front, but the Reriki cabins were something else. He turned switches: the ceiling fan came on, the aircon, the TV. The bed was queen-size. He went out onto the balcony. Cane chairs, not moulded plastic, and a stunning view of blue water, manicured lawns, the neat, shingled trunks of carefully tended palm trees. The air smelt sweet, clean, scented by tropical flowers and afternoon rains.
But De Lisle didn’t arrive to pick up the case that day, or the next. Finally he rang De Lisle’s house. ‘He come in boat, tomorrow,’ a woman said.
So he watched the house. He saw the yacht tie up midway through the afternoon. Shortly after that, a water taxi collected De Lisle and headed across the harbour toward the island. Crystal left his cabin and made for a secluded alcove across from the reservations desk and the bar.
The management had placed a couple of armchairs there, flanking a coffee table stacked with back issues of Readers’ Digest. There was also a small bookcase crammed with books left behind by resort guests. Crystal flipped through a New Age paperback while he waited. It told him how to own his own life and acquire guilt-free wealth and power as he did it. Well, the wealth would come soon enough. He wasn’t stupid enough to run with De Lisle’s jewels but he did intend to push the man from five grand a delivery to fifty, a fair enough amount considering what he was expected to carry, the risks involved, and being hassled by nameless cops in Melbourne.
De Lisle arrived dressed in tropical whites again, beaming at the staff, shouting bon jour and letting them cluster around and pat and hug him. All an act, Crystal decided. For the next thirty minutes, De Lisle held court at the bar, then eased away and walked on short, heavy legs to the door of the security office, his face damp with humidity and effort. He paid the man, collected the suitcase and disappeared.
Crystal waited a couple of minutes then sauntered down to the ferry. It was five o’clock, tourists flocking back to the island to have an early sundowner at the bar. On his way across to the mainland, Crystal watched De Lisle’s water taxi steer a course among the ocean-going yachts.
At the other end, Crystal headed left, down to the cafйs and restaurants of the little port. He had a coffee, took a stroll, filling in time until evening, when he would tackle De Lisle. A pleasant edginess animated him, a sense of having reached the final stage.
All that evaporated at six-thirty when he reached De Lisle’s house and saw another taxi there, saw one of the Melbourne cops pay off the driver and press the inte
rcom.
‘Keep going, keep going,’ Crystal urged, shaking his driver by the arm.
He got out two streets farther along, paid the driver and walked back, trying to grow into the shadows under the palms on the other side of the road. A cop. That changed things. There’d be no walking in and asking for fifty grand with that cop there.
Crystal watched De Lisle’s house helplessly, his hands slipping in and out of his pockets, looking for somewhere to rest. He looked both ways along the street. Kumul Highway, what a laugh. In that spirit, Crystal noticed the open-air market and the low-slung cement block building next to it. In the late sun of the day it glowed the colour of strong tea. Otherwise it was riddled with salt damp; mangy dogs scratched in the packed dirt around it. Still, it said bar over the front door and Crystal had worked up a thirst coming this far.
He went in. Not too bad. A few tables, booths, wooden floors. Clean-looking. Overhead fans kept the place cool. A few locals drinking. Hell, they even sold Fourex.
Crystal fronted up to the bar. He said, slowly, carefully, ‘I don’t want a beer, I don’t want Bacardi and Coke, screwdriver, none of your tourist crap. Give me a kava.’
The local brew was served in small, deep-bowled shells. Crystal had never tried one in all the time he’d been flying in and out of Vanuatu. But it was never too late, and he tipped the kava down his throat. He gagged, coughed, lit up a smoke. Thick, vile, like muddy water mixed with castor oil. He wanted to throw up.
The barman was watching him with interest. Bugger you, Crystal thought. ‘I’ll have another.’