by Garry Disher
But things wouldn’t stay that way. He chinned the alley fence and looked both ways along it. Worn cobblestones, a filthy drainage channel, abandoned mattresses. A torn-eared cat, spooked by him, crouched belly-down on the cobbles. Wyatt swung his legs up, rolled his trunk along the top of the fence and dropped into the alley. No one saw him do it. No one cried out.
Wyatt considered his options. To the left the alley formed a T-junction with a brick wall. To the right it opened on to a broad street next to a playground. Not that way-too open, too enticing. He loped toward the T-junction.
The gunman was young and he was snatching a quick leak against an open drum of sump oil when Wyatt came around the corner. He splashed his jeans as he tucked himself back in and went for the pistol in his belt holster.
Wyatt stopped, eyeing the man and the gun warily.
‘Come any closer and I’ll call in the others,’ the gunman said.
He had an acned face and hair the colour of his pasty skin. He licked his lips. ‘I mean it,’ he said. He lifted his head to shout.
Wyatt knew he had nothing to fear from a man who’d prefer to call for help rather than use his gun. He advanced, taking out his own gun, chilling and deliberate. He dug the barrel under the scarred chin and let the gunman hear him thumb back the hammer. ‘That oil drum-I want you to drop your gun in it.’
A soft splash and the man’s pistol slipped under the scummy surface. Wyatt thought about questioning him, but changed his mind. The man was only a soldier, following orders; he wouldn’t have answers to the questions Wyatt wanted to ask him. Wyatt smacked him to the ground with the flat edge of his.38 and got out of there.
****
Eight
He walked back to wait at the bus-stop under the railway overpass near Hoddle Street. Two minutes later, he saw the blue Laser again, edging out of a side street a few blocks away. It pulled into the kerb. No one got out.
If they were going to take him they wouldn’t do it here. Too open, too many witnesses. Obviously they’d picked him up in Lygon Street and tailed him to Abbotsford, but it could have started earlier than that, at the motel.
A bus pulled in and he climbed aboard. He wanted access to an exit and a line of sight along the length of the bus, so he sat on a side-facing seat near the driver’s door. He didn’t know how well prepared this mob was. If they had a radio or a car phone they could call ahead and put someone on the bus.
The minutes passed and the bus belched its way along Johnston Street. Not many people boarded and none of them looked like trouble. They were pensioners, deadend teenagers, women with shopping trolleys and small children. The Laser stayed four car lengths behind the bus through Collingwood and Fitzroy and up into Carlton.
Several people got ready to alight at the stop on Lygon Street. Wyatt let them get off first. He didn’t want them behind him but on the street where they could shield him. The Laser had closed in on the bus. Wyatt walked for a hundred metres along Lygon Street toward the city, and paused outside Readings bookshop. He gazed without taking in the details at a poster advertising the latest Claire McNab, then switched direction and darted across to the other side of the street. Let’s see how good you are on foot, he thought. Let’s see if you’ve got any backup.
He jogged along Faraday to Genevieve’s, where people were drinking coffee under sidewalk umbrellas, and ducked left into a narrow side street. Halfway down he paused and looked back. The street was clear.
But he knew he hadn’t lost them. By running he’d announced himself. They were out there, regrouping, setting up the next stage. He had to nip this in the bud, and the only way to do that was to let himself be the bait.
On Lygon Street again he headed south, keeping pace with the crowd. Half of the people were fashion plates, the other half wore Reeboks and tracksuits the colour of poster paints. Once Wyatt would have despised them but he didn’t have the energy for that anymore. The mass of the population was vulgar and herd-like and some of them had money. That was enough.
He edged through the students huddled outside the room-to-let notices in Readings’ window. There are ways of tailing people so you can’t be spotted and ways of spotting a tail. Wyatt used reflective surfaces-car chrome and duco, shop windows, people’s sunglasses-to check movement behind him. He double-backed twice, and occasionally lingered outside shop windows, glancing casually along the stretch he’d just come. Careless tails always gave themselves away, breaking rhythm with the crowd, pausing outside an unlikely shop window, diving into a phone box. Nothing. He entered a vast, noisy pasta restaurant by one door, read the chalked menu for a while, then left by a side door. At the Grattan Street intersection he saw a taxi pull over and discharge a passenger. He got in, told the driver to U-turn, and watched to see the response. Nothing. They were good. He didn’t see a thing that looked wrong.
He got out again near Jimmy Watson’s wine bar, gave the complaining driver twenty dollars, and retraced his movements along Lygon Street. Wyatt was prepared to do this for two or three hours if necessary. He assumed they’d have more than one man on him. There might even be a tail in front of him. Wyatt didn’t care who or when-he wanted to flush out just one man, disable him, ask him some hard questions.
But they were good. Wyatt went through the shopping precinct a second time, crossed Grattan Street and was opposite the Argyle Square park before he spotted the tail. It was a face he remembered from a shop window, more easily identifiable now where there were fewer pedestrians. Wyatt stiffened, then absently scratched his backside: he didn’t want the tail to see tension in him. He kept walking. The street was broad and open. He couldn’t see where or how he’d be able to take out the man behind him.
Then he did go tense. The man he’d disarmed in the alley behind Rossiter’s house was keeping pace with him on the other side of the street. Wyatt knew instantly what the plan was. Neither man was bothering to conceal himself now, meaning they had backup nearby. They were hunting him as a team, prepared to hand him over to one another until they had him boxed in.
Wyatt put his right hand in his jacket pocket and fitted his keys between his fingers like spines. The.38 was in the inside pocket, but only a mug would want to shoot it out in the middle of Lygon Street. He didn’t think the other side would want a shooting either. He kept walking.
It was a classic herding action. The second tail paced him step for step on the park side of the street. Wyatt took note of the man’s arms: they looked unrelaxed, hanging out from the stocky trunk, indicating he’d rearmed himself. Wyatt looked back over his shoulder. The first tail was twenty metres behind him now. They were shepherding him to where he could be ambushed by the rest of the team, presumably farther down the street.
Wyatt wanted to run but controlled the urge. He walked. Cars, taxis, a bus, a courier motorcycle, people shopping, a kid on a skateboard-it was an ordinary, moderately busy street, and it was about to turn chaotic. He felt a bleakness settle in him. Nothing was finished yet. Nothing was ever finished.
A block closer to the city were two rows of faded terraces, home to several struggling shops under the rusted verandahs over the footpath. The terraces were separated by an alley. The Laser was parked just beyond the alley. Then someone stepped out, blocking Wyatt’s path. It was the woman who’d tried to kill him ten months ago and again last night. A fourth figure stood near the car. He had blunt Melanesian features and the build of a weightlifter. Wyatt saw him rub his hand once over his cropped black hair then crouch slightly, waiting to see what Wyatt would do.
Wyatt stopped, looking for leverages. He couldn’t find any. The men were keeping well back from him and the woman posed problems. If she’d had long hair or loose clothing there would be something he could hold, jerk or twist, but she had a short fine down over her scalp and skintight jeans and top. There was only her body, hard, quick-looking, like a coiled black spring, and the tiny pistol she let him see in her gloved palm, a chrome automatic gleaming against black leather. She jerked her head at the
alley, meaning in there.
Wyatt walked a few metres into the alley and stopped. He turned around. The woman was following him, and she stopped when he did. The others were stationed on the footpath behind her. She didn’t speak, just stared flatly at him. The gun was in view now. She gestured with it. He turned and began to walk again. After a few seconds he heard soft footfalls as she paced him. If this was a professional hit it would be done in silence-no arguments, no explanations.
Wyatt stopped. The alley was damp and narrow, smelling of urine and garbage scattered by rangy cats. Faint grey light leaked in from the street behind him. In front of him was a wall.
They were not counting on what he did then. He spun around. He began to shout. At the same time he moved, zigzagging down the alley toward them, bouncing from wall to wall. The woman swung her gun, tracking him, but she lacked the time she needed to aim and decide. One second. Wyatt reached her and raked the keys across her face. Two seconds. Her eyes filled with blood. She screamed and, her first instinct, put both hands to her face. Wyatt wheeled, swung his fist, drove the air from her body.
Three seconds. The men reached for their pistols. They hadn’t expected this. They had thought it would be easy, four against one. Now they didn’t know if they should shoot, or keep Wyatt trapped, or rescue the woman. ‘Bastard,’ one of them said. They started toward him.
Wyatt continued to run, swift, low, shouting unnervingly. He ran right into the face of their guns. They aimed, but he was crouched over, weaving rapidly. They jerked, trying to aim, but the woman was in their line of fire, and they didn’t want ricochets, the metal fragments flying like hornets in that narrow space.
Five seconds. Wyatt’s shoulder drove into the weightlifter, who doubled over, his mouth opening and closing. He dropped his gun, then fell. Wyatt scooped up the gun, a 9mm, and swung it around on the other two. They backed onto the footpath, shocked at the speed and fury of the turnaround, then fled, scuttling in panic down the street. Seven seconds.
A small boy and an elderly woman had seen everything. The boy began to cry, the old woman was gulping, but they didn’t move. Wyatt walked past them and across the street. They looked wonderingly after him, then back at the woman in the alley.
Wyatt walked south toward the city, then down onto Elizabeth Street. He would be able to catch a tram to the hotel from there. They wouldn’t be expecting him to do that. They would be expecting him to go deeper to ground.
****
Nine
Shortly after Wyatt had left via the back fence, cops were pounding on the front door. At first Eileen thought the two factors were connected, but it was her son they wanted. She knew it would be a waste of time asking to see a warrant. The local jacks had it in for the Rossiters. She herself had served six months in Fairlie for receiving. Ross had done time for armed robbery all over Australia-Boggo Road, Long Bay, Wacol. Leanne had been lumbered with a community order when she was just seventeen. Last year Niall had served six months in Pentridge for burglary and assault.
And now they were threatening to chuck the book at the poor little bugger. She leaned forward across the table. ‘An offensive weapon? You must be joking. Not Niall.’
They were in the kitchen, and it seemed to be full of cops. One stood behind her chair, another behind Ross’s, a third behind Niall’s. Thank God Leanne and the kids weren’t here to see this.
‘We’ve had complaints.’
It was the local sergeant, Napper, a spongy, beer-fed man with a ginger moustache who uttered soft grunts from time to time. Eileen had seen him off-duty wearing short-sleeved shirts with polyester trousers that ended well short of his ankles and divided his balls and the cheeks of his backside.
He drove an unroadworthy Holden ute. He also had a girlfriend in a flat a couple of streets away. Sometimes you’d see the ute there, sometimes a cop car. Eileen tried her drowsy, wet-lipped smile on him, for the hell of it. ‘What kind of complaints?’
‘The dog, I bet,’ Niall said.
Napper smoothed his moustache. ‘That dog of yours is going to earn you a lawsuit one of these days, Niall old son. It’ll take someone’s hand off and you’ll be up for a million bucks in damages.’
‘He’s got instincts. You can’t do anything about that.’
‘You could try tying him up. You could try cutting his throat.’
Niall looked away, muttered, screwed up his face at the table. Don’t rile them, son, Eileen thought.
Napper cupped his ear. ‘What’s that? Did I hear a threat? A man of violence, are you, Niall old son? Bit of a hard case?’
Eileen looked across at her husband. The contempt was clear on Ross’s face. He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Knock it off, Napper. Just get on with it.’
‘Fair enough. Where’s the crossbow?’
‘What crossbow?’
Napper said, ‘I ask the questions. What is it, Niall? Do you hate the way your neighbour looks, maybe? You think he’s got no right to park his truck in the street?’
Niall made the mistake of sniggering. ‘Doesn’t park it there anymore.’
The sergeant straightened, stood back and nodded at the uniformed men. They left the room. Eileen knew they’d find the crossbow without any trouble. She hoped it would be all they found.
Napper seemed to be settling in for the duration. He opened a Herald-Sun that had been left on the fridge. ‘You wouldn’t have been circling the funeral notices, would you, Niall? Wouldn’t be thinking of visiting the homes of the bereaved while they were gathered at the graveside, by any chance? A little drop-kick like you, that would be about your style.’ He grinned, his eyes creasing in the folds of his heavy cheeks. He turned the pages. ‘Looks like another innocent citizen has been bashed and robbed in his own house. A lot of it about these days. You’d have to be a hard man to go in against someone just off to bed in his pyjamas, what do you reckon, Niall old son, old pal?’
‘Don’t know what you mean.’
‘Bit of a hotshot, eh, Niall? Bit of a bully? Like hurting people when they’re down?’
‘Look,’ Niall said, ‘there are blokes on your most-wanted list walking around and you’re farting around with me.’
He meant Wyatt. Eileen looked across at her husband and saw a warning, a coldness in him. Ross wasn’t a dog, he’d never shop anyone to the cops, and it was a rule he expected the family to live by.
But Napper wasn’t listening to Niall. ‘You don’t like it when somebody else gets the upper hand, do you, pal? You turn to water, you lie down and roll on your back and give them everything they want, don’t you, matey?’
Eileen watched her son flush. ‘Take it easy, son,’ she warned.
Niall ignored her. ‘You’ll fucking get yours, Napper. I want a lawyer.’
‘A lawyer?’ Napper said, open-faced, amused, getting ready to play with that idea. Eileen prepared herself to intervene again, but Niall was saved from his tongue when the uniforms came back into the room. One of the young constables was carrying the crossbow. Eileen looked at Rossiter, frowned, a way of telling him to say something.
Rossiter said, ‘Look, the boy’s a bit hot-headed but he’d never hurt no one. Give him a go. I’ll have a word with the bloke next door, buy him a beer, patch things up. Niall will apologise, won’t you, son?’
No one listened. Napper moved behind Niall’s chair. He put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. ‘Niall Rossiter, I am arresting you on charges of threatening behaviour and possession of an offensive weapon. You will be taken to the local station, formally charged, and placed before a magistrate.’
He went on to read Niall his rights. Then a constable placed cuffs on him and led him outside. Eileen felt a heaviness settle in her heart. She knew it could be a day or two before she saw her son again. Napper would see to it that her boy would be denied bail, be remanded in custody. It would end up destroying him. Niall didn’t have the hard edge of men like her husband, men like Wyatt. Niall had come out of his six months in Pentridge last
year sly and vicious, but it was an act. There was a permanent flinch about his head, eyes and shoulders that she hadn’t seen in him before, and it had broken her heart. She hated to see it, hated to think what another sentence would do to him.
****
Ten
It all took time but later that day Napper, smooth and practised, was arguing that Niall Rossiter was an unacceptable risk. The magistrate bought it, as Napper knew he would. Remand. It gave Napper a good feeling.
On the way home he stopped off at Tina’s flat. There was no answer so he used his key and showed both constables through to her kitchen. There was beer in the fridge. They stayed long enough to drain a stubbie each then went back out to the car. It made an impression parked there in the narrow street among the dinky Hondas and Corollas. Cold, white, the snarling black number on the roof, the malevolent red and blue lights. It really gave the locals the shits-teachers, legal-aid lawyers, students, vegetarians. Napper eased his bulk into the driver’s seat and they squealed out of there.
His desk at the station sat in the centre of a cluttered room. There were several other desks, all like his. The men he shared with were laughing in the far corner, by the frosted windows. A CIB sergeant called, ‘Hey, Nap, check this.’
Napper crossed the room. A set of 8 x 10 glossies had been laid out on a bench top. They showed a young male, white, naked, slumped low in an armchair, one hand apparently in the act of pumping his penis, the other curled near a skin magazine. The man’s face was distorted, bulging above the nylon rope that bound his neck and went on up to a hook in the wall. There was a Turkish rug on the floor, rucked by the man’s heels as he spasmed in death. Napper examined the photographs, then looked up. The others were waiting, grinning. Napper wouldn’t let them down. ‘Did he come?’