by Garry Disher
Lovell clapped his arm around Nurses shoulder. Right, Chuckles, time you went home.
Is that it?
Lovells eyes were fierce and deep like coals and ice. I dont think so, do you? This is just the beginning.
He watched Nurse walk away. The address Rice had given him proved to be a block of townhouse apartments on a canal. The area was new, transported palms set in manicured lawns, private jetties and massive yellow-brick houses straight out of Boys Town raffle brochures. Lovell pulled in behind a hot-pink VW Superbug and drew on a pair of latex gloves.
The woman who had doped Nurse and stolen seventy-five grands worth of heroin from him seemed to know why he was there. In Lovells experience, people who know theyre going to die will either go berserk or collapse into a kind of sleep, limp and fatalistic. This one collapsed. She opened the door and the light left her eyes and the elasticity drained from her neck and shoulders.
Carol, Lovell said. Youve got something of mine.
She muttered softly. Lovell tilted her chin. Say again?
Not any more.
The silly cow had kept enough for her own stash and sold the rest on the street for five grand. Lovell pocketed the money. A measly five grand, meaning he had another seventy grand to find.
When he left Carol she was ODing on the stuff shed kept for herself. He liked the neatness of that. He could have used a knife on her, or a pair of her tights, but that would have spoilt Rices day.
Twenty-two
Wyatt leaned over her, scarcely brushed her forehead with his mouth, but she woke instantly and dragged him down. Stay.
No.
She sighed. Just testing.
He couldnt stay because this was an inside job and the police would look hard at anyone who knew about the bank transfer. They would look hardest at the branch staff and the security firm but when they drew a blank there they would look at other people in the know. They could conceivably question friends and neighbours and Anna Reid might find herself accounting for the strange man she was seen kissing goodbye in her dressing gown on a Sunday morning one week before the hit on the TrustBank in Logan City.
So Wyatt was leaving at 3 am. He leaned over, let her plant kisses around his neck, his ears. He tingled with it.
He caught a cruising taxi on Coronation Drive in Auchenflower and took it to a street corner four blocks from the Victoria Hotel. He walked the rest of the way. The lobby was deserted. He slept until 10 am, awoken by cleaning staff in the corridor outside his room. He felt a curious kind of peace and realised what it was. Tension like a second skin had bound him for too long but now hed torn through it. Hunted, crossed, destitute, he had been living a young punks version of viciousness and instinctive cunning. But his hours with Anna Reid, the promise of the job, had released him and now he felt compact and alert.
There was an express bus to Logan City at eleven oclock. Wyatt would have preferred a car but he didnt want to risk stealing one, he didnt want to squander Anna Reids five thousand on buying one that proved to be unreliable, and hed long ago lost all his fake ID so he couldnt hire one. There were six people on the bus: two men and a woman bleary-eyed from an all-night bender; an elderly couple dressed for church; a man in a tracksuit carrying an Adidas bag. Wyatt sat at the rear, under the push-out window where he could watch his back and his front.
The shopping centre had the blighted, end-of-the-world atmosphere of a cheap studio set. Someone had thrown a rock at a jewellers window, cracking but not breaking the glass. A pair of womens underpants cringed next to a half-consumed apple in the gutter outside the milk bar opposite the main TrustBank branch. The milk bar was open but the streets were long, broad, windswept and empty. Wyatt went in and bought coffee and a Sunday paper. He sat at a round plastic garden table by the window and drank his coffee.
Using the newspaper propped as cover, he scanned the bank on the other side of the street. It was constructed of plate glass, aluminium and prefabricated blocks of concrete, like any new bank anywhere. There was one front entrance, glass, next to an automatic teller machine set in windows screened by a broad-slatted vertical blind on the inside of the glass.
If he were a cowboy hed ram a truck through the glass and bring all hell down on his head.
Or go in with guns and watch futilely as security screens slammed downproviding there were security screens. But even if he were able to get behind the counter there was no guarantee hed have easy access to the strongroom. It would take time and patience to get cooperation or understanding from the frightened bank staff, and even then someone might trip an alarm. If the safe were on a time lock and the manager shut it at the first sign of trouble, it was all over, no access to the money inside unless he blasted or drilled through, or waited twenty-four hours for the locks to release again.
Still using the newspaper as cover, Wyatt left the milk bar and ambled across the street. An empty bus bellowed away from a bus-stop in the distance. A church bell rang out somewhere; it sounded electronic. He could smell toast and supposed that people lived in flats behind or above the shopfronts.
There were no doors or windows in the wall facing the side street. The inside wall was shared with a remainder bookshop. That left the rear of the bank.
Wyatt walked on. The side wall stretched for twenty-five metres and he came to a small courtyard carpark. A sign read KEEP CLEAR AT ALL TIMES. There was one door in the back wall, solid, made of steel, and one small, barred window set high up in the wall. Then Wyatt heard a toilet flushing and knew they had a permanent guard on the premises.
He idled past the little courtyard, reading the sports pages. A minimum of three men, himself and two others, preferably with a fourth man to drive them out of there, though Wyatt had been let down by drivers in the past. They got twitchy and drove into lampposts, they turned up in vehicles that belonged in a wreckers yard, they didnt turn up at all. If they could somehow get a reliable vehicle into that courtyard, they could load the money via the rear entrance to the bank.
Then Wyatt wandered back the way hed come. He paused outside the parking area and bent to tie his shoelaces. There were two rubbish bins and a number of empty cartons stacked in one corner. Otherwise there was space for only one vehicle and it was designated manager only in white stencilled paint on the wall facing it.
Wyatt knew how they were going to do it.
Twenty-three
He went back to the city and called Anna Reid. Meet me outside the Gallery in an hour.
I could have other plans, she said airily. I might be going out for the afternoon.
There were things about her, about any sort of involvement with someone, that he didnt understand. Either you are or you arent. Which is it?
Her voice changed, growing old and tired. Forget I said it. Just an old teasing habit I should have outgrown by now. But next time try asking instead of telling.
This was baffling to Wyatt. They had a job to do and nothing about it was geared to a normal life. He was unused to games and this kind of intrigue anyway. He made an effort: I need to see you, to discuss the job, but Id also like to see you.
She laughed. Fair enough. See you at three.
An hour to kill. Wyatt walked across the Victoria Bridge and leaned for a while on the railing at mid-river. A paddle-steamer passed under him, crammed with people pointing cameras at the city, the South Bank buildings. One man aimed a video camera up at the bridge; Wyatt jerked back from the railing, continued down the slope to the State Gallery. Inside the Gallery he sat on a leather bench and listened to a trio saw away on a cello and violins. Then he left and made for the museum. He didnt notice the right whale model suspended by wires, its recorded song, the displays of historic machines. His head was telling him the story of the hit on the TrustBank branch and the objects around him had the impermanence of images and jingles on a television screen.
The woman who found him on the lawn outside the Gallery was dressed for a Sunday afternoon in a hot country and Wyatt had begun to back away before h
er voice claimed him. Hey, its only me.
He had seen Anna Reid unclothed and clothed in costly dresses. This time she wore sunglasses, shorts, sandals and a sleeveless shirt, and she looked small and touristy. She sat next to him, drawing her knees to her chest. In the bright light of day her skin was taut and luminous, the colour of mild tea. Wyatt wanted to stretch out with her like lovers anywhere on a riverbank and once again he felt the disjunction between a normal life and the kind of life that hed made for himself.
She made it easy for him, pushing him onto his back. She leaned over him on her elbow. Youve seen it?
He nodded.
Can you do it?
There are some things I want you to find out. One, the managers home address. Two, there will be time locks on the strongroom: I need to know what time theyll open.
A couple of students sat near them. They carried pads and had been sketching in the Gallery. Lets walk, Anna said.
She led him across the pedestrian bridge to the theatres opposite the Gallery. A banner flapped in the wind, advertising a Sondheim musical. They walked by the waters edge. In 1988 this part of the river had been the Expo site. Now bike paths and footpaths crossed it, isolating islands of trees, fountains, shrubbery, outdoor cafes, a Thai temple, a manufactured beach with golden sand and palm trees.
They talked. Ill need three extra men, Wyatt said.
I can get them.
Ill need to meet them, the sooner the better.
My place, eight oclock. Ill make sure theyre available.
He stopped her. Not your place. Youre not thinking it through clearly. Somewhere neutral.
She flushed, her nostrils flaring.
Wyatt clasped her shoulders. Youre taking it personally. Dont. If were going to work together you have to be as good as I am. Im teaching you what I know, not criticising you. Do you understand?
After a while she nodded abruptly.
Okay. Think of a place.
She looked away, then swung back to face him again. The Londona down-market motel, a place where no-one asks questions.
Where is it?
Out on the Ipswich Road.
Arrange it with the others. Ill see you there at eight.
He watched her walk away. He sat in the sun for a while, then went back across the river and moved his things from the Victoria Hotel to the YMCA.
At seven oclock that evening he hailed a cab, getting out several blocks short of the London Motel. He walked the rest of the way and for the next forty-five minutes watched the place from a bus-stop on the other side of the street. The three men arrived separately and alone. Anna let them in.
At ten minutes past eight he crossed the street. The motel room was square and functional, a double bed dressed in shades of brown, thick curtains, two cigarette-scorched orange vinyl chairs.
Wyatt shook hands with each man, assessing them mentally. The man called Phelps was built like a wardrobe but he moved easily. His size would come in useful for what Wyatt had in mind. Riding was different: small, sinewy, his eyes wary. He looked quick; hed have good reflexes, a dangerous heat.
Know anything about guns?
Riding nodded.
Shotgun or handgun?
Riding seemed to understand the question. Depends what youve got in mind. For crowd control, a shotgun. It scares people, it makes a loud noise and scatters a lot of damage around if you do have to use it. For close, fast work Id use a handgun.
Good.
Wyatt turned to the third man, Pike, and saw a problem. Pike had dead white skin, lifeless brown hair badly cut, and fleshy red lips that he liked to lick. There was an air of smothered misery about him.
Im told youre good with cars.
Pike winked. He moulded the air with his hands. Like I was sleeping with them.
What were you in for?
Pikes jaw dropped open. He shut it with a click, opened it again. What are you on about?
At a guess Id say you were doing time somewhere until a week ago.
Pike looked uncomfortable. Might have been.
Its written all over you, Wyatt said. You havent seen proper sunshine for years. Where were you?
Pike shrugged. Up north. Cairns.
What were you in for?
Pike waved it away with his hand. He said rapidly, in a mangled, slurring voice: Ah, it was piss-weak. Nothing to do with driving getaway. They wont come looking for me for that.
What were you in for? said Wyatt flatly.
I tell you, it had nothing to do with holding up a bank, whatever it is you got in mind.
Wyatt shook his head. Youre not listening. I said, what were you in for?
Pike looked to Anna for help. She nodded. He looked at Wyatt. Friggin sex with a minor, all right? I mean, she looked eighteen at least.
Wyatt shook his head again. Anna should have known about this. How long were you in for?
Five.
Years? Out of how many?
Eight.
Youre on parole?
Pike nodded.
You report every week?
Not me, pal. When those doors opened I was gone, fuckin A.
Wyatt said, Wait outside a minute.
Hey, come on, Im good with cars, all that caper.
I said wait.
When he was gone, Wyatt said softly, Hes skipped parole, meaning hes wanted. We cant use him.
Anna looked angry with herself. Sorry.
Wyatt ignored her. How about you other two?
They looked at one another and then back at him and said simultaneously, Im clean.
Have you any idea what this job is? He jerked his head. Did she tell you?
Riding said, No. Phelps shook his head.
So we can unload Pike without having to do anything drastic to him, Wyatt said. He looked at Anna. You brought him in, you pay him off.
He could see the struggle in her face as she tried to tell herself that this was work. She went outside. They heard her talking to Pike. Her voice was soft, full of warmth and regret: You mustnt take any of this personally, okay? Its just one of those things. Youre best out of it anyway. They are very hard men in there. How are you off for cash?
Pike muttered something.
Heres two hundred. No, make it two-fifty. Im sorry about this. Now, take care of yourself.
She put plenty of feeling into it and the men in the room could picture her comforting hand on Pikes arm, her warm, perfumed breath close to his befuddled head.
She came back into the room. Wyatt knew things were okay for now but Pike would feel cranky later, when hed spent the money and had time to think. By then it would be too late. They wouldnt be returning to this motel and Pike had no idea what the job was.
Meanwhile Wyatt hoped he could pull this job with two other men instead of three.
Twenty-four
Lovell banked the Beechcraft steeply as he came in over Goroka, levelled out and touched down on the Highlands airstrip. Wednesday, 1400 hours. There was no cross-wind: the airsock drooped like a condom and the smoke from the jungle villages hung motionless above the dense trees.
He taxied around to a forgotten corner of the airfield and stepped down from the cockpit. At once perspiration broke out on his skiri, sticky under his clothing. Some children gathered around him, waiting. He dug into his satchel, tossed brightly coloured gobstoppers above their heads. The children shrieked and scattered, snatching the sweets from the air and scrabbling for them on the ground.
As usual, Pius Agaky was waiting for him by the Nissen hut where empty drums and out-of-date spare parts were housed. As usual he was shoeless, dressed in shorts and a white T-shirt. His beard, moustache and hair were close-cropped, black on skin the colour of cinnamon. He extended a massive hand. They shook, and Lovell handed over the satchel.
Pius, he said, Im afraid I couldnt scrape all the money together for this consignment. Ill have to owe you the balance, okay? You know my moneys good.
This changes things, Pius said.
He looked over Lovells shoulder, and Lovell turned, thinking Agakys men had started packing cannabis resin into the Beechcrafts hold and he was signalling them to stop. But the place was empty. The children were running away and a pig had wandered onto the landing strip but otherwise the field was deserted.
Then Lovell saw Saun, Taiang, Daru, the men who always loaded the Beechcraft, watching and waiting in the shade of nearby trees. They were all but invisible, some distance away, but he knew that if he made a run for it theyd get to the Beechcraft before he did.
Come on, Pius, we can sort it out.
Pius called something and his men came at a run from the trees. They took Lovells arms and led him toward a hangar while Pius drove away on a scooter. No-one spoke to Lovell. He sat on an overturned jerry can and flipped pebbles into the jaws of a wrench lying in the dust. For ninety minutes nothing happened, only an old DC3 rumbling in from the coast, banking over the jagged green ridges that surrounded the airfield.
Then Pius returned. Someone want a word with you.
Who?
Youll see.
They went around to the rear of the Nissen hut. A black Mercedes was parked there. A costly car two years ago, it was now mud-spattered, sideswiped, pocked with dents. The man who got out said hello, said Lovells name. The accent came from New Zealand. Turn over a rock in PNG, Lovell thought, and youre sure to expose an expat.
The New Zealander introduced himself as Hughes. He was ruddy and mild-looking, with receding sandy hair that grew thickly behind his ears, as though hed pushed his scalp back like a hat. Lets sit in the car and talk.
They got in the front seat. Hughes fired up the motor and turned on the airconditioning, then leaned back against the drivers door to look at Lovell. Pius informs me you didnt bring the full amount.
I can make it up. I got ripped off, thats all.
Hughes had a fleshy smile. Does your Mr Bone know?