Pay Dirt (6 page)

As he drove through Moorabbin
Letterman pictured again the hate on the faces of the cops whod tried to put
him away. He fished a Quick-eze out of his pocket and chewed on it. His belly
rumbled and the pain eased. What he most liked about this job, apart from being
his own boss, was there were no more logbooks, no more manuals, no more working
by the book.

St Kilda Junction was coming up.
Letterman crossed into the left lane, ready to turn into Barkly Street and his
motel. Change his suit, clean the shit off his shoes, then back on the streets.

Known associates. When everything
had blown up in Melbourne six weeks ago, three names surfaced: Wyatt, Hobba,
Pedersen. Hobba was dead. Wyatt was the reason for all this in the first place.
That left Pedersen.

* * * *

TWELVE

A
woman is good cover, Wyatt. Think about it.

Wyatt thought about it. Leah had a
sharp mind and she liked to use it. Hed noticed that five years ago, when shed
done some background work for two jobs hed pulled in Adelaide. And now she was
bombarding him with ideas for the Steel-gard hit. Most of them made sense. All
the same, he didnt want her to be involved at an active level.

Ive got a stake in this, Wyatt.

He stared at her face. Intelligence
and a kind of fury were animating it. Her eyes were alive. Her fists, clenched
on her dining room table as she leaned toward him, looked impatient and ready
for action.

Then her eyes narrowed. You dont
think I can do it.

Wyatt gestured irritably. He didnt
speak.

What, then? she demanded.

Wyatt wasnt going to tell her that
the job had become messier, costlier and more difficult than he liked. It had
started off as an uncomplicated snatch, but the federal police raid had changed
all that. He forced a smile. We need someone useful here on the outside.

She ignored the smile. Ill be more
useful there with you than back here. I can drive, shop, take photos, whatever.

Wyatt nodded slowly. They were
drinkinghis last drink before he started workand he could feel his resistance
slipping away. He watched Leah watching him. Her body was still but gave an
impression of being charged with energy.

She was frowning faintly, and her
eyes were restless.

I could keep watch, she continued.
Youll need someone on a radio to tell you when the van enters the short cut.

Maybe.

Think about it.

Wyatt regarded her calmly. He didnt
speak.

She went on. Tell me more about
this guy coming from Melbourne.

He knows about locks. Hes also
good with radios. The van will be equipped with long-range VHF on a constant
band. Well need to jam it. With any luck the Steelgard base will think its a
signal weakness.

But you dont know yet how youre
going to break through to the money.

Theres always a way. Ill set up a
camp first.

Youll brainstorm the job first,
Leah snapped.

Wyatt rarely got angry with other
people. He didnt get close enough to them for that. Their problems and
opinions didnt interest him. The sort of people who angered him were the punks
hed sometimes worked with, whose grievances and ignorance put his life at
risk. But he felt angry now. He felt it rising in him.

Something in his face betrayed it.
Leah blinked and jerked her forearms back from the table. She picked up her
wineglass and drained it.

You dont like working with a woman,
she said.

But that wasnt it. He didnt like
to be rushed. The answers always came to him when he was alone, concentrating
hard. Just now he didnt feel like concentrating. He was aching after riding
the Suzuki all over the state and the wine made him feel sleepy and he wanted
Leah to have her mind on him, not the job. Then he caught himself. He didnt
like that sort of thinking in himself.

Okay, he said, well brainstorm
the job.

Bribe someone on the inside, she
said promptly.

Like who? The driver? The guard?
What will you ask them to do? What if they talk? Do you actually know anyone at
Steelgard?

No.

No, but if you approach them theyll
soon know you. Next idea.

We put up a roadblock. When they
stop we get the keys off them and open the back.

A roadblock may come into it,
Wyatt said, but it doesnt mean theyll give us the keys. First, they dont
ride together in the cab. The guard rides in the back, which is a separate unit
sealed off from the drivers cab. Usually the guard opens from the inside. And
I note that you said we.

He said all this coldly and rapidly.
Nevertheless, Leah grinned. She was enjoying herself. After a while, Wyatt
grinned too.

Leahs smile faded. She was
thinking. Whats the company policy when staff lives are in danger?

These firms dont want anyone
getting hurt or killed. It costs them too much in compensation and bad PR. The
moneys insured. They tell their employees, if it comes to the crunch, give in.

So we drag the driver out and hold
a gun to his head so the guard sees it, or we hold up a stick of dynamite and
tell the guard if he doesnt open were blasting the doors.

The driver and the guard are linked
by an intercom, Wyatt said. We can jam their radio, but we cant jam that. As
soon as something goes wrong, the driver will warn the guard.

So?

So there could be a whole range of
emergency shutdown procedures we dont know about. Steelgards employees are
slack, we know that, but the vans could be high-tech all the same. They might
be fitted with door and brake locks that can only be opened by someone from
their base office. They might be fitted with time locks. You never know. We
have to expect things like that. Breaking through that sort of gadgetry takes
time, effort, equipment.

Leah was silent. Then she said, So
theres no easy way in.

There might bewe wont know till
the day itself. What Im saying is, we have to be prepared for good-old
fashioned forcecutting gear, blasting with nitro or C4 plastic, whatever. An
effective, time-honoured, noisy, time-consuming, attention-grabbing method.

Her face went rueful and she reached
out and touched the back of his hand. Dont be like that.

Like what? Im telling it like it
is. We sit in the middle of the road for twenty, thirty minutes, an hour,
cutting our way in, hoping no roo shooters or local cops come along.

She grinned. Or we cut our way in
somewhere else.

Where?

The hideout.

The hideout. How do we get to the
hideout if we cant even get into the van and theyve got some sort of complete
shutdown in force?

Leah poured more wine for them both,
dragging it out, enjoying this. We cart it there, she said.

There was a pause. He began to
smile. A breakdown truck or a low-loader, he said. And someone to operate
it.

She smiled back at him. Ill just
make a phone call.

She left the room and went into her
kitchen. Wyatt sipped his wine. She wanted to protect her sources, so he didnt
intrude. All the same, he felt vulnerable. Not about the fact that Leah had a
say in things now, or about the quality of her opinion, but because he felt cut
off from the people he normally worked with. Hed have to watch his back. He
didnt know Leahs sources or if they could be trusted. He tried to tell
himself this job was no different from all his others, when he had to rely on
people like Eddie Loman for men and equipment, but it didnt help. Eddie Loman
was as capable of selling him out as one of Leahs anonymous sources, but at
least he
knew
Loman, knew where and how to find him. And Loman knew
Wyattknew that if he crossed Wyatt he could expect a bullet that had no second
thoughts attached to it.

Leah was dialling. An extension
telephone sat on a coffee table in the corner of her dining room and it tinkled
fussily as she dialled. Wyatt countednine digits, long distance. He heard her
say, Its me, Leah, and then her voice went muffled. He didnt try to listen
in on the extension. The best he could do for the next two weeks was keep his
back covered.

He started to think about the truck.
It was a good idea. It had the kind of neatness he admired. The problem was,
how would they transport the van on the back of a truck without being noticed?
The answer came to him and it was as neat and simple as Leahs initial idea. Brava
Construction. Brava Constructions distinctive vehicles, pale blue with a
snorting black bull on each door, had been churning up the mid-north roads for
so long now they were part of the landscape.

Leah came back into the dining room.
She was wearing black tonight and looked good in it. Black fifties skirt,
black tights, embroidered Cambodian waistcoat over a black T-shirt. Her
expression was light and cocky. She knew she was in now she knew she would be
there on the day. He realised that he liked her. He wanted her. This was his
last drinking session until after the job, so it was partly the alcohol, but
only a small part. Well?

Its all arranged. I was given a
name. We go to see him tomorrow. Hell be expecting us.

Tell me about him.

According to my contact the guy were
going to see knows heavy vehicles. Hes also pulled semitrailer hijacks in the
past, hes a good mechanic and hes reliable.

Wyatt pushed his chair away from the
table and began to stand. Dont, Leah said. The voice was low, almost a
growl. Wyatt sat again.

She came around the table and stood
looking down at him. She knocked her knee against his. Then she straddled him
and when he put his hands under her skirt she arched her back. Five years ago
shed liked to do that. Shed been in the game then. He knew about it. It hadnt
bothered him. It hadnt been an issue. He wasnt curious about who she was when
she was with her clients, or why she did it, or what those other men were like.
It was business, thats all. Somehow shed known he wasnt the type to get
bothered about what she did. And she was too smart and careful to catch
anything.

Wyatt? she said.

Im here.

Do you still go away every year?

If its been a good year. Just
lately, the pickings have been poor.

But not with this job. You could be
in Tahiti this time next month.

She was asking to go away with him.
He didnt know about that. He stroked her with his fingers and her back arched.

* * * *

THIRTEEN

The
next morning when the commuter traffic had eased they took the winding freeway
through the hills and down into the city. Leahs driving was smooth and fast,
no messy braking or swerving. Once they were out of the hills, Wyatt watched
the traffic, the everyday commerce of the suburban streets. He did it
automatically. It was as though these banks, payroll deliveries, office safes
and jewellers existed only for him.

At Victoria Park racecourse he was
reminded of a job he had on hold, to snatch the gate receipts at a big sporting
event someday, some place where the security had been allowed to get slack.
Leah skirted the vast parklands of the city. Boys were jogging around the
playing fields of Prince Alfred College. Schools like this were never called by
their full names. They were always Princes, Kings, SCEGGS, PLC, and it was
always assumed that you understood the reference.

Wyatts self-possession and control,
his height and grace, had fooled people in the past. They mistook it for
arrogance and good breeding. Hed once been asked, Were you at Scotch? These
schools, the people who sent their kids to them, spelt money, and Wyatt had set
out to get some of it. It wasnt anything personal with him. He had no time for
hatred or envy. Emotions like that used up energy and warped judgement. With Wyatt
it was simply this: they had money, he wanted it, so what was the best way of
getting it?

Leah turned onto Main North Road in
Enfield and the city turned ugly. Sunlight blazed from windscreens and chrome
in the used-car lots, and massive plastic chickens, hamburgers, tennis racquets
and spectacles were bolted above the shopfront verandahs. Leah braked hard,
swearing as a kid in a panel van swerved in front of her. The bumper sticker
read Dont LaughYour Daughter Could Be In Here. Thats an old one, Wyatt
thought. In fact, the whole city seemed to be about five years behind the rest
of the world. Leah braked again, for a bus this time. Diesel exhaust hung in
the air behind it and soon the oily fumes were fouling the air in the car.

I always forget how shitty it is
down here, Leah said. Im spoilt living in the hills.

Bushfires, Wyatt said. Developers.
Feral cats. Herbicide on the blackberries.

Ha, ha.

A few blocks before Gepps Cross she
turned left into an industrial park.
50%
lease! screamed the signs along
the fenceline. Grass grew to chest height around the empty buildings. Wyatt
counted four stripped cars on the forecourt. Airconditioning ducts, packing
cases and empty pallets were stacked along a steel-mesh fence.