Wyatt - 01 - Kick Back (13 page)

Ray thought about it. He made a
what-can-I-do? gesture. Five thousand. Best I can do.

Jesus Christ, Pedersen said. I
heard that. What a fucking rip-off. He was jumpy now from the upper. These
fetch bloody a hundred grand in Sydney.

Ray was beginning to turn nasty. At
this stage in the process its a buyers market. Plus which youre outnumbered.
Five thousand, take it or leave it.

Wyatt told him theyd take it.

Later, when Pedersen started
laughing in the Holden, whooping and singing Some fun tonight, Wyatt came
very close to calling the whole thing off.

* * * *

Twenty-three

They
got back to the safe house at nine-thirty. Wyatt drove slowly past the building
once and then came back. No cars, no pedestrians.

They found Hobba waiting for them in
the flat. He had taken off his shoes and was slumped in an armchair. The room
smelt of cigarette smoke and mints. Nice, he said, when they came in. This
is the life. This is private enterprise for you.

Wyatt ignored him. He crossed to the
window and looked out.

Behind him, Pedersen entered
reluctantly, scowling back at the indentations his feet had made in the thick
carpet. He had changed out of his doormans uniform. Dressed in a flannelette
shirt, jeans and japara again, he showed signs of feeling exposed and untidy. We
got to stay here how long?

Until the day after the job, Wyatt
said. Dont go home, either of you. Buy anything you might need. We dont know
what the Youngers have got in mind. If we stay here, no-one can find us before
we pull the job. But keep your eyes open all the same.

You shouldve wasted the little
prick, Pedersen said.

Hobba sniggered. Gave him a fair
old fright though. He explained about the ponytail and the earring.

Pedersen snorted. I like it.

Had to be done, Hobba said,
holding his arms wide.

They began to discuss it, grinning
broadly. Wyatt watched them. After a while they felt it, and fell silent,
settling back in their chairs.

Right, Wyatt said. This is how we
do ita simple hijack.

Pedersen began to nod, thinking it
over. Its not fastened to the floor?

No. Ive seen the pictures.

Then I like it. Wed be out quickly
and we can open it or blow it elsewhere in our own time.

Hobba frowned at Pedersen, playing
devils advocate. Like where? We cant use your place now, in case the
Youngers are watching, and Im buggered if Im going to wait on a side street
somewhere while you work on it in the back of the van.

They both looked at Wyatt.

We do it here, he said. Downstairs
in the lock-up garage.

Thats a lot of coming and going.

This place is like a tomb during
the day. No-one can see into the garage. No-one knows who we are, where were
from. I paid cash, the whole lot up front. Weve got all the room we need,
plenty of exits, privacy. Its perfect.

If you say so, Hobba said.

Pedersen leaned forward. What if I
have to blow the safe? You cant hide that kind of a noise.

Well take a chance, Wyatt said. Theres
no-one around and the lock-up is below ground level. While you two open the
safe, Ill keep watch up in the street. Can you get us some radios?

Pedersen nodded.

By late tomorrow, Wyatt said, well
have everything we need: the van, handcuffs, overalls, transfers, explosive,
electric drill

He fell silent. They were all
imagining the job. It seemed possible now.

Then Wyatt said, Lets see what weve
got on Finn. What time did everyone arrive this morning?

Pedersen opened his notebook. Anna
and the girl arrived at eight-thirty. Finn at nine.

Wyatt turned to Hobba. What time
did they leave?

The girl at five, Anna five-twenty,
Finn five-thirty.

Anything unusual?

Pretty ordinary. Between ten and
eleven, all three cut through to the coffee shop and came back after about
fifteen minutes. Then at three-thirty, Finn went out.

Well check on that over the next
few days, Wyatt said. When we hit on Friday we want them all in the office.

What about the time? Hobba asked. You
still want to hit when its peak hour?

It ties up the cops as well, Wyatt
said. Accidents, cars parked in the bus lanes. If we know the short cuts, well
be all right. I want this to go like clockwork.

Hobba shrugged. Youre the boss.

They eased back in their bright
fabric chairs. Outside a misty rain blew against the thick glass windows. It
was warm and sheltered up here, high above the greasy streets and headlong
traffic.

* * * *

Twenty-four

On
Wednesday morning Wyatt and Hobba hailed a taxi and went shopping. Their first
stop was Eddie Lomans. The N in EDWARD LOMAN HARDWARE was back-to-front and
Loman himself had a drooping right shoulder and a stiff leg that swung out as
he walked. When the taxi was gone he jerked his head to indicate a workshop at
the rear, closed the steel door behind them, and said, Got the balance?

Wyatt handed him a wad of money.
Loman counted it, six and a half thousand dollars, his lips moving in his grey,
unhealthy face.

Right, he said, your stuffs over
here.

He wheeled round on his left leg and
led them to empty fertiliser bags heaped on the floor in the far corner. Under
them was a grimy styrofoam Esky. Inside it were four pairs of police handcuffs,
a block of Semtex explosive, and an electric drill and bits.

I dont seem to see a van, Hobba
said.

Out the back, Loman said. Keep
your shirt on.

He took them through a small door to
an empty lot behind the workshop. It was choked with weeds. Steel girders and a
cracked expanse of cement indicated that this was a building that had never got
beyond the foundations stage. A white Econovan was parked on it. The paint was
clean. There was no rust and the tyres had been blacked.

Whats she like? Wyatt said.

What you ordered, Loman said. Reliable,
fair acceleration, untraceable.

Let me check.

No skin off my nose, Loman said.
He handed Wyatt the keys.

Wyatt warmed the engine for five
minutes before testing the handbrake and the clutch. Then he took the van for a
ten kilometre test run. He listened to the engines response to varying
conditions and ran up and down the gears several times. The Econovan was twelve
years old and would not win any races, but it would do.

Back at Lomans he nodded and said
simply, Okay.

He let Hobba drive back to the city.
After some minutes he began to look fixedly at Hobbas face. Hobba began to
squirm and shift in his seat, and finally he said, Something wrong?

You told me Pedersens clean.

Far as I know

He was feeding his face with uppers
last night.

Max was? Hobba shook his head as
if to say human weaknesses caused him no surprise, only great weariness. Stupid,
stupid bastard.

Its not that simple, Wyatt said. I
dont want him fucking up. At the first sign, I abort the job and I waste him.
I want you to tell him that.

Hobba drove with one hand and fished
a mint from the tin in his pocket with the other. Will do, he said around the
mint. He had paled a little.

Wyatt sat back and closed his eyes.
There was nothing more to be said. He was no good at small talk, though he knew
how much other people depended on it. Small talk saw them through tension and
assured them that they had a place in the scheme of things. But Wyatt wasnt in
the mood for Hobbas observations about life and fate and God, and he knew that
his closed eyes would dissuade the fat man from making any.

He thought about Pedersen and his
habit and the Finn job. Wyatt liked to think that he never tempted fate. If a
job didnt look safe, he wouldnt do it. But he wondered how true that was.
Wasnt he in fact addicted to a certain type of risk?

Then he thought about Anna Reid. It
was unlike him to be distracted by a woman before a job, or to let himself get
in a position where he was distracted. He realised that he enjoyed working with
her. She had a role to play in this job, sure, but it was more than that. He
wanted to please her, and he found himself thinking about the time after the
job.

Hobba coughed. Wyatt? Were here.

Wyatt opened his eyes. The van was
travelling adjacent to a block on Elizabeth Street devoted to cheap car-rental
firms. Hobba swung into the kerb.

You know what to do? Wyatt said.

Hobba nodded. Take over from you at
three-thirty.

Wyatt got out and crossed the road
to Economy Rentals. He heard Hobba put the van in gear and pull out into the
traffic again. He pushed open the door of Economy Rentals and went inside. He
looked at his watch. Midday. In half an hour he would be taking over from
Pedersen.

Twenty minutes later he was turning
into Quiller Place in a brown Falcon sedan.

* * * *

Twenty-Five

Wyatt
stopped at a customer carpark behind the shops that fronted onto Toorak Road,
backed in, switched off the engine and opened a newspaper. He looked like a man
waiting for his wife.

At first, Quiller Place seemed to be
dead, but bit by bit
Wyatt gained an impression of the
daily rhythms of the little street. A postwoman came by soon after he started
his watch. She wore a slicker, though it was not raining, and pushed her cart
with an air of contempt for the street, the postcode. As soon as she had gone,
all the elderly people in the houses on either side of Finns office came out
to check their mail boxes. They greeted one another, or stopped to talk. One disappointed
woman looked twice in her box, stepped out to watch the posties departing
back, looked sourly up and down Quiller Place. An old man in a walking frame
crossed to the shops. Five minutes later, a home-care nurse ran out, looking
around wildly for him.

Between twelve-thirty and one, sales
assistants and managers straggled into Quiller Place from the Toorak Road
shops. They sat in their cars to eat sandwiches or drove somewhere for lunch.
Most were back by two.

Then came a wave of afternoon
shoppers. Wyatt watched them above his newspaper, young mothers mostly,
creeping down Quiller Place in glossy Range Rovers, Volvos and Mercedes wagons
with ski racks. They parked in the street or the customer parking areas and
locked their cars, braced for the chilly wind in Italian leather coats or
bright ski parkas and high boots and gloves. They were away for long periods,
and emerged from the lanes leading to Toorak Road laden with parcels. One or
two with small children met lovers, mummys friend.

Five people visited Finns office.
Wyatt tried and failed to guess whose clients they were. They were
well-dressedtwo yuppies and three smart, middle-aged womenand if they were
distressed or in trouble youd never know it from looking at them. He checked
his watch each time: five minutes to the hour, five minutes to the half hour.

Did Anna Reid inspire trust in her
clients? Suddenly Wyatt wanted to see and touch her. The feeling came so hard
and strong that he realised he had been suppressing it. He remembered how it
had been last night, her swinging hair and her long throat and the smell of her
skin. Within minutes of his arrival she had been wearing nothing under her
skirt and was hoisting herself onto the kitchen bench to let him nuzzle her
while she held him there in the clamp of her gleaming legs, her back arched. It
had been rich and humid and now Wyatt wanted her again. He tried concentrating,
willing her to appear. But she did not, and he felt foolish.

Ten past three. No one paid Wyatt or
his shabby car any attention. The people here were too self-absorbed for that.
But he knew they were not so self-absorbed as to overlook a car that never
moved, or a man who never shopped or picked up his wife or finished reading his
newspaper. Thats why the three shifts each day, the three different vehicles.

At three-fifteen a police car turned
in at the top end of Quiller Place. Two young constables, a man and a woman, examined
both sides of the street. Wyatt started the Falcon, drove forward at an awkward
angle, and, looking behind him, his arm stretched out along the seat, backed up
as if to correct the angle.

He did this three times while the
patrol car cruised along and out of the street. Nothing unusualjust someone
who has muffed his parking.

Wyatt thought about it. A cop car on
a side street in the middle of the afternoon? A regular beat? Just in case, he
got out of the Falcon and stood out of sight near the ornamental shrubbery
behind a bookshop. He would wait for Hobba there. If the cops came back, he
would abandon the car and slip through to Toorak Road.

Fifteen minutes went by. At
three-thirty Finn came out of his office, crossed Quiller Place, and went into
the rear entrance of the cafe. His coffee break. Wyatt wrote down the time. The
cops would have been back by now, surely.