Wyatt - 05 - Port Vila Blues (12 page)

Wyatt left the waterfront and headed
inland along Argyle Street, the climb steep and steady toward the top of the
mountain behind the city. He was tempted to buy a boat now and live on it
hereuntil something went wrong and he was forced to run again. Something would
go wrong, that he didnt doubt. If he were to rely only on himself, Wyatt would
be wealthy, known to no one, bothered by no one, as close to a perfect life as
he could want. But he never could rely only on himself. There was always
someone to please, bully, coax or manage, and inevitably one of them let him
down. They made mistakes or got greedy or didnt like the way he wouldnt have
a beer with them afterwards. Their life stories padded the daily newspapers, notable
usually for some act of viciousness or stupidity that ended in a remand cell or
on a slab at the morgue.

Wyatt stopped at a flyspecked
barbershop half a block west of Argyle Street. The sun-bleached ads inside the
glass were fifteen years out of date and dust clogged an old pair of clippers
set alone on a crepe-papered hatbox in die centre of the window. Wyatt had
never seen any customers in the chairs or waiting along the wall inside, but hed
learned that the place had been there since the 1950s and the sort of men Wyatt
had to deal with from time to time swore that it had been a successful maildrop
for all of that time.

The man reading the
Hobart
Mercury
in the barbers chair wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up
and a fat paisley tie tugged free of the collar. He had plenty of slick black
hair combed back from his forehead as if pasted there with grease. The face he
turned to Wyatt was tired, worn and grubby, like his business. He recognised
Wyatt and said at once: Just the one item.

The barber climbed down from his
chair and walked half-bent to a room at the rear of the shop. He came back with
a large padded envelope. The address on it was a box number and the name was
Carew, another name Wyatt was using at the moment.

Wyatt handed the man twenty dollars
and wordlessly left the shop. The envelope had been inexpertly prised open and
sealed again. That wouldnt have helped the barber, for Jardine had simply
passed on a message from Liz Redding, but any level of curiosity on the part of
the barber was intolerable and so Wyatt went back into the shop.

The man knew and backed away,
stammering, Something else, mate?

Wyatts eyes locked on him
dispassionately. There were several ways he might play this. The most obvious
involved a degree of risk. If he were to hurt the barber, damage his property,
or take back the twenty, the little man would notch up another injustice and
look for a way to collect on itthe police, some minor thug mate with
ambitions.

Some sort of physical payback was
what the barber expected, he was born and bred to it, so Wyatts stillness
baffled him. Then he grew aware of Wyatts cold gaze. He began to splutter,
close to tears: I didnt mean to. The flap was

A mistake. If the barber had
admitted opening the envelope and stopped there, Wyatt would have nodded and
left him in the jelly of his fear. But the little man was trying for an excuse.

Very slowly then, with chill
deliberation, Wyatt raised the bony forefinger of his right hand. It was a
slender, sunbrowned finger and the barber shut his mouth and stared,
fascinated, as it seemed to float across the gap between them. His eyes tracked
the finger. Wyatt stopped when it made contact. It was no more than a
whispering brush against the tip of the mans nose, but the effect was
dramatic. The little barber seemed to spasm and smoke like a man in an electric
chair.

Wyatt left. He still hadnt spoken,
and by the time he was out of the door and crossing the street he was thinking
only of the next day, meeting Liz Redding in the ranges east of Melbourne and
exchanging the Tiffany for twenty-five thousand dollars cash.

* * * *

Sixteen

This
time they drove through the night, dumped the van on the outskirts of Sydney,
and collected Mansells Toyota. They entered the fuming traffic again, the
spine of the Harbour Bridge an impossible distance ahead of them.

Mansell yawned. Theyd been on the
road for ten hours. He needed a shave. They both needed a wash and a change of
clothing. He felt constipated and his eyes were prickly. They sat there in the
creeping lanes of cars and buses, approaching the city in short, weak spurts
between traffic lights.

After a while Mansell said, What
are you working on at the moment?

Me? Same old shit, Riggs said
indifferently, as though the night behind him had never happened. Solicitors
milking their trust funds, bank clerks ripping off cheques. Theres this one
case, a bloke sets up a dummy company, gets his mates to invest in it,
promising them its going to merge with a bigger company, meaning the shares
will rise, only its all bullshit and his mates lose the lot. Hes into them
for five million.

Mansell shrugged. Throw the book at
him.

Not that simplehe disappeared
swimming off Palm Beach last month.

Mansell looked at him briefly. Faked
it?

A gut feeling.

Follow the paper trail.

Yeah. Piece of cake.

For a while then they stared ahead.
They were tired, their necks stiff with tension and hours of sitting. Riggs
said, What about you?

Glebe doctor runs a hose from the
exhaust pipe of the family car parked in the garage at the side of the house
into the spare room where his wifes sleepinga room the size of a shoebox, the
door and window easily sealedthen when shes dead he carts her out to the car,
runs a shorter hose into the car itself. Bingo. Verdict suicide.

Will you get him?

He left her too long on the bed.
Her blood settled where it wouldnt have settled if shed died sitting upright,
like we found her. Were pulling him in this morning. He rolled his shoulders.
Shit I wish Id rostered myself two days off instead of one.

Riggs grunted.

They reached the harbour tunnel and
the white car slipped like an oiled pellet past the slick tiles, drawn by the
curving lights. Mansell tried to picture the metres of sludge above their
heads, composed of mud, plastic bags, hubcaps, guns and skeletons, then metres
of harbour water, all of it pressing down, down.

The light quality began to alter and
the car climbed toward the sunlight. The sun was weak in the grey sky but
Mansell was glad to see it. He took the North Sydney exit, winding
automatically through the little streets. They had nothing to say to each
other.

Until Riggs stiffened in the seat
next to him. Did you see that? Pull over, back up. Somethings going down in
that side street.

Riggsy

Just do it. Theres a punk down
there about to get the shock of his life.

* * * *

Seventeen

The
weather in Sydney today will be fair and mild, light winds, with an expected
top of twenty degrees. All you peak-hour crawlers out there in radio land, stay
tuned for todays Rego Reward. If your plates are announced, you could win one
thousand dollars.

Baker stayed tuned, but they didnt
call his rego number so he slid in a cassette of Jimmy Barnes and lit a smoke.
Then he took his foot off the brake, moved one car length along with everyone
else, braked again. Judging by the scream-scrape whenever he braked, it was
metal against metal on all four wheels. Still, it wasnt his car. The cow had a
joblet her fix her own car. He helped in plenty of other ways.

Baker twisted around on the
collapsed springs of the drivers seat. The brat was standing on the back seat,
bumping his skinny rear against the torn vinyl of the seat upright, the same
movement over and over again. Mouth open, shoelaces already trailing, vacant
look on his pinched face. Bakers arm, thick and gingery, shot out and grabbed
a pitiful wrist. Skin and bone. Whatd I tell you? Eh? Whatd I tell you?

The brat seemed to wake out of a
trance, showing confusion and fear. He stopped the bumping motion but wouldnt
look at Baker.

Fucking cant keep still. I told
you. Whatd I say?

Troy wouldnt meet his gaze, just
looked down at the UDL cans, parking infringement notices and McDonalds cartons
on the seat and the floor. The cow was on early shift this week, so Baker had
had to dress the brat himself: jeans, skivvy to hide a couple of fresh bruises,
cornflaked windcheater, runners that wouldnt stay tied. Baker stabbed a finger
into the boys collarbone. He did it again. He hated the way the kids face
would just shut him out. Never any gratitude, never acknowledgement of any
kind. Like his flaming mother that way. Seven years old and Troy screened Baker
out of his life as though Baker didnt exist, was no part of the family at all.

Then the cars moved again and Baker
turned back to the wheel. Why couldnt the brat walk to school? Hed done that
at that age. Hadnt hurt him either. No geezer ever tried to snatch him off the
footpath and play with his dick, and hed grown up knowing how to look after
himself. But oh no, not our precious Troysie Woysie.

Baker wondered who the father was.
He bet Carol didnt even know herself. Claimed he was an American naval
officer, but that was more of her bullshit. Liked to say how shed struggled
for seven years, not easy bringing up a kid by yourself, blah, blah, blah.
Which meant that Baker had a dream run when he first showed on the scene. She
was starved for sex, just crying for it.

Now the rot was setting in. Wanted
to know his job history, like she was his fucking dole officer or something.
Kept looking in the employment pages, circling jobs for him in red biro. Told
him it wouldnt hurt to get out there and look, no job was going to come
knocking on the door. Just lately shed get pissed off over little things, like
if he hadnt cleared up or done any shopping by the time she got home. And she
was really getting on his back about his
addiction,
as she called it, to
dope and booze. Said he had a problem. Said he was getting worse, more
unpredictable, his fuse shorter. Fucking bitch. Bakers hands tightened on the
steering wheel, as he thought of her scrawny neck.

He turned around. Fucking keep
still, will ya?

Turned back to the wheel again. She
was starting to get prune-mouthed about the brat, too. It was okay at first,
told him she knew Troy could be a handful, encouraged him to use a bit of
discipline, but now shed turned a hundred and eighty degrees and last weekend
shed ordered Baker into the bathroom and pointed a quivering finger at the
brat: Those marks werent there yesterday, hes my son and Ill deal with him,
etcetera, etcetera.

The traffic was stalled again. Baker
cranked down his window, letting in a blast of Sydney traffic fumes. It cleared
his head but he badly needed a hit of something, speed for preference. He could
try that bloke in the side bar of the Edinburgh Castle; he was generally
holding.

Thats if Carol had put forty bucks
in the kitty, like shed promised. Hed check when he got home.

Which would mean doing the shopping
at some no-frills supermarket, generic tins of spaghetti and meat sauce for
dinner, and another tirade when she got off work this arvo.

Baker flicked the turning indicator
as he approached the next set of lights, signalling a left turn. He had to hold
the lever in place or it would jump out. He couldnt actually hear the ticking
sound so he had no way of knowing if the thing was working or not. Just another
item in the list of little helpful things Carol thought he might get around to
doing for her one day, along with taking Troy to school all this week.

Something made Baker glance in the
rear-view mirror. Some bitch in a Volvo was behind him, flashing her
headlights. She had a pointing finger pressed to her windscreen and she was
mouthing things at him.

So, the turning light doesnt work,
he muttered. So fucking what?

Still she kept shaking her finger at
him. Well, what?

Baker said, talking to her image in
his mirror. He shrugged elaborately, lifting empty hands in the air, signalling
what?
to her. Fucked if he knew what she was on about. As for Troy, hed
turned around and was looking out through the rear window at the woman in the
Volvo.

Hey, Troy, whynt you give her the
old finger? Baker said, little puffs of amusement escaping him as he
accelerated toward the corner, yanked on the wheel, and steered the barrelly
Kingswood into the street where Troy went to school.

The thing was, the Volvo woman
stayed with him. Now the bitch was tooting her horn, stabbing her finger at
him, flashing her lights. Her face was twisted with outrage and after only a
few seconds of that Baker thought: Right, slag, Ill fucking have you.

There was no one about. This part of
the street had a deserted factory on one side and a wreckers yard the size of
a football ground on the other. The school was another kilometre away. Baker
pulled over to the kerb. The Volvo pulled in behind him. He stayed where he
was: let her make the first move.

In the wing mirror he saw the woman
get out, close her door carefully, stand watching him. After a while she seemed
to make up her mind. She walked toward him, her image growing in the mirror:
plenty of bouncy hair, Reeboks, red tracksuit. Baker knew her type. Young
mother, plenty of money, full of fucking opinions.