Wyatt - 05 - Port Vila Blues (3 page)

Satisfied that they werent walking
into a trap, Wyatt knocked on 14 and stepped to one side. That was automatic,
too: hed been shot at through spyholes; men had come at him through doors or
bundled him into rooms through doors much like the red door to room 14.

Jardine, hearing the knock, blinked
and limped to join him. A womans voice, pleasant and inquiring, the voice of a
faintly puzzled legitimate guest, said, Who is it?

Frank Jardine, Jardine said.

The door opened. Nothing happened.
When hands didnt seize Jardine and men didnt scream at him to drop to the
ground, Wyatt stepped into view behind him.

The womans eyes flicked over them,
assessing their faces, where they had their hands, finally checking the motel
forecourt and the torn-up street behind them. Until shed done this she said
nothing, expressed nothing but wariness, but then she smiled, a flood of warmth
in the poky doorway. Come in, she said, stepping back, one hand indicating
the room, the other holding the door fully open.

As they edged past, Wyatt saw her
glance at his overnight bag. Aware of his eyes on her, she looked up and
grinned. He smiled a little, despite himself. She had a cheery vigour that he
liked, an air of someone good at her job but not about to let it button down
the atmosphere. She wore sandals and a billowy cotton shirt over patterned
tights. A faint scent of soap and shampoo drifted around her head. Her hair was
fine, dark and dead straight, parted in the middle, framing her face. There was
a faint asymmetry about her features: one eye seemed to stare out a little, one
cheekbone sat a fraction lower than the other, giving her an air of sceptical
good humour and quick intelligence.

Wyatt entered the room cautiously.
Apart from the standard fittings, it was empty. Jardine checked the ensuite
bathroom and came out again, nodding the okay. So he hasnt completely lost it,
Wyatt thought, setting the overnight bag on the bed and unzipping it.

Straight down to business, the
woman said.

He is a bit obsessive, Jardine
agreed, catching her mood. Together they watched Wyatt.

Does he talk? Drink tea or coffee?

Been known to, Jardine said.

Wyatt had few skills at this sort of
thing, but he made an effort. I wont have a drink, bad tooth, but you two go
ahead. His palm floated automatically to his cheek.

The smiling sympathy in Liz Reddings
face and manner was genuine. Abscess? Old filling? She came close to peer at
his face. It does look swollen on that side, she said. Youd better get it
seen to or your performance will suffer.

She could have meant anything by
that. He felt an absurd desire to embrace her. Im fine.

Sure. Tough guy.

Look, can we get down to it?

Suit yourself.

Wyatt stepped back from the bed and
leaned his rump on the leading edge of the television bench under a painting of
junks on Hong Kong harbour. Jardine swung die rooms only chair around and sat
in it. Both men watched Liz Redding fold back the tissue paper until the
Tiffany sat in the palm of her hand.

Nice, she said at last.

Taking a jewellers glass from her
pocket and holding it to her eye, she examined the Tiffany stone by stone,
turning the piece occasionally, allowing for light refraction. Finally she took
a small set of scales from a box in her satchel and weighed it. Its the real
thing, all right.

How much? Wyatt asked.

He does like to get down to it,
doesnt he? she said. Depends on whether or not its sold as is or broken up,
the gold and the stones sold individually.

Be a pity to do that, Jardine
said. He took the Tiffany from her hand, placed it above her right breast,
angled his head to gauge the effect. Thats where it belongs.

Liz Redding grinned, pushed his hand
away. Yeah, right, once a year I draw the curtains, remove it from its hiding
place, admire myself in the mirror.

Jardine grinned back at her.

Wyatts jaw was burning. All the
strain of his chosen life seemed to erupt in him and he snarled, Cut the crap,
you two. I want to work out where and when so we can get the hell out of here.

It might have been Wyatts anger, or
it might have happened anyway, but Jardines treacherous body failed him again.
He seemed suddenly to fill with shame, shifting in his chair and moaning
softly.

Wyatt frowned at him. What?

Jardine, his face contorted, said
helplessly, Mate, Ive shit meself.

Wyatt stared at him. Oh, Frank, he
said.

He lifted Jardine out of the chair.
Jardine was a tall man, once quick and strong like himself, but now he was skin
and bone. The chair seat was smudged watery brown and Jardine reeked of his own
waste.

Come on, pal. Ill take you to the
bathroom.

Jardine shuffled with him across the
floor. Im sorry about this. Ill

Shut up, Wyatt said. He felt a
kind of tangled anger. He didnt want thanks, he didnt want to clean shit off
his friend, he had no room for feelings hed never had before, yet he knew all
of it was unavoidable and necessary.

Sometimes I just Jardine said.

For Christs sake, shut up.

Then Liz Redding was on the other
side, helping him support Jardine. Quit that. Youre upsetting him.

For a moment, Jardine was the
instrument in a tug of war. Im taking him to the bathroom, Wyatt said uselessly.

No youre not. Ill do it. You
havent got the touch.

Ill call a taxi.

Forget it. Just leave, okay? Ill
get him cleaned up and Ill drive him home myself.

Wyatt released Jardine. Jardines
shame eddied around the three of them. By now it was an intimate thing to
Wyatt, not strange or repellent. He said, Take care, Frank.

He turned to Liz. After a moment he
said, Thanks.

She sighed, nodded, smiled sadly. Give
me twenty-four hours to put out some feelers, here, Amsterdam, maybe New York.

Okay.

She led Jardine into the bathroom,
saying, Tomorrow morning suit you?

Southbank, Wyatt said.

Fine.

Wyatt left the motel. He liked to be
the first to leave. If you left first, the others couldnt wait around the corner
and follow you.

* * * *

Four

The
bank was a feeder. The largest branch in the largest town in the upper
reaches of the Yarra River Valley in Victoria, it fed the smaller branches in
the smaller towns. Fair enoughexcept that a cool half million was in the
vault, twice the normal amount, and if they didnt hit the place tonight, all
that money would disappear into the wallets and paypackets of the locals
tomorrow.

There was twice the normal amount in
the vault because this was Wednesday and tomorrow was Thursday, payday and also
the first day of the Upper Yarra Festival. According to the blueprints supplied
for this hit, over the next four days wineries would be flogging raw whites at
twenty bucks a pop, every village showground in the valley would stage a handful
of run-down ghost trains and shooting galleries, and it all added up to a lot
of people needing a lot of spending money, starting tomorrow morning.

Niekirk glanced at his watch. The
town clock had struck midnight ten minutes ago, but the eight-to-midnight disc
jockey was still inside Radio 3UY, next door to the bank. The midnight-to-dawn
announcer had arrived, but until the other man clocked off and went home,
Niekirk, Riggs and Mansell had to sit tight and wait.

Not that the waiting would be a
problem. The three men sat in the van like clones of one another: silent,
watchful men in their thirties, dressed in black balaclavas, black overalls.
The van belonged to Telecom, stolen an hour earlier in Eltham. If anyone asked
questions, Niekirk, Riggs and Mansell were tracking down a cable fault. They
also had a stolen Range Rover with tinted windows stashed in Warrandyte. The
Range Rover was Riggs and Mansells way out of the hills. They were wearing
dinner suits under their overalls and if anyone stopped them later, they were a
couple of winemakers celebrating the start of the festival.

Niekirk had his own way out. Hed be
carrying the money and he didnt want Riggs and Mansell to know where he was
taking it. And once hed made the delivery, Niekirk didnt know where the money
was going. De Lisle, the man who put these jobs together, wanted it that way,
and Niekirk was in no position to argue, not when De Lisle could put him in
jail for a long time, and especially not when De Lisle controlled the
pursestrings. Disappear with the money himself? Forget it. De Lisle would find
him in five seconds.

Mansell went tense suddenly. He was
in the drivers seat, a headset clamped to his ears, a police-band radio in his
lap. He fine-tuned the radio, listening intently. Im getting something.

Neither Riggs nor Niekirk spoke. If
they had something to worry about, Mansell would soon tell them. Even so, they
relaxed visibly when Mansell grinned. Kid ran his car into a tree near Yarra
Junction.

Niekirk nodded. That was good: a car
smash would tie up the local boys in blue for a while. He watched Mansell.
Mansell disliked being the driver and radio man. But, as Niekirk continued to
point out to him, Riggs was needed to open the safe, himself to oversee the
job, leaving Mansell to keep watch.

Niekirk spoke. Here he comes now.

A man had come through the side door
of Radio 3UY. He wore a denim jacket and jeans and his shaved skull gleamed in
the moonlight. The three men saw him stretch, yawn, shiver, then climb into a
sad-looking VW and clatter down the hill and out of sight.

Niekirk glanced at Mansell. All
clear?

Mansell nodded.

Lets go.

Riggs and Niekirk slipped into the
darkness and across the street to the metre-wide alley that separated the bank
from the radio station. The banks rear door was flat and implacable, a dark
steel mass in the wall. There were two locks, and Riggs knelt before the lower
one, took a set of picks from the breast pocket of his overalls, and went to
work. Niekirk watched him, training the narrow beam of a pencil torch at the
lock.

A half minute later, the lock was
open and Riggs started on the upper one. He breathed heavily as he worked,
audible sounds of effort and concentration. Then the second lock fell open and
he seemed to deflate, the tension draining away from him.

Niekirk folded back a flap of his
overalls, where hed stitched a tiny radio into a pocket above his breastbone.
He depressed the transmit button. Were going in.

He heard Mansells acknowledgement,
a crackle of static, and pushed open the steel door. According to the briefing
notes, there was minimal security inside the bank. There had never been the
need for ityou didnt get bank raids in these little hill towns, where lives
were modest and every road was crippled with S-bends. But Niekirk hadnt lived
as long as he had by accepting the things he was told without checking first.
He paused in the doorway and played the torch beam over the interior walls,
floor and ceiling. Nothing.

He put his mouth to the radio, said,
Its clear, and led the way into the bank.

Behind him Riggs shouldered a canvas
bag of tools and closed the door in the rear wall, sealing them off from the
cloudy moon.

The briefing notes consisted of
floorplans, a description of the security system, external patrol times, notes
on staffing levels and the size of the take, and an estimate of the minimum
time elapse before cops might be expected to arrive if they happened to trip a
hidden alarm. There was also a number to call if they were arrested. As with
the other jobs theyd pulled for De Lisle, the groundwork and backup were
impressive. Someone had done his homework. But Niekirk didnt know who the
someone was, and that was the big weakness in this job. All he knew from De
Lisle was, they had a green light as far as the local armed-holdup squad was
concerned.

The vault was in a room adjoining
the staff toilets along the far wall of the bank. Veiling the torch beam with
his hand, Niekirk led Riggs along the main corridor, past a storeroom and the managers
office, and across an open area where desks and cabinets squatted like outcrops
of granite on a wintry plain.

A heavy steel grille barred the
entrance to the vault. The briefing notes hadnt said anything about that.
Niekirk murmured into the radio: Theres a grille we werent told about. Ill
keep you posted.

The radio crackled.

Again Niekirk trained the torch
while Riggs probed with his set of picks. The steel grille gave him no more
trouble than the door to the bank itself, and a minute later Niekirk was saying
into the transmitter: Final stage.

Riggs unzipped his canvas bag. First
he removed a heavy-duty industrial drill and rested it at the base of the
vault. He followed that with a weighty metal device shaped like an ungainly
handgun. It was an electromagnetic drill-stand and it hit the vinyl tiles of
the floor with a thud. Finally he reached in and wordlessly handed Niekirk a
small fluorescent camping lantern, two coils of thick black rubber power leads
and a double-adaptor.