Wyatt - 05 - Port Vila Blues (6 page)

They set out along the broad, flat
back streets. The thing is, Manse, Riggs said, wheres he getting his
information? Shit, this time last year all Niekirk had us pulling was the odd
burglary.

The thing is, Mansell flung back
over his shoulder, how much are we dipping out?

Riggs nodded. That, too.

They continued in silence. When they
reached the lighted part of town they watched for a while from the shadows. No
uniforms, no patrol cars, no unmarked cars bristling with aerials. When the bus
pulled in, thirty minutes later, Riggs and Mansell were stationed several
metres apart and could have been mistaken for strangers.

* * * *

Seven

Wyatt
looked at his watch: she was early. He made room for her on the bench.

She sat, shifted a little, looking
for an opening. Finally she said: I spoke to Frank on the phone. He sounded
stronger.

Wyatt nodded. But he had to make an
effort, so he said, Liz, I want to thank you for helping him yesterday.

It was nothing. She said it
mildly, looking away at the river.

They talked, growing easier with one
another. Most people couldnt read Wyatt and it rattled some of them. There
were others, like Jardine from the old days, who had long since adjusted
themselves to the fact of his stillness. To them, Wyatt was constructed of
silence, a single unadorned look for all emotions and a suspicious mind. But he
could be trusted, so they accepted that it was not necessary to know anything
more about him. Along the way Wyatt had also run into some who found his
self-containment an affront and a challenge. Men got cocksure and women tried
to draw him out. Wyatt would do nothing to encourage it, but he might show a
faint irritation finally, and act swiftly, irritated because he could not see
the point of anyones interest in him.

Thats why he began to experience a
forgotten pleasure, the uncomplicated company of a quirkily attractive woman,
as the sun warmed his bones and broke into shards of light on the river behind
a cruising pleasure boat. Liz Redding wasnt questioning him, wasnt wanting to
know him better, wasnt playing any games that he could detect. He relaxed
marginally, crossed his legs at the ankle, tipped his face to the sun.

They were on Southbank, the stretch
of the Yarra that had been reclaimed from the old industrial grime for the sake
of tourists and postcard photographers. A bike path, plenty of close-cropped
grass, flagpoles, cafs, Cinzano umbrellas, the Melbourne central mile growling
across the water.

Wyatt was starting to like the sun
and the view and the company of the woman next to him, but he also liked the
fact that he had all the exits hed need if this were a trap. He could even
swim away if he had to, and hed toss the Tiffany butterfly into the river
rather than allow cops to tie him to it.

No motel this time?

I dont like to repeat myself,
Wyatt said, then clammed up a little, not wanting to talk about himself, not
wanting to sound self-satisfied.

Liz Redding smiled. It wasnt an
issue. He saw her look away. Her eyes were drawn to the river as if it were a
flame. His, too, though he was also drawn to Liz Redding, an unaccustomed
fascination with her body and quizzical face. And he seemed to want to breathe
her in, as if her skin and hair were reacting to the sun, maybe even to him.

She said, Have you got it?

Wyatt had a small gift box nestled
in tissue paper on the bench between them. He was conscious of her long thigh,
sheathed in a skirt this time, as he leaned to open the box. She seemed to
watch his hands, big hands snarled by veins, as he prised off the lid. To
anyone walking by, he might have been opening a gift from his lover.

He watched her. He would not have
registered the brief intensity and concentration that passed across her face if
hed not been looking for it. Lovely, she murmured at last.

But that wasnt it, the loveliness
of the brooch. She hadnt responded like this yesterday. There was something
else, and hed have to wait for it.

She glanced left and right along the
bicycle path and then behind her. They were alone for the moment. He saw her
move the Tiffany to her lap and turn it over twice. Then she checked the path a
second time, put her jewellers eyepiece to her right eye and bent her head
over it. Wings of straight black hair swung about her cheeks, concealing her
scrutiny of the diamonds. The movement also bared the back of her neck and
Wyatt found himself touching her there.

She took it for a warning. Within a
second she had whipped out the eyepiece and crammed it and the Tiffany into the
gift box. She turned to him, smiling, getting close, part of a charade of
lovers on a park bench. But Wyatt went tense at her touch so she looked around,
saw that they were alone, and moved until she was a fraction apart from him
again. She looked at him oddly, and Wyatt shrugged, to give himself time and
something to do.

In the end, she behaved as though nothing
had happened. Wyatt felt his edge of embarrassment recede. Suddenly the world
seemed to be full of possibilities. But he said nothing, did nothing.

Liz Redding drew in air. We wont
be cutting this up, by the way. Itll remain intact.

Good. Shed found a buyer. Wyatt
wondered if he wanted her because she was like him or because he wanted her to
be like him. The moment he met someone, he could spot the flaw in them, which
was often the same thing as the trait that defined them. It was a blessing and a
curse and had rarely let him down. Beneath the professionalism, Liz Redding was
excited by the Tiffany and all the risks involved, his risks and hers.

Some kids went by arm in arm bawling
out: Rolling, rolling, rolling down the river. The year Wyatt had served in
Vietnam, refining skills hed learned on the street, every American GI hed
encountered had been singing that song. The Americans had terrified him. They
blundered across the landscape, doped to the eyeballs, inviting an ambush.
Wyatt made it a rule to stay well clear of them. The only good thing about the
dope was that they all seemed to use it, including security guards at the US
bases, and it made them slack and careless. Wyatt had snatched his first
payroll in Vietnam. It bought him a years travelling in Europe when he finally
quit the army.

Then Liz Redding said, half to
herself, Yep. This is the one. Id been wondering when this little beauty
would show up again.

At once Wyatt went cold. His face
was mostly flat cheeks, bones, unimpressed eyes and a mouth that could look
prohibitive if it didnt occasionally turn up in a smile. There was no smile
now and he saw her flinch. His voice was tense and quiet: Turn up? Ive only
just acquired it.

I mean

Wyatt was hard and certain. He made
each word sound like a slap. You mean the Tiffanys got a history. When you
saw it yesterday you recognised its description from a stolen valuables list.

She winced, angry with herself.
Wyatt had seen women cure themselves of him quickly, and expected that of Liz
Redding now that hed caught her out, but she didnt do that. Instead, a
certain defiance came back into her face. So what? I assumed youd been
hanging onto it, thats all.

I havent, so tell me about it.

She cocked her head and watched his
face carefully. Are you on the level? You only just got your hands on it?

Just give me the history.

Youve heard of the so-called
magnetic drill gang, right? Some time ago they hit the safety-deposit boxes of
a bank in Brighton. The Tiffany was among the stuff reported stolen.

That was an irrelevancy. Wyatt
brushed it aside. The thing is, how do you know? He stared at her. Youre no
fence.

He stood, pocketing the Tiffany, and
began to walk away from her, not hurrying it, but not wasting time either. His
nerve endings were wide open, expecting clamping hands on his shoulders, his
arms, but no one called out or stopped him. In a minute or two he would be an
anonymous face in the crowd and a minute or two was all Wyatt ever needed.

Then she was swiftly and silently
matching him step for step. Theres a reward.

He walked on. Forget you ever met
me. He said it quietly, not bothering to look at her.

I mean it, Wyatt, theres a reward.
Thats my job, I negotiate rewards on behalf of the insurance company, okay?

She grabbed his arm angrily, jerking
him to a stop. Twenty-five thousand, all right? No questions asked. But it
will take a couple of weeks to line up.

Wyatt considered the odds. It takes
a very heavy, very professional team to hit the safety-deposit boxes of a bank
successfully. Who were they? And who had givenor soldthe Tiffany to Cassandra
Wintergreen, the woman hed stolen it from? Wyatt felt that he was on the edge
of something better left alone, a sixth sense he relied upon to keep the odds
working his way, but Liz Redding was also very close and alive in front of him.
If he set the rules he would be all right. He stayed long enough to tell her
how to get in touch with him, then faded away among the strollers thronging
Princes Bridge.

* * * *

Eight

Pacific
Rim flight 39 from Melbourne and Sydney touched down at Port Vila International
Airport a few minutes past the scheduled arrival time. Late Thursday morning
and Lou Crystal unbuttoned his uniform jacket and went down the steps to the
tarmac. The tropical air seemed to sneak up on him, warm, humid, smelling of
aviation fuel and ripe, rich fruit, so that he was perspiring before he reached
the terminal building. Over one shoulder he carried his usual stopover bag; in
the other hand he carried the tartan suitcase that had been stashed in the
U-Store locker in Melbourne. Crystals instructions were clear each time:
attach an address label reading Mr Huntsman, Reriki Island Resort to the
tartan suitcase and lodge it with the driver of the Reriki Island Resort
minibus.

The passengers from flight 39 were
lining up at the immigration counters. Crystal eyed them as he walked through,
wondering if one of them was Huntsman, but all he could see were backpackers,
honeymooners and middle-aged Australians and New Zealanders spending their superannuation
payouts. They looked tired and pasty-white, impatient to get to their resort
hotels and try on neon yellow and green shorts, T-shirts and sunblock. Crystal
despised them. He loathed their noisiness and ignorance and simple pleasures.

Pacific Rim Airlines had been flying
in and out of Vanuatu since Independence in 1980. Crystal himself had been
stopping over in Port Vila for five years. Everyone knew him and he nodded left
and right as he slipped through immigration and customs and onto the main
concourse. Here, clones of flight 39s passengers were queuing up to pay their
departure tax. They were noisier, a little more sunburnt, overburdened with
cheap local handicrafts, but essentially no different. Crystal walked past
them, still carrying the suitcase and his weekender bag, out to the taxi and
minibus ranks outside die terminal building.

A misty rain was drifting in,
obscuring the tops of the mountains, leaching brightness from the green of the
lower slopes. Banyans, coconut palms, pandanus and a handful of tree ferns and
milk trees bordered the airfield and lined the nearby roads. Creepers and
orchids choked some of them. There were leaves like shields and swords
everywhere in Vanuatu and in the rainy season they dripped water on to Crystals
head. In the mornings sometimes hed see spiders the size of his hand waiting
motionless at the centre of huge webs strung between glossy trees.

There were half a dozen people
waiting in the Reriki Island minibus. The driver was leaning against the canopied
luggage trailer, smoking a cigarette. He smirked at Crystal, took the proffered
suitcase and stored it on the covered trailer. Then he went back to smoking and
waiting and forgot about Crystal. For his part, Crystal was glad to be rid of
the case. He was guessing drugs, and drugs were bad news, even in this
backwater.

Pacific Rim pilots and cabin crew on
stopover were obliged to stay at the Palmtree Lodge, a small collection of
motel units on a crabbed, featureless lagoon south-east of Port Vila. Fifteen
minutes by car, a fare of eleven hundred vatu, and thats where Lou Crystal
should have been going when he climbed into the dented Toyota taxi.

Yu go wea?
Palmtree Lodge? the driver asked,
recognising Crystal as a regular and addressing him in Bislama.

Crystal shook his head. Malapoa
Restaurant.

The driver started the engine. He
nodded cannily. Good coconut crab.

Thats right, Crystal said.

The drive took ten minutes, past
small houses and flat-roofed cement-walled shops set amongst cyclone-stripped
palm trees. Crystal had been on Vanuatu when the last cyclone had hit the
islands. Hed been unnerved by it, a ceaseless wind that bent palm trees almost
to the horizontal, tore apart coral reefs and dumped ships hundreds of metres
in from the waters edge. Hed seen flying tin cut a womans arm off and his
balcony furniture at the Palmtree Lodge had cartwheeled across the coarse
cropped lawns between the motel units and the coral beach.

The taxi pulled off the road and
stopped. Nine hundred vatu, the driver said.