Wyatt - 06 - The Fallout (8 page)

What have you been doing? Wyatt
said now.

This and that. Then, slyly, Not
checking up on me, are you?

Wyatt said nothing. He searched deep
behind the open face. If Raymond was a user, his body would betray him. The boys
eyes were clear. No twitches. If Raymond were somehow wrong inside, like the
man whod fathered him, that might reveal itself as well. Wyatt needed to know.

The waitress came with their
coffees. For a moment, Wyatt wondered if hed seen something in Raymond, but
now it was gone. He blinked, and saw Raymond sitting across from him, cool,
very collected.

For the next thirty minutes, they
talked, Wyatt keeping the conversation away from himself, away from questions
about the past, always shifting the focus back onto Raymond. He had no use for
small talk and an abhorrence of the world knowing anything about him. If he had
to be the focus, he stuck to an abbreviation of the present. But Raymond was
equally withholding. To cover it, he sometimes made absurd wagers. Bet you
five the woman drives, he said, nodding at an elderly couple crossing the car
park to their car.

Finally he said, So, Uncle Wyatt,
lets cut the crap. What are you doing here?

Going home.

Home? No point asking where that
is?

Wyatt didnt reply.

As if to say, Im a better man than
you are, Raymond fished out a pen and scribbled on the back of a coaster. This
heres my address and phone number. Look me up next time youre passing through
Melbourne.

Wyatt nodded.

Look, no more bullshit, Raymond
said. Colour and embarrassment showed on his face. Those country banks? The
bush bandit? Thats me.

Wyatt waited for it to sink in. He
felt faintly shocked. After a moment, he said flatly, The bush bandit.

He supposed that it could be true.
Raymond wasnt boasting, just stating who he was now. Wyatt had no wish to
offer advice or warnings to his nephew, and there was nothing at risk for
himself, so he decided to leave it at that.

Never been caught, never even been
a suspect. I work alone. If I pick up something I cant offload, theres a guy
wholl do it for me.

Maybe I know him.

Chaffey. Lawyer in the city.

Wyatt shook his head. He was out of
touch.

Chaffey knows
you,
Raymond
said. I mean, he said hastily, catching the stiffening of Wyatts face, he
knows youre my uncle, thats all, knows all the stories about you, knows we
dont have anything to do with each other. He hasnt sent me to track you down,
if thats what youre thinking.

Good.

Although, Raymond said, he did
mention a job to me.

Wyatt waited. He could see now that
Raymond had been working up to this. I see.

I more or less turned it down,
Raymond said. Its an art collection, outside my field, plus Id need a
partner and I dont know anyone I trust enough to work with.

Wyatt felt a stir of interest,
almost an itch. What sort of art collection?

Raymond outlined the job swiftly. Worth
a hundred grand, he concluded. Chaffeys got a buyer already lined up.

Wyatt kept stony-faced. A hundred
thousand dollars, split two ways.

Think about it, Uncle Wyatt. This
is right up your alley. I wouldnt know a print from a poster.

Wyatt felt his nerve endings stir.
He looked around the marina, looking for the trap. You sure youre not
following me?

Raymonds face darkened. Fuck you.
For fifteen years I havent known where you were. How could I follow you? Pure
coincidence.

Okay, okay.

So, you interested?

Ill let you know.

Gloomily Raymond began to shred a
paper napkin. Dont suppose you need the money. You must have stashed a fair
bit away over the years.

Wyatt couldnt tell his nephew about
the big jobs that had gone wrong, the stuff hed left behind, the pissy jobs in
the past couple of years. A kind of sadness settled in him. If hed stepped in
all that time ago, he could have saved Raymond from a world in which the only
men he had to model himself upon were brutes like his father and hold-up men
like his uncle. Raymond had grown up too quickly and seen too much too soon.
Wyatt tried to name the source of his sadness. It was composed of many things,
among them guilt, sadness for his brothers short, failed life, a renewed sense
of responsibility for Raymond.

All of these things, but mostly his
memory of that last meeting, when Raymond was ten and had seen his father into
the ground and had turned to Wyatt and asked, Can I live with you, Uncle
Wyatt?

Raymond, my boy, there you are.

Wyatt felt his interest wane and his
wariness return. A man and a woman, the man a skinny character in his fifties,
the woman a lithe, pouting fluffball in her twenties.

Um, meet my fishing mates, Raymond
said.

He named the man as Brian Vallance,
the woman as Allie Roden, and told them that Wyatt was an old family friend. Known
Macka since I was a kid, he said.

Wyatt shook the womans hand
briefly, then the mans. The man held on, slowly squeezing, testing Wyatt.

A waste of time. Wyatt shook his
head irritably and withdrew his hand. He didnt like the man or the woman, and
watched them when they were all seated. Vallance wore the pout of a man
convinced that hed never exercised choice, that his failures were none of his
doing but the result of the raw deals that life had thrown up for himthe bad
luck, accidents and treachery of others. He wore costly jeans and Wyatt saw him
tug the fabric away from his knees carefully and smooth it under his thighs
whenever he shifted in his seat. The woman was playing some kind of game. She
was with Vallance, but giving Raymond soulful looks. And once, when the other
two men were not looking, Wyatt found her looking long and hard at him.

You a fisherman, Macka? she asked,
a slow heat in her face and her voice.

Wyatt shook his head. He climbed to
his feet. Not me. She was slippery. He had to get away. Unaccountably then,
he thought of Liz Redding.

* * * *

Ten

She
was under orders from Gosse not to leave the building before five. Hed call her
in every couple of hours for another bout of questioning, sometimes with
Montgomery in attendance, sometimes with the faceless men from the Internal
Investigations branch. It was always the same thing: they wanted times, dates,
places, names, and they wanted her to account for her motives in going to
Vanuatu and coming back with a known crook.

Liz chafed through the day. At one
point a friend came by and whispered, Mate, theyre searching your locker.

Mate,
Liz thought. Man or woman, youre
everyones mate in the police. It was a life built for mates, all differences
levelled out, including gender. But one false step and they soon reminded you
how different you were.

She found Gosse there, supervising. Go
back to your desk, Sergeant.

You have no right

I have every right.

You think Ive got the jewels
hidden in my tracksuit pants? Think Ive got a valentine from Wyatt hidden in
my tampon box?

Gosse turned, snarling, Nothing
about you would surprise me. Back to your desk, Sergeant.

Liz went back. She felt the
beginnings of a shift in the way she viewed the world. She wanted to find Wyatt
but realised that she no longer wanted to find him on behalf of the Victoria
Police. She hunted the files for an address. When Wyatt had first come to her
attention hed been trying to offload stolen goods. Liz had posed as a fence,
and the man whod led Wyatt to her was Jardine, a burnt-out thief and friend of
Wyatts. Jardine had since died, but his sister Nettie might know something.

At 5 oclock Liz drove to a flat,
depressed corner of Coburg, where small weatherboard and brick-veneer houses
breathed into one anothers mouths and old women and men broke their hips on
the root-buckled footpaths. The paint was flaking on Nettie Jardines house.
One corner needed restumping and the external boards and frames harboured a
deep, rotting dampness. It would be there even in midsummer, like an exhalation
of hopelessness.

Nettie opened the sticking main door
to Liz but not the screen door. She wore the cares of the world in her thin
frame, her limp pale hair, her narrow mouth. But a spark of something animated
her sorrowing face when she saw Liz. You again.

Hello, Nettie.

Thats the shot, first names. What
do I get to call you, your majesty?

I dont mind if you call me Liz.

Nettie Jardine sniffed. Thought Id
finished with you lot.

Just a couple of questions. Do you
think I could

Right here will do, Nettie said,
folding her arms firmly behind the screen door.

Right. About your brother

Hes dead.

I know. Im sorry.

Sorrys not going to bring him
back.

Nettie, were more interested in a
man your brother was involved with. Wyatt.

That bastard.

Liz said mildly, I understand he
was your brothers friend. Didnt he help out with rent, bills, living costs?

Guilt money.

Your brother blueprinted burglaries
for him, Nettie. He wasnt forced into it.

Nettie was stubborn. Wyatt had
influence over Frank.

Liz doubted that. She said, What I
need to know is, how did Frank get in touch with Wyatt? When Frank put a
burglary or a robbery together, how did he pass on the photographs, the floor
plans, the briefing notes?

Mail drop.

You mean a holding address?

Call it what you want. Hes
paranoid. Doesnt like you to know where he lives.

Liz nodded. She had an impression of
the unreality of her life. Wyatts life, a secretive, complicated parallel
life, seemed suddenly clearer and more appealing to her than her own. So youve
never seen his place.

Nettie shrugged. Why would I?

Know anyone who has? His family,
maybe?

Far as I know, theres only a
nephew.

Liz sharpened at that. Nephew?

Raymond Wyatt. Flash bugger.

Where would I find him?

Nettie laughed. Try the bloody
phone book.

Fair enough, Liz thought. This mail
drop. Where was it?

Hobart, Nettie muttered.

Hobart. The mail drop was probably
inoperative now, given Wyatts caution, but a man cant live in total
isolation. He has wants and needs that bring him into contact with the wider
world. He has dealings with dentists, doctors, real-estate agents, local
shopkeepers. Hobart was a small place. She could go down there, flash his photo
around. It wasnt much of a likeness. It was a blurred, long-distance
surveillance shot. Wyatt, eternally watchful, had never let himself be
photographed clearly. Liz made a few impressionistic notes in her mindtall,
slender, graceful on his feet, big hands, rarely smiles, thin face, sharp lines
with a dark cast to the skin.

Where in Hobart?

There was no humour in Netties
smile. Couldnt say, really. All I know is, youre too far away and too late.

Nettie, Liz said warningly, whats
going on?

You wait and see. All Im saying
is, no-one hurts the Jardines and gets away with it.

* * * *

Eleven

On
the outskirts of Hastings the cab driver caught Wyatts eye in the rear-view
mirror. You got a yacht down here?

He wants to discuss sailing with me,
Wyatt thought. To forestall that, he said, Just been visiting for a few days.

Like it?

Sure.

People think this is a bit of a
backwater, but we have our share of drama.

Yes, Wyatt said.

That kiddie abducted on the other
side of the Peninsula, that killer up in Frankston. Youll even see in the
marina a boat the police impounded. Something to do with smuggling from
Vanuatu, one of them places.

Wyatt glanced out of the window. The
taxi was passing swampy flatland. Beyond it was the refinery. A big tanker was
in dock.

He let the driver talk on. Once
inside the terminal at Tyabb aerodrome, he stood at the glass, gazing across
the airstrip. Suddenly a shadow washed over the field, cutting off the sun
briefly, and a harsh motor swamped the ordinary human sounds behind him. Wyatt
looked up. A plane was barrelling in, hard and fast. It was squat-looking with
a high cockpit, and it wore US Navy markings. It dated from the Second World
War and Wyatt hadnt seen it for a while. Hed forgotten it. It used to roll
and flip in the sky above his house behind Shoreham. He watched it sideslip
against the cross-wind and touch down, skipping a little before it settled into
a fast run toward the hangars. It dwarfed the Cessnas and Pipers.

At 4 oclock Wyatt and six other
passengers boarded a twin-prop, ten-seater commuter plane. During the ascent,
he watched the topography clarify into a school at a crossroads, a trucking
firm, a motel, a sunflash in the distance from the refinery at Westernport, the
wingless, snout-up DC3 in a corner of the airfield, then horse studs, wineries,
small holdings, roads and fences. The plane held a course southeast. This was a
part of the world that Wyatt had crossed and recrossed a thousand times, on
foot, in a car, in the air, often on the run from the law. He had staked life
and a degree of contentment on it, using the little farmhouse somewhere below
as his bolthole, slipping away from time to time to knock over a bank or a
payroll van. That life had failed him in the end. But he knew the place, it had
mapped itself in his brain and on his nerve endings.