Pay Dirt (18 page)

At that moment the man said
viciously, Jesus Christ. A helicopter.

He was standing at the window. Leah
stood up and joined him. At first she couldnt see anything, but then the
helicopter changed direction and she recognised the familiar shape. It was a
small helicopter, still some distance away. It changed direction again. She was
puzzled about that until she realised it was sweeping the valley in a grid
pattern.

Were getting out, the man said.

How?

He jerked his head toward the back
of the house. Ive got a car.

You dont need me.

The man looked her full in the face
and grinned. Sweetheart, he said, youre taking me home to wait for Wyatt.

* * * *

THIRTY-FOUR

Letterman
directed her into arid country north-east of Burra. The map was spread over his
lap, concealing the pistol trained at her thigh. Now and then he moved,
dial-hunting on the car radio. He spoke only once in the first hour, asking her
where she lived. She told him. There was no point in trying to deceive him.
With all the police activity around, they both needed a bolthole.

A regional station picked up the
hijack and killings story first. By four oclock the ABC and all the Adelaide
commercial stations had it. Police were sealing the area. They expected an
early arrest. But Leah knew it was a big area to seal and Lettermanhed
finally told her his namewas steering them through a land of sand-drifts and
mirages. It was clear to her that they were outside the search area. Here and
there she saw roadside gates and a distant tin roof on a saltbush plain. When
finally they came to a junction of dusty baked roads in a clearing in the
mallee scrub, she knew what he had in mind. Morgan, the sign said. The River
Murray. Letterman was intending to follow the river to Murray Bridge, then
branch off for the Adelaide Hills.

Four oclock. Five. Six. More
information kept filtering through about the dead men and the missing van, but
no names had been released and no arrests reported.

Letterman spoke. He looked up at her
and said, What do you think?

She knew what he meant. He got
away.

Letterman nodded. Yes.

What makes you think hell come to
my place?

Nothing makes me think it. Its the
only option Ive got.

She waited. When he didnt follow
this up she asked, And if the cops gaol him first?

The reply was flat and certain. I
can still get him there.

What do you want with him? We didnt
get any money. Is it personal?

No.

What, then?

Letterman shrugged. Its a job. He
trod on some toes.

They lapsed into silence again.
Eventually they reached the river and turned south. The sun was low in the sky.
Leah turned on the headlights.

What are they paying you?

Fifty thousand.

I can pay you that. Ill pay you
more if you like. Just drop the matter and leave us alone.

I cant do that, Letterman said.

She glanced at him. Letterman was
staring ahead. The pistol hadnt moved. She couldnt see it under the map but
she sensed its probing snout. She looked at the road again.

Watch your driving, Letterman
said.

She wanted him to say what he
intended to do if Wyatt didnt show up. She knew the answerhed kill her
whether Wyatt showed up or notbut she wanted to hear him say it.

What if he slips interstate? What
if hes injured somewhere? What if the cops have him but theyre not saying?

You talk too much.

He was curiously asexual. It was
more than the white skinhe lacked any sort of sensual dimension. Trying to
distract him in that way would be a waste of time.

It was late when they reached her
house. Most of the neighbouring houses were in darkness. Leah felt a surge of
hope. Wyatt could be in there, waiting for them. She surreptitiously slid her
hand to the horn button.

Letterman hit her, slamming the
pistol barrel across her wrist. The pain made her stomach churn. Her fingers
seemed to clench lifelessly as if she didnt own them.

Letterman opened his door and
stepped out, pulling her across the seat towards him. When they were outside
the car he pushed her onto the ground next to the front bumper and cuffed her
wrist to it. Not a sound, he said.

She watched him enter her yard and
walk around the side of the house. She shivered, fear and the chilly night air
clamping themselves to her skin and bones. Far away on the freeway, a truck
snarled through the gears. A garden tap dripped nearby.

When Letterman came back it was
through the front door. He hadnt asked her for her keys, so he must have got
in by forcing a window or the back door lock. She hadnt heard anything. If
Wyatt had been inside he wouldnt have heard anything either. She asked, her
voice low: Was he in there?

Letterman knelt to uncuff her. No.

He took her into the house and
cuffed her wrist to her ankle while he built a large fire in the grate and lit
it. Then he took her into the kitchen and cuffed her to the refrigerator door.
He didnt speak, didnt explain himself. He found the frozen fish fillets in
the freezer and the vegetables in the bottom compartment and cooked them
separately in the microwave. He sneered at her rack of Queen Adelaide riesling
but opened one and poured two glasses. Then he took her into the lounge again
and they ate in front of the fire, the plates balanced on their knees. At
eleven oclock he took her upstairs, cuffed her to her bed, unplugged her
bedside telephone and turned out her light.

She didnt see him again until the
next morning. He uncuffed her and waited while she showered and changed her
clothes. He looked fresh and rested. Hed slept behind the couch in the corner
of the ground floor lounge room. She saw blankets and a pillow there when they
went through to the kitchen.

Hes not coming, she said.

Shut up.

Letterman didnt speak to her all
day, just listened to the hourly news broadcasts on the radio and cleaned his
gun. At midday he went out and came back with copies of the
Advertiser
and
the
News.
Both carried front page stories of the killings and the van
that had vanished. He passed her the
Advertiser
when hed finished with
it. There were photographs of the farm and the Holden utility with its doors
open. A detailed map showed the area of the police net. But according to the
radio a stolen school bus had been found abandoned in Aberfeldie, and police
were now concentrating their attention further afield.

Hes coming, Letterman said.

He wont come here.

Hes coming.

The air was cold in the house. After
lunch Letterman lit another fire and they sat in front of it through the
afternoon and into the evening. If it hadnt been for the handcuffs and
Letterman getting up to peer out of the window every fifteen minutes, they
might have been waiting in a counterfeit of married-couple ease or
indifference. Leah almost forgot who Letterman was and why he was there. The
plantation trees set up a moaning as the wind rose. Smoke from the chimney blew
back into the room. They both coughed occasionally and around them the old
house seemed to stretch and creak as if it were breathing.

They went to the kitchen, cooked
dinner, took it back to the lounge room again. A storm seemed to be blowing up
outside. Smoke made their eyes water. Racking coughs shook Letterman every few
minutes. It was the only indication of vulnerability that Leah had seen him
display. Yet she wasnt fooled by it. She felt a heightened sense of the
coldness and patience inside him. She saw his face form and re-form in the
firelight.

But something was wrong with the
fire. Letterman rubbed his eyes. He coughed. Her own eyes were streaming. The
air was heavy with smoke. Letterman looked past her at the fire, frowned,
coughed again. He got up and prodded the logs with a poker. Smoke was rolling
out now, choking coils of it, dimming the light and starving them of oxygen.
Letterman got up and uncuffed her. Hes here. Then the lights went out.

* * * *

THIRTY-FIVE

There
were lights on inside but the curtains were closed and the windows and doors
were locked so Wyatt had no clear sense of what he might find until he heard
the cough. It was a mans cough.

Hed already examined the car. He
couldnt judge colours properly under the streetlight but the dust coating the
Valiant seemed familiar enough. Hed been sneezing it for the past month. He
knelt, keeping the car between himself and the house. There were clumps of
grass caught in the dust flaps and bumper bars.

He wondered who the man was. He didnt
think it would be Tobin. Leah had better taste than that. He guessed it would
be somebody from the other team. Not that he cared either way now. Hed found
them. Hed kill them, get his money, start somewhere new. It wasnt something
Wyatt intended to waste time thinking about. Hed been crossed, that was all he
needed to know.

He was pleased about the stormy
wind. It masked the creak of the gate, his footsteps, his examination of the
doors and windows.

He was at the side of the house when
a downdraft of wind caught him. It was laden with smoke, burning the back of
his throat. He looked up at the chimney. He thought about the cough.

The roofline was flat and low above
the porch at the rear of the house. By climbing the paling fence at the side he
was able to leap onto it. He landed lightly but the old struts underneath the
roofing iron moaned under his weight. He made for the upper roof area, into
which the upstairs rooms had been built, climbed onto it, crawled to the peak
and clutched the chimney.

Wyatt hadnt been sure how he would
block the chimneythrow his suit coat over it perhapsbut when he stood up next
to it he discovered a lightweight metal plate hanging from a short chain. It
was a cap to keep the birds out in the summer months. He placed it over the
hole and dropped it into place. Someone in the next house opened a back door, called
Puss, puss, puss, and went inside again.

Wyatt climbed down the way hed
come. The fuse box was on the front verandah. He opened it, switched off the
power and tossed the fuses away.

Inside the house they were coughing.
Someone bumped into a piece of furniture and he heard glass shatter. The
reading light, he thought.

Tying a handkerchief about his nose
and mouth, he opened the front door with his key and slipped into the house. He
could smell the smoke, although little had leaked into the rest of the house as
yet. He paused at the lounge room doorway, his back to the wall, his .38 extended
ready to fire.

He guessed theyd be too smart to
pose themselves in front of the fire. He also knew hed be illuminated by
firelight if he tried to come through the door in the ordinary manner. The
moment he appeared hed be shot. His only chance was to come in fast and throw
himself down to one side. If someone fired a shot the muzzle flash would give
away their position. He could wait them out but one of them might escape
through a window and come in behind him.

Wyatt tensed himself and charged through
the door. He dived to his right, rolled, and stood half-crouching.

He heard a snuffle as someone fired
at him. The slug smacked into the wall above his head.

Found you, he thought, focusing on
the muzzle flash. Two shapes, Leah and a bulkier figure with a gun. Wyatt swung
his .38 around, aimed, tightened his finger on the trigger.

And stepped on something and lost
his footing. He landed on his back, knocking the breath from his body. His .38
skidded under a chair. The fireplace poker grumbled away from him across the
wooden floor. The two figures disappeared through the open door.

The seconds passed. Wyatt got up
from the floor, holding to the back of a chair until he could breathe normally
again. The fall, coming so soon after his fall from the bike, made him feel
slowed down and clumsy.

He was at least a minute behind
them.

He closed the door, sealing in the
smoke, and stood in the hall, listening and thinking. Without the light from
the fire the house was in absolute darkness. Every curtain was drawn. Would the
gunman open them to give himself light to shoot by? Wyatt doubted it. Hed feel
too vulnerable.

People in darkness are very
sensitive to another persons presence. Wyatt was relying on that as well as
his hearing. He crept down the hallway and stood for some time at the open door
to the study. He breathed slowly, quietly, extending his inhalations and
exhalations so that the tiny sounds he made did not sound like breathing. He
listened for exertions and tension in the other two.

He went through all the downstairs
rooms doing this. They were empty. He looked at the stairs. Ten minutes had
gone by but when Wyatt climbed the stairs he stopped for long periods on each
step. He wanted to be certain. He was also trying to read the gunman. Was he
capable of waiting immobile for hours at a time? Or would he want to
precipitate action, come out shooting? Wyatt reached the top step. He stood
there listening, breathing shallowly, for five minutes.