The Heat (11 page)

‘Cancel all rental bookings,' she'd told Leah, not troubling to remove her late husband's amateur artworks from the walls. ‘Return all deposits, sell the furniture, paint the place, clean the carpets, fix the leaking taps. Sell.'

She was not about to fly up from Tasmania to view the apartment, meaning it was Leah's for the next few weeks. Not even her elderly partner knew about it. So who was going to question the presence of a suave New York lawyer? As long as he kept his head down for the next week or so.

She parked her VW under the building and took a lift to the foyer, where the doorman greeted her with a little carnal shiver. ‘Afternoon, Miss Quarrell.'

‘Afternoon, Troy,' Leah called, her voice smoky, her eyes heavy-lidded. That, and an extra hundred bucks a week, was enough to keep young Troy loyal and vigilant. He'd alert Raf if anyone came snooping around asking about the man in the top-floor suite, and then he'd alert her.

She took the lift, and there was Raf, waiting for the door to slide open, coolly cosmopolitan and as unlike the men she usually dealt with—fat Australians with dried-out skin, sloppy clothes and dim expressions—as you could get. Lean, suave, dressed in a crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, dark slacks, slimline black shoes. Leah loved his shoes. Loved his bare forearms, brooding dark eyes, sculpted cheekbones. Loved his New York accent. Loved the hollow at his throat.

Loved the way he folded her against him and murmured, ‘I'm going stir-crazy here.'

By now they had moved to the main window, looking out over the brilliant gloss of the sea. Whitecaps, the curve of the bay, a fringe of green at the shoreline, people in the water. Whales, if you had a good pair of binoculars and patience. But Leah wasn't interested in whales. She was looking down, intent on the crown of Rafi's head, now partly concealed by the skirt bundled at her waist.

Afterwards, entangled slickly on the bed, Leah combed his chest hairs with her fingers. ‘I put the idea in Alan's head.'

‘Great.'

She stroked, he stroked, she purred, and then she said, ‘I just wish we didn't have to wait.'

‘Me too.'

‘I'd like to put the painting in a suitcase and fly off with you tonight and get paid tomorrow.'

‘Me too.'

‘A million dollars.'

‘Maybe less. What do I know about art? The buyer has to see it first,' Halperin said.

‘Raf, you said a million. A million would set us up.'

‘Depends on the condition.'

Leah placed the flat of her hand on his chest, the slenderness of her fingers against his hard, taut torso. ‘So long as Trask doesn't stuff up.'

Rafael turned onto his side and fondled her nipples. ‘What's our fall guy like?'

Leah thought about her two encounters with Wyatt. ‘Tough. Hard. Surly.'

‘He may not give up the painting without a fight.'

‘Trask's no pushover. Plus, we've already scouted Ormerod's house and street.'

Raf nodded. ‘Have you given any thought to disappearing the body?'

Distracted, the sensations in her breasts touching off sensations in her groin, Leah forced herself to concentrate. ‘Maybe at sea?'

After a while, Rafi said, ‘Will he come after you? Trask?'

‘One moment I'm in Noosa, the next I'm gone,' Leah said. ‘He won't know where. He won't know I'm in New York with you.'

It gave her a quite peculiar thrill to see the scowl on her lover's face. She snuggled against him, ‘Settle down, I'm not sleeping with him.'

‘Yeah, but he wants to sleep with you.'

‘Then he'll have to keep wanting, won't he?'

After a while, Raf hitched himself onto one elbow and said, ‘Can you get me a gun?'

Leah went very still. ‘Are you saying
you
want to hit Wyatt? It's not exactly the kind of thing you or I are good at.'

‘Nothing like that. I'm stuck here alone day after day, I don't know who half the players are, and something could go wrong. I'm vulnerable here.'

Leah gnawed on her bottom lip. Along with computers, iPhones, cameras, coin collections and gold bars, Gavin Wurlitzer had burgled the occasional firearm. ‘A little .32
automatic?'

‘Perfect.'

They had sex again and by now the afternoon sun was streaming across the bed.

‘I have to go,' Leah said.

‘We could have dinner tonight.'

‘Raf, we can't be seen together.' She touched his perfect lips with the tip of her finger. ‘
You
can't be seen. Everyone thinks you went home to New York.'

‘Bitch-face is in a hotel down on the Gold Coast.'

‘Bitch-face could decide she wants to be here in Noosa for the handover. And what if Trask sees you?'

Raf sulked. It was cute, a twist of his lips, a little frown between his depthless eyes. She kissed it away. ‘You'll have your revenge soon enough.'

After all, he'd done the groundwork—only for Hannah Sten to say thanks, you can go home now. Fuck that.

14

On Tuesday morning Wyatt drove to Noosa Junction to replenish his wardrobe at the Salvation Army op shop. A daypack, faded yellow boardshorts, plain white T-shirt, straw hat, canvas trainers and wraparound mirror sunglasses. Used clothing, because he didn't want anyone to look at him twice. All-new gear was something someone might notice, if they were bored or curious. They might construct a little drama around it—hapless tourist taken clothes-shopping by his wife on the first day of his holiday. Then later there's something in the news and their imagination goes into overdrive. They remember. Make connections. Better not to be noticed at all.

He returned to his holiday apartment, changed into the op-shop clothing and walked along Noosa Parade to the access road leading to Iluka Islet. Crossing the narrow bridge, he discovered how deceptive the little knob of land was. Viewed from a boat, or from Lions Park, it was a tiny island. Full of water-view houses shoulder-to-shoulder around the rim, with road access via a stubby bridge at the end of a little street that intersected with Noosa Parade. But when Wyatt did his harmless tourist stroll across the bridge, he found a narrow circular road within, separating the waterfront houses from an inner clump of less pricey dwellings.

Houses, potential witnesses.

He walked on, his face concealed by the hat and sunglasses, and began to realise that many of the houses were rentals and holiday homes. A fair percentage of the cars had interstate plates, and the twenty or so pedestrians he encountered had the look of holidaymakers. A knot of teenage girls passed him, bright as ribbons, trailing perfume, flashing their vivid teeth, carrying purses and bags, talking of the beach, the shops. Smaller kids splashed around unseen in backyard swimming pools. A man from Tasmania washed his car; a Victorian family piled into a people mover. A private clean-up crew was sweeping and blowing leaves, collecting palm fronds, trimming hedges. Electric gates slid open and shut, tennis balls bocked, birds called and dipped in the air: benign sounds in a benign setting.

Wyatt circled the island a second time. The houses—inner and outer circle alike—were close together. Some were divided by fences, most were not. Some had high, concealing, street-side fences and lockable entryways, others no fence or gate at all. Plenty of trees. Palms, Norfolk Island pines, jacarandas, pointy-leaf tropical. But everything was new here, even the trees. Most wouldn't bear a man's weight, and you'd need skill and callused feet to shimmy up a palm tree.

All the while, he was checking out the upper-floor windows. It was a reflex, for a thief. Clerestory windows, wind-out windows, louvres, shutters, dormers. You could make short work of a louvred window with a pair of pliers. Jimmy a shutter, glasscutter a hole in a sash window. Bolt cutters for a wind-out. Others, like Ormerod's dormer—which he could not see from the road—he'd simply shove open.

He glanced at the house next to Ormerod's. Viewed from the road instead of the water, the scaffolding was more evident, the builders apparently working on a first-floor extension. Linked iron pipes, boards, ladders, blue tarpaulin flapping in the breeze from the river. He heard an angry clatter as he passed, and ducked, heart hammering, thinking he'd been shot at. But it was only the builders tipping rubble into a dumpbin. Dust rose from the little explosion, drifted, settled.

Wyatt left the island, lingering a while on the bridge, needing a closer look at the water frontage. Most of the houses were built close to the shoreline, limiting them to a strip of pale sand and a narrow lawn with a retaining wall. Some had crammed a swimming pool in there, too. He could see what he'd only heard before, kids splashing.

Every house had a dock: fixed wooden docks reached by wooden walkways, or metal floating docks that rose and fell with the movement of the water, secured by concrete pylon inserts, each with a white pointed top. A pelican would be hard pressed to roost there.

So: would you go in by water or by road?

He spent the afternoon on his balcony, thinking. Below and to his right was the tennis court, two women hitting balls back and forth, and directly below him was the pool, small children splashing, calmer teens sunbaking, absorbed with the flaws and perfections of their own gleaming limbs. And as he sat there, a strange unease settled in him.

Wyatt was not given to self-reflection. One simple impulse governed him: locate an item of value and steal it. Apart from a stint in the army—where he'd stolen a base payroll and sold black-market army supplies—he'd never done anything else. He'd stolen from shops when he was young, stolen cars when he was older, robbed banks and armoured cars in the years since the army. He wasn't driven by need, or the delight of having things. He was absorbed in the
getting
. Every job demanded planning, nerve and timing;
some demanded skills he didn't have, obliging him to work with others. A handful had been like this job, Wyatt the thief for hire.

He didn't like that. In general, he was confident of his ability to determine the best timing, the best ways in and out of a building, while remaining alert for what the main players might be up to behind his back, but he didn't have a personal connection to this job. He hadn't located and coveted the painting, it hadn't entered his dreams. And although he tried to be scrupulous in his dealings with Minto and Quarrell, who knew what grievances drove them?

On the other hand, he needed the job. His other options were diminishing. His brand of thieving was getting more difficult. Only the most complacent banks and security firms relied on older technology, and home alarm systems were becoming more sophisticated. Perhaps he should give thanks that he had a patron like Minto before everything was rendered into dust.

Wyatt stared at the tennis players without seeing them. This glum feeling was a new sensation for him. His life, when it wasn't fast and furious, was given to planning. Brooding on the next job, concentrating on the how and the when—the what, where and why usually accounted for. He wasn't used to thinking about what his life might become, a year or ten down the track.

He blinked: one of the women had spotted him and waved. A tennis ball had bounced by her, she'd trotted after it and gracefully bent to scoop it up, and had caught his gaze. There was nothing in the wave, only friendliness, an acknowledgment that
they'd both chosen this place to holiday in, but Wyatt, unused to the rhythms of ordinary life, took a moment to return the wave. He knew that was what one did, that not to return the wave would look cold, odd. Still, it wasn't immediate, his return wave.

But would she remember him five minutes from now? Would she file him away in her mind? She certainly would if he left the balcony right now, so he stayed, feeling uncomfortable, feeling loss. He shifted as if to find the remaining rays of the sun, just a guy on a balcony.

What was that woman's story?

A marriage, possibly, or marriage and a divorce. Perhaps she was single and the other woman was a close friend. Or she was a lover, or both women were married and their menfolk were out for the day, fishing, surfing. None of that mattered. It was the movement of life. But Wyatt was sitting on a balcony of a holiday flat that he had not found for himself, he wasn't on holiday and he had neither a regular job nor a house to return to. Unlike the other men and women here.

He contemplated the idea of a counter-world, where he lived in the suburbs and took the train to work every day. Had a family, friends and neighbours. He didn't get past envisaging a house. He'd had homes. One he mourned had been inland of the coastal town of Shoreham, south-east of Melbourne. He'd lived there for many years until a man came gunning for him and he'd lost everything. Had left it all behind with a short head start, seventy-five thousand dollars and far to run. Back then his life entailed calmly pulling two or three big robberies a year, working for four to eight weeks and living on the proceeds until they ran out or the itch got him again. He'd been free to pick and choose. Work had been a challenge, but he'd known how to cut through the fog of detail that surrounded every job.

That old feeling had gone. He certainly didn't have it for this job. He wondered if he'd ever feel settled again. He needed a big score. With a big score under his belt he could buy a house where no one would find him and always pull his jobs far from there. He'd be a fly-in, fly-out thief—and a shame it was that no one was with him right now to appreciate the quip. Anyway, that's what he'd like. It would cure the unease he was feeling, here, far from home. Wherever that was.

Wyatt needed to anchor himself to the job. He got out the touchscreen phone and turned on wi-fi. Two networks: the apartment block itself and the Wyuna Cove holiday flats on the other side of the crescent.

Rather than show his face more than necessary to the staff of the Noosa Sound apartments, Wyatt crossed the road to the Wyuna Cove office and asked for the password. He returned to his apartment and logged on.