Wyatt - 04 - Cross Kill (20 page)

Wyatt put his mouth to Victors ear.
Show yourself in the doorway, but dont go in. Tell him you need a hand with
your car.

The next step was Jardines. Jardine
flattened his back to the wall next to the door, his gun arm extended, as
Victor Mesic said, Leo, can you come here a sec? I stalled the car and cant
start it again.

The doorway darkened. Maybe you
flooded

Leo felt the gun under his jaw and
he stopped in his tracks. Who the hell are you?

Shut up and on the floor, Wyatt
said.

There was a long, slim-line European
radiator bolted to the hallway wall. It ticked and complained softly. Wyatt
motioned with his .38: On the floor, backs to the heater. He covered the
Mesics while Jardine cuffed them to the support clamps.

Very little was said after that.
This was the stage Wyatt preferred, professionals doing what they did best. The
heart of the Mesic operation was a large office across the hall from the
sitting room. Wyatt wasnt interested in the massive dimpled leather sofa or
the glossy desk and bookshelves. He led Jardine to the safe. It was thick,
solid, painted grey. Jardine squatted in front of it. His strong fingers
reached out and touched the door. No problem.

Are you sure?

You see it all the time. They throw
a few thousand bucks into a security fence and alarms, and hang onto crappy
safes.

How will you do it?

Jardine brushed his fingertips around
the circumference of the door. Drill a hole in each corner, load with nitro,
blast her open.

Wyatt nodded. If you need me Ill
be scouting around.

Jardine took a heavy drill from his
bag and started drilling. Wyatt left him there and turned off the alarm system
and power to the gate. Then he prowled through the house looking for pickings.
He knew the real reward would be in the safe, but he was moving instinctively
toward darkness, concealed opportunities, closed in spaces.

He also wanted to remove himself
from the Mesics. They were so full of loathing for each other that an unease
was settling in him. Something about the whole operation bothered him. Theyd
done their homework, everything was going smoothly, but it was all too smooth
and he was waiting for a cross.

He started with the main bedroom. On
a dresser next to the bed he found a thin Louis Philippe watch and a wallet
stuffed with fifties and hundreds. He counted it quicklyabout a thousand
dollars. He pocketed the watch and the cash and ranged quickly through the
other rooms, finding nothing else. There were plenty of pictures, vases and
ornate clocks, but they were all so much junk to him.

Then he went downstairs and into the
office, ignoring the Mesics cuffed to the radiator. Jardine had turned the desk
on its side to shield the room from the blast. He had finished drilling and was
packing the holes. He didnt acknowledge Wyatt.

Wyatt opened the front door and
stepped outside. Silence was his element so he kept to the lawn, skirting the
gravel drive. The house that was now Victors and had been the old mans was
cluttered, every flat surface crowded with vases and figurines, the pictures on
the walls mostly Sunday market bush-hut scenes. The sofas and chairs were made
of pinewood and red- and green-stained leather. Clunky, box-like pine dressers
jutted into most of the free space. Every other surface was dazzling white
enamel.

He didnt spend more than ten
minutes going through the rooms. He discovered a second watch, a gold lighter,
three hundred dollars in cash, things he could carry in his pockets.

Outside again, Wyatt watched and
waited in the darkness. He heard traffic in the distance, a car accelerating
along a nearby street, random noises in the houses opposite the compound. There
was no wind. He seemed to hear his blood flowing. He began to feel better. He
liked risk, liked being alone, found the tension addictive.

Back at the first house, Jardine
said, Ready to blow. They waited in the hall with the Mesics. The nitro blast
created noise and smoke but Jardine had contained the effects to the door of
the safe. When the smoke cleared Wyatt could see it hanging open on one hinge.
There was money stacked inside, untouched by the explosion.

All yours, Jardine said.

Wyatt made an approximate count of
the money. There was over two hundred thousand there, thats all he was
interested in knowing. He began to stack it into a nylon bag, wanting to feel
secure but knowing he wouldnt be until he was well clear of this place. Two
hundred thousand dollars was peanuts compared to the millions the Mesic
operation would earn for the Outfit, but that didnt mean the Outfit intended
to part with it. He zippered the bag closed and joined Jardine in the hall. Well
find you, one or other of the Mesics began, but Wyatt closed the door on their
voices.

* * * *

Leo
had recognised the drunk from the Volvo, only this time it was no act the man
was putting on. He didnt recognise the second man, only his styleeconomical,
a flat expression on the runnelled river-stone face. The men werent gentle but
they werent rough either. They didnt apologise, raise their voices, speak
unnecessarily, say who they were or what they were doing. They were entirely
mechanical and disinterested and Leo went along with it. What Bax had said made
sense. Tackling them would have been a mistake.

Then the men split up. Leo heard a
drill bite into metal and he knew it was the safe. He didnt say anything, got
comfortable on the floor, turned his wrists so that the handcuff bracelets didnt
cut off his circulation. Victor and Stella were doing it too.

Then Victor said, turning his head
to look at Stella, See? Were wide open. They just walked in. No security at
all.

Get lost, Victor.

The Mesics are a pushover, thats
what this will look like.

Just shut up.

Victors voice was low and
insistent. Think about it. Its time to get out of this Mickey Mouse business,
into something where the people you meet dont have records, dont wear greasy
overalls, where your moneys secure in some Cayman Islands bank, not sitting
around in a safe waiting to be picked up by a couple of hoods, where youre
paying off the bloody police
commissioner,
not some sleazy plainclothes
cop like Bax.

Leo heard his wife say venemously, Youll
be paid off, Victor. Just shut up.

I dont want to be paid off. I want
to put my money where its going to quadruple itself every few months.

Leo listened. Victor had been saying
things like this to him all week when Stella wasnt around, drawing flow
charts, jabbing his finger at columns of figures. Toward the end, it seemed to
make sense. Victor had also said, See if you can convince the bitchno
offence, old son. Leo had tried. He wasnt sure that shed listened, though.
Now, chained up while their house was being robbed, Leo tried again. Hes got
a point, Stel.

But then the man with the flat look
of a killer came back from his search of the property, and shortly after that
Leo heard the safe blow open. He was silent, and it was a strain on him. He
watched the men leave. When they were gone he jerked the handcuffs, but it was
useless and suddenly every clock in the place chose that moment to chime eight
oclock.

* * * *

Thirty-four

They
worked the signal using cellular phones provided by Rossiter. While Jardine
opened the gate, Wyatt called Towns. The ringing tone sounded once and when
Towns answered he said, All clear. He listened for Townss okay, broke the
connection, climbed behind the wheel of Victor Mesics Saab and followed
Jardines Telecom van through the gate and onto the street.

Wyatt wasnt carrying the money. The
money was in the Telecom van, giving it a second margin of security. Wyatt was
allowing for the bored or nosy patrol cop who might just decide to give a Saab
driver a hard time but who wouldnt look twice at a Telecom van. The first
margin was Wyatt himself. He drove several hundred metres behind Jardine and he
watched the traffic ahead of the van, behind it, next to it. If the Outfit
wanted the two hundred thousand badly enough they might try a snatch in the
open. Wyatt knew what to look for: hed pulled stunts like it himself, running
courier vans off the road to snatch bullion, furs, Scotch, oil paintings. When
youre on the freeway, hed told Jardine, dont let yourself get boxed in by
heavy trucks working in pairs; stay in the far lane; dont let yourself get
forced onto an exit ramp or the dividing strip.

And off the freeway?

Off the freeway look out for
roadworks, broken-down cars, any sort of emergency where youre asked to slow
down or stop or detour. If they put a car across the road, dont stop, ram the
rear of it at an angle.

And fly through the windscreen.

I doubt it. With most cars theres
no engine and not much structural reinforcement at the back. If you hit it in
the right place youll shift it sideways and get through.

Nothing like that happened on the
roads out of Templestowe. They joined the freeway at Doncaster Road. There was
very little traffic going into the city. The space-age lights floated high
above the broad dreaming lanes and Wyatt followed Jardine at a steady 90 kph
along a shallow valley that gave no sense of the citys tiled roofs and street
grids and three million people.

They got off the freeway at Hoddle Street,
leaving the Saab and the Telecom van in a side street and switching to rented
Mazdas left there earlier in the day. Jardine had rented the cars from separate
firms using fake ID. Again Wyatt tailed Jardine. They kept to the speed limit,
obeyed the traffic laws, still wore the gloves.

They made a final switch in Spring
Street, knowing there were always taxis waiting outside the Windsor. Avoiding a
bag snatch, Jardine parked opposite, cut across the road on foot, and got into
the back seat of the first taxi on the rank. The taxi pulled away and Wyatt
stayed with it, three car-lengths behind, through Fitzroy, Carlton and Clifton
Hill. The time was 8.30 pm.

By 8.45 they were in Northcote.
Wyatt double-parked well back from the taxi, lights out, and watched as Jardine
paid off the driver and entered the corner milk bar. The taxi driver was there
for a minute or so, writing up his log, answering a radio call. When he was
gone, Wyatt drove up to the milk bar, collected Jardine and drove out of the
street.

They left the Mazda two blocks away
from the Northcote house and walked the rest of the way. Jardine hadnt
understood the need for this. Hed said to Wyatt that afternoon, You can trust
me. I wont run out on you. Wyatt told him, I know that. I dont trust the
Outfit. We stick to each other the whole way with this. If youre in sight and
you get attacked, I know what to do about it. If youre out of sight and they
jump you, I wont know it.

Jardine had nodded. You cover all
the anglessome might say obsessively.

Its how I stay alive, Wyatt had
told him.

It was 8.55. The streets were quiet,
settling into darkness as front-porch lights went out. Wyatt and Jardine
slipped into the grounds of the house and went around it twice. The first time
they searched the small yard; the second time they checked the strips of tape
Wyatt had pasted to the windows and outside doors. Nothing had disturbed them.

They finished at the front door.
Jardine went in first, the money in the bag over his shoulder. Made it, he
said, half-turned to hold the door for Wyatt.

Well see, Wyatt said.

They were home, they had the money,
but still Wyatt didnt let go of his expectation of trouble. He followed
Jardine into the hallway and waited crammed up against him as Jardine put his
hand to the light switch. The switch clicked once, then again, but there was no
light and Wyatt started to say,
wait.

The words froze in his throat. He
heard a smooth metallic snap as someone in the shadows jacked a shell into the
firing chamber of a semi-automatic pistol, and then he heard the shot.

The pistol had been fitted with a
suppressor. The baffles contained the sound as a flat cough, and Wyatt
connected it to the sudden jerk of Jardines body ahead of him. He tried to
avoid the big man, tried to twist away and find his .38, but Jardine slammed
backwards into him and they both went down, Wyatt face down on the dusty,
fibrous carpet. His back muscles knotted together, expecting a follow-up shot.

It didnt come. Instead, there were
useless tugging sounds and Wyatt could sense panic behind them. The pistol had
jammed. Semi-automatics will do that. It was why he rarely used them. He pushed
up, snarling, ridding his body of Jardines weight.

It did him no good at all. He saw an
arm swing at him, the pistol held like a club, and hunched away as if that
would make his skull elastic. The rest was all pain.

* * * *

Thirty-five

He
didnt know how long hed been lying there. He blinked awake and turned his
head to check the time. That was a mistake. The pain cut through him and he
felt a faint tug on his scalp as the blood crust broke. 9.15 pm. He hadnt been
out for long. He didnt remember Jardine until he became conscious of
distressed, shallow breathing and felt the weight of his friends body across
his legs.