Wyatt - 04 - Cross Kill (24 page)

He swallowed the vodka, poured
himself another glass, reached over and scattered the money some more, making
it cover a greater area of the bed. But then he caught himself, and laughed. It
was still two hundred and nine thousand bucks; scattering it wasnt going to
make it bigger. Napper put down his vodka, stood up, leaned over and gathered
in every twenty, fifty and hundred, and bundled them back into the vinyl bag.
He zipped it closed and sat again with the bag in his lap. The bag felt solid
and comfortable. Napper had removed his trousers to rub cream into his scraped
thighs. He was wearing his towelling bathrobe and liked the feeling of
nakedness it gave him, the idea of his cock in striking distance of all that
dough.

Napper looked around his bedroom. He
couldnt stash the bag under the bed, under dirty clothes in the bottom of the
wardrobe, in his sock drawer. Or in the kitchen or bathroom cupboards, or
behind his collection of Willie Nelson LPs. And that was the extent of his
miserable flat. If he left the money in the flat, hed spend all his time
thinking of burglars when he wasnt at home. If he took the money with him, hed
spend all his time looking out for muggers. Well, no one was going to break in
tonight, not at this hour, not with him at home. Maybe hed bank the money
tomorrow, twenty accounts of nine thousand nine hundred dollars each to avoid
the government legislation that required banks to report all deposits of ten
thousand or more. Jesus Christ, were there that many banks and building
societies? It would take him days. A creeping kind of dread grew in Napper. He
had the money but where was he going to hide it, how was he going to hold onto
it?

That fear gave rise to another, and
this one gripped him hard. It wasnt burglars he had to worry about, it wasnt
muggers, it was the business he should have finished tonight but hadnt. He had
failed to kill Wyatt and Jardine. He had shot one, clubbed the other, but it
had been panicky and it hadnt felt final. How would they see it? In Nappers
experience, crims were always ripping each other off. With any luck theyd look
in that direction. But they werent stupid, theyd start wondering who knew
about the job. Eileen wouldnt stand much pressure, shed soon shop him.

Napper looked at his hands and they
were shaking the drink or fear or both.

He tucked them into his armpits and
rocked on the edge of the bed, trying to think it through. Should he do
something, or try to find out what had happened? He couldnt go back to the
Northcote house. He could try ringing around the hospitals, try the Homicide
Squad or the Northcote station boys, but thered be questions, cops wanting to
know who he was and why he was so interested in a man with a gunshot wound.

That left the Rossiters. If he could
shut them up, the trail would end right there, and Wyatt and Jardine would never
find him. Only the Mesics knew he was involved, and they thought he was out of
the picture. Napper sniggered. Thought they could get rid of him. Thought hed
be happy with their measly two and a half grand. Just as well hed decided to
stick around tonight, see what he could salvage. Only the fucking jackpot, thats
what.

His anxieties came back. How do you
wipe out three people one after the other without disturbing at least one of
them? It happened all the time, crazed fathers walking through the house
shotgunning the wife and seven kids in their beds, but Napper didnt want to
risk it. A knife? Napper had never used one, didnt know if you stabbed the
heart or sawed through the neck. All that blood, and the person in the act of
dying rearing up in bed at you. Napper couldnt do it.

It had to be a bomb. Get all three
Rossiters at once. Bombs he understood. Hed been to army bomb-disposal
lectures, done a short course, and one of his informants, the man whod given
him the mercury switch idea, had been a car bomber in Belfast before hed got
tired of poverty and politics.

Napper put on his pants and went
outside. There were lockup garages at the rear of the flats. Napper didnt use
his as a garage. He drove the ute every day and it was a drag unlocking and
locking the garage door all the time. He used his to store the gardening gear
hed had from when hed owned a proper house: lawnmower, fertiliser tins, rakes
and shovels. Most of the space was taken up with removalists cartons, stuff he
should have flattened and recycled, except the word recycled made him think
of Josie and her lefty notions, and so the cartons stayed where they were.

The gelignite hed got from the car
bomber, three sticks of it, plus detonators. Napper closed the garage door,
turned on the light above the work bench, and gingerly took it out of the
shoebox. It was sweating. Past the use-by date, his snitch had said, so go
real careful with it.

Napper stared at the gelignite. Hed
be better off using a plastic explosive, C4 or Semtex, something he could mould
into shape and which wouldnt blow up on him if he got careless. But he didnt
nave any, and where would he get some at this time of night?

Still, gelignite would do the same
job. He ran through some of the possibilities. First, your car bomb. Wire it
into a headlight or the ignition circuit, or set a pressure switch under the
drivers seat, or wire the boot so that when the lid was opened it pulled a
slip of cardboard free from between the jaws of a clothespeg, thus closing a
circuit. Or a bomb inside the house. The good old alarm clock device. The wired
desk drawer. The string-tied parcel. Or some sort of remote control, like a
radio signal, except he didnt have signalling or receiving devices. Maybe wire
it to the telephone, ring the house and kaboom. Or the good old bomb through
the window.

The main problem was detonating the
gelignite. Maybe he could use its instability somehow. Some sort of extreme and
sudden shock or atmospheric change should set it off. He pictured the Rossiters
house. They had gasa wall furnace to heat the place and a gas stove in the
kitchen. There would be a pilot light on the wall furnace. What he could do,
plant the gelignite, turn on the gas in the kitchen, piss off, wait for the gas
to accumulate, wait for the pilot flame to do its work.

An hour later the gelignite was
sitting on the rusted-out floor of the ute and Napper was grinding the starter
motor. He glanced up the street. It was a street like Tinas, a block of flats,
a lot of tarted-up cottages, a few double-storey terrace houses. It was full of
yuppies whod stacked the local council and forced it to put in a one-way
system and speed-traps every fifty metres. He switched on the headlights and
peeled away from the kerb. He had half an inch of vodka left and he toasted all
the quiche eaters and civil libertarians and their dinky houses and their
tin-can cars. He lived a cloaked and dangerous life, and they wouldnt know if
their arses were on fire.

* * * *

Forty-one

Wyatt
reached around and turned off the lamp. He tracked the footsteps: their
crush-grind along the gravel drive, then a fainter snap as they passed under
the carport at the side of the house. Then silence. The winking red numerals on
Rossiters VCR read 2.04 in the morning. Four hours before dawn on day twelve
of the Mesic job and he was no closer to the money.

He slipped through to the dingy rear
of the house. The iron-hard cement floor seemed to drain all warmth from him,
and as he crossed to the porch door, a bulky shape came through it.

Wyatt stepped to the side, into the
icy laundry, and let the figure pass him. He moved out again, coming in from
behind. The things that didnt seem right about the intrudersmell, shape,
susceptibilitywere confirmed for him when the kitchen light blazed on.

Eileen, he said.

She turned sharply. Her hand flew to
her chest. I knew it.

Are you alone?

She backed away from him, reaching
around blindly for a kitchen chair with the movements of someone brought down
by resignation and fatigue. Of course Im alone.

Youve been splitting the money
with your cop friend?

Her head was bowed and she shook it.
Was it Napper? I knew it, as soon as Ross said your mate had been shot. She
looked up. I thought all hed want was an arrest.

That makes it better? Either way I
get it in the neck, Eileen.

An hour ago Wyatt had been prepared
to kill the Rossiters. It was what he did to the people who sold him out. But
now all he could see was their wretchedness and struggle. They were driven by
the code of the family, and that was something Wyatt didnt understand. He knew
only that it was powerful and it had never applied to him. The Rossiters were
stupid and dangerous, but it was mostly aimed inward. They would always shoot
themselves in the foot. A final thing stopped him. He had to work in this town.
If he killed Rossiter, Eileen and their son, he would look like a mad dog to
the world. He would become one and be treated like one.

Why did you come back?

She sat slumped in defeat. Car
broke down.

That seemed to define the Rossiters.
Wyatt dropped his gun arm. The movement caught her eye. You might as well get
it over and done with.

Instead Wyatt said, Where did you
have your meetings with this cop?

She looked away and he saw shame
there. His flat.

Show me.

Eileen scrabbled in her purse. Ill
write it down for you.

Hes not going to open the door to
me, Eileen. Youre my ticket in.

From the other room Rossiter yelled,
That you, Eileen?

They ignored him. Wyatt motioned
with his .38. Get up.

No.

Eileen, is that you?

Yes, so shut up!
She dropped her voice again. Why
should I? Im out of it now.

Patiently Wyatt said, Eileen, youre
a liability to him. Hell realise that sooner or later.

So shoot me and it wont matter.
What do I care?

You care about Niall. Napper wont
feel safe until hes got all of you. At the moment were ahead. Lets keep it
that way, lets get to him first.

Silently she stood, passed by him,
and he followed her to the back door. Rossiter shouted after them. They heard
the little mans voice again as they passed down the side of the house. On the
footpath outside, Eileen stopped, mute and dazed, and let Wyatt guide her to
Ounsteds Peugeot. They strapped themselves in. She leaned abstractedly against
her door.

Which way?

She pointed. Bridge Road.

At Church Street they turned right
and the Peugeot laboured up Richmond Hill. Then she took him into the side
streets, to a broad avenue that had been a handy through-road the last time
Wyatt had used it. Now it was a one-way street stoppered at either end by
bluestone paving and slowed by speed-traps. He braked, changed back into third,
eased the creaking springs and chassis over the first speed trap. A hundred
metres farther on, Eileen pointed sullenly at a block of flats. Number six,
first floor.

Then life came into her and she sat
forward on her seat. Theres Napper now.

Ahead of them a battered Holden
utility was pulling away from the kerb. Smoking badly, listing to one side, it
swerved along the centre of the road as it gained speed. Everything about the
driving suggested rage and hate, and Wyatt saw the brake lights flare as the
driver noticed a speed-trap too late. The front tyres slammed into the
up-slope. Wyatt expected to see the utility bounce cruelly over it but what he
saw was a rip of vivid orange flame in the cabin and the old vehicle seemed to
rear up and tear open, then fall broken-backed on the road, burning fiercely.
The explosion blew out the windows of a nearby house and one wheel rolled down
the footpath.

Wyatt braked gently and pulled into
a gap between streetlights. This could be the end. Hed got the Outfit off his
back, but what if his money was shredded and ablaze there in the utility, along
with the twisting, ruptured policeman? Still, he got out, opened the door for
Eileen, followed her into the block of flats. Nappers lock gave him no
problems. He went in.

Instead of pulling the flat apart,
he stood there for a while, thinking his way into Nappers skin. He thought,
and one of the places it gave him was the bedside cabinet, the gap between the
carpet and the underside of the bottom drawer. Two hundred and nine thousand
dollars will crowd a space that size. He tugged hard on the drawer. Something
was making it stick. In the end he simply tipped the cabinet over and got back
his money that way.