Wyatt - 06 - The Fallout (3 page)

Raymond didnt take his eyes away
from the croupiers hands. He nodded, sensed Allie step back, her fingers
brushing his shoulder. When next he looked, she was standing behind Vallance.
They both looked keenly at him and Vallance flashed a grin.

Raymond played on, losing, winning,
pushing chips onto the board, pulling them toward him. Then he won five grand
on one play and that was his signal to stop and have a drink with Vallance and
Vallances woman. He raised an eyebrow, inclined his head, and left the table.

That was a daring play, Allie
said, coming around the table and winding her slim hand into the crook of his
arm.

He liked the bouncy quality of her
affection and generosity. No-one minded, least of all Vallance. Vallance wasnt
possessive or jealous. Raymond couldnt see what she saw in him, though. There
was the age factor, the hint of weakness in the man, her own energy and
enthusiasm. She deserved better.

You win some, you lose some,
Raymond said.

Vallance, at his other elbow as they
walked to a secluded table in the lounge, said, You win more often than you
lose, Ray. Ive been watching. Its a real education. Youre careful. Youre
not a man to throw his money away.

Raymond played that coolly. He wasnt
about to tell Vallance that hed borrowed ten grand from his fence, the lawyer
Chaffey, meaning that the five grand hed just won was no longer his. With any
luck, Chaffey would allow him a further five for the travellers cheques and
wipe out the debt completely.

They sat down, ordered champagne to
celebrate. The talk circled around money and expert and inexpert gambling play.
It emerged that Raymond was independently wealthy, from a good family, and
gambled because he liked it. I can take it or leave it, though, he said. He
was no mug. Nothing desperate or pathetic about Raymond Wyatt.

They talked, they ordered a bottle
next time, Dom Perignon, Raymond forking out the best part of two hundred bucks
for it. And then, unmistakably, Allies shoeless foot scratched his ankle and
he felt the hot press of her thigh as she reached across him for the bottle.
For the first time, Raymond thought that with a bit of skilful manoeuvring on
his part he could extricate her from Vallance.

They relaxed, and into the warm glow
of the endless nightit could have been a bright spring day outside for all
Raymond knew or caredVallance slid a tin of shoe polish across the table. Take
a gander inside that, young Raymond.

The tin felt hefty in Raymonds
hand. If it was shoe polish, it was very dense. He shook the tin and something
shifted within it, a sense of heaviness and solidity transmitting itself to his
fingers.

Go on, it wont blow up on you.

Raymond pressed where it said press
and the lid popped open. He lifted it off, stared in and saw what accounted for
the heaviness and the bulk.

Gold guinea, dated 1799, Vallance
said. Silver florin, too worn by saltwater corrosion to establish the date but
roughly the same vintage. Spanish silver dollar, dated 1810, and the one with
the hole in it is a holey dollar, scarce as hens teeth.

He paused. Ive got an airlines bag
full of similar stuff at home. Whats more, Im the only man alive who knows
where the rest is buried.

Something stirred in Raymond, a kind
of hunger, a hazy dream of adventure on the high seas, flintlock pistols and
treasure chests. He looked up at Vallance uncomprehendingly.

Why are you showing me?

You strike me as a man who knows
how to keep his trap shut.

Maybe.

I wont bullshit youyoure in a
position to help me and Allie.

Youre the one with the story to
tell, Raymond said patiently.

He felt Allies foot again. At the
same time, she leaned over and slid an arm around Vallance. Raymond watched the
man melt a little and rub his jaw over her skull. She said, Brian used to
chart wrecks for a living.

Vallance said defiantly, Until a
year ago, Ray, I worked for the Maritime Heritage Unit. Our job was to locate
wrecks from old documents, chart and excavate known wrecks, and safeguard
others from scavengers. We even had a cop assigned to us full-time. Part of her
job was checking Sothebys and Christies on the lookout for looted artefacts.

Raymond waited.

A flush of anger filled Vallances
lined face. I was accused of stealing artefacts that hadnt yet been
catalogued. Accused of selling to a private buyer. It was all bullshit. They
couldnt prove anything, but Id had enough so I quit rather than work for
those bastards again.

Sure you did, Raymond thought. You
fucked up and almost got caught. It pleased him oddly to be listening to this
desperados story, almost as if Vallance could only be trusted because he was
crooked.

He saw Allie pat Vallances arm. In
the dim light her features were soft and attentive. Raymond felt himself
burning for her. He absently touched a finger to the coin with the hole in it.

Tell you what, Ray, Vallance said.
That Spanish dollar is yours, whether you help us out or not. Its rated very
fine, worth around a hundred and seventy-five bucks. All I want you to do at
this stage is listen, no obligation to invest.

Invest?

Fifty grand could get you five
million, Vallance said.

* * * *

Four

The
lawyer called Chaffey eased forward in his chair, the heat of effort rising on
his broad, soft, clean, unhealthy face. He placed both hands on his desk and
push-straightened his legs. Now he towered giddily against the window and, as
he buttoned the vast folds of his suit coat together and prepared to show
Denise Meickle out of his office, he glanced down upon the plane trees and tram
tracks of St Kilda Road, the flashing chrome and foreshortened pedestrians, the
park benches and rollerblading kids, trying to muster unfelt confidence into
his voice.

Leave it with me.

The Meickle woman was a
sorry-looking creature, small, mousy, belligerent. She was in love with a
client of Chaffeys, a hold-up man and killer called Tony Steer, who was being
held in the city watchhouse. He was about to be transferred to somewhere more
permanent and Denise Meickle wanted Chaffeys help in springing him from gaol.

First, she said, reluctant to
leave, though shed been with him for an hour now and gone over everything a
dozen times, youll have to make sure hes transferred to the remand centre in
Sunshine. Sometimes theyre remanded in Pentridge, but well never spring him
from there.

Chaffey had doubts that Steer could
be sprung from the remand centre, let alone Pentridge. Leave it with me, he
said again.

Meickle had been a prison
psychologist attached to the gaol in Ararat when she first befriended Steer.
Given the complex nature of a gaol environment, in which prison staff have to offer
both welfare and custodial roles, it wasnt hard for someone like Meickle to
blur or confuse these roles. It was especially hard for custodial staff who
might find themselves comforting a bereaved prisoner one minute and
strip-searching him the next. As a psychologist, Meickle hadnt had that kind
of relationship with Steer, but the intimacy and role-confusion were no less
compelling. Well get your man out, Chaffey said.

She didnt want to go. She numbered
her fingers, so that Chaffey would get it straight. So this is the deal. New
Zealand passports for both of us, a boat out of the country, and someone to
help me spring Tony. For that we pay you fifty thousand dollars. Find someone
good, someone who can drive and keep his nerve. Pay him out of your cut. She
poked Chaffeys huge midriff. Dont rip us off. Well find you if you do.

Chaffey nodded his massive head. He
was Tony Steers lawyer and minded Steers money for him. He had more sense
than to rob the man. Steer was bad news, a hard, fit man of flashing confidence
and intelligence. Chaffey thought of the legions of women who befriended male
prisoners. Lonely women, many of them, fired by good works, God or pity. Some
of them married killers, waited for them to get out, and got killed for their
pains. Maybe thats what awaited Denise Meickle.

He ushered her to the door. Ill
get onto it straight away. The passports, the boat, no drama there. Finding a
good man will require a bit of thought.

No junkies. No mugs. No-one with
form.

Like I said, Ill get straight onto
it.

He goes to trial in two weeks
time. We havent got much time.

When Meickle was gone, Chaffey ran
through a mental checklist of names. None looked promising: dead, in gaol,
feeding a habit or too narrow in their fields of expertise.

The phone rang.

Chafe? Raymond here. How are you
placed today?

Here was someone he hadnt thought
of. Raymond, old son. Chaffey checked his watch. Meet you in thirty?

Usual place. Ive got some paper
for you.

That could mean anything: bonds,
numbered sequences of bills, cheques. See you then, Chaffey said, cutting
Raymond off before he compromised both of them on the line.

In the outer office he said, Back
in an hour.

But youve got appointments.

Back in ninety minutes, Chaffey
said.

He put one foot after the other down
the corridor. The lift gulped and clanked, dropping seven storeys with Chaffey
braced, legs apart, at the midpoint of the floor, as though he were riding it
to the ground. It hit the bottom, recovered, and Chaffey shouldered through the
foyer to the street.

The usual place was a booth in
Bourke Street Mall that dispensed cheap theatre and concert tickets. Cursing,
for there were no taxis in sight, Chaffey propelled himself toward the nearest
tram stop.

Five minutes later he was
strap-hanging in a draughty rattletrap along Swanston Street. It claimed to
have the University as its destination, but that didnt mean it wouldnt
reverse direction shortly or veer into Victoria Street. The seats looked minute
and insupportable to Chaffey. He didnt trust them, or the conductor, or the
other passengers. The students among them flashed their white teeth and clawed
great arcs of gleaming hair away from their eyes as they spoke loudly,
sub-literately, to one another. Otherwise there were pensioners, stunned and
dazed, and women in suits with flying shoulders, snapping gum in their jaws.

Chaffey stood with his feet apart
and tried to brace his solid legs in a counter-rhythm to the tram. His
reflection in the glass revealed his bulk, a button nose, red lips, long pale
lashes, damp acres of pink skin. It didnt reveal his vicious glee, for he was
dreaming, of Raymond Wyatt saying that he would help Denise Meickle spring Tony
Steer out of remand.

Chaffey alighted at Bourke Street,
stepping down from the tram in careful stages, his movements as slow and
ponderous as he could make them, thereby doing his bit to fuck up the
timetable. Traffic braked for him as he heaved toward the footpath.

He found himself face to face with
the three bronze statues bolted to the footpath. They were tall,
rubbery-looking caricatures of businessmen, their faces a little desperate in
the swirling toxins. They were also painfully thin and Chaffey, spotting a
swagger of body builders outside a nearby Sports Barn, wrapped his big arm
around one of the statues and grinned. The body builders, all violet shellsuits
and body hair, stopped chewing and posturing, looking about for the insult.

Chaffey steered a straight course
down the mall. He did not have to dodge or weave or break his stride. As he
walked his eyes darted left and right, hoping that Raymond was still unknown to
the law.

Even so, Chaffey had to admit that
the mall was a good place to meet. The centre mile of the city was as useful as
a sieve to anyone trying to seal it off. It was made up of lanes and alleys and
back streets, all leading away from the centre. Raymond could easily slip away,
or hole up
inside
the centre mile, up in some mens lavatory along a dim
corridor on the second or third floor of a seedy side-street building where the
tenants gave singing lessons, altered suits, made dentures.

Chaffey reached the ticket booth. He
spent a few minutes circling it, reading the posters, then he stood facing up
the mall toward Parliament House, his hands seeking purchase on his soft hips.

Raymond materialised at Chaffeys
shoulder, tall and fluid-looking in a tuxedo, very calm and still, yet clearly
prepared to vanish into the shopping crowds if he felt threatened. Chafe, old
son.

Chaffey beamed, his mind ticking
over. Raymond was a long streak of quiet menace to look at, a man with a hard,
cautious mind. Most thieves that Chaffey dealt with were full of doubt and
spite and contradictions, their minds tripping them up every minute of the day.
Here was a man who registered, analysed, then acted, all of it manifested in
extreme alertness.

He did like to play the tables,
though. Whats with the tux?

Raymond grinned. Just finished an
all-night session.

Win?

Got your five grand, plus the paper
I was talking about.