Wyatt - 06 - The Fallout (6 page)

Marginally, the prison officer
said. He handed Steer a stack of clothing. Put these on.

The shirt was thin from repeated
washing, the collar frayed. The trousers stopped at his ankles. Both knees had
worn through at some stage and been mended with patches on the inside and a
Crosshatch of thick black cotton thread. The windcheater, once chocolate brown,
barely came to his waist. The shoes needed reheeling.

Wearing these clothes would be like
wearing the skin of every pathetic junkie and rock spider who had ever been
incarcerated in Pentridge. No fucking way, mate.

The officer stiffened. Come again?

I mean, give us a set of new gear
and Ill make it worth your while.

Yeah? How much?

Fifty.

Make it seventy-five and youve got
yourself a deal.

My lawyer will slip it to you
tomorrow.

If he doesnt, the officer said, then
you go back to wearing cast-offs.

For seventy-five, Steer countered,
you can chuck in a decent set of bedding.

Finally an officer escorted Steer
out of the administration wing. One inmate whistled on the long walk to his
cell. Others stopped to stare as he passed among them. They approached a door.
An inmate who had been leaning on the wall, smoking, sprang forward and opened
the door, making a big show of it, doing Steer a favour.

Steer knew what it was about. It was
a test. If he said thanks, hed be marked out as a soft target. Steer wasnt
soft. He was hard and lithe and very fit. Tall, narrow through the hips but
broad at the shoulder, with a flat stomach and big hands, the knuckles like
pebbles under the skin. There was scar tissue on his face but it was a
grinning, clever, likeable face with bright killers eyes and bad teeth. He
stared at the man, cold and unnerving, and saw him drop his gaze and step back.

The guard watched it happen. Piss
off, Bence.

Right you are, Mr Loney, sir.

They were in a corridor of simple
cells and Steer could see two bunks in each. The cells were poorly lit, about
three cubic metres, the walls exuding bitter cold and dampness. Two men were
hovering at the open door to the cell at the end of the corridor. New bloke,
they said.

Steer gave them the stare. Like
Bence, they fell back. So far so good.

The guard said, This is your cell,
Steer. The charmer on the bottom bunk there is Monger. Youll show Steer here
the ropes, wont you, Monger?

Sure, Mr Loney, Monger said.

The guard left them to it. One of
the men at the door wandered away. The other, leaning against the jamb, shook a
cigarette from the packet in his top pocket. Welcome to D Division, matey.
Smoke?

Steer said, No thanks. It might
have been a genuine offer, it might also have been a test.

Suit yourself, the man said,
wandering off.

Steer turned to Monger. Monger was
young, nervy looking. Mate, youre in my bed.

Monger sat up in the bunk. What?

Yours is the top bunk.

Monger opened and closed his mouth.
Finally he nodded, stripped the bedding from his bunk, and climbed onto the top
bunk, far from the floor and the crapper, up where the farts gatheredall of
which told Steer that this was Mongers first time.

Steer made himself comfortable. At
lunchtime he saw Monger bend even further. He was at a scuffed table behind
Monger, and watched as Bence and another man sat on either side of Monger and
went to work.

First, Bence leaned forward. He
fingered Mongers watch strap, Nice.

Steer saw Monger jerk back his arm.

Steady on, Bence said. Just
looking.

Monger nodded warily.

Wouldnt have any smokes, would
you? the other man said. Im fresh out.

Monger had been given his prison
issue. He got them out but before he could offer one Bence grabbed the entire
packet and slipped it into his top pocket.

Hey, come on, Monger said.

Mate, you owe me.

Owe you? How come?

The other man was looking at Mongers
food. He reached across, helped himself to the pudding and started to spoon it
into his mouth. Hungry, he explained, catching Mongers eye.

Monger said, I suppose I owe you as
well?

Both men ignored him. Bence peered
around him to the other man. What duties they got you on this arvo?

Cleaning the shithouse.

Get Monger to help you.

Monger protested. I asked for the
library.

I bet you did, but thats too good
for a little shit like you. Id hate for you to get bored in here. I mean,
Bence went on, do a bloke a favour, you expect one in return, right?

Absolutely, the other man said.

Much later, back in the cell, Steer
found Monger curled on the floor at the foot of the bunks, tired and dirty, his
face streaked and miserable. Come on, dont chuck in the towel.

Monger let himself be helped to his
feet. Steer brushed him down, told him to change his clothes. Mate, he said, I
could see it happening a mile off. I watched it all.

So why didnt you give us a fucking
hand? Monger said, fighting down his self-disgust, his jitters.

A few basic survival rules, Steer
said, all right? One, from now on, especially out in the yard, youre a marked
man. The heavy boys like Bence will give you a hard time, stand in your way,
shove you around, stuff like that. If you try and avoid them, go around them,
you might as well curl up in a ball and die. Youd be theirs for good. Bum
buddy in the shower. What you have to do is take them on. If you make eye
contact, dont back down. Give them the old thousand yard stare. Theyll beat
the crap out of you, but at least youll earn yourself some respect.

He broke off to look Monger up and
down. Jesus, you got it wrong from the start, didnt you? He flicked his
fingers at Mongers worn shirt, his patched trousers. Look at this gear they
gave you. You shouldnt have accepted it. Same goes for smokes. In here you
only accept the offer of something if it comes from a close mate, not some
bloke you dont know. Marks you out as weak, accept anything, unable to stand
up for yourself. Plus, youd then owe the guy something in return. Thats what
that was all about with Bence this afternoon.

So why are you helping me?

Steer said, Dont like to see a
young bloke stuffed around.

Im not a poofter. I tell you that
right now.

Didnt say you were. Im not
either. But we got to pass the time away, right? Might as well give you a few
pointers.

In fact, Steer liked to lecture
young crims. It was a side of him that could be irritating, but he couldnt
help himself. He liked to point out where theyd gone wrong. Partly he got a
kick out of it, partly he was reminding himself of where hed stuffed up in the
past, and partly it earned him respectif he didnt push it.

The next day they called to say he
had a visitor. He was escorted to a room that smelt of hopelessness. Denise was
waiting for him. She gave him a watery smile, and a kind of sadness settled in
Steer.

The visitors room was like a cheap
cafe, a place of scraping chairs, shouted conversations, coughing smokers and
general defeat. Poverty, that was the word, poverty. This was a world of poor
men and their poor families. Their clothes were cheap, their haircuts and
shoes, their ambitions. Every man in the room had showered and shaved that
morning, but most had used soap in place of shampoo, and wore bad shaves from
blunt electric razors, and generally looked unwashed and unkempt. It was no
place to be meeting your bird.

Steer shook off the sadness. He
became vigorous and sharp. Great to see you, sweetheart.

Great to see you, too.

Chaffeys got to get me into
remand.

Denise touched the back of his hand.
I saw him this morning. Hes working on it.

Steer gave her a loaded look. Any
other news?

He rang before I left. Hes
confident.

Steer snarled. Confident? What does
he think I pay him for? I want results.

* * * *

Eight

Vallance
and Allie said the Windsor Hotel, said could he pick them up and give them a
lift to their place in Westernport. Maybe they didnt own a car, maybe they
didnt drivewhatever, when Raymond left Chaffey he walked back to his
apartment so that he could change and collect the keys to his XJ6, then he
drove to the Windsor, parked outside and called up to their room on the
courtesy phone.

On our way, Vallance said.

Raymond went back to the car and
waited. There was still a lot of cop activity in the centre mile of the city.
The Windsor. Clearly Vallance and Allie werent short of a bob or twounless it
was all for show.

As he waited, he let himself think
about Chaffeys proposal. A hundred grand for lifting a collection of paintings
was better money at a lower risk factor than robbing a bank, so it was worth
thinking aboutif he were able to find himself a good partner.

According to Chaffey, art theft was
the worlds most lucrative crime after drug dealing. Stolen paintings found
their way into private collections, were used as a stake in buying and selling
arms and drugs, sold to crooked gallery owners and dealers for a third of their
retail value or sold back to insurance companies or owners for the reward
money. Police in Australia had only a twenty per cent clear-up rate. They were
forced to sift through computerised records that listed stolen chainsaws and
laptop computers alongside Picassos and Renoirs. Security was costly for most
gallery owners and most private collectors kept inadequate records.

As Chaffey put it, there was only a
48-hour window of opportunity for lifting the paintings. The building where
they were housed was undergoing a renovation, and for 48 hoursa Saturday and a
Sundaythe power would be switched off and the paintings locked away in a
storeroom. No cameras, no alarms, for 48 hours. Just a few locked doors and a
nightwatchman every now and then through the night.

Twenty minutes later, Allie and
Vallance appeared with their cases. They wore jeans and polo shirts, designer
quality. Raymond found both of them hard to figure out. The jeans hung loosely
on Vallances bony hips and he looked all wrong, somehow too old for the
picture he was presenting to the world. Allie didnt, so what was she doing
with him? Raymond wanted to peel her open like a piece of fruit.

Vallance got into the back seat.
Allie slid into the passenger seat and her long thighs filled Raymonds imagination.
Vallance leaned into the gap between the seats. Now, this is a no-obligation
trip, okay? You dont have to commit yourself. Spend the night at our summer
place and well take a boat out in the morning, look at the wreck, then you
think about it. But Ill ask you to keep this confidential. I think you
understand.

No drama, Raymond said.

He fired up the Jaguar and slid into
traffic. Neither Allie nor Vallance said anything about the car, as though they
were born to luxury.

You were talking about some old
newspaper clipping, Raymond prompted, watching Vallance in the rear-view
mirror.

Satisfaction and passion mingled on
the mans narrow face. Got it right here, he said, opening a document wallet.
You know, it can be like detective work, hunting down old wrecks. You
accumulate apparently random fragments of information and look for the patterns
and answers. Often what you get are false leads; you find yourself exercising
your mind about the wrong problem.

He paused, staring into space.
Raymond groaned inwardly. He was about to learn more than he needed to know,
but the world was full of Vallances, full of tidy, narrow, pointless passions.

In 1827, Vallance said, a barque
called the
Eliza Dean
was reported missing between Sydney and Hobart.
Shed sailed with a handful of passengers, plus provisions, plus fifty thousand
quids worth of gold, silver and copper coinage. Can you imagine what that
would be worth today?

Raymond allowed himself to look
awed. He sensed Allie next to him, her secret, almost conniving smile.

Gold and silver coins, mostly. Also
bank notes, cheques and the royal mail. Most of the coins were bound for the
garrison stationed in Hobart Town. The officers and soldiers hadnt been paid
for some time.

Raymond steered with one hand,
fished out his Spanish dollar with the other. You think this came from the
Eliza
Dean?

Im sure of it. The date is right,
all the other wrecks and missing ships around that period have been accounted
for, and none was carrying currency. You want to know how I worked it out?

Sure.

At first I thought Bass Strait
pirates. What theyd do was build bonfires on the shores of King Island during
fogs and lure ships ashore. Theyd loot anything they could usecutlasses,
pistols, knives, clothing, food, toolsand store it all on Robbins Island. One
story I heard, a woman was washed ashore wearing diamond rings. What did they
do? They chopped off her fingers to get the rings. Theyd fight amongst
themselves. Theyd drink, trade women, disappear without trace.