Wyatt - 03 - Death Deal

Wyatt, professional hold-up man, is back in another tight, remorseless
thriller.On the run after the payroll heist that went horribly wrong in
Paydirt, wanted by the police and contract hitmen, he discovers that a
shadowy third player has joined the hunt. Enter Stolle.Stolle
specialises in finding people who don't want to be found. But who is his
Brisbane client? Is this a trap Wyatt's walking into? And what of the
score itself, the suburban bank with two million in the vault? It looks
easy enough - if you don't count a bank manager who owes favours to the
wrong people, a gun-running pilot, grifters, bent cops and punks with
ambition...There's death in a deal like that.What the critics said about
previous Wyatt novels:'Real books, not junk fiction.'Booklist,
USA'Wyatt is the sort of character Australian movies are made of.'Sunday
Age'Wyatt's as hard-boiled as a hubcap.'Weekend Australian

* * * *

Death Deal

[Wyatt 03]

By Garry Disher

Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

* * * *

One

There
were two of them and they came in hard and fast. They knew where the bed was
and flanked it as Wyatt rolled onto his shoulder and grabbed at the backpack on
the dusty carpet. He had his hand on the .38 in the side pocket and was
swinging it up, finger tightening, when the cosh smacked across the back of his
wrist. It was lead bound in cowhide and his arm went slack and useless. Then he
felt it across his skull and he forgot about his hand and who the men were and
how theyd known where to find him and everything else about it.

He came to on the floor, dust in his
nose. A weak light was spilling into the room from the fluorescent strip above
the grimy corner sink. He kept his eyes hooded. Apart from a minute flexing to
test his bruised hand, he didnt move. The men had his pack on the chipped
chest of drawers and something about it amused and irritated them.

Jesus Christ, a radio scanner, one
man said, unloading the pack item by item. Portable phone, revolver, couple of
changes of clothing. Just your typical hitchhiker, right?

The money?

Cant see any.

Whitney, the guy snatched a
payroll.

Well,
you
take a look, then,
the man called Whitney said.

The other man felt the pockets,
lining and straps of the pack. He was methodical and very soon he would find
the twenty thousand dollars that Wyatt had distributed in his personal gear,
five thousand dollars here and there, rolled up in his socks, folded into an
aspirin packet, tucked under a shirt collar. There should have been three
hundred thousand but someone else had got to it first and the twenty thousand
was all that Wyatt had in the world.

He moved then, pushing up from the
carpet, drawing in his legs ready to spring. The man called Whitney saw him
first.

Moss, look out.

Wyatt lunged. He had nothing
particular in mind beyond hoping he could knock one man off his feet and slow
down the other. He saw them step apart as he came at them, low and darting. He
veered, drove his shoulder behind the knees of the man who still had his back
to him, then swung around to grapple with the other. There were no shouts or
cries, just the sounds of effort and desperation: grunts and pained sobs, bony
flesh smacks, ragged breathing, and then a scrabble at the flimsy motel door
and the slick squeal of running shoes on the shiny concrete at the side of the
building.

Wyatt found that he had the cosh in
his hand. One of his assailants was under him, curled against the blows, an arm
wrapped around his face and head.

I give up. I give up, the man
said.

The tension went out of Wyatts arm.
He saw that the door was open, his backpack gone. A starter motor ground
somewhere behind the motel, an engine fired, there was a spin of grit from
accelerating tyres. He got to his feet. Your mates deserted you.

Dont hit me.

Wyatt went to the door and looked
out. It was two oclock in the morning and if this had been a decent
neighbourhood there would have been signs of irritation or query from the other
residents by now. But this wasnt a decent neighbourhood. Wyatt was on the run,
staying in on-site caravans and rundown motels in forgotten towns. So far hed
made it to a place on the Melbourne side of Mt Gambier. He hadnt taken a
direct route, assuming there would be roadblocks and train and bus searches.
Going from outback South Australia to Melbourne via Mt Gambier was the long way
around, but it avoided the police. So who were these hoons and how had they
known about the payroll?

He closed the door and turned back.
The man was whimpering on the floor.

Get up.

Dont hit me.

Im not going to hit you. Get up.

Wyatt watched the painful
articulation of joints and muscles as the man climbed to his feet and swayed on
the carpet. Sit, he said, pushing the man onto the bed.

Wyatt stood above him, very close,
the light behind his head where he wanted it. When the man looked up, all hed
see would be solidity, an implacable shape. Wyatt put some flat menace behind
his voice.

Whats your name?

Mostyn.

Mostyn and Whitney, Wyatt said. Nice.

The man was silent. Wyatt said, But
its not your names Im interested in. I want to know who you are and why youre
here.

We were hired, Mostyn said. He
mumbled it, looking at the floor. He wore a black tracksuit and scuffed gym
boots. There was red hair on his knuckles, red hair cropped skinhead style on
his scalp. He couldnt have been more than twenty-five.

Who hired you?

I mean, Mostyn said, someone hired
the boss to find you, and he put me and Whitney on it

What boss are we talking about?

The man looked up. He had freckles
and anxious, uneven teeth in a thin, dry-skinned face. Mack Stolle.

Never heard of him.

Stolle Investigations? the man
said, the question mark at the end of it saying surely Wyatt had heard of
Stolle Investigations.

You and Whitney, the mate who ran
out on you, youre private detectives? Jesus Christ.

Mostyn wet his lips. Licensed. I
swear it.

A pair of cowboys. You were hired
to rob me?

Mostyn looked away. No.

Who hired your boss to find me? The
security firm running the payroll?

Mostyn raised and lowered his hands.
Not them, no. The boss said it was a private job, some woman in Queensland.
Thats all I know. I swear.

Wyatt didnt know anyone in
Queensland. He didnt know many women, and none that he thought would remember
or want him. He didnt know where to run with this line of questions so he
said, How did you find me?

Some dignity came into Mostyns
voice. We specialise in missing persons. Weve been tracking you since you
hoisted that payroll.

Wyatt bent his face close to Mostyns.
Let me tell you something. I didnt touch that payroll. Someone got to it
before I did.

Mostyn muttered, as though to
himself, That explains the hitchhiking and caravan parks. We thought with
three hundred grand youdve bought your way out of the country.

And you two clowns thought youd
see if you could roll me and buy yourselves three hundred grands worth of
happiness. What were you going to do, tell the boss you couldnt find me?

The man called Mostyn flushed and
looked away. Wyatt tapped him with the cosh. He put no force in it but the
fortified leather connected audibly with Mostyns cheek. Empty your pockets.

Sullenly Mostyn tossed a wallet, a
handkerchief, a set of locksmiths picks and a small vinyl case onto the bed.

Whats in the case?

Mostyn pulled the zip around three
sides and peeled open the top. A syringe and a vial of colourless fluid.

A junkie, Wyatt said. He hated
them. They had changed the face of crime. They were invariably desperate,
vicious and unpredictable. Hed never work with one.

But Mostyn was shaking his head
vigorously. No way. Its a knockout drug. Sometimes the people weve been
hired to find dont want to come home.

A slow, cold smile appeared on Wyatts
thin face. Mostyn saw it and knew what it meant. Hey, come on.

Wyatt smacked the cosh across the
bridge of the mans nose. It came just short of cracking the bone. What do you
prefer, a painless sleep or the bashed-over-the-head kind?

Wordlessly Mostyn stuck out his arm.

Do it yourself, Wyatt said.

For several seconds, Mostyn didnt
move. Then, his movements small and spiderlike, he removed the syringe, and
upended the vial over the needle. Holding it up to the light, he drew liquid
into the barrel. Finally he test-squirted the plunger, pulled up his sleeve,
and tapped the vein in the crook of his elbow. Both men watched the needle
depress the skin, slice gently into the vein. Mostyn pushed the plunger with
his thumb. The vein swelled a little. Mostyn slid the needle out, put a finger
on the puncture, bent his hand to his chin.

Not long now.

They waited. The first signs were
unfocused eyes, an unsteadiness in Mostyns trunk. Then his head dropped, his
shoulders and arms slumped. Wyatt pushed at him experimentally. He fell
sideways onto the bed.

Wyatt opened the mans wallet. He
found credit cards, drivers licence, a card saying that Mostyn was licensed as
a private inquiry agent in the state of Victoria, and two hundred dollars in
cash. From three hundred thousand dollars to twenty thousand to two hundred,
Wyatt thought, pocketing the money.

It was time to move on. Hed paid in
advance for the motel room, so no-one was going to call the cops if he wasnt
around in the morning. He also didnt think the man called Whitney would be
back. But when the cleaners found Mostyn in the morning, the police would be
alerted. This was a lonely corner of the country. There werent many roads out
of it. Theyd stop Wyatt on one of them soon enough, once they knew he was
here.

His only chance was to get rid of
Mostyn. There was a 24-hour Caltex station and roadhouse next door to the
motel. Heavy long-distance rigs had been snarling in and out of there all
night. Wyatt went out the back way, Mostyn slung over his shoulder. It was
easier than hed expected. A car transporter bound for Adelaide in a shadowy
corner. Five Honda Legends on the tray. A comfortable back seat ride for Mostyn
through the night.

Wyatt walked back into the town. The
sky was very black, cloud over the moon, wind gusts agitating the solitary
traffic light suspended above the intersection. It was Saturday but everyone
was in bed. He found the shire council depot next to a Mechanics Institute and
opposite the war memorial, a Great War soldier in leggings, bayonet extended,
pigeon shit streaked down his back. The shires vans, utilities and road
maintenance trucks were locked in a yard behind the office. Wyatt hot-wired a
Falcon ute. It wouldnt be missed before Monday morning, if then.

* * * *

Two

Wyatt
drove east, the road unrolling through pine forests then farmland. Sometimes
the clouds broke up in unheard winds and he caught sight of the sea under
moonlight. In the small fishing towns, spiny jetties poked darkly into the
silver water. The night and the road were long and empty, encouraging in him a
detached sensation, as though he didnt inhabit his skin and bones but rode
along with them.

A few hours ago hed been portable,
mobile, sustained and protected by technologythe gun, the radio scanner, the
cellular phone. Hed had money enough to hide for a few months or to bankroll a
hit against the Mesics, the people who now had the money from the payroll heist
that had gone so wrong in the red dirt country of South Australia. Now? Now he
had two hundred dollars, a set of lock picks and the clothes hed been sleeping
in.

He passed through Portland,
Warrnambool, towns with banks, building societies, Medicare branches. Some
other time. Hed find something in Melbourne, a place where he had contacts, if
not friends. Only a mug would try to hit a bank at night, alone, unprepared.