Wyatt - 03 - Death Deal (21 page)

Oh. That. Well, the guys been
screwing her.

What else?

This doesnt look like your average
stroll in the sun. As if theyre working out something heavy-duty and hes
laying down the ground rules.

Good boy.

They watched a while longer, then
Stolle gave Mostyn the keys to the Falcon. Take it back, rent something
smaller.

Mostyn had returned with a Mazda.
That evening they followed Wyatt to a motel out on the Ipswich Road. They saw
him stake out the place first, then go in. A while later a man came out,
looking bewildered. Then the Reid woman came out. She seemed to apologise to
him and pressed money into his hands. Then she went back inside and the man
wandered away, scratching his head.

Acting on a hunch, Stolle started
the car. Lets talk to him.

He pulled in several metres past the
man. Mostyn got out. He crossed the footpath to a car showroom window and
peered in. When the man came adjacent to the car, Stolle opened the back door
and Mostyn, moving fast, had closed in with his pistol. Inside, he hissed.

Jesus Christ, the man said.

They had driven him to a dark corner
of a hotel carpark. Five minutes and one hundred dollars later, Stolle and
Mostyn had known for certain that Wyatt and the Reid woman had a job ready to
go. After that it was a matter of watching and waiting.

They had watched and waited for a
week. Little happened in the early days. The three men met twice for short
periods. Anna Reid did not appear again but, curiously, Wyatt staked out her
house a couple of times. Other than that he stayed low, moving hotels every
couple of days. Then, on the Wednesday and again on the Friday, Wyatt had
staked out a house in East Brisbane and followed the man who lived there to the
bank. The manager, Stolle discovered later.

On Saturday, Stolle saw the three
men go shopping. When they stole the cars on Sunday, he knew they were getting
ready to strike.

It was time to stop leaving a paper
trail. Using cash and fake papers, Stolle had rented a Range Rover mounted with
a bullbar. Hed need something with muscle for what he had in mind.

This morning, early, Wyatt and the
others had moved. When Stolle saw them go straight to the managers house, he
knew at once how they planned to get into the bank. When they left in the
silver Volvo, he followed, leaving Mostyn to deal with the hostage taker.
Mostyn with his clever hands.

Now it was three hours later, and
the money was all his.

On his way out of the city, hed
paid for courier delivery of a package. It hadnt far to go. Police HQ. Call it
insurance, call it payback.

Next stop, the International Room at
the Flamingo. Where your big-money boys like to play.

Stolle was grave for a moment. A
shame about Mostyn.

Then he whooped and giggled and
slapped his knee again.

* * * *

Thirty-eight

If
it had been anything elsecomputer fraud, stealing from a trust accountshe
might have got bail, but this was armed robbery and the police argued that
there was an unacceptable degree of risk that she would abscond. So it was
remand in a new, privately-owned womens prison complex in Inala, and Anna
wondered if Wyatt would get to her eventually, revenge for the grief shed
caused him in the past, the grief he was blaming her for now.

At least she knew now that he was
alive. For a while, shed thought he was dead. Shed heard a couple of news
flashes on the tiny radio shed taken to work, and tried to piece it together.
There had been a gun battle at the bank: two men dead, a third escaped with a
limited amount of money from the vault, and then news that a man was dead in a
separate but related incident at the university.

She had felt her control slipping
away. She was partnered to three men and there had been three bodies. No names,
no indication of what had gone wrong. One of those men could have been Wyatt,
and in the minutes before the lift door opened she had allowed herself a prayer
or two, a tribute.

She had not believed in forever with
him, not even in the afterglow of the kind of lovemaking that told her sex
could be more than just a quick loss of joy. But she had believed in six
months, a year. And, a long time ago, three months ago in Melbourne, he had
said they could work together, that he had jobs lined up where a woman would be
needed. Three months, in which there hadnt been a day when she didnt want to
taste again his bitterness, watchfulness and buried humour.

She remembered what it had been
like, seeing him again at the bus station lockers after Stolle had delivered
him to her. His angular face showing too many lines of strain and exhaustion
around the eyes; the hard quickness of his body, poised ready to escape or
fight. Clearly hed had a hard time of it on the run, held together by
fortitude and nothing else, dancing on thin ice for so long that he was almost
through to the chilling black water underneath.

Later, at the bistro in the mall, it
had been hard work. There had been something unrelenting and final about the
way hed watched her, quite still, eyes dark and hooded. If shed been hiding
anything from him she would not have been able to withstand his scrutiny at
all. If hed sensed the smell of something wrong in her story, in her head, he
would have killed her, shed been certain of it.

And he still might, one day. He
would never forgive or forget and the damage was irreversible.

He hadnt touched her at the bistro.
He hadnt even touched her for some minutes when he came to her house. But when
he did, a hand on each flank, hands flat and wide and highly charged, the jolt
had gone straight to the base of her stomach, and shed watched the layers of
caution peel away, letting the man inside surface.

Shed wanted a future with Wyattsix
months, a year. She was never one to tie herself to men whose steps were small
and delicate, one after the other.

And now shed lost it and it hadnt
been her fault.

The questions had started almost
immediately. Detectives from the armed robbery squad questioned her in relays,
first at the City Watchhouse, then at the prison. They wouldnt tell her what
had happened; they wouldnt tell her how they knew she was involved.

They had photographs.

Shed been stripped of her corporate
outfitstockings, skirt, silk shirtdecked out in a prison issue tracksuit and
cheap canvas runners, and taken to an interview room where a dozen glossy black
and whites were fanned out over the table.

Carafe of water. Three glasses.
Ashtray. Three chairs around the table: one that she was pushed into, one for
the man who sat opposite her, one for the female detective who preferred to
stand behind her, leaning her cheaply perfumed head close to Annas from time
to time.

A second woman waited at the door.

The man was called Vincent, the
woman Clyne. Lets start again, Vincent said.

Clynes warm, stale breath stirred
the hair at Annas neck. Some names.

One by one, Vincent spun several
photographs around with the tips of his fingers. Two grainy, long-distance
shots of Riding and Phelps in the motel carpark; a couple more of them in a car
outside a shop; two sharp close-ups of men shed never seen before, both lying
dead in pools of their own blood, one on a carpet in a building, one on gravel
somewhere.

Whoever took those night shots knew
what he was doing, Vincent said. Telephoto, infra-red, the works.

I dont know who these people are.
Ive never seen them before.

Oh please, said Vincent wearily.
The detective was small and buttoned-down and clerkish; they both were.

Never seen them.

Silently Vincent spun a further two
photographs toward Anna. She saw herself at the door of the motel, letting
Riding in, letting Phelps in.

I can meet friends if I want to.

Clyne leaned over her shoulder and
stabbed a bitten-down forefinger on the men at the motel. This man was found
shot dead at the bank. We know who he is, Jeffrey Riding. This man she
indicated Phelps is also known to us: Brian Phelps. Were currently looking
for him.

Vincent pointed to the photographs
of the dead men. This man was also killed at the bank, and this one was found
dead at the university. We dont know who they are.

He paused. Two further photographs
lay face down in front of him and now he turned one of them over. But the man
were most interested in is this one.

Wyatt leaving the motela grainy,
blurred shot, not helped by the automatic caution that governed everything he
did, for he had his collar up, a cap over his, brow, dark-rimmed glasses on his
face.

Anna chanced a question. So you
knew about this all along? Youve been watching?

Vincent looked around her shoulder
at Clyne. A signal passed between them and the woman breathed on Annas neck
again: Looks like youve got some enemies out there, Anna. We got this lot by
courier just a couple of hours ago. An anonymous note with it.

Vincent leaned forward. Anna felt
herself cringing. They both had her hemmed in with their body heat. A citizen
doing his duty? Vincent asked. A rival gang? You tell us.

In a way its no skin off our nose,
Clyne said behind her. Weve got enough here to make a case stick against you.
Well find a way to explain the incidental bodies

They all belong to your gang, for
example, Vincent said. You all had a falling out.

and case closed, Clyne concluded.
Once we find Phelps and this other character.

Phelps will be easy.

Its this other man, Clyne said. Him
were really interested in. Interests you as well, eh, Anna? Something going on
there?

Anna drew her neck into her
shoulders to escape the woman behind her. I havent had my phone call. Im
entitled to a lawyer.

Not if we have good reason to
believe youll tip off your accomplices, Vincent said.

He turned the other photograph over.
Wyatt was still indistinct but clearly holding her shoulders on the South Bank
on that Sunday afternoon a week ago.
Stolle,
Anna thought. Who else
apart from the police had the know-how to run a surveillance like that? He saw
what we were up to and got curious and greedy.

Is he good, Anna? Clyne breathed,
reaching over to tap Wyatts face. Give you a good time, does he?

Vincent leaned back, folded his
arms. Hold onto your memories, sweetheart. Hes the last bit of dick youll
have for a long, long time.

Attractive woman like you, Clyne
said, all that lovely hair, unmarked skin, good education, nice manners,
proper way of speakingyou know how long someone like you will last in here?

Anna said nothing. Shed been
wondering exactly that but she said nothing.

Dont talk, dont trust, dont
feel, thats what its going to be like from now on. But that wont save you.
Theres an element in here that hates what you represent. The merest hint that
youre waving your tits or arse around, theyll shaft you.

Or maybe theyll pussy-tame you.
You might even get to like it, Vincent said.

Shed be better off not flaunting
it, though, dont you think?

Oh, absolutely.

Anna tried to let the words run off
her back and sink into the hard floor. It was cruelty and gutter talk from a
couple of people who looked like adherents to a fundamentalist church and she
would not let it get to her. She closed her mouth in a thin line and did not
speak again.

Clyne said, Come on, Anna. Who is
he?

Are you scared? Maybe we could
arrange something, some protection, Vincent said. What do you think, Lesley?

The woman at the door wore the
nastiest suit Anna had ever seen. It was electric blue, a vampish 1950s film
star outfit in polyester. She came and sat near Anna and smiled a smile of hard
falsity at her.

Vincent stood up, stashing the
photographs in a vinyl briefcase. DC Clyne and I are going now. Youll be
seeing us again.

They left the room. After a while,
Anna forced herself to look at the woman in the blue suit. The name on the ID
pinned to her lapel was Lesley Van Fleet. She wasnt government: she was
employed by the corporation that ran the prison. What happens now?

You and I have a little talk.

Why should I talk to you? Youre
not a cop.

Dont make it hard on yourself,
Van Fleet said. Talk to me. She leaned close. Start with the money.

* * * *

Thirty-nine

Anna
didnt talk. Finally Van Fleet said, Youll be sorry you didnt, and went out
the door.

A custodial officer took Anna down
long corridors, past a methadone dispensary, a television lounge, a library, a
room for table tennis and chess. It was recreation time for the inmates and she
got assessing looks, a cool challenge, one or two grins. They knew all about
her and what had happened. What a bringdown, someone called.