Wyatt - 05 - Port Vila Blues (5 page)

There was probably half a million
dollars strapped to the bike. As Springett had informed De Lisle, it would be
in new bills, consecutive serial numbers, therefore easy to trace. But that was
De Lisles problem. Springett had no intention of ripping off the money
himself. There were fences around who would give him twenty cents in the
dollar, but that would take time and effort and leave him exposed. It was
better to take the one-third cut De Lisle was offering him to identify the
hits. Only De Lisle was in a position to get the full return on half a million,
a haul that would be like hot potatoes to anyone else.

Springett tailed Niekirk down to the
Doncaster freeway and along it to the Burke Road exit. The traffic was sparse,
the lights in their favour. A sweet setup, he thought. De Lisle sends in a
contract team from across the border, men who arent known to the local boys in
blue and who can fade back to Sydney after every hit. The foot soldiers like
Riggs and Mansell get paid a decent flat rate. I get a retainer plus the
promise of a one-third share of the take once the heat has died down and De
Lisle has laundered everything. Ditto Niekirk. And if Niekirk and his men get
arrested, theres a number they can call, a green light to get them out of that
kind of trouble.

Sweet, Springett thought, except De
Lisle has some serious dirt on us, we have to wait for our money, and already
someone has fucked up with that Tiffany.

Springett followed Niekirk onto the
south-eastern freeway and toward Carlton, keeping below the speed limit, the
heavy bike burbling under him. At Faraday Street he stopped and got off the
bike, watching Niekirk make two sweeps of the street and finally make for a
taxi parked halfway along. There were a dozen taxis just like it nearby, all
operated by Red Stripe, a small suburban outfit housed in a narrow tyre-change
and service depot on the next corner. Taxis moved in and out of Faraday Street
twenty-four hours a day, shift drivers clocking on and off at irregular
intervals.

Springett nodded to himself. No one
was going to look twice at a man wheeling up on a bike and transferring his
gear to a taxi. He guessed that the taxi light, meter, radio and Red Stripe
decals were authentic but that the car itself, a Falcon, was simply Niekirks
transport when he was in Melbourne to pull a job or do the groundwork for one.
He could go anywhere in it and no one would question his right to be there.

Springett watched from the shadows.
The boot lid up, his body screening the bootwell, Niekirk transferred the money
from the bikes panniers to the car. Two-thirty. He got in and started the
taxi. Springett kicked the Honda into life and tailed him again, out of the
parking space and across Carlton toward the southern edge of the city,
eventually rolling down La Trobe Street and turning left into Spencer Street.

As far as he knew, this was the
final stage for Niekirk. A courier would be coming to collect the money and
take it to De Lisle. The operation was protected in part by safeguards and
circuit breakers. De Lisle remained as far as possible in the background,
activating the members of his team separately and by message drop. In turn,
Niekirk and his men met only when they were planning and pulling a hit.
Springett and De Lisle stayed in touch via a couple of post office boxes.

It worked, but still, De Lisle had a
hold over each of them and Springett hated it. He liked to stay on top of
things when he could. So far he trusted De Lisle. He had to. But he had no
reason to trust Niekirk, Riggs, Mansell or the courier, whod all been hired by
De Lisle.

He braked the Honda. Niekirk parked
the taxi and fetched a tartan suitcase from the boot. He was outside a place
called U-Store, a self-storage warehouse a few hundred metres west of the big
rail terminal on Spencer Street. It was a long, single-storey building with a
roof and a verandah of red corrugated iron like a colonial style farmhouse. It
looked no more or less out of place than anything else in that part of the
city.

Springett cruised past, U-turned,
parked the bike and waited. He had a fair idea of what the building looked like
inside: windows and doors fitted with sensors and alarms; a couple of security
guards patrolling the corridors; the guard on the front desk taking a while to
get with the flow of the midnight-to-dawn shift, holding a half-full mug of
coffee just beneath his chin, yawning in Niekirks face, stretching and
swallowing a few times as he checked Niekirk into the warren of lockers beyond
the security door, camera monitors flickering silently behind him.

A few minutes later, Niekirk emerged
without the suitcase. Springett watched him get into the taxi and pull away
from the kerb. Bye bye, Niekirk, he thought, and settled back to see who would
come for the money.

But Niekirk surprised him. He
steered the taxi into the Spencer Street bus terminal, which was just a block
away and on the opposite side of the street. Interesting. Maybe Niekirk and the
courier were working the skim.

They were muted hours in the city,
between 2 a.m. and 6.30. A couple of taxis, slow between the lights, their
drivers shoulder-slumped inside, dreaming over the wheel; delivery vans stacked
with the midnight print run of the
Age;
lone cars using Spencer Street
as a conduit between west and east of the river. Dew dampened everything and
Springett got cold sitting there, watching for the hand that would walk out of
the U-Store, carrying a distinctive tartan suitcase.

By 6.30 the station was starting to
breathe again. Springett imagined the echoing chambers underground, the shoe
snap of early commuters streaming from the trains, walking stunned and staring
into the grey light above. He saw them bunch at the pedestrian crossings and
choke the Bourke Street trams. A pub opened its doors to the men hawking phlegm
into the gutter outside.

A man was stacking newspapers and
magazines on the footpath outside the station. Springett saw him stand a box on
its side, wrap himself in a blanket, and sit there morosely, scarcely
acknowledging the commuters who bought their morning papers and pressed money
into his hand, held palm up like a dead creature. But the man did have a
styrofoam cup in his other hand and steam was rising from it and Springett felt
a hollowness in his gut.

He was curious to see a parking
officer rap on the window of Niekirks car. She exchanged words with Niekirk,
all the while looking toward the rear of the car. An interstate coach was
heaving off Spencer Street and into the parking station, road-grimed, snarling,
top-heavy with surly, fatigued passengers. Then exhaust smoke from another big
motor shot into the air and an airport transit bus rattled into life. The
terminal was waking up and Niekirk was getting in the way.

Springett watched Niekirk head the
taxi toward the street. He grinned to himself. Niekirk didnt want to miss
connecting with the courier, but at the same time he didnt want a ticket for
parking illegally. A ticket started a paper trail, placing a driver and a
vehicle at a particular place at a particular time.

Springett saw him judge a break in
the traffic, swing onto Spencer Street and head two blocks away from the
station, to an unoccupied parking meter diagonally opposite the U-Store. He
reversed in, shunted a few times until the car was angled for a quick exit, and
settled back to wait again.

It was 7 a.m. Springett was buffeted
as a number of big trucks gusted past him. It was a convoy, cranes, boilers and
massive preformed cement slabs and pipes heading for a building site somewhere
across the city. They filled the air and Springett might not have seen the
tartan suitcase knocking against a blue-uniformed knee if he hadnt trained
himself in twenty years to ignore the things that had nothing to do with the
job.

Fortunately the lights changed and
the crosstown traffic was stalled long enough for him to watch the progress of
the man carrying the tartan suitcase. He was about thirty-five, medium-sized
with a forgettable, smooth-cheeked face that might never have been scraped by a
razor. The only hair on his head was an inadequate scrape of brown, blending at
the edges with pink skin. A pilot or a cabin steward, Springett guessed,
judging by the blue peaked cap under the mans other arm.

That made sense, if the money was
going straight to De Lisle in Sydney. It was easy for flight crews to avoid
baggage checks, and no one questioned their right to be in an airport or on a
plane.

The man walked back along the
footpath opposite Niekirk. Springett watched, expecting him to make contact
with Niekirk, but he darted across the street and boarded the airport transit
bus.

That made sense, too. The courier
wouldnt risk using his own car for this job, and he wouldnt risk letting a
taxi driver log the journey, one fact among the many that map who we are, where
weve been, that can be used against us one day. The driver of the transit bus,
driving this route many times a week, wouldnt remember the courier.

It all helped to give Springett a
better fix on De Lisle, a man who ensured that everyone who worked for him took
pains and covered himself and muddied any trail that might lead back to the
top. Which probably explained why Niekirk had stopped behind to see who was
coming for the money. Working on a need-to-know basis didnt suit Springett,
either. Knowledge was power.

But now Springett knew that he was
no closer to knowing who might have pocketed the Tiffany brooch after the
Brighton bank job in February. Time for a bit of push and shove. Niekirk was
staying at a motel in St Kilda. Hell keep, Springett thought. First I need to
know from Lillecrapp if Riggs and Mansell pulled anything after they left
Niekirk in the car yard.

* * * *

Six

After
leaving Niekirk and the money, Riggs and Mansell had driven north, Mansell
winding the Range Rover through farming land beyond the hills of the Yarra
Valley, Riggs hunting through the FM bands on the radio, filling the vehicle
with gulps of sound. Where 3UY should have been there was nothing, only a faint
scratching. He switched off and settled back in his seat. Done the locals a
favour tonight, no more golden oldies.

Mansell slowed for a hairpin bend. Whatd
you do to him?

Clobbered him, tied him to his
chair.

Mansell shook his head. Jesus,
Riggsy.

What?

It looks bad. Its the sort of
thing that gets the local boys bent out of shape.

Riggs could feel anger rising in
him. You werent there, pal. He was going for the microphone.

What if youd killed him?

That crap he was playing, Riggs
replied, I shouldve finished the job.

Despite himself, Mansell sniggered.
He said what Niekirk was always telling them, mimicking Niekirks flat tones: Quick,
clean, thats our trademark. We appear out of nowhere, pull the job, disappear
without a trace.

Riggs laughed harshly. Niekirk,
writing headlines in his head.

Mansell said soberly, If he falls,
we fall with him, and for blokes like us thats a bloody long drop.

Riggs snaked his hand out, clamping
his fingers around Mansells lower jaw. But its not going to happen, is it,
old son? Eh? Its not going to happen.

He stared at the side of Mansells
head. After a while he released him. Mansell jerked away, hunching his
shoulders. For the next hour, neither man spoke. Riggs gazed sourly out at the
blackness beyond the shapes at the roads edge and Mansell concentrated on
throwing the Range Rover through the switchback curves of the road.

They had far to go. The airport was
closed for the night and they knew that morning flights, and bus and train
departures, could be monitored. The best option they had was to drivenot all
the way back to Sydney but as far as Benalla. Here they would dump the Range
Rover, change into casual clothes and catch a coach to Sydney. No jobs on our
own turf, as Niekirk put it. Mansell could see the sense in that. Three times
now theyd slipped down into Victoria, robbed a bank, slipped back again,
netting themselves $25,000 each time. He only wished he felt free to pick and
choose, come and go, like your average holdup man.

They drove for three hours in
silence. Mansell broke it first. They were far north now, the Hume Highway
stretching across the sodden plains of central Victoria. Feeling he could relax
a little, he said: What do you make of Niekirk?

Riggs stirred in his seat. Arsehole.

Mansell grunted his assent. What do
you think he does with the stuff?

Spends it for all I know.

Come on, be serious. Someones
behind him, right?

Like a cracked record, this
conversation. We get paid.

Yeah, twenty-five grand a job. Not
much considering the risks involved. You can bet Niekirks getting more.

They lapsed into silence again.
There were a couple of traffic lights in Benalla, an oddly comforting sign of
civilisation after the high country where Ned Kelly had once ranged and stolen
horses and eluded the troopers.

Mansell parked the Range Rover
behind a block of flats in a side street and they changed into casual clothing.
The street lights were far apart. There were no clouds this far north. The
river had flooded and receded again a few weeks earlier, leaving the little
city mud-smeared and damp, smelling of wet carpets and rotting, fecund spring
weed growth. Mosquitoes attacked them.