Wyatt - 03 - Death Deal (15 page)

Good.

Wyatt turned to the third man, Pike,
and saw a problem. Pike had dead white skin, lifeless brown hair badly cut, and
fleshy red lips that he liked to lick. There was an air of smothered misery
about him.

Im told youre good with cars.

Pike winked. He moulded the air with
his hands. Like I was sleeping with them.

What were you in for?

Pikes jaw dropped open. He shut it
with a click, opened it again. What are you on about?

At a guess Id say you were doing
time somewhere until a week ago.

Pike looked uncomfortable. Might
have been.

Its written all over you, Wyatt
said. You havent seen proper sunshine for years. Where were you?

Pike shrugged. Up north. Cairns.

What were you in for?

Pike waved it away with his hand. He
said rapidly, in a mangled, slurring voice: Ah, it was piss-weak. Nothing to
do with driving getaway. They wont come looking for me for that.

What were you in for? said Wyatt
flatly.

I tell you, it had nothing to do
with holding up a bank, whatever it is you got in mind.

Wyatt shook his head. Youre not
listening. I said, what were you in for?

Pike looked to Anna for help. She
nodded. He looked at Wyatt. Friggin sex with a minor, all right? I mean, she
looked eighteen at least.

Wyatt shook his head again. Anna
should have known about this. How long were you in for?

Five.

Years? Out of how many?

Eight.

Youre on parole?

Pike nodded.

You report every week?

Not me, pal. When those doors
opened I was gone, fuckin A.

Wyatt said, Wait outside a minute.

Hey, come on, Im good with cars,
all that caper.

I said wait.

When he was gone, Wyatt said softly,
Hes skipped parole, meaning hes wanted. We cant use him.

Anna looked angry with herself. Sorry.

Wyatt ignored her. How about you
other two?

They looked at one another and then
back at him and said simultaneously, Im clean.

Have you any idea what this job is?
He jerked his head. Did she tell you?

Riding said, No. Phelps shook his
head.

So we can unload Pike without
having to do anything drastic to him, Wyatt said. He looked at Anna. You
brought him in, you pay him off.

He could see the struggle in her
face as she tried to tell herself that this was work. She went outside. They
heard her talking to Pike. Her voice was soft, full of warmth and regret: You
mustnt take any of this personally, okay? Its just one of those things. Youre
best out of it anyway. They are very hard men in there. How are you off for
cash?

Pike muttered something.

Heres two hundred. No, make it
two-fifty. Im sorry about this. Now, take care of yourself.

She put plenty of feeling into it
and the men in the room could picture her comforting hand on Pikes arm, her
warm, perfumed breath close to his befuddled head.

She came back into the room. Wyatt
knew things were okay for now but Pike would feel cranky later, when hed spent
the money and had time to think. By then it would be too late. They wouldnt be
returning to this motel and Pike had no idea what the job was.

Meanwhile Wyatt hoped he could pull
this job with two other men instead of three.

* * * *

Twenty-four

Lovell
banked the Beechcraft steeply as he came in over Goroka, levelled out and
touched down on the Highlands airstrip. Wednesday, 1400 hours. There was no
cross-wind: the airsock drooped like a condom and the smoke from the jungle
villages hung motionless above the dense trees.

He taxied around to a forgotten corner
of the airfield and stepped down from the cockpit. At once perspiration broke
out on his skiri, sticky under his clothing. Some children gathered around him,
waiting. He dug into his satchel, tossed brightly coloured gobstoppers above
their heads. The children shrieked and scattered, snatching the sweets from the
air and scrabbling for them on the ground.

As usual, Pius Agaky was waiting for
him by the Nissen hut where empty drums and out-of-date spare parts were
housed. As usual he was shoeless, dressed in shorts and a white T-shirt. His
beard, moustache and hair were close-cropped, black on skin the colour of
cinnamon. He extended a massive hand. They shook, and Lovell handed over the
satchel.

Pius, he said, Im afraid I
couldnt scrape all the money together for this consignment. Ill have to owe
you the balance, okay? You know my moneys good.

This changes things, Pius said.

He looked over Lovells shoulder,
and Lovell turned, thinking Agakys men had started packing cannabis resin into
the Beechcrafts hold and he was signalling them to stop. But the place was
empty. The children were running away and a pig had wandered onto the landing
strip but otherwise the field was deserted.

Then Lovell saw Saun, Taiang, Daru,
the men who always loaded the Beechcraft, watching and waiting in the shade of
nearby trees. They were all but invisible, some distance away, but he knew that
if he made a run for it theyd get to the Beechcraft before he did.

Come on, Pius, we can sort it out.

Pius called something and his men
came at a run from the trees. They took Lovells arms and led him toward a
hangar while Pius drove away on a scooter. No-one spoke to Lovell. He sat on an
overturned jerry can and flipped pebbles into the jaws of a wrench lying in the
dust. For ninety minutes nothing happened, only an old DC3 rumbling in from the
coast, banking over the jagged green ridges that surrounded the airfield.

Then Pius returned. Someone want a
word with you.

Who?

Youll see.

They went around to the rear of the
Nissen hut. A black Mercedes was parked there. A costly car two years ago, it
was now mud-spattered, sideswiped, pocked with dents. The man who got out said
hello, said Lovells name. The accent came from New Zealand. Turn over a rock
in PNG, Lovell thought, and youre sure to expose an expat.

The New Zealander introduced himself
as Hughes. He was ruddy and mild-looking, with receding sandy hair that grew thickly
behind his ears, as though hed pushed his scalp back like a hat. Lets sit in
the car and talk.

They got in the front seat. Hughes
fired up the motor and turned on the airconditioning, then leaned back against
the drivers door to look at Lovell. Pius informs me you didnt bring the full
amount.

I can make it up. I got ripped off,
thats all.

Hughes had a fleshy smile. Does
your Mr Bone know?

Jesus Christ, leave him out of
this.

It seems to me youre in strife,
old son. Now, the thing is, youve got a plane, you know the terrain, you could
be a great help to us.

Like how?

Hughes said, Up till now its been
sweet, right? A handful of Aussie currency in exchange for bulk amounts of New
Guinea Gold worth a mint back home. Except now the locals want to branch out a
bit and I can see a quid in it for both of us.

Get to the point.

Simple, Hughes said. Guns.

I dont need any guns.

Arsehole, I mean the locals want
guns, some of them. Hughes ticked them off. Youve got your raskol gangs in
Moresby, your tribal factions here in the Highlands, your OPM freedom fighters,
your Bougainville rebels.

It was all politics to Lovell. So?

So they want guns. They cant get
them here, apart from the odd .303 left over from the war.

Lovell shook his head. Where am I
supposed to get guns? What kind of guns?

Hughes took a sheet of paper from
his shirt pocket. Body damp had made it limp. Pius gave me a shopping list.

Lovell ran his eye down the page. It
listed semi-automatic rifles, preferably AK47s, rocket launchers,
surface-to-air missiles, preferably Stingers or RP7s. The names meant nothing
to Lovell. You could fight a war with this stuff.

Too true.

Are you sure you want to do this? I
mean, these guys are strictly stone age.

Theres a buck in it.

These surface-to-air missiles: what
the hell do they want them for?

Hughes laughed. Yeah, I know,
unreal. Its the helicopters, Australian Iriquois on loan to the PNG forces.
They hate them on Bougainville. In the Solomons theyre pissed off because they
reckon their air space gets violated all the time.

Politics again. Lovell held onto the
page by one corner. Where am I supposed to get this stuff?

Use your initiative. Youve got
blackmarket mates in Singapore? Use them.

I dont have to deal with you. I
could kiss goodbye to this and find another source for the Gold.

You could also find sugar in your
fuel tank one day, Hughes said, no mildness about him now. You could find Mr
Bone knocking on your door. The cops waiting for you.

You bastard, Lovell said. He
paused. Ill need cash, big cash, to buy arms.

Unfortunately, thats your problem,
old son. Youll find a way. But look at it this way: PNG is loaded down with
cannabis. Pius and I could fill one jumbo jet a week for you for the next ten
years if you were interested, all for a few guns now and then. So, how about
it?

Lovell was already putting it
together in his head. Buy from his blackmarket contacts in Thailand and
Singapore, the guns moved by fishing boat or yacht to somewhere in Torres
Strait or the Gulf country, then fly them into PNG. If he played this right, hed
be able to cut himself free of Bone eventually.

If he could get hold of upfront
money first, that is.

I tell you one thing, he said. From
now on Ill be supervising every time my kites refuelled.

Hughes winked, as if Lovell had made
a joke.

* * * *

Twenty-five

Nurse
had a compartment in his mind for Lovell, the seventy-five thousand dollars
worth of stolen heroin, his gambling debts on top of that. The door to this
compartment was always open, so he always remembered it was there, but it was
only one compartment after all, and for most of that week he managed to ignore
it, going about his normal life at home, on the freeway, in his office. His
wifes cottagey kitchen, Radio National on his car radio in the mornings,
Angie, the teller with the boobs these things were familiar, unsullied
reminders that life was okay after all. Not great, but he was hanging in there.

Then on Thursday
Lovell came to
his house,
and the badness spilled out like a stain. It was eight oclock
at night, big day tomorrow with the money transfer, so he was only half paying
attention to Joyce and Mignon. They were doing the dishes, Joyce washing,
Mignon drying, Nurse stacking the plates away, when the knock came.

Mignon answered it and she came back
stricken, as if Lovell were a god. Lovell looked tall and lean beside her and
his teeth flashed white in his tanned pilots face. He grinned at Mignon, eyes
crinkling nicely. He grinned at Joyce. He wore a bomber jacket and seemed slangy
and reckless and huge in the little kitchen overlooking the good private school
at the bottom of the hill.

Nurse stumbled through the
introductions and they stared at one another, Joyce and Mignon with their lips
slightly apart. Nurse said, Actually, were a bit tied up at the moment.

Joyce came to life. Nonsense. Get
Mr Lovell a drink.

Ian, Lovell said.

Get Ian a drink.

Lovell asked for scotch, ice, no
water. Joyce said shed have a martini. She never had martinis. Mignon asked
for one too, but both parents packed her off to finish her homework. Nurse
poured himself a scotch as well, and he, Lovell and Joyce sat far apart in the
well-upholstered chairs in the best room at the front of the house.

Having Lovell there seemed to open
Nurses eyes to the room for the first time. It was all Joyce and he hated it,
the berber-look carpet and the chintzy fabrics over everything, an old copy of
Vogue
on the coffee table. Then Lovell raised his glass, said Cheers, and
everything about the man was insinuating and mocking.

Joyce sat like a fulcrum in the
room. Nurse and Lovell both directed the conversation through her. Nurse said, Ian
is one of our biggest clients. Lovell grinned at her, confirming it. Both men
waited.

What is it you do, Ian?

Aviation business.

That must be interesting.

It is.

Finally Lovell leaned toward her. It
was a careless, masculine gesture, full of promise. His brown forearms were on
his knees, his glass dangled from one slender hand, his eyes were crinkling:
the force of the pose hit her like a blow. Nurse saw her swallow. Actually,
Joyce, your husband and I have got some tricky matters to sort out before the
New York exchange opens tomorrow.