Wyatt - 03 - Death Deal (19 page)

Who was he? Was Anna Reid pulling
some kind of cross?

Wyatt edged around to the main
counter and crouched there, two metres from the corridor entrance. The gunman
moved first. He came through fast and low, firing rapidly. Wyatt tried to track
him with the .38.

Riding was the first to die. He
stepped out into the gunmans path, readied the shotgun, and caught a slug high
in the cheekbone. Wyatt saw him spin back against the wall and glass split and
fell in shards around him as he slid to the floor.

By now the gunman was past Wyatt.
Wyatt rolled free of the counter, looking for a clear field of fire, and saw
the gunman die.

It was Nurse, dazed and bloodied and
filled with something like hate. He seemed to shake the banks revolver like a
deadly forefinger at the gunman and fire it at the same time. The gunman
pitched over backwards.

Nurse saw Wyatt. He ducked into the
strongroom.

Wyatt moved. He wasnt going to play
cat and mouse with Nurse. He ran for the Volvo, leaving seven strongboxes
behind.

The big car snaked a little until
the rear tyres caught. He heard the boot slam. Out on the street people stared
and scattered. When he was clear of the shopping centre he slowed the car,
pulled off the balaclava. A dense cloud of smoke was building in the east.

At the service station he parked
next to the Camira. Everything was slow and measured now. He transferred the
strongbox to the Camira, got in and started the engine. He backed out, drove
away slowly. No-one noticed him. The drama was somewhere else, the sky acrid
and roiling, sirens on the freeway above.

He looked at his watch. Nine-forty.
Phelps would be leaving Nurses house about now.

At ten oclock he reached forward
and turned on the radio. Thirty-two degrees, winds moderating. Wyatt kept the
needle on 99 kph and looked at the city skyline in the distance. Already it was
limned in a haze of dust and smog in the lifting sunshine. Heading the news
bulletin was an unconfirmed report of a robbery and shootout at a Logan City
bank.

He turned down the volume. Two
million dollars, eight strongboxes. Assuming the money had been divided evenly
among the strongboxes, hed got away with just a quarter of a million dollars.
Riding was out of the picture, so that left eighty-three and a third thousand
dollars each. Make it eighty thousand for himself and Phelps, ninety thousand
for Anna Reid to cover her costs.

Or nothing for Anna Reid if shed
sent in that gunman. Wyatt left the freeway and followed the river around to St
Lucia. Would she have been so stupid? He could think of better ways she could
have pulled a cross on him.

And shed have thought of better
places than the bank for springing a hijack. Wyatt drove behind Womens College
and paused a while. There was the Commodore, Phelps waiting in the drivers
seat. Wyatt rolled forward again, steering slowly off the road until he was
parallel with Phelps. The big man seemed to be engrossed by a pair of myna
birds under the casuarina trees. He didnt glance around at Wyatt, didnt get
out of the car. That was wrong and Wyatt cranked the gear lever into reverse.
He didnt get further than that before a black Range Rover blocked him and two
men came at him with guns drawn.

* * * *

Thirty-four

When
Wyatt and Riding had left with the manager, Phelps slopped milk into his
Nescafe and sat opposite the Nurse woman. As he reached across the table for
the sugar the woman cleared her throat and he saw mucous flip onto his wrist.
It was yellow-white and he shook his hand with a great, recoiling shudder.

The woman grinned so he went around
and wiped it off on her chest. She jerked in her rope bindings.

Nothing was said. Phelps didnt
chance the sugar pot on the table again but found a packet on a shelf above the
refrigerator. He stirred, sipped, pulled his chair back from the table.

Big man, the woman said. Thinks
hes tough.

Phelps guessed that size was the
reason Wyatt had chosen him for this part of the job. He was built like a
fighter across the shoulders. His neck was barely discernible. Hard work and
hard living made him seem big, red, abraded. But all that had no effect on the
woman.

Phelps checked the girl. Wings of
damp hair hung about her cheeks. She was sniffing. He couldnt see her eyes, so
he didnt know if she was crying or had a runny nose.

The phone rang. Watching the woman
carefully, he picked it up. Wyatt, reporting in. For the next hour that phone
sat there, concentrating their attention. Phelps spoke to Wyatt. The woman
spoke to her husband. The daughter spoke to her father.

Phelps drained his coffee and
scratched his face with both hands. Cheeks, forehead, ears, chinwherever the
balaclava touched his skin there was a reaction, an intense itchiness.

Take it off, why dont you? the
girl said. She was getting some spirit back.

God, sweetheart, do you
really
want
to see what he looks like?

Sniggers.

None of this fazed Phelps, and to
show he didnt care he walked to the sink, unzipped and urinated loud and long
over a couple of teaspoons.

The girl pitched about in her chair.
Her hair flew about her cheeks. Thats
disgusting!
Oh,
yuck.

The woman said, We should feel
sorry for him. He wasnt very bright at school and he comes from the kind of
background that doesnt know any better.

But the
smell.

I know, dear.

What about when
we
have to
go?

The woman spat her words. Thats
quite enough. Pull yourself together. Hes not important. You mustnt let him
see you like this.

Phelps hadnt had a better time in
years. You tell her, missus. Think shed like to see my old boy?

I
would. The woman turned
around, making sucking noises. Bring it over. Wipe it first.

Phelps reddened under the balaclava.
He turned away and fumbled himself back into his pants. She had a tongue on her
like a Fortitude Valley tart. It was stupid, engaging in a conversation with
her. She was the sort of woman who came at everything sideways, so you didnt
know where you stood. He could knock the grin off her face but all it would
prove was that shed got to him.

So he ran through the job in his
mind. Wait for Wyatt to report that the time locks were open, then wait fifteen
minutes. Smash the phone on the way out, drive the stolen Commodore to the
university. Transfer the two millioncop that, two millionto the Commodore and
head in a big loop out through Toowoomba and Kingaroy to Noosa on the Sunshine
Coast, then down to the Gold Coast, where Wyatt had reserved a Budget motel in
Surfers. Dont dump the Commodore where it could be found but get it off the street
by booking it in for a valve grind, telling them there was no rush. Divvy the
two million and split. Wyatt was staying put for a while. Phelps guessed he had
something going with the woman. Riding said he was headed for Europe. Phelps
hadnt figured where he was headed yet. Hed told them he was going to Manila,
invest in a bar, but that was just to get them off his back. Wyatt insisted on
knowing everything. He was the sort to get shitty about loose ends.

Time passed like that and then at
close to nine-twenty-five he spoke to Wyatt again. Nurse spoke to the woman and
her daughter. Phelps waited.

Were in, Wyatt said, and Phelps
smashed the receiver against the edge of the table. The movement was sudden and
vicious and both women jumped.

He grinned. Be gone soon. Bet youre
sorry.

He left the managers house at
nine-forty, glad to be out of there. He drove to the university, keeping to the
speed limit, not letting the yellow lights tempt him.

A trend in womens sport that
appealed to Phelps was that instead of shorts they now wore things that were
more like knickers. He drove slowly, eyeballing women jogging on the river
path, stretching their hamstrings on the hockey field. Maybe with his half
million hed become a mature-age student.

Hed just parked the Commodore and
racked the handbrake on when the car rocked and a voice said behind his ear: Always,
always,
check the back seat before you get in.

He didnt hear much after that,
fingers pressing into his carotid artery, cutting the blood to his brain.

* * * *

Thirty-five

Wyatt
freed his .38 from his belt. The men wore boilersuits and stocking masks and
everything about them looked well-oiled and effortless. One man stepped up to
the boot lid of the Camira and jemmied it open. The other stood outside the
drivers door in a shooters stance, aiming a big .45 through the glass at
Wyatts head. The intention was plain: stay put.

Wyatt didnt want to risk a shot. If
he fired through the door the slug would lose itself or be deflected by the
lock and window mechanisms. To shoot through the glass hed have to raise his
gun arm, but a movement like that would invite a bullet to the brain.

So he shifted into first and planted
his foot. The Camira leapt forward and the front tyres hit the low concrete
barrier separating the parking strip from the hockey field. One tyre climbed
the barrier, slewing the Camira a few degrees to the right. There was a yelp as
the flank of the car slammed into the man with the gun, knocking him to the
ground. The rear tyres were spinning, looking for purchase in the gravel. Wyatt
kept his foot planted. Slowly the other tyre mounted the barrier and the front
of the Camira was over. Wyatt heard the bottom of the sump tear away. He wouldnt
get far with a seized engine.

Far enough was all he wanted.

He looked back as the back wheels
climbed the barrier. The first man reached a hand into the boot, neatly
plucking out the strongbox as the Camira finally surged free of the barrier.
There was now a squat blue-metal automatic in the mans other hand. Wyatt half
turned with his own gun. For a moment the two men locked eyes. A kind of signal
passed from the man with the strongbox to Wyatt:
I
will shoot you
from here in the time it takes you to swing around on me. Just go.
Then he
turned away from the car, straddled the man on the ground, and shot him in the
head.

Wyatts jaws snapped as the rear
tyres bit in and the Camira accelerated. The distance from the concrete barrier
to the white, single rail fence around the hockey field was six metres. He felt
a hesitation as the radiator grill tore free a section of the rail. The impact
was enough to swing the car to the left. Before Wyatt could correct with the
steering wheel, the Camira ploughed into a massive turf roller. The machine was
stationary, gathering rust, but it was as big as a boat and heavy enough to
flatten kinks in the earth. Wyatt jerked in his seatbelt, the back of his head
flipping against the whiplash support.

The engine cut out. Wyatt wasnt
going anywhere in the Camira now. He got out. Exactly two minutes had passed
and it had been two minutes of screams and gunfire, yet the only witnesses were
a groundsman on a tractor far away and a clump of cyclists on the ring road.
The cyclists slowed, saw that Wyatt was all right, and sped away again.

But somebody would be calling the
university security patrol soon. The groundsman would want to know why someone
was churning up the field he was paid to keep close-cropped and flat. Wyatt
figured that he had about one minute to get out.

He started to move. The black Range
Rover was pulling away, leaving plenty of rubber behind. In the drivers seat
of the Commodore, Phelps was waking up, rolling his head on his neck.

He was Wyatts ticket out. Wyatt
began to run.

But a look of panic twisted the big
mans face. He fumbled, started the engine, backed out. Wyatt reached the car,
beat uselessly on the side panel, fell back as Phelps accelerated away from
him.

All he could do now was get an
answer to a question. He knelt. The man on the ground was dead, blood seeping
from a wound in the temple. Footsteps sounded behind Wyatt. Using his body as a
shield, he peeled off the mans stocking and pocketed it.

What happened?

Wyatt stood, pushing his hair back
from his forehead and hooking the black-rimmed glasses on his face again. He
turned. Four or five students. Loading distress into his voice he said, It was
terrible. Hit and run. This man was knocked down and I was run off the road.
They just took off like animals.

Animals, someone said.

Anyone get the number?

We should get an ambulance.

He looks bad. Anyone here know
first aid?

Youre not supposed to move them.

Anyone a med student?

They were dealing with it. Wyatt
stepped back. Hed recognised the dead man. It was a face from three weeks ago,
on the Victorian/South Australian border. Mostyn, who worked for Stolle.
Meaning Stolle had the money now. Stolle and Anna Reid.

* * * *

Thirty-six

Wyatt
crossed the road to the joggers path next to the river and turned left, toward
the city. There would be police soon, security men. His only way out was the
Dutton Park ferry.