Wyatt - 06 - The Fallout (20 page)

The storeroom was small and
windowless. Shelves started at waist height and were crammed with books,
journals, binding boards and gluepots. The paintings were under the bottom
shelves, leaning against two of the walls.

So far so good, Wyatt said.

* * * *

Twenty-nine

Wyatt
began to sort through the paintings, choosing those on Chaffeys shopping list.
He saw that he was effectively gutting the collection. At least half of the
works were worthless, minor drawings and prints. The collections value lay in
the big name oils and watercolours.

Darkness fell over the city. They
cleared an area of carpet in the library and began painstakingly to remove each
painting from its frame. Wyatt knew that it was necessary, but hated doing it.
Each canvas, taut and humming, became lifeless the moment the tension was gone
from it. Rolling it into a cylinder and sliding it into a PVC tube was a final
barbarity. But it happened. It was what art thieves did. I cant afford, Wyatt
told himself, to get sentimental over a few paintings. It hadnt always been
like that for him. Hed once burnt a painting rather than let possession of it
earn him a gaol sentence.

The long night was ahead of them.
Wyatt was used to the waiting game and hed supposed his nephew would be, given
his experience with staking out and robbing banks, but Raymonds jiggling foot
and pacing betrayed him.

Tiring of Raymond creaking out of an
armchair for another prowl of the little library, he hissed, Its nine hours
until morning. Get some sleep.

Raymond dropped to the carpet and
stretched out. He sighed, he rolled onto his back and made shapes with his
fingers against the moonlight. How come you never been caught? Pure fluke?

It irritated Wyatt to hear his life
boiled down to notions of luck and chance. Ive made mistakes. Things happened
that shouldnt have happened, but because I hadnt thought through everything,
not because my luck was bad. And if the cops didnt nab me then it wasnt
because my luck was goodI made sure they didnt nab me.

You shot to kill.

Wyatt hated this. I go into a job
knowing that the gun in my pocket is going to add ten years to the sentence if
I get caught, but also knowing its there to save my life, not take someone
elses.

Wyatt saw a shadow, a kind of
inwards look or memory or emotional trace, pass across his nephews face. He
pursued it. Have you used a gun? Do you want to?

Raymond shook his head violently. No,
no. Just saw someone get shot once, thats all.

Not a pretty sight?

Raymond wouldnt look at his uncle. No.

Wyatt let the silence mount. Then he
went on. Lets say you get stopped by a cop or a guard tomorrow morning. Weigh
up the situation. If you can shut him up just by talking to him, do it. Tap him
on the head if necessary, but not so hard youll cause a brain injury. Better
to render him unconscious by cutting off his air, one hand over the mouth, the
other squeezing the throat. Hell thrash around, but that uses up energy and
sooner or later hell be out cold. Anything in preference to shooting or
seriously hurting someone.

Youve shot people.

Ive shot people who have crossed
me or threatened to kill me or left me no other choice. Never a panic shooting,
never a thrill shooting, never a shooting because I had a sore head that day
and was easily irritated, never a shooting because it was the easy way out.

Raymond draped an arm over his eyes.

Wyatt watched his nephew. Youre
feeling the pressure. So am I. Its normal. Id be worried if you werent.

What if it looks wrong when we go
out the door in the morning?

Then drop everything, walk away,
hang the time and effort and expense. In fact, I always expect the worst. That
way I wont be surprised or caught off guard.

They could have plainclothes out
there in the morning, seeing where the paintings are going to.

Wyatt shrugged. Check for whats
not obvious. Look at body language, the way someones holding himself or
walking. The way hes dressed. If everyone else is in shirtsleeves but one man
is wearing a jacket, maybe hes also wearing a concealed gun.

Raymond laughed harshly. Aim at a
cop, hit a uni student.

You could try running at the cop.

At
him?

It will rattle his nerves, stop him
aiming properly.

Raymond still lay stretched out on
the carpet. He crossed his feet at the ankles and laced his fingers behind his
head. Ill be glad when were in the van. Downhill all the way after that.

Theres a big difference between
getting away and staying away. Theres burning our clothes so we cant be tied
to the scene, all those carpet fibres collecting on your back, for example.
Theres wiping down and dumping the van. Theres the changeover with Chaffey. A
long way to go.

Sometimes, Uncle Wyatt, youre a
sanctimonious fucking pain in the neck.

Wyatt felt obscurely hurt. He said
nothing.

I mean, Raymond said, dont you
ever
enjoy
what youre doing?

To his own surprise, the words
spilled out of Wyatt: Ray, if youve got the nerve and the ability, theres
nothing like it on earth. I know I said drop a job if theres the slightest
doubt, but I also know theres something addictive about testing the odds,
being your own boss, making enough from one strike that would take a
nine-to-fiver ten years to amass. But the moneys not it, not even ten per cent
of it. He paused, searching for the words he wanted, then said, I like using
my head and body well, doing what comes naturally to me in a risky game.

There was silence. Then Raymond
whistled ironically, raised one fist like a winning athlete, said
Fucking
A!

The wrong tone to use with Wyatt.
Wyatt turned away, wondering what he was doing here, with this kid. Raymond was
a distraction. When Wyatt worked with another man he didnt want to have him
always at the back of his mind, having to think of his safety, wondering if hed
do his side of the job properly.

A dull flash in the corner of his
eye. Raymond was sitting with his back to a filing cabinet now, spinning a
coin. It caught the moonlight as it rose from his thumb, reached an apex, fell
into his palm again. It seemed clear to Wyatt that he was expected to notice
the coin. He said, Where did you get that?

Raymond lifted his chin defiantly. My
mate Vallance. Hes a diver, found this wreck. Been there a hundred and seventy
years.

He went on to explain about the
Eliza
Dean.
When he was finished, Wyatt reached out a hand. May I?

He caught the coin. He recognised it
as a Spanish dollar. There had been one in a coin collection hed once stolen
from a house in Toorak.

This is quite valuable.

Vallance reckons a hundred and
seventy-five dollars. And theres more where it came from.

Wyatt let the silence gather around
them. Are you and Vallance mounting a salvage operation? Is that why you need
the money so badly, the business matter you mentioned the other day?

So what if I am?

How do you know its not a rip-off?

Raymond flared, Give me some
credit. Im not naive. I dived on the wreck myself, saw the coins there with my
own eyes. Plus, this is a proper syndicate.

If you say so.

Fuck you. I tell you what, keep the
fucking coin. I wont need it.

The boy was a bundle of nerves.
Wyatt pocketed the silver dollarfor the time being, to keep him happyand said
gently, Its late. Get some sleep. Ill wake you at two, you wake me again at
six.

And so they passed the long night.
At 6 oclock on Saturday morning they shared a flask of coffee and a couple of
fruit pies. At 7.30 the first workmen arrived. By mid morning the R.J.L. Hawke
building rang to hammers, jigsaws, whistled tunes and radios tuned to weekend
sports talkback programs.

Wyatt and Raymond slipped out of the
library just before ten oclock. They walked along the corridor, down the
stairs and out to the panel van with the PVC cylinders under their arms. Some
of the workmen were outside the building, smoking, yarning, tipping the dregs
of their morning tea onto the ground. They saw Wyatt and Raymond and went quiet
and still.

Morning, Wyatt said. He read their
hostility. It was all focused on that word asbestos. With any luck, he thought,
after a weekend of football replays and the pub and squabbling kids, asbestos
will be all they remember.

The foreman scowled. Didnt see you
arrive. You blokes find anything?

Clean as a whistle, Wyatt said,
and felt them relax around him.

Wyatt and his nephew loaded the
stolen paintings into the rear of the panel van and drove slowly through the university
grounds and out onto the depressed streets of West Heidelberg. Wyatt turned on
the radio, fiddled with it, found the 10 oclock news.

The first item was the discovery of
the body of Steers girlfriend, Denise Meickle, in a shallow grave in
Warrandyte. She had been shot in the head.

* * * *

Thirty

Wyatt
yanked hard on the wheel, bringing the panel van in a skewing slide across the
path of an oncoming bus and onto the forecourt of an abandoned Mobil station.
He steered down the side of the service bay and braked nose to nose with a
wheelless Cortina.

You useless little shit.

He turned, looked at his nephew. The
movement was slow and deliberate, his expression carrying a chill. He took in
one aspect of Raymond after another, quartering him, finally resting on Raymonds
face. You shot her.

No way. Probably Steer, not me.

Wyatt sidearmed his nephew in the
throat, a chop with the side of his hand that rocked Raymonds head like a
punching bag.

Raymond screamed once, a choked,
liquid cry of pain and fear, his eyes wild. Dont hit me. Just dont hit me.
All my life Ive been hit.

For just an instant, Wyatt stood
apart from himself and didnt like the man he saw there, sitting cold and
clenched, ready to strike out again. He wished that Raymond was a stranger to
him. He was linked to Raymond by blood, and that was the complicating factor.
He put his arm down, relaxed his fist. I wont hit you, but I want you to tell
me about it.

Raymond croaked, It wasnt me
killed the bitch. Steer.

Wyatt aimed for Raymonds stomach
this time, a hard jab that drove the breath from his body. You were in a mess
when I found you outside the door of your flat. A rough night out, you said,
but there was blood on your sleeve and you looked bad. You shot her and it made
you sick to the stomach.

There was a tearing sob. She wouldnt
shut up. Always snivelling on about Steer, had he run out on her, would she see
him again, what should she doit drove me nuts. I had to get out. When I came
back the place was dark and I shot her by accident. Hey, what are you doing?

Wyatt removed the keys from the
ignition. The story sounded more or less right. But even if Raymond hadnt shot
Steers girlfriend, the complication was more than Wyatt was prepared to stand.
He cranked down his window and tossed the keys over the dividing fence into an
overgrown garden.

What the fuck?

Wyatt reached for his door handle. We
abandon. We walk away from this like it never happened.

Hysteria crept into Raymonds voice.
He clutched Wyatts arm. We cant abandon. We got out safely, we got the paintings.
Theres no need.

It all feels wrong now. Instinct
tells me to get out. You shot heryouve probably still got the gun in your
possessionand that means double the heat. How do I know what other ways youve
fucked up? Maybe you were seen shopping in Warrandyte. Maybe she was found a
few days ago and all this time theyve been moving against you. Were walking
away from this, Ray. You go your way, Ill go mine. Thats it.

As Wyatt reached for the door,
Raymond tugged the Ruger automatic from an inside pocket of his overalls. He
ground the muzzle against the hinge of Wyatts jaw, hissed: We take the
paintings to Chaffey, now. We get our money. Then we split.

Too dangerous.

I need that money.

Walk away from it Ray, Wyatt said,
reaching up idly to push the gun away, then leaning under the dash and ripping
hard on the wiring.

Sobbing, You bastard, Raymond
smacked the butt of the Ruger down on Wyatts bare scalp, full force, several
times. Wyatt felt a disabling blackness. Raymonds sobs receded behind a foggy
wall of pain, blood pooled in the hollow of his collarbone, and all he wanted
to do was curl up and nurse the pain. He had no inclination for fighting or
flight.

Much later, Wyatt awoke, an island
of misery behind the steering wheel of a stolen panel van. He shivered. He
could not control his teeth, feverish and unquiet in his mouth. He remembered
Liz Reddings warm hands on his poor skull. They had been two days out of
Vanuatu when a rogue wave knocked him off his feet and he clipped his forehead
on the mast. Sometimes she came back to him like that.