Authors: Garry Disher
There was sufficient light for him
to see that the first farm building was an implement shed. It was empty, facing
the next building, a hayshed constructed of gum tree logs and rusty iron. The
roof, of mouldy, weather-stained thatch, had collapsed. The yard around the
shed and the distant farmhouse was a mess. Empty drums, tangled fencing wire,
engine blocks and rusty harrows and ploughs were trapped in the stiff, dry
grass. A small tree was attempting to grow through the roof of an outside
toilet.
Then he examined the house. The
walls were standing and most of the roof was up. That was all Wyatt needed to
know about the farmroom for vehicles and a team of men.
He walked back to collect the bike.
* * * *
EIGHT
That
was Wednesday. On Thursday Wyatt woke with the dawn, feeling stiff and bruised
from the hard ride the previous afternoon and the unyielding floor that had
been his bed. Hed heard rats in the night. This morning there were rat
droppings near the sleeping bag. He could smell dust and the damp staleness of
the walls and floors. Outside, the sparrows and finches were making a racket,
but he didnt mind that, and the sunlight was soft and warm.
His breakfast was black coffee,
sweet and strong, and muesli bars. He explored the area around the house and
assessed the surrounding hills. The farmhouse was set higher than hed
remembered it, which was good, for it gave a clear view of the approach roads.
There was a way out of the valley behind the farm along a twisting, rutted
track. The implement shed had doors on it and room for a couple of vehicles.
The house itself was habitable enough to shelter three or four men for a few
days.
Wyatt had a delayed getaway in mind.
Instead of running, and risking roadblocks, theyd hide in the area until the
heat was off. The roadblocks would come down after two or three days, and theyd
make their run then.
He washed and shaved in a zinc
bucket, put on clean jeans, a leather jacket and the helmet, and rode out of
the valley. According to the road and ordinance survey maps that Leah had
bought for him in Adelaide, Goyder was seventy kilometres from Belcowie, making
it ninety kilometres from the farmhouse. Wyatt didnt bother with back roads.
He headed for the bitumen and made Goyder well before the shops and banks had
opened.
Goyder called itself a city, and
reinforced the notion with parking meters, three sets of traffic lights and a
pedestrian mall. There were branches of Myer and David Jones in the mall, and a
convent, a high school, a TAFE college and a hospital on the outer edges. It
had fast-food and video joints, and service stations on every corner. Trigg
Motors sprawled over an entire block. There were coin barbecues and a
Christ-in-the-Manger scene in the memorial park. Goyder was vulgar and it would
have been smug if the local landowners had had more money to spend in it.
Wyatt found Steelgard on a street
behind Trigg Motors. There was a motor accessories shop opposite, so he propped
the bike outside that and watched the Steelgard place in the window
reflections. The time was eight oclock and Steelgard was opening its shutters
and doors. He saw people go in the front door, and then the gate at the side
was opened, revealing an open garage and a parking apron. As Wyatt watched,
drivers got into three of the Steelgard vans and drove them out and across the
street to the diesel bowsers at Trigg Motors.
Just then a pimply kid came along
the footpath. He stopped next to Wyatt and unlocked the front door of the shop.
He wore moleskins, desert boots and a skinny leather tie over a khaki shirt. He
smiled at Wyatt. Great day, he said.
Sure is, Wyatt replied. Although
he still had the helmet on, he kept his face averted. Who knows, the kid might
have a photographic memory.
Help you with anythink? the kid
asked.
Just riding through.
Fair enough, the kid said, and he
went inside and opened up the shop.
Wyatt fired up the Suzuki again, swung
round so that he could see the Steelgard place more clearly, and rode out of
the city.
He didnt know where else Steelgard
went on Thursdays, but he did know there was only one road out for the van
delivering the Belcowie payroll. He waited for it in a layby on the outskirts
of Goyder. A fruit and vegetable stall was set up there, so he ate an apple
while he waited. The land here was richer than around Belcowie. Small wineries
and horse studs patterned the flats and nearby hills.
The Steelgard van went by shortly
after eight-thirty. Wyatt gave it a minute, then tossed away the apple and set
off after it. He stayed well back. He didnt use the headlight. If the driver
was alertand Wyatt had to allow for a reasonable degree of alertnesshed see
only a distant, intermittent shape on the road behind, if anything.
By the time the Steelgard van was
nearing the end of its run in Belcowie, Wyatt had followed it for three and a
half hours. It stopped at eight banks and two building society agencies in nine
different towns. Each pick-up and delivery took ten minutes. There was only one
other stop, at ten oclock, when the driver pulled over in a busy town to buy
takeaway coffee. The van kept to the speed limit, obeyed all the road rules and
stayed on the main roads.
Between stops, Wyatt thought about
the van itself. It was the same short-wheel-base Isuzu, with the same two-man
crew hed seen in Belcowie. The bodywork looked to be one-centimetre steel
plate. The smoked-glass windows were probably bullet-proof. The rear doors
looked more promising. The locks were concealed but the hinges werent. They
could be prised off with the right tools. The ventilators also looked
promising. If he could be sure that Steelgard was too lax to carry gasmasks, hed
try dropping tear gas down the ventilators.
He recalled other security van
snatches that hed pulled. There had been the time his gang came in underneath,
forcing a way through the mesh floor of the van, and the time theyd forced a
way through the engine bay to gas the driver. Both methods had worked, but
required time and a great deal of effort, starting with detour signs to lure
the van somewhere quiet, and experts to work the expensive, noisy cutting gear.
But you couldnt rely on using the
same method twice. The security firms had got wise. Soon drivers were always
varying the route and never straying off the main roads. If confronted with a
detour sign they radioed in for the okay before taking it. The vans themselves
became harder to penetrate. Wyatt had heard of concealed aerials in the wing
mirrors, sirens that could wake the dead, sonar tracking signals and complete
shutdowns where the brakes locked and none of the doors would open.
He wondered if Steelgard had moved
up to that kind of protection. He doubted it somehow. But that didnt mean it
would be easy. He still had to find a way in. There was still the radio link
the van would maintain with the Goyder base. There were still witnesses to
consider. The main roads here couldnt be called busy, but even one car every
five minutes was one car too many.
The solution to the problem of
witnesses presented itself on the last stage of the Steelgard run. Wyatt was
following the van along a firm dirt road that looped around to Belcowie when he
saw flaring brake lights and a back-up of dust. The van was turning off the
good dirt road and onto a lesser dirt road. It was taking a short cut.
Wyatt throttled back. He didnt go
in but stopped to examine the vans tyre tread pattern in the dust. He would
follow again next Thursday. If they used the same route he would hit them the
following week.
The way into the money itself hed
worry about later. The vans radio was a different matter. Hed call Melbourne
tonight, ask Eddie Loman to send him someone whod have the equipment and
know-how to jam it.
* * * *
NINE
Gabe?
Yeah, Gabe Snyder said.
Eddie Loman here.
Snyder didnt reply for a moment. He
was braking gently, the car phone at his ear, allowing the moron ahead of him
to cut left into Waiora Road instead of Lower Plenty Road. Snyder didnt want
to hit anything. His Toyota van was the latest model and it was full of the
latest radio and cellular phone gear. He waited for the moron to get a few car
lengths ahead and said, Eddie. Long time no see.
Eddie Lomans voice faded in and
out. Snyder attributed it to distance and to the hills in this part of
Melbourne. Say again? he said.
Busy tonight? Eddie Loman
repeated, and this time his voice came through loud and clear.
Well, you know, Friday, Snyder said.
Catch the action at the Cadillac Bar, maybe.
Can you drop in and see us first? I
might have something for you.
It was freaky. Snyder could hear
Eddie Loman clearly now. He accelerated through the intersection at the corner
of La Trobe University then slowed on the other side. La Salle Park
Psychiatric Hospital a sign said. Snyder looked at his watch. It was four oclock,
visiting time. Thered be a few cars in the grounds, perfect cover, just as he
liked it. Six oclock all right? he asked.
Then the signal faded again. There
was a crackle that he hoped was Eddie Loman signing off, and the line went
dead. Snyder replaced the handset of the car phone and concentrated on his
driving. His mouth dropped open when he did that. It was a large, damp mouth in
a loose, pouchy face. The pouchiness helped to conceal the acne a little. The
hair helped too. It was curly, salt and pepper coloured, and he wore it to his
shoulders. In 1969 hed been called up for national service in Vietnam. Hed
opted for a radio course so he wouldnt have to fight, but the army barbers had
still cut off all his hair. Hed spent the years since then making up for the
indignity.
Normally he wore overalls, always
dazzling white Yakkas, great-looking against the tan he kept topped up in the
Lifestyle solarium. But hed discovered, the first time he cruised the La Salle
grounds, what a drag the overalls were, so today it was green Stubbie shorts,
Reeboks and a T-shirt. He also wore Nepalese rings and bracelets, bought cheap
from weekend stalls on the Esplanade.
He turned the Toyota into the
hospital grounds. Lawns stretched for miles, interrupted by walking paths,
seats, flowerbeds and clumps of European trees. Most visitors turned right,
taking them to the main buildings. Snyder took the left fork, which circled the
hospital perimeter. Staff and visitors rarely ventured where he was going.
He rolled down his window and
listened. The Toyota echoed off the bluestone wall on his left and the belt of
weeping willows on his right, sounding like a sewing machine. Snyder was
disgusted. The trouble with all the greenhouse shit they bolted to engines
these days was not only loss of power but also loss of a decent exhaust note.
Then Alice stepped out from the
trees and waved. Snyder looked at his watch: four fifteen. When hed come here
on Monday hed said to her, Ill be back Friday, okay? Friday,
quarter
past
four.
Hed said each word slowly and clearly, hoping theyd register
but knowing they mightnt. After all, she was in here because her brains were
scrambled.
But she had understood him, and here
she was, four-fifteen, waiting for him. He stopped the van where it was
screened from the hospital administration block by trees and watched her
approach. Her hair had been washed this time. It floated free from her head
like bits of spider web in a breeze. Her jaws were busy with chewing gum again.
Hed smelt it on her breath on Monday, Juicy Fruit or something. She looked
doped to the eyeballs again, her skin blotchy, a bit of dribble on her chin.
Forget the face, Snyder thought. Put
a bag over it. He smiled at her through the glass and opened the passenger
door. Jesus Christ. She was actually blushing and moving her shoulders around
as if she was a teenager getting into her boyfriends car for the first time.
Shed been around, though. She looked to be about thirty. Now and then on
Monday shed almost made sense some of the time.
Alice, he said.
Alice got in and shut the door and
slid across the seat and put her tongue in his ear and her hand inside the leg
of his shorts. Snyder was glad he didnt have the overalls on. Did you bring
them? she asked.
Snyder played with her. Bring what?
Instantly her arms went around
herself, her mouth turned down and her eyes went ugly with tears. Smokes, she
said. Nice things.
Oh, that, Snyder said.
Please.
Smokings bad for you.
The mouth opened again and wailed, You
promised.
Settle down, Snyder muttered. He
managed a smile. Youre not being fair, he said. If I give you nice rings
and nice smokes, you have to give me something in return. Its not fair
otherwise.
It was amazing how easy it was to
switch her off and on. Shed said on Monday that shed been in La Salle for
fifteen months. Snyder felt the shrinks should have done something for her in
that time, but she was still fucked up. As he talked, he watched her face. A
flooding look of relief and gratitude passed across it, followed by dismay,
followed by a look of lust that was almost enough to turn him right off. Her hands
and tongue started to go all over him as they had on Monday, and he told
himself again, forget the face.