Garry Disher - Wyatt

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Wyatt

[Wyatt 07]

By Garry Disher

Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

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Wyatt was waiting to rob a man of $75,000.

It was a Friday afternoon in spring, and he was parked near a split-level house in Mount Eliza, forty-five minutes around the bay from the city. The house belonged to a harbourmaster for the Port of Melbourne and offered water views but was an architectural nightmarenot that Wyatt cared, hed always known that wealth and crassness went together. He was only interested in the money.

So far, he was down $500, the brokerage fee hed paid Eddie Oberin for the harbourmaster tip. The way Eddie explained it, the waterside unions were powerful, but so was this harbourmaster. It was in everyones best interests for ships to moor, unload, load and depart as swiftly as possible, but some delays were unavoidablea Filipino sailor breaking his neck in a fall, for example; a customs raid, or a strike. And some delays were of the harbourmasters own making: three or four times a year he would quarantine a ship.

The guys salary was pretty good, but he had expenses gambling debts, child support and the cost of running two dwellings. An apartment near the docks, where he lived five days a week, and this split-level monstrosity in Mount Eliza. Hed paid a lot for his view of the bay, the repayments were killing him, and so from time to time he quarantined ships. Another term for it was extortion: give me seventy-five grand, Mr Ship Owner, and Ill give your ship a clean bill of health.

Time passed, Wyatt waited, and he thought about Eddie Oberin. Eddie had been a useful gunman and wheelmana couple of credit union robberies, a payroll hitbut now he was mostly a fence and the kind of man who hears whispers and then sells or trades the things he hears. Five hundred bucks for a whisper in the right ear, thought Wyatt.

Just then a Lexus nosed out of the harbourmasters steep driveway, a smooth, silvery car quite unlike the man himself, who was pale, sweaty and beer-fed, with small features crammed together at the centre of a large, balding head. Wyatt knew all that from having shadowed him for several days, and everything said the harbourmaster would be no threat. Unless hed brought a hard man with him this afternoon, riding shotgun.

He hadnt. Wyatt turned the key in the ignition of a battered Holden utility with Pete the Painter logoed on both doors and tailed the Lexus out of the street. Eddie Oberin had rented him the vehicle. There really was a painter named Pete, currently serving two years for burglary and unable to enjoy what Wyatt was enjoying: the bay waters smooth and shiny as ice, the distant towers of Melbourne like a dreamscape in the haze, the sun beating from the windshields of the vehicles toiling around the dips and folds of Mount Eliza, the opportunity to steal $75,000.

Soon the harbourmaster was heading down Olivers Hill to where Frankston lay flat and disappointed beside the bay. Frankston was testament to the notion that you couldnt have too much commerce, but it was cheap, noisy, exhausted commerce, for this was an area of high unemployment and social distress. Wasted-looking junkies lurked around the station, overweight shoppers crowded the footpaths and sixteen-year-old mothers slopped along, snatching mouthfuls of cigarette smoke and urging their kids to drink Coke laced with downers to keep them docile. The fast-food joints did a roaring trade and little girls paid too much for plastic jewellery in the specialty shops.

And so Wyatt was surprised when the harbourmaster turned off the Nepean Highway into the shopping precinct. Perhaps he wanted a haircut or had run out of bread and milk, and wasnt here to collect an envelope containing $75,000.

The Lexus turned and turned again, eventually pulling into an undercover car park beneath a cinema complex. Wyatt considered his unbending first rule: always have an escape route. He didnt want to drive into the car park. He didnt want to be boxed in by concrete pillars, people pushing shopping carts, delays at the boom gates. He parked Petes utility in a fifteen-minute zone, wiped his prints off the wheel, gear knob and door handles, and entered the car park on foot.

He found the Lexus in a far corner. The harbourmaster was locking the doors with a remote before pausing to glance around uncertainly. He was carrying a cheap vinyl briefcase. Was this the drop-off point? Wyatt hung back beside a pillar, where the weak light from outside and from a handful of overhead fluorescents barely penetrated. The air smelt of urine and trapped exhaust fumes. There was something sticky on the underside of his shoe. His hands felt grimy.

He waited. Waiting was a condition of Wyatts life. He didnt fidget or get impatient but stayed composed and alert. He knew that nothing might come of the waiting. He continued to watch the harbourmaster, ready for a sound or a smell or a shift in the quality of the air that meant hed better run or fight. In particular, he was watching for certain signs in the people nearby: the way a man carried himself if he was armed, listening to an earpiece or staking out the car park; the clothing that didnt look right for the conditions or the season but was intended to conceal.

Suddenly the harbourmaster was on the move again. Wyatt held back as he tailed the man out of the car park and through heavy glass doors that led to the cinema foyer. The harbourmaster led him across the vast space and out onto the footpath. Here Frankstons extremes were most apparent: the glittery new multiplex on one side, a strip of miserable two-dollar shops, a butcher, a camera store and a chemist on the other. The harbourmaster crossed the road and went down into a short mall, where a busker tuned his guitar, racks of cheap dresses crowded the pavement, and exhausted shoppers sat hunched over coffee at a few outside tables.

Soon Wyatt knew how the payment would go down. Seated at an otherwise empty table was a man wearing a suit, an identical vinyl briefcase at his feet. He was young, disgusted-looking, and Wyatt guessed that he worked for the shipping company. The suit knew why he was there. He watched sourly as the harbourmaster nodded hello, put down his briefcase and pulled out an adjacent chair. No talking: the young man drained his coffee, grabbed the harbourmasters briefcase and walked away.

Thats when Wyatt moved. He was counting on swiftness and surprise. He wore a faded blue towelling hat, sunglasses, jeans and a roomy Hawaiian shirt worn over a white T-shirt. Clothing that distracted attention from his face. His features were attractive on the rare occasions he smiled or was lifted by some emotion; otherwise repressive, unimpressed, as if he understood everything. Knowing this, he always hid his face.

He slipped into the vacated chair and his slender fingers clamped pver the harbourmasters wrist.

The harbourmaster recoiled. Who the fuck are you?

Wyatt murmured, Look at my belt.

The man did and went white.

Its real, Wyatt said, and it was. A little .32 automatic.

What do you want?

You know exactly what I want, Wyatt said, increasing the pressure and leaning down for the briefcase. I want you to sit here quietly for five minutes and then go home.

His voice was mild, soft, calming. That was the way he worked. Most situations demanded it. In most situations it was failsafe. He didnt want a panic, a scuffle.

The harbourmaster took in the hardness and long muscles of Wyatts shoulders, arms and legs. Are you from the shipping company? Ill just detain your next ship, you stupid prick.