Garry Disher - Port Vila Blues

‘Yeah, let’s look at you.’

Wyatt had discounted De Lisle as the immediate threat. His eyes went straight to Springett. The gun was a Glock, mostly ceramic, maybe smuggled past the metal detectors. Springett himself stared back, full of forbearance and contemplation, taking Wyatt’s measure. He made no movement, and Wyatt began to ready himself for a pointless contest of wills, but it was over before it had begun. Springett wore the ease of a man in charge. He said, ‘All paths lead to Rome.’

Wyatt stayed neutral, limber, putting his weight on the balls of his feet. De Lisle said abruptly, jerking his head at Springett, ‘Come on, mate. Help me get rid of them.’

Springett snarled, ‘Fuckups like you, you invoke mateship whenever it suits, but you’d shop your own mother to stay out of gaol.’

The differences and tension between the two men became palpable to Wyatt. Some things united them- they were about to go on the run, there was desperation underneath the swagger, they’d swipe at threats-but they didn’t trust each other and Springett clearly thought that De Lisle had been cheating him.

De Lisle flushed. He said stubbornly, ‘We have to get rid of these two.’

‘Like, leave a couple of bodies behind, kind of thing? Give the local cops an extra incentive to track us down?’

‘Well, you sort something out.’

Springett gestured. ‘Simple. We take them with us. Burial at sea.’

‘We can’t leave till the morning, not till after the banks open.’

Wyatt heard Liz Redding cough and spit again. She said, ‘You won’t get far. Why don’t you just give yourselves over to my custody, fly back with me and we’ll forget the assault. You don’t want murder charges on top of everything else.’

She was going through the motions. Still, it would suit Wyatt if Springett and De Lisle did go back with her, leaving him behind to loot the yacht.

But it wasn’t going to happen. Wyatt had only one thing in his favour-he knew about the concealed safe on the yacht and what was in it. Springett and Liz Redding clearly didn’t. Springett was expecting to collect when the banks opened in the morning. For reasons of his own, De Lisle had chosen not to tell Springett that he hadn’t got around to depositing the jewel collection in one of his safety-deposit boxes.

‘Springett,’ Liz Redding was saying, ‘don’t stuff up more than you have already.’

Springett said nothing. He stepped forward and smacked the edge of his hand on the bridge of her damaged nose. He knew what he was doing. He also sensed something in Wyatt, for he swung the gun around warningly: ‘Don’t even think about it.’

He turned to De Lisle. ‘How much is in the house?’

‘I told you, nothing. Walter Erakor cleaned me out.’

‘You trust him?’

‘We mistrust each other. The thing is, he wants the deeds to this house as well. He can’t get them until the banks open in the morning, so meanwhile he’s keeping the cops off my back.’

Springett mused on it. ‘We’ll take these two down to the boat now. Out of sight, out of mind.’

De Lisle spread his arms fatly. ‘At last, movement at the station.’

With barely concealed fury, Springett moved behind Wyatt and Liz Redding. ‘Let’s go.’

They began the descent through the steeply terraced garden, stepping carefully in the light of the moon, De Lisle leading, then Wyatt, supporting Liz Redding, Springett in the rear. Wyatt had reached the halfway point when a voice screamed ‘De Lisle!’ and a fiery light leapt at him from the shadowy house above.

Crystal had been halfway to the crew’s quarters at the Palmtree Lodge after the latest delivery for Huntsman when on impulse he told the driver to turn around and go back. ‘Reriki,’ he said.

Thirty minutes later he was admiring how the other half lived. All he’d ever been able to see from his room at the Lodge were a smudgy coconut-oil soap factory at the rear and an ugly strip of corally beach at the front, but the Reriki cabins were something else. He turned switches: the ceiling fan came on, the aircon, the TV. The bed was queen-size. He went out onto the balcony. Cane chairs, not moulded plastic, and a stunning view of blue water, manicured lawns, the neat, shingled trunks of carefully tended palm trees. The air smelt sweet, clean, scented by tropical flowers and afternoon rains.

But De Lisle didn’t arrive to pick up the case that day, or the next. Finally he rang De Lisle’s house. ‘He come in boat, tomorrow,’ a woman said.

So he watched the house. He saw the yacht tie up midway through the afternoon. Shortly after that, a water taxi collected De Lisle and headed across the harbour toward the island. Crystal left his cabin and made for a secluded alcove across from the reservations desk and the bar.

The management had placed a couple of armchairs there, flanking a coffee table stacked with back issues of Readers’ Digest. There was also a small bookcase crammed with books left behind by resort guests. Crystal flipped through a New Age paperback while he waited. It told him how to own his own life and acquire guilt-free wealth and power as he did it. Well, the wealth would come soon enough. He wasn’t stupid enough to run with De Lisle’s jewels but he did intend to push the man from five grand a delivery to fifty, a fair enough amount considering what he was expected to carry, the risks involved, and being hassled by nameless cops in Melbourne.

De Lisle arrived dressed in tropical whites again, beaming at the staff, shouting bon jour and letting them cluster around and pat and hug him. All an act, Crystal decided. For the next thirty minutes, De Lisle held court at the bar, then eased away and walked on short, heavy legs to the door of the security office, his face damp with humidity and effort. He paid the man, collected the suitcase and disappeared.

Crystal waited a couple of minutes then sauntered down to the ferry. It was five o’clock, tourists flocking back to the island to have an early sundowner at the bar. On his way across to the mainland, Crystal watched De Lisle’s water taxi steer a course among the ocean-going yachts.

At the other end, Crystal headed left, down to the cafйs and restaurants of the little port. He had a coffee, took a stroll, filling in time until evening, when he would tackle De Lisle. A pleasant edginess animated him, a sense of having reached the final stage.

All that evaporated at six-thirty when he reached De Lisle’s house and saw another taxi there, saw one of the Melbourne cops pay off the driver and press the intercom.

‘Keep going, keep going,’ Crystal urged, shaking his driver by the arm.

He got out two streets farther along, paid the driver and walked back, trying to grow into the shadows under the palms on the other side of the road. A cop. That changed things. There’d be no walking in and asking for fifty grand with that cop there.

Crystal watched De Lisle’s house helplessly, his hands slipping in and out of his pockets, looking for somewhere to rest. He looked both ways along the street. Kumul Highway, what a laugh. In that spirit, Crystal noticed the open-air market and the low-slung cement block building next to it. In the late sun of the day it glowed the colour of strong tea. Otherwise it was riddled with salt damp; mangy dogs scratched in the packed dirt around it. Still, it said bar over the front door and Crystal had worked up a thirst coming this far.

He went in. Not too bad. A few tables, booths, wooden floors. Clean-looking. Overhead fans kept the place cool. A few locals drinking. Hell, they even sold Fourex.

Crystal fronted up to the bar. He said, slowly, carefully, ‘I don’t want a beer, I don’t want Bacardi and Coke, screwdriver, none of your tourist crap. Give me a kava.’