Garry Disher - Cross Kill

He turned his attention to Leo. ‘All you have to do is act natural tomorrow night. Surprised, angry, scared of the guns. No heroics.’

‘Yeah, well, one thing’s for sure: I’m not risking the money. I’ll put, say, twenty thousand in the safe, the rest in a safety deposit box in the bank. We can afford twenty grand if something goes wrong, we can’t afford two hundred grand.’

Bax shook his head. They’d been through all this. ‘He’ll know something’s wrong, Leo. He’s expecting big money tomorrow night, and he’ll be pissed off if it’s not there. We don’t know how he’ll express it: trash the house maybe, pistolwhip all of you till you say where the money is. Don’t worry. I’ll retrieve it for you, make sure it’s not logged as evidence.’

‘If you stuff up, Bax, I’ll have your guts for garters, I’ll spill you to Internal Affairs, I’ll take the money out of your hide.’

Leo was hot-faced, his voice heated, so they both said, fair enough, understood, and Stella patted his arm.

Then Stella said, apparently siding with her husband, ‘Bax, they could hurt us, just for the hell of it or so we don’t hassle them. Maybe we should go out for the evening?’

‘One, that will make them suspicious, all that money there and no one to keep an eye on it. Two, hurting people is not this Wyatt character’s style. We know of a dozen bank and payroll jobs he’s pulled and in each of them he took pains to keep people calm. The only ones who ever got hurt were people who crossed him or pulled a gun on him.’

Meaning, Leo, if you’ve got a gun, hide it somewhere, don’t go wearing it tomorrow night. Bax watched the big man carefully, hoping the message was getting through.

‘Just act normal,’ he said. ‘Have Victor over for dinner, make the job easier for these characters.’

Victor Mesic was feeling acutely alert and alive. It was Thursday evening, and he’d just spent an hour on the Nautilus gear, finishing with a sauna and a shower. Seven o’clock, everything blurred and softened in the half light of evening, all his senses heightened. His Saab gleamed darkly, a mean, squat shape. He could smell onions cooking somewhere. Birds were settling in the short young gumtrees around the car park perimeter. Bass notes drummed from a weatherboard house opposite the gym.

Then a car door opened, clicked closed softly, and suddenly something about that didn’t feel right to Victor. He was sure of it when a gun barrel probed the hinge of his jaw and a voice whispered, ‘That’s not my finger, Vic’

He froze and put up his hands.

‘Don’t be a dickhead,’ the voice said. The gun nudged him. ‘Open the door, passenger side.’

It was finally happening, just as he’d warned them it would, opposition firms moving in on the family itself. Victor fumbled a key into the lock and opened the door. ‘Slip across to the driver’s seat,’ the voice said.

Victor stood there. He wanted badly to relieve the pressure on his bladder. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ It came out as a croak.

‘Just get in the car, Vic,’ the voice said, and Victor felt the gun dig into his spine this time.

He got in. He felt the gun tickle his ear as the man followed him into the car. With the interior light on, Victor saw the gunman’s face clearly. It was a narrow face full of scooped shadows and hard planes. If a face like that ever smiled, it would still look bleak and detached. The body was long and loose. The man seemed to fold up in order to fit into the little car. He was wearing latex gloves. ‘You can have my wallet,’ Victor said. ‘Take the whole car if you like. Just leave me here.’

‘Maybe later, Vic. Right now, all I want you to do is drive home.’

The voice was low, calm, and somehow reassuring. ‘Home?’

‘Through the gate and into the grounds. No one’s going to get hurt, so there’s no need to go off half cocked about anything. Another vehicle will be coming in immediately behind us. No noise or fuss means no one gets hurt, nothing gets broken, okay?’

‘You won’t get away with it. We’ll put the word out on the street.’

The gunman tapped the barrel on Victor’s knuckles. ‘Drive, Vic. That’s all you have to do for now.’

Something about the man’s stillness made Victor work the Saab’s gears and pedals hard, getting the full effect of the car’s acceleration and exhaust note. He stopped that when the man said, ‘Grow up.’

Ten minutes later the dark mass of the man stiffened and he peered forward through the windscreen. ‘We’re almost there. Okay, Vic, I know the gate is operated by an electronic signal. I want you to open it, then drive into the grounds, wait for the van behind us to drive in, and shut the gate. Then park outside your house. If you activate any sort of alarm at all, I’ll shoot both your kneecaps. You’ll never walk properly again. Do you understand what you have to do?’

Victor didn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded.

‘Fine. We’re going to get along just fine, Vic. All right, slow down, blinker on, open the gate.’

Victor did all that. The only hope for him came when Stella appeared on the steps of her house, shading her eyes from the headlights. He wound the window halfway down to shout something, but the gun changed his mind. The gunman murmured, ‘I’m a friend you’ve brought home for dinner, okay?’

Victor nodded. He stopped the car and opened the window fully. ‘Stella,’ he said.

‘I wanted to catch you before you went in,’ Stella said, ‘to invite you to dinner.’

Victor jerked his head. ‘Actually I’ve got a friend with me.’

A strange look came and went on Stella’s face and Victor heard her say, ‘Why don’t you both come?’

There was a low, pleasant voice next to Victor, a gun in his ribs: ‘Why not? That all right with you, Vic?’

Victor nodded.

Then a second set of headlights swept over Stella. She stepped back, frowning. ‘Telecom? What do they want?’

‘No idea.’

Victor needed guidance here. He looked at the gunman. Stella was walking toward the Telecom van, maybe into the face of another gun. ‘What now?’

The gun pressed harder. ‘Close the gate, switch off and get out of the car. Don’t try to run or shout or do anything at all.’

Victor got out, stood waiting on the gravel drive. The man joined him. Victor didn’t speak again: the barrel jammed against his kidney was conversation enough.

Then the Telecom van’s lights went out. The air was mild, the strongest stars fighting through the city’s night glow. Victor heard footsteps coming toward them along the drive. Feet scrabbled for purchase, someone swore, the footsteps came on again. Two figures appeared, Stella walking ahead of a second man. He was like the first, tall, hard and easy with his size and the gun in his hand. Stella stopped when she reached them. Full of loathing, she said to both gunmen, ‘You won’t get away with this.’

Wyatt would have liked a dollar for all the times he’d been told that. He pressed his.38 against Victor Mesic’s temple and said around him to the woman, ‘We’ll get away with it.’

She scowled. ‘I mean after. Any idea who you’re dealing with here?’

Wyatt had heard that a few times too. He said, ‘We’re going into your house. Time to find your husband.’

They went in by the front door, Stella Mesic first, followed by Jardine, Victor and finally Wyatt. He looked around. Concealed lighting smeared striped wallpaper and threw the shadows of clocks onto the parquet floor. The place seemed to be full of clocks: fussy gilt affairs on spindly tables, a couple of grandfather clocks in wall recesses. Wyatt told them to stop in the hallway. The woman had been cooking; he could smell curry. Light spilled out of a half-open door nearby; a TV muttered; somebody coughed.