Garry Disher - Pay Dirt

Leah turned onto Main North Road in Enfield and the city turned ugly. Sunlight blazed from windscreens and chrome in the used-car lots, and massive plastic chickens, hamburgers, tennis racquets and spectacles were bolted above the shopfront verandahs. Leah braked hard, swearing as a kid in a panel van swerved in front of her. The bumper sticker read ‘Don’t Laugh-Your Daughter Could Be In Here’. That’s an old one, Wyatt thought. In fact, the whole city seemed to be about five years behind the rest of the world. Leah braked again, for a bus this time. Diesel exhaust hung in the air behind it and soon the oily fumes were fouling the air in the car.

‘I always forget how shitty it is down here,’ Leah said. ‘I’m spoilt living in the hills.’

‘Bushfires,’ Wyatt said. ‘Developers. Feral cats. Herbicide on the blackberries.’

‘Ha, ha.’

A few blocks before Gepps Cross she turned left into an industrial park. 50% lease! screamed the signs along the fenceline. Grass grew to chest height around the empty buildings. Wyatt counted four stripped cars on the forecourt. Airconditioning ducts, packing cases and empty pallets were stacked along a steel-mesh fence.

‘Here?’ he said.

‘It’s the address I was given.’

Leah followed the main drive past the large front buildings and around behind them to a block of six smaller sheds and wholesale outlets. Three were vacant. The others were a hose and tap supplier, a cane furniture manufacturer and a small transport business. The transport business was at the end of the row and there were two vans parked outside it. A prissy script on the door of each van read ‘KT Transport, Express Service to Country Areas’.

‘Keith Tobin, esquire,’ Leah said. ‘No job too small.’

She parked the car and they got out. A man was on his back under one of the vans. He wore desert boots. He was tapping metal on metal and the soles of the desert boots twisted and turned in sympathy.

‘Mr Tobin?’ Leah said.

The boots were still. A muffled voice replied, ‘Who wants him?’

‘You got a phone call from a mutual acquaintance. You were told to expect us.’

Tobin was not sharp. The boots appeared to be taking in what Leah had said. After a while, the man slid out from beneath the van and stood up. ‘Got you now,’ he said.

Wyatt watched all this, hoping it didn’t mean that Tobin was bad at his job. He saw a vigorous man aged about thirty, dressed in overalls. There were small blue tattoos on his forearms. His hair was cropped short, and a bushy moustache sprouted under his pitted nose. He was loud and cheerful, had vacant eyes in a lively face, and looked, Wyatt thought, exactly like a test cricketer. As he watched, Tobin stripped off the overalls, revealing brief green shorts, a blue singlet and long stretches of healthy-looking skin. Then Tobin put on sunglasses with mirrored orange lenses and said in a rapid mumble, ‘Come in the office.’

Wyatt looked around once before following Tobin and Leah. If there was anyone who didn’t look right hanging around, he’d pull out immediately. He saw no one. He went in.

The office was a mess. Ring-folders and crumpled invoices and receipts littered the desk and floor. There were beer cans on the window ledge. Wyatt didn’t want to waste time. He didn’t wait for Leah but said, ‘Have you got form?’

Tobin took off the sunglasses. ‘Sorry?’

Wyatt waited. It was the only thing to do. The seconds ticked by while Tobin got the question worked out in his head.

‘Not me, mate,’ Tobin said finally. A sullen expression replaced the open, empty look he’d started out with. ‘What’s it to you, anyroad?’

‘You can drive heavy vehicles?’

Now Wyatt was speaking Tobin’s language. ‘No worries.’

‘A low-loader, car transporter, something like that?’

‘Yep.’

‘Are you booked up this week?’

‘Why? What’s this all about? I was told you had a job on.’

‘What about next week? Got any work on that can wait till later?’

Tobin looked sulkier. ‘I’m not exactly swamped.’

‘What about family, friends?’ Leah asked. ‘Anyone who’s going to wonder where you are if you’re away for a few days?’

‘Nup. You better start fucking telling me what the job is pretty soon or you can fuck off, okay?’

Leah seemed to know what she was doing. Wyatt let her handle it. ‘What are you doing this Thursday?’ she asked. ‘Any chance you can make a run up north?’

‘Suppose. What’s it to you?’

‘We want to show you something. Do you deliver to Burra?’

‘Every week. There’s a bloke there owes me for a case of Scotch, five hundred smokes, videos…’

Leah nodded. ‘We’ll meet you there. Thursday, ten o’clock.’

‘Listen, I’m getting pissed off with this. Time’s money. If you want a pro you got to pay for it, and I want something up front.’

‘Nothing up front,’ Wyatt said. ‘All your expenses will be paid and you get a cut on the take if you come in on this. Same terms for everybody.’

‘How much?’

‘Between fifty and a hundred grand.’

‘Each?’

Wyatt nodded.

Tobin whistled. Then he jerked his head, indicating Leah. ‘Is she in this?’

‘Have you got a problem with that?’

‘Well, I mean, you know.’

Wyatt turned and walked to the door. ‘Okay, that’s it, we find someone else.’

‘No, hang on, mate, hang on,’ Tobin said. ‘No offence. Never worked with a bird before, that’s all.’

‘One thing,’ Leah said. ‘I’m not a bird.’

‘Gi’s your name, then.’

We’re pushing him too much, Wyatt thought. He feels that he’s giving but getting nothing in return. ‘Take it easy,’ he said calmly. He gave Tobin their names and described the job. ‘Okay?’ he said. ‘Are you in so far?’

‘Security van?’ Tobin said, making a click of awe with his tongue. Then he made a show of frowning hesitation, as if he was a pro and the job had holes in it. ‘The paint job’ll have to look right.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, look no further,’ said Tobin expansively. He pointed through the window. ‘See them vans? Painted them myself. Duco, lettering.’

Wyatt inclined his head admiringly. ‘Classy.’

Tobin thrust out his hand. ‘Count me in,’ he said.

Wyatt shook it, thinking there was muscle here and not much else. But the job demanded muscle too, and if he could run the operation so it was tight, the weaknesses wouldn’t matter.

Letterman watched as Pedersen came out of his house and got into a Range Rover. The Range Rover looked new. He started the Fairmont, ready to follow Pedersen. He was reminded of the job a security firm had offered him when he was dismissed from the force. They wanted his detective skills, they said. They’d pull strings and get him licensed as a private investigator, and he’d start on $700 a week. The money was okay, but the work wasn’t. Letterman knew about private investigators. They went into the game thinking they were Spensers or Cliff Hardys but soon went sour from boredom. Being a PI meant living in a car and working half a dozen cases at once-tailing wives and husbands, checking credit and employment records, drinking thermos coffee while workers’ compensation claimants ran around on tennis courts, maybe getting out of the car sometimes to guard an exhibition of furs in David Jones. Stuff that for a joke.

The Range Rover’s rear lights came on, the right one brighter and whiter than the left. Letterman had been tailing Pedersen for two days now. On the first day, when Pedersen stopped at a TAB to place a bet, he’d broken the brake light lens with a stone. He hadn’t known then if Pedersen would go out at night or not, but if he did, the broken light would make him easier to tail.