Garry Disher - Kick Back

The old woman gulped and nodded.

Then Sugarfoot said, ‘Don’t make me use this, okay?’ He had opened his denim jacket; Wyatt saw the butt of a small automatic pistol in his waistband.

The old woman closed her eyes.

‘We won’t hurt you,’ Wyatt said. He elbowed Sugarfoot to one side and clasped the old woman’s elbow and led her to a small antique chair next to an antique hallstand. A telephone stood on the hallstand. ‘Sit here,’ Wyatt said, pushing down gently on her shoulders. He turned to Sugarfoot, said, ‘Tie her,’ and unplugged the telephone.

‘Not so tight,’ he said, watching Sugarfoot. ‘Now, wait by the front door. If you see or hear anything, come and get me. No heroics. I’ll start upstairs.’

‘I got two hands. I could be doing down here.’

‘I said wait.’

Wyatt felt free now. He could start work. He was tall and hard, but as he ran noiselessly up the stairs he felt light and potent and elastic. At the top he paused, then made for the master bedroom at the front of the house. He stood in the doorway and examined the room. King-size bed, dressing table, wardrobes, Tibetan rugs on the carpet, half-open door to the ensuite bathroom. The curtains were closed. He crossed the room and turned on a bedside light. The Cartier bracelet was in the jewel case. No Piaget watch, though. She’s wearing it, Wyatt thought. He put the bracelet in his pocket, ignoring rings and brooches. He found Frome’s Rolex and put it in his pocket.

He went downstairs. The dining room was also at the front of the house. According to Ivan’s shopping list, the Meissen dishes and silver goblets were in the sideboard under the window, the Imari vases and the eighty-thousand dollar antique clock on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. He found them and wrapped each piece in foam sheets and packed them into a polythene bag.

Frome’s Krugerrands and rare coins were in a desk drawer in the study. Most of the coins sat in moulded green baize in a long wooden box. Some individual coins were wrapped in small sealable plastic bags in small boxes. Wyatt tipped all the coins into a second polythene bag and returned to the entrance hall of the house.

Something was wrong.

Sugarfoot was no longer there, only the housekeeper, and she sagged in the chair, her chin on her chest. Wyatt put the bags on the floor against the wall. Still wearing his gloves, he eased the tape away from her mouth and lifted her chin.

A red weal marked her cheek. Otherwise her features were slack. Her blouse was unbuttoned and one stocking had slipped to her knee. He felt behind her ear for a pulse. Even as he found it he felt it flutter and stop. He let her go and stepped back, imagining it: Sugarfoot, pacing up and down, his impulses clashing with his intelligence, taking his grievances out on the woman.

Wyatt punched her chest several times and tested for a pulse. Nothing. He stepped back from her again for a last look around. Further along the hall the door to one of the rooms was open. It had been closed before. He looked in. It was a small, comfortable television den. Apart from some expensive paintings on the wall, it was unpretentious. But there was an asymmetry about the way the paintings were arranged on one of the walls, and Wyatt, crossing to investigate, discovered an empty hook.

He went outside and said softly, ‘Sugar.’

Sugarfoot Younger was closing the boot of the taxi. ‘Yo?’

‘Give it to me.’

Sugarfoot frowned as though puzzled.

‘The painting,’ Wyatt said patiently. ‘Give it to me.’

‘Are you kidding? Do you know what it is?’

Wyatt said nothing, his thin face tight. He held out his hand.

Sugarfoot, disgusted, opened the boot and removed a painting the size of a handkerchief. The frame was thick, ornate, the gold paint flaking. Wyatt returned to the house and rehung the painting. He was not interested in the name engraved on the brass plate.

He went out to the taxi, leaving the polythene bags and the body where they were. A cold fury had settled in him. In other circumstances he’d have left Sugarfoot’s body there too.

Sugarfoot was leaning against the door of the Yellow Cab. He saw Wyatt come out and tossed away his cigarette. ‘Where’s the jewellery and stuff?’ he said.

Wyatt ignored him. He stepped on the cigarette, picked it up and put it in his pocket. He felt close to the edge. He said savagely, ‘We’re leaving everything behind. Get in and drive.’

Sugarfoot waited a couple of beats, letting Wyatt know he’d comply if it suited him, he’d been tongue-lashed by experts, then got behind the steering wheel. Wyatt slid into the passenger seat, shut his door and stared ahead through the windscreen.

Sugarfoot drove them through Toorak and towards the Yarra. ‘Ivan’s going to be pissed off,’ he said, keeping it light. ‘What’s the problem?’

Wyatt felt his head throbbing. He waited for it to ease. ‘What did you do to her?’

‘Who?’

Wyatt waited until they had braked to a stop at the MacRobertson Bridge roundabout, then reached across, jerked the pistol out of Sugarfoot’s belt, and jabbed it under Sugarfoot’s rib-cage. ‘Keep driving,’ he said. When they were through the roundabout and on the bridge, he said, ‘We’ll start again. What did you do to the woman?’

Sugarfoot wheezed painfully. ‘Nothing. What d’ya mean?’

Wyatt jabbed again. ‘She’s dead. You killed her.’

Sugarfoot gulped and shook his head. ‘No, mate. Not me.’

‘You frightened her,’ Wyatt said. ‘It killed her. Anyone caught handling stuff from that house would be an accessory to murder.’

‘Hardly touched her,’ Sugarfoot said, rolling his shoulders uncomfortably. ‘It was the way she was looking at me. You know.’

Wyatt sat back, turning his bleak face to the window. On the other side of the bridge, Sugarfoot turned left and followed the down-ramp to the South Eastern Freeway. The taxi despatcher’s voice faded in and out above the static on the taxi radio. The meter clicked: thirty-five dollars, thirty-six dollars, thirty-seven.

It was Friday night, the traffic heavy. As if nothing had happened, Sugarfoot began a patter: ‘Look at the way that prick’s driving… Get your eyes mended… You’ll do me, sweetheart.’

They crossed the river again and followed it to the approach roads for the Westgate Freeway. Wyatt looked out at the night. Ahead of them, the lighted bridge loomed, curving right, and in the darkness it seemed unfamiliar to him, like a bridge in someone else’s city.

On the bridge Sugarfoot fell silent for the long descent into Footscray. When he spoke again, he sounded self-conscious, as if asking for recognition. ‘That painting,’ he said, ‘was a Tom Roberts, worth a fortune. Ivan fenced one last year’

Wyatt ignored him. He’d met aerobics instructors and plumbers who now ran galleries, so nothing the Youngers knew about art surprised him. Eventually he said, ‘It wasn’t on the list Ivan gave me, meaning it wasn’t insured, meaning there was no point in taking it.’

‘Fucking list,’ Sugarfoot said.

He slowed the taxi. They were outside Bargain City, his brother’s secondhand bulkstore on a flat, windy street off Williamstown Road. A St Vincent de Paul op shop was on one side, a video library on the other. Cars were double-parked in the street, their drivers returning or borrowing videos.

‘Go around the back,’ Wyatt said.

Sugarfoot drove into a laneway and parked behind a white Statesman at the rear door of his brother’s storeroom. A band of light showed under the door. ‘Wait here,’ Wyatt said. He got out, knocked on the storeroom door, and waited.

A high, constricted voice said, ‘Yeah?’