Garry Disher - Kick Back

‘What?’ Finn demanded. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Don’t, Mr Finn,’ Amber said. Her voice was shaky. ‘He wants you down here with us.’

Finn eased his big frame onto the floor. Wyatt prodded the client, who seemed to collapse in relief.

Hobba said, ‘Face each other in a circle, and put your wrists out.’

It was the only thing said by any of the men in the four minutes they were in the building. Later none of the victims could remember his exact words or what his voice was like. They were certain no names were used. They held out their wrists and felt the handcuffs click tight and they sat there then, in a circle, linked to a leg of Amber’s heavy desk, while two of the men left the room. The third stayed behind.

This one said nothing. He stood behind Anna Reid, his gun at the back of her bowed head, staring at Finn. The meaning was clear: try anything and she gets shot. Amber was certain it was a real gun. She could see bullet tips in the cylinder, and she heard the latex glove squeak against the metal. No sign of nervousness, no yelling, no waving of guns around. The policeman who later took her statement nodded. ‘Pros,’ he told her.

In Finn’s office, Hobba and Pedersen worked fast, slipping a cardboard carton over the safe and tipping it onto the trolley.

Wyatt heard them returning, the trolley wheels grumbling on the polished floor of the hall. Then he heard them go out the front door. He did not look round. He kept his gun on Anna Reid and his eyes on Finn.

A minute later there was a rap on the door frame. It’s done.

Wyatt touched his knee very gently against Anna’s shoulder, then backed out of the room, his gun now pointed at Finn. Finn seemed to swell, to spit his words: ‘I’ll find you bastards.’

In the hallway they removed their balaclavas, then left the house and heaved the safe into the rear of the van. Hobba scrambled in after it. Pedersen slammed the door and got into the passenger seat. Wyatt had the engine running. He eased them out of Quiller Place and onto Toorak Road, No-one looked twice at them.

At Chapel Street, Wyatt turned south for three blocks, then he cut in front of a tram and entered the system of side streets mapped out for him by Pedersen. They were narrow streets, made narrower by small glossy cars. A dog ran into their path from behind a red MG and they felt and heard the wheels tumble and crush it. Dogs here were valued over children. There would be outrage on Channel 10 tonight.

Then they were on Punt Road, still going south, quite fast now, but no faster than any combative peak-hour driver. An easy right with the lights onto Commercial Road, a smooth run onto St Kilda Road, heading north for a few blocks in the service lane, then quickly left, left again, and down with a gentle bump to the underground level and into the lock-up garage.

Wyatt began stripping off the transfers and unbolting the false number plates. Hobba joined Pedersen in the back of the van. Wyatt heard them conferring. Then Pedersen got out. ‘Wyatt, I can’t drill-the casing’s mill-hard grid, take hours. I’ll have to blow it.’

‘Can you do it without hurting the money?’

‘Piece of cake.’ Pedersen demonstrated with his hands. ‘What I do is, I concentrate the blast around the lock. No flying metal, just some smoke and noise.’

Wyatt nodded. He helped them unload the safe, backed the van out, and shut the garage door on them. Then, leaving Pedersen and Hobba to set the plastic explosive, he went up to the street level with a radio. After five minutes Hobba said, ‘All clear?’

The home-time traffic was heavy on St Kilda Road to Wyatt’s left and on Queens Road to his right, but here outside the pink and grey apartment block there was no traffic. He had been thinking of Sugarfoot Younger, but there was nothing to indicate that Sugarfoot was about. ‘All clear.’

‘Blowing now.’

There was a dull thud, like a distant door slamming. The radio crackled, as if Hobba’s hand had tightened in reflex.

Wyatt waited. They were taking a long time. He said, ‘All right?’

‘Wait a tick,’ Hobba replied. ‘My fucking ears. There’s smoke everywhere.’

Two minutes later, the radio crackled again. It was Hobba. ‘You little beauty.’

Wyatt walked down into the underground garage again and drove the van back into the lock-up. He could smell smoke; the air was still heavy with it. Hobba and Pedersen were crouched over the safe, which was blackened from the force of the explosion. The little door stood open, scorched and buckled, revealing small stacks of fifty- and hundred-dollar notes. Hobba hadn’t waited. He was bundling the money into a Qantas bag.

Wyatt unsnapped the fasteners of his overalls. ‘I’ll dump the van tomorrow but you two won’t be coming down here again so check you’ve got everything. Max, you dump the overalls and the balaclavas.’

Pedersen didn’t respond at first. Then he uttered a short laugh and looked around at Hobba. ‘Listen to him, would you. Give us a smile, Wyatt. Look at all the lovely loot.’

Wyatt ignored him. He stuffed his overalls, gloves and balaclava into a shopping bag, then retrieved and wiped the three.38 revolvers.

‘Forget it, Max,’ Hobba said.

‘Well he gives me the shits,’ Pedersen said.

After the initial fear and upset, and with them all sitting there like that, wrist to wrist on the carpet, Finn said, to gauge their reactions, ‘This was a personal thing, you know.’

He watched them. The client was out of it, no problem there. Amber, a bit tearful, sniffed and said, ‘Personal?’ Anna Reid gave him her level look. Just lately he never knew what went on in her head.

‘There wasn’t much in the safe,’ he said. ‘Someone was just out to get at me, that’s all.’

‘Who?’ Amber said, distracted and miserable. She lifted a hand to wipe her nose, realised she couldn’t, and leaned down to where her wrist was manacled to Anna Reid’s, Anna watching her neutrally.

‘It’s something I can handle,’ Finn said, his expression telling them this was something tricky and private. He waited, watching them. ‘I’ll do the right thing by each of you, of course. There’s no need to worry on that score.’

Amber, blearily concentrating, frowned at him. ‘Pardon?’

‘He wants us to keep it quiet,’ Anna said. This with one of her glittering looks.

Amber was shocked. ‘Mr Finn, we can’t, it’s not right, you have to tell the police.’

With both hands weighed down by handcuffed wrists, Finn had to settle for placating her with raised palms. ‘I’m sorry. You’re quite right.’

‘I mean, they had guns. They could’ve hurt us. What if they do worse things to someone else next time?’

‘I hear what you’re saying,’ Finn said, ‘but I thought you wouldn’t want the police tramping through here, that’s all, upsetting everyone with their questions, etcetera, etcetera.’

No, Amber told him, recovering quickly, this was heavy duty and he must let the police know. ‘Anyhow,’ she said, ‘people would’ve seen something out in the street.’

Finn breathed out heavily. ‘You’re right,’ he said. Anna was giving him a mocking eyebrow, Amber was giving him the shits, and the client might as well have been asleep. ‘Okay, we’d better ring them,’ he said.

Their situation brought films to mind. They all had to shuffle and reposition themselves until Amber was on her side, stretching out to plug the phone lead back into the wall socket. Then she pulled the telephone off the desk. She was about to press the buttons when she froze, giggling nervously. ‘I don’t know the number,’ she said. ‘Is it 999?’