Garry Disher - Death Deal

He got to his feet. He didnt go after her. She would be out the door and away before he got there. The fact that she hadnt stayed to finish the job indicated that she was alone, her clip was empty and she wanted to disappear before cops and firemen arrived.

So did Wyatt. But he allowed himself a moment for what he had to do next. Harbutt was coughing. The fire had roused him from his blues and he came out of the office, a handkerchief over his nose. His eyes were streaming. He stopped when he saw Wyatt. You got him?

Wyatt shook his head. Cleared off.

Im glad youre okay, Harbutt said. Then he saw the big Colt. A kind of sadness settled in him. You know youve got nothing to worry about from me.

Wyatt raised the muzzle. Thats right, he said.

Wyatt spent the next five days aboard a rotting barge, existing on tinned beans and peaches. The world had become a place full of holes, corners and darkness. There was no-one he could turn to and he mistrusted the daylight. The money in his pocket had been meanly acquired and it would not see him beyond the next week. His pistol, tied to an inglorious killing, lay rusting on the bottom of the Barwon River. If they came to get him now, he had only his fists to face them with. And alone, in hiding, he began to feel eyes at his back.

On the fifth night he moved. Any earlier and hed have been trapped inside the police search radius or stopped on an exit road. After five days and no sightings, the search would have been called off. Slipped through the cordon.

Thankful of the darkness and the water, he went by boat this time, casting free in a motor cruiser and heading it out into the bay. The sea was calm and nothing showed on the radar. He sipped scotch and ate from a tin of sardines hed found stored in the galley. It was an expensive boat, well fitted out, but by morning it would be a chain around his neck.

He had to leave the state. Hed been offered a way, and had turned it down. Brisbane. Mostyn had said the client was a woman in Brisbane. Stolle himself had said it. The whole deal sounded too odd to be a trap. The general style of the people who didnt like Wyatt was to come at him with a gun, not try an elaborate ruse. Nothing about Stolle said that he was a hired gun. He hadnt been armed; his ID said he was a private investigator. Stolle had also mentioned flying. That meant airports and people, hardly the conditions for an ambush. Finally, there was that five thousand dollars. Wyatt took in everything the boat had to offer and saw only one thing that could help him now.

He had to call twice on the cellular phone before relays picked up his signal. It was one oclock in the morning and Stolles voice was thick with sleep and irritation. What? he said flatly.

You said five thousand.

Stolle came awake then. Thats right.

Is this line secure?

I ran a check only yesterday.

What about the room?

Its clean.

Wyatt was silent, wondering how to play this.

Say whats on your mind, Stolle said.

Im interested in your offer.

Good man. Ill be in my office at eight.

Things have happened, Wyatt said. I want you to collect me now.

Stolle didnt query or demur. Where?

Carrum. The Nepean Highway crosses a channel there. Park your car somewhere, wait for me on the bridge. If I see anything I dont like, thats it, Im gone.

They settled on 3 am and Wyatt broke the connection. He checked the fuel gauge: plenty to get him across the bay. By two-thirty he was throttling back a few hundred metres from the Chelsea foreshore. He could see streetlights and occasional headlights. By day Carrum and Chelsea were parts of an endless strip of sunblighted, low-cost houses and shopfronts. Wyatt knew and hated the area but right now it had the advantage of a marina where he could moor the boat without drawing attention to himself.

Thirty minutes later he was on dry land and watching the bridge. At five minutes to three a battered white Toyota van crept across the bridge. The words Food Delivery Vehicle were stencilled on it and the rear windows had a blackness about them that had nothing to do with the night. If Stolle used it as his surveillance vehicle, it was a good one.

Wyatt waited. He saw the van draw off the road and into a parking bay. Stolle got out and walked to the centre of the bridge. He did not look around and he gave no sign that he was nervous or had brought backup along. Wyatt let ten minutes and a handful of late cruising taxis and panel vans go by, then stepped out of his cover and onto the bridge.

Stolle swung around at his approach. This had better be on the level. I didnt come here to be thumped and robbed again.

Shut up, Wyatt said. I hope you didnt bring those two clowns along with you.

Mostyns off the case and Whitney cleared out on me.

Wyatt said, Good, and walked off without waiting. Stolle caught up with him next to the van. Where to?

Your place.

Stolle said nothing to that. He unlocked the van, got in, opened the passenger door for Wyatt. He drove in silence back along the Nepean toward the city. At St Kilda Junction he headed north along Punt Road and right into the cramped streets of renovated workers cottages in Prahran. A minute later he picked up a small electronic device, pushed a button, and light spilled onto the cobblestones from a garage door in an alley ahead of them. Stolle drove in, pushed the button again. The garage door clanged, sealing them off from the night.

Stolle had a little pistol in his fist. Get out.

You wont need that.

Get out.

Wyatt waited for him at the door that led to the house. He let Stolle prod him with the gun into the kitchen and then through to a room at the front. Stolle had spent some time and money on the place: thick woollen carpets, central heating, expensive fabrics on the chairs and over the windows.

Stolles front room had the look of an underused office. The furniture smelt new; there was dust on the screen of his Apple. He shoved Wyatt in the back. Have a seat.

There was an armchair and an ergonomic desk chair. Wyatt collapsed into the armchair. He realised how tired he was and a series of tendon-stretching yawns broke out in him suddenly. Stolle grinned at him, swivelling back and forth on the rotating seat of the desk chair.

God knows what she sees in you.

Who?

The client. On the run, fresh out of luck and friends, you dont exactly inspire confidence.

Wyatt yawned again. I want to see the five thousand.

Stolle lost his grin. After a while he nodded and reached his right hand into his left sleeve. Wyatt heard a snap of elastic on flesh and then Stolle was throwing him a small packet.

He caught it with both hands. He knew at once that it contained less than five thousand dollars. He riffled the notes with his thumb: ten one-hundred dollar notes, torn cleanly in half.

This was stupid. He felt too weary to fight it. He shook his head, dropped the half notes on the floor.

Stolle reached into an inside pocket of his jacket. This time it was an envelope with a key in it. Brisbane bus station locker key. Theres four thousand dollars waiting for you. The other half of the money on the floor youll get when were on the plane tomorrow morning.

Wyatt stared fixedly at Stolle and weighed it up. He could thump Stolle for the other half and walk out of here with a thousand dollars now, but be arrested or shot tomorrow. He could let Stolle take him to Brisbane and still find trouble, whether or not the promised five thousand was attached to it. He didnt think this deal came free of trouble. It was trouble in the sun, though, a place where his face meant nothing to anyone, and those things were more important than anything else right now.

What does this woman want?

She said there was something in it for you. Maybe your parents died?