Garry Disher - Death Deal

Hed ducked into a boutique and watched Wyatt through the racks of string bikinis against the window. He waited to see if the woman was with him. A bunch of Japanese, a couple of pensioners and a handful of breezy backpackers but not the woman whod hired him to find the man.

Help you, sir? Something for the wife, is it?

Stolle motioned the assistant to leave him alone. He didnt turn around. Perve, she muttered.

As Stolle watched, a kind of shiver had crawled across his skin. Something was going on and he owed it to himself to check it out. If Wyatt had been needed so urgently, why was he down here on the Coast a couple of days later with a load of tourists? If sex was the reason the woman in Brisbane wanted Wyattand Stolle had come to accept that that was the casethen how come shed let him free with a bunch of leggy sheilas half his age?

He saw them pour into a cafe near the bus. Wyatt did not go in with them. Wyatt walked off alone. A while later, Stolle followed. What did the guy want, if not to play at being a tourist?

Hanging well back, hed tailed Wyatt for thirty minutes. Wyatt walked slowly and he seemed to be acutely aware of his surroundings, a stranger in a strange land. He looked in clothing shops. He stood near sidewalk cafes, eyeing the patrons intently. Once or twice he went right around beachfront motels, checking windows and doors. Was he casing the place? The man did armed robbery; he wasnt a cat burglar.

There was a risk that Wyatt would tumble him if he kept this up. Stolle remembered Wyatts treachery in the pump house at the farm, the way hed treated Mostyn at the motel, the womans curtness at the bus station, and had allowed a kernel of hate to grow for both of them.

He dropped away a few minutes later and rang the coach company. He learnt that they ran a full-day bus tour each day, taking in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, finishing back in Brisbane just before 7 pm. Did sir want a ticket? There were spare seats today, pick-up outside Jupiters at six oclock.

Future reference, Stolle told the operator, and cut the connection.

Curiosity, hatred and lack of funds. Stolle looked at his last twenty dollars. Wyatt robbed banks and armoured cars for a living, so if it wasnt sex the woman wanted him for, maybe she had a job lined up for him.

Stolle had two options: wait around and see if he could grab a piece of the action, or fly home to Melbourne. Given that the tingling in his spine was working overtime, the second option was out. He trusted that feeling, every time.

So, he stayed in Queensland. He would follow the woman, follow Wyatt. See where they went, who they saw, what they were spending their money on.

But hed known he couldnt do it alone. He fed five of his remaining dollars into an STD phone inside a Burger King and called his office in Melbourne. How are you doing with those jobs I gave you?

Had an argument with the grocer, Mostyn said. Now hes got his nephew riding shotgun, stupid prick. The Plastico strike was called off. Thought Id start that other job tomorrow.

Leave it. Itll keep. I want you in Brisbane first thing tomorrow morning. Check a couple of guns and permits through on the same flight, and scrounge what cash you can. Plus a couple of infra-red binoculars and the Nikon with a range of lenses. I think Im onto something here.

Fifteen dollars left. Stolle had walked into Jupiters then. An hour later he walked out again with five hundred dollars in his pocket. He went to the Avis office, rented a Falcon and was waiting in it when the coach pulled up outside Jupiters at five-forty-five. He didnt know if Wyatt would be among the passengers or not. If the hit was somewhere on the Gold Coast, Wyatt might not go back to Brisbane. Tailing him locally would be tricky: the Coast was a small place and Wyatt would spot him eventually.

But Wyatt did board the coach. Stolle saw him hang back and let the others on first. The man was a pro, the way he guarded his back out of habit, even on a bus trip among a bunch of tourists; the way he stood where he could watch the pedestrian traffic, waiting until the last moment so he wouldnt be boxed in on the bus itself.

Stolle got to the freeway ahead of the coach. He let it pass him and draw away. When the city skyline appeared, he accelerated, catching the coach and passing it. He was waiting half a block away when it pulled into Adelaide Street to unload.

It was a useful evening for Stolle. He tailed Wyatt and found where the woman lived. He rooted around in a rubbish bin under her house and came up with a name: Anna Reid. At three oclock in the morning he discovered where Wyatt was staying.

The next morning, Sunday, he drove out to the airport. Mostyn had checked through two. 45 automatics and was carrying three thousand dollars in cash. They claimed the guns and Mostyns luggage and drove to Wyatts hotel. A little before eleven oclock Wyatt emerged and caught a bus.

They had tailed him to a new shopping centre halfway to the Gold Coast. It was puzzling. Was the guy meeting someone? Stolle went carefully. The streets were deserted and he knew Wyatt had only to spot the Falcon twice in two separate locations to know he was being followed. When the bus signalled for the stop, Stolle parked two blocks behind it, pulling in tight against a small car with a high roof and plenty of glass on all sides.

Train the camera on him. Telephoto.

While Mostyn fiddled with the Nikon, Stolle tried to figure what Wyatt was up to. First Wyatt went into a milk bar. He was in there a while and when he came out he was reading a newspaper as if he had all the time in the world. He ambled across the street, eyes on the paper. He went down a side street and they lost sight of him. A couple of minutes later, he was back again.

Hes scouting, Mostyn said. Has to be.

The bank, you reckon?

Has to be.

I guess well find out, Stolle said.

He started the car and they drove back to Brisbane. Wyatt had still been at the bank but Stolle didnt want to push his luck by sticking to him any longer. They bought sandwiches in the mall and staked out Wyatts hotel again. At mid-afternoon, when Wyatt wandered around South Bank with Anna Reid, Stolle and Mostyn had watched and taken photographs from a spot on the opposite bank.

What do you think?

Mostyn lowered the Nikon. What do you mean?

What Ive been teaching you: signs, body language.

Oh. That. Well, the guys been screwing her.

What else?

This doesnt look like your average stroll in the sun. As if theyre working out something heavy-duty and hes laying down the ground rules.

Good boy.

They watched a while longer, then Stolle gave Mostyn the keys to the Falcon. Take it back, rent something smaller.

Mostyn had returned with a Mazda. That evening they followed Wyatt to a motel out on the Ipswich Road. They saw him stake out the place first, then go in. A while later a man came out, looking bewildered. Then the Reid woman came out. She seemed to apologise to him and pressed money into his hands. Then she went back inside and the man wandered away, scratching his head.

Acting on a hunch, Stolle started the car. Lets talk to him.

He pulled in several metres past the man. Mostyn got out. He crossed the footpath to a car showroom window and peered in. When the man came adjacent to the car, Stolle opened the back door and Mostyn, moving fast, had closed in with his pistol. Inside, he hissed.

Jesus Christ, the man said.

They had driven him to a dark corner of a hotel carpark. Five minutes and one hundred dollars later, Stolle and Mostyn had known for certain that Wyatt and the Reid woman had a job ready to go. After that it was a matter of watching and waiting.

They had watched and waited for a week. Little happened in the early days. The three men met twice for short periods. Anna Reid did not appear again but, curiously, Wyatt staked out her house a couple of times. Other than that he stayed low, moving hotels every couple of days. Then, on the Wednesday and again on the Friday, Wyatt had staked out a house in East Brisbane and followed the man who lived there to the bank. The manager, Stolle discovered later.