Garry Disher - Two-Way Cut

Running into the brother of someone you go to school with. Here, of all places.

Tess shrugged. Come on, lets go.

Leah sighed. Leave it until another time, she thought. Whats in the shopping-bags?

Tess showed her. Leah frowned, trying to get a handle on Tess. A couple of glossy magazines, a lipstick, chewing-gum, postcards.

Ditch the postcards, Tess.

I knew you’d say that.

There was also a Paul Kelly cassette. Good choice.

Tess shrugged. He sings about solitary people and places, just right for the road.

It was a perceptive comment. They walked to the main exit, Leah wondering how long they had before it all went wrong again.

Van Wyk didn’t want the client to know which motel he was staying in and refused to let the client nominate the meeting place. These were basic precautions, as necessary to van Wyk as breathing. So he suggested a cheap motel on the Nepean Highway in Highton and arrived an hour before the meeting. This was also precautionary. If the client was part of a sting then the place would be crammed with coppers posing as guests, reservation clerks, gardeners and delivery drivers in vans parked in the street outside the motel. If there was a contract out on him for any reason, then he wanted to know in advance if he was walking into an ambush.

He watched from a takeaway joint across the street from the motel. It was a sterile place, solitary diners at many of the tables, so nobody looked twice at him. He chewed a few french fries, took a couple of bites from a pile of chicken nuggetshed never tasted anything less like chickenand sipped a Coke slushy with ice. Van Wyk saw a delivery van stop long enough to toss a bundle of newspapers to the ground. A handful of guests left in ones and twos, some wearing suits, as if going off to meetings, some in T-shirts and jeans and carrying daypacks and cameras. A desk clerk loitered outside, pulling hungrily on a cigarette. An elderly man appeared with clippers and snipped at a fraying hedge for twenty minutes. Otherwise there was no apparent danger to van Wyk, and he began to relax.

Then a man carrying a briefcase got out of a taxi and walked along the row of rooms facing the street and tapped on the door at the end. Van Wyk wiped his fingers and left the restaurant and sauntered across the road, one hand against his chest, ready to pull the .22 in the holster under his arm. He never used the same gun twice. This pistol had been stolen from the secretary of a Sydney gun club.

He came up behind the client and said, I have a key, startling the man.

They went in. Van Wyk crossed immediately to the bed and sat facing the window, obliging the client to sit in the chair beside the window in order to face him. He put the .22 beside him on the bedspread, a way of cutting through the crap, of focusing the client.

You have photos?

The client opened the briefcase, van Wyk going tense and placing his hands on the .22. Take your hands out, turn the briefcase around very slowly so I can see in.

The client obliged.

Van Wyk peered into the briefcase. Photographs and a couple of sheets of typed notes. Van Wyk plucked them out, spread the photographs across the bedspread, and scanned the notes. He looked up. I trust youve deleted the file?

Yes.

Where is she?

Somewhere in the bush, out west.

Not in the city?

Thats right.

So I’m just supposed to find her and kill her, somewhere way out in the bush. Van Wyk shook his head in disgust. He couldn’t see this as an easy, up-close hit, somehow. Maybe he would need a sniping rifle after all. Where, exactly?

Look, its all taken care of, I get updated every hour or two. Ill let you know when shes been eyeballed.

No names, van Wyk warned the client. When we speak on the phone, you’ll say something like The goods are on the road between X and Y, okay?

If you like.

Van Wyk stared at the client in distaste. Yes, I do like, I like very much, understood?

Okay, okay, Ill do it your way. Just so long as theres no comeback for me.

Mister, I know where you live. All you’ve got on me is the number of a message service. You don’t even know what city I live in.

The client swallowed. So, I ring you here, at the motel?

Use the same message service. Ill be calling in every couple of hours from public phones, providing I find them, out there in the bush.

Why don’t you use a mobile, like everyone else?

Mobiles can be traced, said van Wyk simply.

I want her disappeared permanently, the client said. If thats not possible, make it look like an accident, she got hit by a car, took an overdose, or at least like a random, spontaneous killing, like she ran into the wrong people.

Van Wyk stared coldly at the client, not liking the way this hit had suddenly become messy and complicated.

She was in a land of four-wheel drives, big dusty farmers and tradesmens vehicles, so there was nothing novel about seeing a Range Rover in the shopping-centre carpark, but Leah, with her nerves finely tuned, recognised this Range Rover. She noted the dented front bumper, lack of country road dust, and the two men just now stepping out of it, last seen at the crash barrier above the burning Monaro.

How had they found their way to Leighton Wells so quickly? She stopped just outside the sliding doors, clamped her fingers around Tess’s arm and edged Tess to one side until a concrete support column concealed them. We’ve got company, she murmured.

Tess froze, began to look around wildly, so Leah strengthened her grip. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Turn you eyes to the right. See the Range Rover on the other side of that row of charity bins?

Oh God.

Tess, look at me. Are they your brothers?

Not exactly.

What do you mean, not exactly? Either they are, or they aren’t.

I mean, my father must have hired a private detective to find me, like you said.

Leah shook her head in exasperation. No time to deal with Tess’s evasions now. She grabbed an empty trolley and dumped her jacket and shopping-bags in it. Were going to casually wheel this trolley to the car as if were close friends or sisters having a natter and helping each other with the shopping, okay?

Tess bit her lip, nodded, seemed as tightly wound as a spring. Her knuckles on the ubiquitous leather day-pack were white as Leah guided her by the elbow out of the alcove in front of the sliding doors. Leah watched the two men from the corners of her eyes. Both wore jeans, T-shirts and trainers, and had shaved heads. It was like a uniform. But one man sported a bushy moustache and the other a tattoo on his forearm. That was sufficient for Leah to recognise them in any crowd. She saw them split up, Moustache heading toward the main entrance, Tatts toward the side of the building, presumably to another entrance. Leah supposed there was also a back way out, leading to loading bays and rubbish skips, and she considered re-entering the shopping-centre. But that would attract attention, and the rear of the building offered only one way out, so she kept walking, Tess close beside her, gripping the handle of the trolley.

Talk to me, she ordered.

Tess was flustered. What about?

Anything, so long as we look natural.

They walked on. Sometimes they bumped hips. Their progress and their attempts at conversation were stiff and clumsy. And then Tess glanced toward the men. That was enough to betray them, for Leah heard a shout and the slap of running feet.

Go! she yelled, sending the trolley toward Moustache, grabbing Tess by the hand and streaking toward the car. Behind them Moustache cursed and there was a metallic clang and a meaty thud, as though he’d fallen to the ground. He called out to Tatts, who was closing in fast on their right, Forget about me, get the sheila.