The agent looked at his watch. ‘Just about perfect for what you gents are after.’
Wyatt and Jardine weren’t so sure. They asked to see suites on the fourth and seventh floors. The agent let it be known that there were also empty suites on the second and ninth floors, but Wyatt said thanks, they’d had enough to be going on with, they’d decide this weekend and be in touch.
‘Just remember,’ the agent said on the footpath outside, ‘sign a long lease and you’ll get the first six months free.’
They came back just before six o’clock. This time they wore dark overalls, balaclavas and latex gloves. Wyatt carried a gym bag, Jardine an aluminium extension ladder. The doorman didn’t recognise the two men. As they came in from the footpath and advanced across the marble floor, he put down his paper and asked, ‘Help you blokes?’
The lobby was empty. Jardine rested the ladder against the high edge of the doorman’s desk and joined Wyatt in leaning his forearms on the top. Then he reached over and pushed the doorman’s chest. The man’s chair was fitted with castors. It shot back, too quickly for him to push the alarm button. By the time the chair had stopped moving and the man had come out of his chair, Wyatt was behind the desk with him, tickling his throat with the barrel of his.38. The doorman said what everyone says: ‘What do you want?’ His voice was shaky.
Wyatt took the gun away. The doorman could still see it, he knew the threat was still there, but the cruel black hole was pointing at the floor now. He gulped and tried to gather himself. ‘What do you fellows want?’
Part of Wyatt’s job was to read men like the doorman. He knew the doorman felt humiliation under the fear. The doorman had a job to do, he’d failed to do it, so maybe he’d do something foolish unless Wyatt eased the fear and the humiliation. He said gently, ‘What’s your name?’
The doorman’s hair had worked free, oily ropes of it like spaghetti over his left ear. He pushed it back across his bald scalp and said, wanting to do the right thing, ‘First name? Or both my names?’
‘First name will do fine.’
The man worked some moisture into his mouth. ‘Bill.’
‘Bill,’ Wyatt said. ‘Well, Bill, we want your help.’
‘What kind of help?’
‘Is the wife expecting you home?’
Bill muttered, ‘Single bloke.’
‘Fine, so you don’t need to call anyone if you’re going to be late?’
‘No.’
‘We need your keys for a while, Bill. We also want you to lock the main door now and turn out a few lights so the place looks closed. Can you do that?’
‘Why the gun? What are you blokes up to?’
‘I’m sorry, Bill, we’re in a hurry. Just be satisfied that we don’t intend to shoot anyone, okay?’
Bill nodded. Wyatt escorted him to the front door, watched him lock it, then took the keys from his nervy fingers. ‘Now, I’m afraid we have to tie you up, Bill.’
They roped his wrists and ankles to the castor chair, taped his mouth and shut him in the cleaner’s storeroom. ‘I’ll leave the light on, Bill,’ Wyatt said. ‘We’ll be back for you in thirty minutes, no more.’
He had no intention of coming back, but he didn’t want the doorman to know that. He wanted the doorman to sit quiet for a while, that’s all.
Three minutes later they were in the empty suite on the sixth floor again. The air had a shut down, empty smell about it, but Wyatt could sense the energy and tension in the floor beneath them. He imagined the cigarettes, the sweat and whisky, the murmured bids, the chips clacking together. The feeling passed in a second. He didn’t have time to indulge his imagination.
Jardine unlocked the balcony door and Wyatt carried the gym bag through. The curtains were drawn on the fifth floor, the lights on behind them. Wyatt took out a nylon rope ladder, fastened one end to the balcony railing, and let the other end unroll into the darkness.
He pulled the balaclava down over his face and climbed down. Jardine followed him. On the fifth-floor balcony they took out.38s, eased open the sliding door and slipped inside.
There was only one game. Six men-two Chinese, two Europeans, two Filipinos-sat around a table. Four of them were smoking. A poolhall light hung low from the ceiling, throwing a harsh glow onto the table. The rest of the room was shadowy. Two closed doors led to rooms at the far end of the suite. There was a bar at the back with a shelf of bottles behind it.
It was pretty much as Wyatt had imagined it from Jardine’s description. What interested him now was the position of the Outfit goons. He saw one behind the bar, one at the door, a couple more leaning against the walls. They looked half asleep. They’d soon wake up when the cold air stirred the smoke.
Wyatt didn’t give them time to come awake. He ran to the gaming table, jerked one of the Chinese players out of his chair and let everyone see the.38 at the man’s throat. ‘Drop your guns on the floor.’
The goons tensed, reached into their jackets, thought better of it. The man from Hong Kong was good for a million bucks a year to the Outfit. They dropped their guns. Meanwhile Jardine flushed a couple of half-naked teenagers from the other rooms.
‘We don’t want to hurt anybody,’ Wyatt said. ‘We’ll be out in five minutes.’
He spoke clearly, his voice flat. His approach when guns were out was to say little, act mildly, never use his colleagues’ names. He always used handguns, never shotguns, in situations like this one: shotguns were clumsy, noisy, messy; they caused panic. He never waved the gun around: instead, he would choose a target and keep the gun there, a clear promise of who would get it first if someone else got out of line.
He’d said all he needed to say at this stage. Jardine scooped the chips into the bag, stepped back from the table and herded the Outfit goons and the shivering callgirls onto the balcony. He finished by locking them out there and joining Wyatt.
Wyatt turned his attention to the gamblers. Four of them were idle and corrupt and liked to hurt people, and so they believed that they were going to die. The other two looked angry. None of them intended to play in an Outfit game again.
When Wyatt did speak again it was to say: ‘Tell Kepler you win some, you lose some.’
Twenty-two
Napper rapped the cast-iron doorknocker and waited. Josie shared the house with another single mother, a lawyer, but he wasn’t worried about encountering the lawyer today. A misplaced social conscience kept her in the Fitzroy Legal Aid office on Friday afternoons, telling street scum how to avoid fines and jail terms, while Josie minded the kids. Napper knocked again. It was a renovated terrace house, the door Deep Brunswick Green like every other door in Fitzroy.
‘What are you doing here?’ Then, immediately, ‘Get back inside, Roxanne. What are you doing here?’
Napper had time to see his daughter’s face, avid then sulky, before Josie barred the way and had closed the door. She stood on the welcome mat, glaring at him.
‘Just a civilised word, Josie, that’s all I want.’
‘Civilised? If you were civilised there’d be no need for a court order. I’m going inside, I have nothing to say to you.’
Always the same, a shrill note of complaint, the face pinched and bitter. Disgusted, Napper said, ‘Look, I’ve been a bit strapped for cash lately.’
‘What about me? You think I’m made of money?’
As far as Napper was concerned, his hard-earned income put eighty-dollar jeans on his daughter, it put his ex-wife through some wanker’s diploma up at the uni, and all he got out of it was an endless hassle. But this was a push-pull game of old grudges and suspicion that they were playing, almost unconsciously, so he said mildly, ‘I just want a fairer settlement, that’s all. The court didn’t take everything into consideration.’
‘Like what? That you like to spend a hundred dollars a week on beer and vodka? That you like to visit brothels?’