‘I told you, he reckons they ripped him off last year.’ She rocked against him again. ‘Can you stop him?’
Napper stared moodily at the fire. ‘Tell me about his friends.’
‘You think you can get a handle on him that way? I wish you luck. He hasn’t got any.’
‘Your husband gave you a second name.’
‘Jardine,’ Eileen said. ‘He’s not a friend, he’s someone Wyatt’s worked with before. Sydney based.’
‘And you say they both showed up in Melbourne yesterday? Could mean they’re already setting it up. I hope your old man’s got sense enough to stay out of it.’
‘He’s strictly in the background. You lay off him.’
Napper grinned. ‘It would help if I knew their movements.’
Eileen stood up, throwing off the foul blanket. ‘I’ve paid my dues.’
Napper said, staring at the fire, ‘Wouldn’t it be a funny thing if new information came to light about young Niall. It would mean I’d have to cancel his release order. Wouldn’t it be a shame if your old man heard you were talking to the cops? That would really stuff things up.’
Eileen waited but Napper wouldn’t turn his head around to look at her. She went to his bathroom, a region of cracked tiles, grout mould and soap-scummed water-lines, sponged all traces of him from her skin, and returned to her clothes heaped on the dusty carpet. She dragged them on, the comfortable feline grace gone from her movements. She said savagely, ‘I’ll see what I can find out.’
‘Good on you, Mrs R.’
Twenty-nine
On Tuesday morning Wyatt directed the Silver Top driver to the end of a side street that ran north from Doncaster Road. When the cab was gone he walked back to Doncaster Road, turned left and set out for the Doncaster and Templestowe municipal offices, ten blocks away.
Cars and buses hurtled by him on Doncaster Road. He seemed to be unaware of them. Drivers and their passengers saw a tall, loose-limbed man wearing cord trousers and a dark windbreaker. Those waiting at traffic lights had time to take in the coiled hands loose at his sides and the dark cast of his face, too forbidding to be called sad or tired. Wyatt didn’t look at them, but he knew they were there. If they meant him harm, he would know it.
The lights changed. He crossed with the traffic, wreathed in exhaust gases. Generally walking relaxed him, helped him to see past the clutter surrounding an operation, helped him to concentrate only on what related to it. But too many things were related to this job. It was messy and he was being bankrolled by people who had reason to kill him when it was all over.
He laughed aloud, a bleak bark, startling a jogger. She marked time with him at the ‘don’t walk’ sign, watching his hands, trying to catch his eye. He ignored her.
The lights changed and he stepped off the kerb. A van turning left braked abruptly, the driver leaning on the horn, trying to bluff him. Wyatt stopped, his knees centimetres from the van’s front bumper, and stared at the driver. Something in his face drained the bluster out of the man, for there was a shrug and a show of teeth in a weak grin. Wyatt crossed the road.
Normally he liked preparing for a hit. Long periods of inactivity induced a lethargy that he sometimes found hard to shake off. The last few days had seen plenty of activity, but it had seemed somehow pointless, not forceful, concentrated or useful. He would be glad when they finally hit the Mesic compound. It would be the final stage; he’d feel compact then, contained, doing what he did best, with the end in sight.
The municipal offices were two blocks ahead. He found himself thinking about the period after the Mesic hit. He would have funds again. He would go to ground somewhere, invest some of the money, live in comfort.
That wouldn’t be enough, though. It never was. He found himself thinking about Rose, the Outfit’s killer. He could feel her out there somewhere. Women like her were not new to him. They were rarely mentioned in the newspapers, but they existed. The sort of women the tabloids got excited about were single-mother welfare cheats, husband poisoners and nightclub singers who faked their disappearance for the sake of a newspaper headline. The papers wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like Rose, a professional, sharp and low key. They’d trot out stock phrases to describe her figure, her hair, the clothes she liked to wear, but then they’d flounder, unable to imagine what made her tick.
Then he thought about the Mesics. He’d directed the cab driver to take him past the compound and the place had looked as complacent, as ripe for a hit, as it always had. The odds hadn’t lengthened. Jardine was there somewhere, noting movements, times, new faces.
The municipal offices were housed in a glass and cement complex that smelt of yesterday’s cigarette smoke and perfume. Wyatt asked for the planning office and was directed to a boxed-in glass cubicle at the rear of the building.
The planning officer wore blue suit trousers, white shirt and red tie. Several drafting pens were leaking into his top pocket. He had the kind of blurred features that the eye fails to register clearly: watery eyes, pinkish skin, limp, sparse hair.
‘My rights are being infringed upon,’ Wyatt said.
The planning officer looked anxiously at him. ‘Sorry?’
Wyatt rested his hands on the edge of the counter. ‘The man across the road from me has put up an ugly great fence. Not only does it obscure the view, it’s hideous. There should be a law saying if you build something in public view it has to be aesthetically pleasing.’
The clerk stepped back. The ID card attached to his belt said his name was Colin Thomas. ‘The procedure is to appeal at the planning stage,’ Thomas said.
‘Unfortunately I was away, Mr Thomas.’
Thomas relaxed a little, hearing his name. ‘It really is too late. I’m sorry.’
Wyatt leaned forward again. ‘It’s not too late. I’ve checked. You can still be forced to dismantle something.’
‘A fence, you say?’
Wyatt nodded, giving him the address. ‘A big place on Telegraph Road,’ Wyatt said. ‘People called Mesic own it.’
A series of expressions passed across Thomas’s face- guilt, apprehension, resignation. He’s been bought, Wyatt thought. The Mesics must have sweetened the passage of their planning approval with a few hundred dollars here and there. ‘Do you know the place I mean?’
‘I think so. Everything was in order concerning that application.’
‘Oh, I’m not doubting you,’ Wyatt said. ‘It’s the system that’s at fault.’
Thomas nodded, unable to conceal his relief.
‘However,’ Wyatt went on, ‘I do have rights. I would like something to be done.’
‘It’ll mean a lot of paperwork. You’ll have to have all the facts right. I’m afraid I’m not in a position to do that for you.’
Wyatt took out his wallet. He drew out fifty dollars of Kepler’s money and rested his hand on it on the counter top. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘If I could have a few minutes with the plans lodged for the place in question, I could make a note of all relevant details.’ As he spoke he used his forefinger to push the money across the counter a millimetre at a time. ‘Folio numbers, dimensions, things like that.’
Thomas’s hand snatched up the fifty. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
He returned ten minutes later with a bundle of folders and blueprints. ‘There’s a table in the next room you can use. I’d be grateful if you didn’t-’
He paused. Wyatt finished for him: ‘Mention this to anyone? No problem.’ He gave the man a further twenty. ‘And you won’t mention I’ve been here.’
Wyatt left half an hour later. He knew the dimensions of the compound fence and the position of everything inside it, and he had floor plans of the two houses. He’d made fair hand-drawn copies, showing doors, windows, staircases, distances. He noted the position of the fuse boxes, gas and water mains, underground power and phone cables. When the time came he’d be able to walk through the Mesic compound with his eyes closed.