‘Who were they?’
‘Never seen them before.’
‘Perhaps you’re dissatisfied. Perhaps you decided to take a bigger slice.’
Sala was frustrated. ‘That’s what Sugarfoot said. You got to believe me-I was robbed. I got a good thing going here. I wouldn’t fuck that up. I mean, Jesus.’
He had his hands flat on the bed next to his thighs. He rocked back and forth. He was terrified and more than likely telling the truth.
More than likely: it was qualification enough for Bauer to fire the pistol. There was a small spurt of blue flame and two almost co-existent sounds: the huff of the silenced shot and the punch of the bullet through Ken Sala’s left hand.
Sala looked down. There was little to see at first, but then blood began to seep from the small puncture wound on the back of his hand. He slowly raised the hand and examined it, both sides. Then he tucked it in his armpit. He said, disbelievingly, ‘You shot me.’ He looked down at the bed cover, at another puncture mark, stained red at the edges. ‘You bloody well shot me.’
He began to wail terribly. The rocking grew more agitated and he slid off the bed and onto the floor.
Bauer straddled him. ‘Tell me about the two men.’
‘I don’t know,’ Sala said. ‘I don’t know.’
He tried to get up, but felt Bauer’s foot on his face.
‘Answer me,’ Bauer said.
Sala twisted and twitched beneath the foot like some baffled animal shot in the spine. Again he tried to raise himself and again Bauer held him down.
‘Are you ready to answer me?’
Sala went still. His chest was heaving. ‘Two of them,’ he said. He jerked as if to rid himself of the heavy foot.
‘Two men. That is not specific,’ Bauer said. ‘Describe them to me.’
Sala burped and coughed suddenly, enveloping Bauer in a fug of stale alcohol and panic. He said, ‘Let me up, please. I can’t think down here.’
Bauer removed his foot and stepped back. He watched as Sala climbed to his feet and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Begin,’ he said.
‘They wore balaclavas. But the Youngers seemed to know who they were.’
‘Who?’
‘Wyatt was one. Hobba. I never heard of them.’
‘What else?’
‘Ivan thinks it was personal, Sugar thinks they’re funding a bigger job.’
‘What do you think?’
Sala was rocking to and fro on the bed. ‘I don’t think anything. I was told to shut up about it. What happens now? What do I say to Ivan?’
Bauer regarded him with distaste. ‘Don’t say anything. I will be in touch.’
‘I need a doctor.’
‘The girls will take you,’ Bauer said.
He left the bedroom, closing the door and telling Sala to stay there. In the kitchen he found a wall-mounted telephone. He dialled a Sydney number. When he spoke it was to give a report and a recommendation. He spoke clearly and concisely for two minutes without repeating himself. The reply was what he expected it to be. He broke the connection again, pocketed the.22 and left the house.
Thirty-five
The Kombi was gutless but Sugarfoot made the distance from Hobba’s to Bargain City in eight minutes. He parked in the alley, came in the back way, and stood in the showroom, catching his breath. Leanne was there, this time with a whole family of ethnics looking at kitchen chairs.
He forced himself to be casual. ‘Ivan in?’
She looked up. ‘He went home to meet someone. Are you all right?’
‘I’ll be in the storeroom,’ Sugarfoot said.
She shrugged, turning away to play peekaboo with one of the ethnic kids.
Sugarfoot shut himself in the storeroom and began to walk among the junk, feeling on edge, wondering when Ivan would get back. It was probably stupid, coming here. He’d be safer at Ivan’s house, that high wall and all that hi-tech security stuff.
Then it struck him-don’t run, go on the offensive. Hobba is alerted now, so go for Pedersen. He picked up the storeroom phone and dialled.
‘Yeah?’
Pedersen, flat and wary.
‘Home at last, eh?’ Sugarfoot said. ‘Got your pockets full?’
No answer. Sugarfoot said, ‘You listening? You know who this is?’
‘Hobba called me,’ Pedersen said.
There was no inflexion in his voice. He sounded more preoccupied than surprised. Sugarfoot felt sour about that. ‘Thought you might like to do a deal,’ he said.
He heard rustling in the background, and then a complaining zipper. ‘Sounds like you might be counting your take. Am I right?’
‘I’m busy,’ Pedersen said. ‘What do you want?’
‘Mate. Think about it. I can ruin your day.’
Pedersen said, ‘I seem to remember we ruined yours. We can do it again. Fuck off.’
Sugarfoot had the upper hand. He wasn’t fazed. ‘Suit yourself. I’ll just go and have a word with the jacks, what do you reckon? Or maybe that bloke you hit, that lawyer. I mean, if you won’t cough up for me, I bet he’ll be happy to.’
A pause. Then, ‘Get to the point.’
‘That is the point. You give me a percentage, or I dob you in.’
Another pause. ‘How much?’
‘That’s better,’ Sugarfoot said. ‘They reckoned on TV ten thousand, but the take was bigger, am I right?’
Pedersen replied warily, ‘Maybe.’
‘Well, what are we looking at?’
After a while, Pedersen said, ‘Around fifty thousand.’
‘Your cut’s what, sixteen, seventeen?’
Pedersen grunted.
‘So if I got, say, ten thousand off each of you, you still wouldn’t be out of pocket,’ Sugarfoot said. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t want all of it.’
There was a pause, then Pedersen said clearly, ‘And we come after you and blow your miserable brains out.’
Sugarfoot was enjoying this. ‘Not if there’s this envelope, it gets opened if anything happens to me.’
‘You been watching too many films,’ Pedersen said.
Sugarfoot straightened, his feet firm and set apart on the cement floor. ‘You’re in no position to fuck with me, pal. You collect the other two and meet me now, with the money.’
‘Can’t.’
‘What do you mean, you can’t? Do you want me to put the cops onto you?’
‘I mean we physically can’t make it. It will take a while to track Wyatt down.’
Sugarfoot considered. ‘All right, two this afternoon.’
‘I could need more time.’
‘Jesus. Four o’clock, no later.’
‘Where?’ Pedersen said.
‘I don’t trust you bastards. Somewhere nice and open. There’s a footbridge over the Yarra at Abbotsford, at the end of Gipps Street. Be on the middle of the bridge at four.’
‘On the bridge.’
‘Right in the middle,’ Sugarfoot said, ‘where I can see all three of you.’
See your faces, that look when you realise I’m picking you off from high ground somewhere.
He hung up. He was going to need something a bit gutsier than the Kombi.
Like Ivan’s Statesman.
Thirty-six
They dressed again and had coffee and set out for the beach on foot. Wyatt could feel his heart and lungs working. The black soil was carpeted with winter grasses, scored here and there by plough lines and the mud eruptions of bogged farm vehicles. They skirted a chain of crisp puddles. The roadside grasses, starred and bearded with frost, reflected light from the mid-morning sun. By the time they reached the beach they could hear water dripping.
It was a windless day, grey with low clouds. But the sea must have heaved in the night, dumping seaweed and kelp along the shoreline. There were prints in the sand: a horse, a man with a crazy dog. They exchanged waves with a fisherman on the rocks.
Mostly they walked in companionable silence. Wyatt wondered if it was living alone, always in the present, that had made him unlucky. Love for him had become a brief release with women who would never know or understand what he did. The rest of the time he waited for treachery from people he was obliged to trust, and never could he relax his guard against the death dealer he’d never see, never meet. He felt that he’d almost lost the swift cleanness of his life, but things had changed now, he was in a position to see that it didn’t happen again.