Leah was dialling. An extension telephone sat on a coffee table in the corner of her dining room and it tinkled fussily as she dialled. Wyatt counted-nine digits, long distance. He heard her say, ‘It’s me, Leah,’ and then her voice went muffled. He didn’t try to listen in on the extension. The best he could do for the next two weeks was keep his back covered.
He started to think about the truck. It was a good idea. It had the kind of neatness he admired. The problem was, how would they transport the van on the back of a truck without being noticed? The answer came to him and it was as neat and simple as Leah’s initial idea. Brava Construction. Brava Construction’s distinctive vehicles, pale blue with a snorting black bull on each door, had been churning up the mid-north roads for so long now they were part of the landscape.
Leah came back into the dining room. She was wearing black tonight and looked good in it. Black ‘fifties skirt, black tights, embroidered Cambodian waistcoat over a black T-shirt. Her expression was light and cocky. She knew she was in now- she knew she would be there on the day. He realised that he liked her. He wanted her. This was his last drinking session until after the job, so it was partly the alcohol, but only a small part. ‘Well?’
‘It’s all arranged. I was given a name. We go to see him tomorrow. He’ll be expecting us.’
‘Tell me about him.’
‘According to my contact the guy we’re going to see knows heavy vehicles. He’s also pulled semitrailer hijacks in the past, he’s a good mechanic and he’s reliable.’
Wyatt pushed his chair away from the table and began to stand. ‘Don’t,’ Leah said. The voice was low, almost a growl. Wyatt sat again.
She came around the table and stood looking down at him. She knocked her knee against his. Then she straddled him and when he put his hands under her skirt she arched her back. Five years ago she’d liked to do that. She’d been in the game then. He knew about it. It hadn’t bothered him. It hadn’t been an issue. He wasn’t curious about who she was when she was with her clients, or why she did it, or what those other men were like. It was business, that’s all. Somehow she’d known he wasn’t the type to get bothered about what she did. And she was too smart and careful to catch anything.
‘Wyatt?’ she said.
‘I’m here.’
‘Do you still go away every year?’
‘If it’s been a good year. Just lately, the pickings have been poor.’
‘But not with this job. You could be in Tahiti this time next month.’
She was asking to go away with him. He didn’t know about that. He stroked her with his fingers and her back arched.
THIRTEEN
The next morning when the commuter traffic had eased they took the winding freeway through the hills and down into the city. Leah’s driving was smooth and fast, no messy braking or swerving. Once they were out of the hills, Wyatt watched the traffic, the everyday commerce of the suburban streets. He did it automatically. It was as though these banks, payroll deliveries, office safes and jewellers existed only for him.
At Victoria Park racecourse he was reminded of a job he had on hold, to snatch the gate receipts at a big sporting event someday, some place where the security had been allowed to get slack. Leah skirted the vast parklands of the city. Boys were jogging around the playing fields of Prince Alfred College. Schools like this were never called by their full names. They were always Prince’s, King’s, SCEGGS, PLC, and it was always assumed that you understood the reference.
Wyatt’s self-possession and control, his height and grace, had fooled people in the past. They mistook it for arrogance and good breeding. He’d once been asked, ‘Were you at Scotch?’ These schools, the people who sent their kids to them, spelt money, and Wyatt had set out to get some of it. It wasn’t anything personal with him. He had no time for hatred or envy. Emotions like that used up energy and warped judgement. With Wyatt it was simply this: they had money, he wanted it, so what was the best way of getting it?
Leah turned onto Main North Road in Enfield and the city turned ugly. Sunlight blazed from windscreens and chrome in the used-car lots, and massive plastic chickens, hamburgers, tennis racquets and spectacles were bolted above the shopfront verandahs. Leah braked hard, swearing as a kid in a panel van swerved in front of her. The bumper sticker read ‘Don’t Laugh-Your Daughter Could Be In Here’. That’s an old one, Wyatt thought. In fact, the whole city seemed to be about five years behind the rest of the world. Leah braked again, for a bus this time. Diesel exhaust hung in the air behind it and soon the oily fumes were fouling the air in the car.
‘I always forget how shitty it is down here,’ Leah said. ‘I’m spoilt living in the hills.’
‘Bushfires,’ Wyatt said. ‘Developers. Feral cats. Herbicide on the blackberries.’
‘Ha, ha.’
A few blocks before Gepps Cross she turned left into an industrial park. 50% lease! screamed the signs along the fenceline. Grass grew to chest height around the empty buildings. Wyatt counted four stripped cars on the forecourt. Airconditioning ducts, packing cases and empty pallets were stacked along a steel-mesh fence.
‘Here?’ he said.
‘It’s the address I was given.’
Leah followed the main drive past the large front buildings and around behind them to a block of six smaller sheds and wholesale outlets. Three were vacant. The others were a hose and tap supplier, a cane furniture manufacturer and a small transport business. The transport business was at the end of the row and there were two vans parked outside it. A prissy script on the door of each van read ‘KT Transport, Express Service to Country Areas’.
‘Keith Tobin, esquire,’ Leah said. ‘No job too small.’
She parked the car and they got out. A man was on his back under one of the vans. He wore desert boots. He was tapping metal on metal and the soles of the desert boots twisted and turned in sympathy.
‘Mr Tobin?’ Leah said.
The boots were still. A muffled voice replied, ‘Who wants him?’
‘You got a phone call from a mutual acquaintance. You were told to expect us.’
Tobin was not sharp. The boots appeared to be taking in what Leah had said. After a while, the man slid out from beneath the van and stood up. ‘Got you now,’ he said.
Wyatt watched all this, hoping it didn’t mean that Tobin was bad at his job. He saw a vigorous man aged about thirty, dressed in overalls. There were small blue tattoos on his forearms. His hair was cropped short, and a bushy moustache sprouted under his pitted nose. He was loud and cheerful, had vacant eyes in a lively face, and looked, Wyatt thought, exactly like a test cricketer. As he watched, Tobin stripped off the overalls, revealing brief green shorts, a blue singlet and long stretches of healthy-looking skin. Then Tobin put on sunglasses with mirrored orange lenses and said in a rapid mumble, ‘Come in the office.’
Wyatt looked around once before following Tobin and Leah. If there was anyone who didn’t look right hanging around, he’d pull out immediately. He saw no one. He went in.
The office was a mess. Ring-folders and crumpled invoices and receipts littered the desk and floor. There were beer cans on the window ledge. Wyatt didn’t want to waste time. He didn’t wait for Leah but said, ‘Have you got form?’