When he woke up he knew he’d been out for a few hours. They’d taken the ropes off and he was lying on a foam rubber mattress. The air was stuffy. He tried to sit up but the pain tore through him and he blacked out. When he woke again the pain was still there, like a bird diving its beak into his body. In films the hero always gets up. Wyatt knew about real pain, how it stays with you. Taking it very slowly, he sat up.
The absolute lack of light puzzled him until he realised he’d been locked in the shipping container. He reached out a hand and touched the nearest wall. It had been insulated on the inside-from the heat, he supposed, but he also knew it meant he could make all the noise he wanted and no one would hear him. He didn’t risk standing yet. He slid along the perimeter of the container. At the back he found a stack of plastic boxes the size of Gideon Bibles. Videos. There was also a refrigerator with a lock on it.
Some time later they came to check on him. Blinding sunlight came through the door and Happy was there, holding a torch, the.38 and a glass of water. He turned on the torch and closed the door behind him. ‘Drink,’ he said, placing the glass on the floor.
Wyatt took small sips of the water. His mouth was dry and he had a raging thirst but he knew he’d vomit if he gulped the water. Happy, he noticed, was staring at him curiously, as if last night’s fight and beating had bonded them in some way.
Wyatt tried to speak, coughed, tried again. ‘Is it Saturday?’
Happy nodded.
‘Why don’t you just kill me?’
Happy considered the question carefully. ‘Too many people. Sunday.’
Wyatt deciphered this. They were waiting for when it was quiet, no customers, no one shopping in the main street. It could also mean they intended to move him. ‘Happy?’ Wyatt said. ‘Where’s the money?’
The voice rumbled like sludge sliding off a shovel. ‘I’ve got my share.’
‘I know. Where did the boss take the rest of it?’
‘Mesic,’ the big man said.
Wyatt knew that name. It was a name in the Melbourne papers and it meant rackets and killings. The cops had given up on the street crimes to concentrate on tax evasion. They weren’t getting far there, either. Not that Wyatt cared about any of that. Now that he knew who to go after and what to expect, he was starting to work out how to get his money back.
It didn’t strike him as unrealistic to be thinking like this. The Mesics had his money and he wanted it back, that’s all he cared about. It didn’t occur to him to think that he wouldn’t succeed, that he wouldn’t be alive to do it.
‘Hap?’ he said. ‘Trigg’ got a lot of money from that van, but you did most of the dirty work. I bet he paid you peanuts.’
‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ Happy said. ‘It won’t work.’
It was the longest speech Wyatt had heard the big man make. He closed his eyes, shutting him out. A few minutes later Trigg came in. Wyatt looked up. Muscles were working around Trigg’s mouth and eyes. His colour was high. ‘Bloody tyre-kickers, that’s all I get these days. Come on, Hap, we’ve got work to do.’ He grinned at Wyatt. ‘Plenty of fuck-tapes here, my son, a fridge full of pills. Pity they’re no good to you.’
‘Stay away from holes in the ground, Hap,’ Wyatt said. ‘Don’t turn your back on the little turd.’
‘Shut up, moron,’ Trigg said.
When they were gone Wyatt checked the door. As he expected, it was a waste of time. He lay back and wondered if psychology would get him out of this.
THIRTY-NINE
He lay there for thirty-six hours. Happy checked on him from time to time, giving him water and food. They had their shorthand conversations but Happy wouldn’t be drawn. Wyatt gave up trying to turn the big man against Trigg and lay in the darkness, adjusting to the silence.
His sleep was fitful. He felt cold during the night and the thin mattress was uncomfortable. On Sunday morning when Happy came to check on him he complained about it. ‘Some cushions or a chair, Hap.’
What Happy did with his face was close to a grin. ‘Not worth it,’ he said.
Wyatt shrugged. ‘Tell me, Hap-how will you do it? Dig another pit?’
Happy shook his massive head. ‘Accident. Hallam Gorge.’
Hallam Gorge was an ugly buckling of the earth’s plates a few kilometres north of Goyder. Wyatt had driven around it one day when he was working with Brava Construction’s surveyor. At one point the road narrowed and all that lay between it and a sheer drop of half a kilometre was a white guard rail. He knew what Trigg and Happy had in mind now and he could see the appeal of it. There would be no one around when they left later that night. On Monday morning someone would see the hole in the guard rail and call the cops. The cops would find the wreckage of the truck and the van at the bottom, Wyatt’s body at the wheel. They’d be able to close this part of the investigation. They’d assume Wyatt had been holed up in the area and was pulling out again when he misjudged a curve and ran off the road. They’d assume that left only the guard, and he would have the money. They’d go through the usual channels, checking flight lists, putting the guard’s photo on the wire. They’d trace Wyatt back to Brava-that’s if he had any skin left on his face after plunging half a kilometre down a cliff face.
‘Where’s Trigg?’ he asked.
‘Home.’
‘Nice place? Does all right for himself does he, while you live in a shithole?’
Happy’s features grew a few degrees warmer. ‘I got simple tastes,’ he said as he went out.
Trigg turned up late on Sunday afternoon, checked on Wyatt, left him in darkness again. Wyatt could sense the decent people of the little city settling into sleep in front of their TV screens. Work tomorrow. Early to bed.
At 2 am, when the night was at its blackest, Trigg and Happy came to get him. Trigg held the.38 on him while Happy clasped his arms. Parked outside the doors of the shipping container was a roomy, late model family sedan with a sloping rear window. The boot was open.
‘Get in,’ Trigg said.
‘I get claustrophobic’
‘Get in.’
Happy pushed Wyatt’s head down and shoved him hard. His thighs hit the lip of the boot. He fell forward, feeling Happy lift his legs and tumble him into the boot. Then the lid slammed behind him and he was in darkness again.
He lay there listening. The two men walked away from the car. He heard a steel door opening and a minute later he heard the uneven note of a diesel motor. It made a series of short snarls: Happy was backing it out of the panel-beating shed. Then the steel door crashed shut and footsteps approached the car. The car rocked a little as someone got in and shut the door. The engine started and they were moving.
The boot had been vacuumed recently. There was a faint pine perfume in the coarse fibres of the carpet under Wyatt. He began to search with his hands, running them into the corners. Nothing. No tools, jack or wheel brace. He knew the spare tyre was in a recessed space under him but he took up most of the floor so he couldn’t prise up the flap. He didn’t think he’d find anything anyway. He tried the lock next. All he got out of that was grease on his fingers. And then the air around him began to shake and pound, lush and insistent. Jennifer Rush, ‘The Power of Love.’ That figured; that was the sort of cassette tape Trigg would own.
Wyatt reached up. The speakers were set in the wide shelf between the back seat and the big, sloping rear window. The shelf was made of some cheap, manufactured material. He could feel the vibrations in his fingers.
Wyatt approached the problem laterally. He couldn’t get out of the car but he could go further in. He pushed upwards experimentally. He felt the shelf bend slightly. He waited through a pause between songs and explored the underside of the shelf until he found the holding screws. In time with the thudding bass he kicked at the area around the screws, stopping occasionally to test his progress.