Wyatt - 01 - Kick Back (19 page)

* * * *

Thirty-eight

The
big Customline was parked in the street. The road surface under it was
bone-dry, indicating that it had been there for some time. The house itself
looked to be vacant, an impression encouraged by the peeling window frames and
verandah posts and the expensive renovation of the houses on either side of it.

Wyatt rapped the front door knocker.
When there was no answer, he walked around to the back of the house. Out of habit
he looked in the two sheds built against the back fence. One contained
newspapers stacked for recycling, the other a workbench and a number of bicycle
spare parts.

The back door key was under a
bluestone block that supported a terracotta pot of herbs. Wyatt turned the key
softly and let himself into the house. He stood, listening, for two minutes,
then began a rapid search of the rooms on both floors.

He
rejected the common living areas and two of the bedroomsone because it clearly
belonged to a womaer because he doubted that Surgarfoot subscribed to
bush-walking magazines.

That
left a elarge front room on the first floor. It was dimly
lit, the air heavy with an
atmosphere of cloaked obsessions. Among the pulp novels in the bookcase were
sets of American handgun magazines and several large folios on weaponry from
remainder bookshops. One shelf was crammed with war and western videos, heroes
posed like gods on the covers. There was a small desk under the window. The
drawers were locked. Against one wall was a large, gloomy wardrobe. It, too,
was locked. Wyatt looked under the bed. He saw a padlocked chest but didnt
bother to drag it out or force the lock. He had a good idea what hed find.

He went downstairs again. He locked
the back door behind him, put the key under the bluestone block, and walked
around to the front of the house.

A voice demanded, Who are you?

The woman had just come home. She
had a sharp, unhappy face and stiff, chopped white hair. A badge on her
overalls said, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. She glared at Wyatt. What do you
want?

Im after Sugarfoot. I did knock,
Wyatt said, then I went to see if he was around the back.

Are you a friend of his?

Wyatt watched her. She was hostile,
but not towards him, so he said, Not exactly. He owes me some money.

Her lip curled. That would be
right. You could try his brothers place. He said he was going there to pick up
a bookshelf. But that was this morning. She fished in her pocket for the front
door key. If you see him, she said, tell him to bring back my Kombi
now,
or
Im reporting it stolen. She slammed the door.

Wyatt left. In Carlton, and again in
Footscray, he encountered heavy football traffic. The victors cars seemed to
ride high in the fast lane and flow with the green lights, streaming ribbons
and scarves. The losers were miserably bunched in family sedans. They
progressed in frustrating short surges. Glowering fathers slapped at legs in
the back seat. Then it began to rain and a car clipped a bus and Wyatt was
stalled in banked-up traffic. The city was moving uselessly, resentfully, into
Saturday evening.

By six oclock he was parked in the
alley behind Bargain City. The rear door was locked. He walked around to the
street entrance. Metal screens secured the door and windows. There were no
lights on. All life seemed to be centred on the video shop and the takeaway
caf. Wyatt returned to his car, pursued by gusts of music, film images,
vinegar sharp on fish and chips.

He was covering bases. He drove the
two kilometres to Ivan Youngers house. Ivan liked to say, Footscray is where
I was born, its where I operate from, its where I belong, as if he saw
himself as a godfather living among his people. His sprawling 1950s brick and
tile house was set on a large block of land in a street of workers cottages. A
high bluestone wall, topped with broken glass, surrounded the house and
grounds. Above the steel entrance gate was a security camera. Wyatt stayed
clear of the gate, guessing that it would be locked. He stood where he could
see through to the house. It appeared to be in darkness.

Just then a child appeared on the
footpath. She wore a parka and was clumping home from the corner shop on
rollerskates. Her movements were clumsy. She needed her arms for balance, but
held them tight against her body, supporting milk cartons and a breadstick.
Where the footpath dipped to allow car access to Youngers gate, she began to
lose her balance. She stumbled, clown-like, against the gate.

It swung inwards. The girl, clinging
to the vertical bars, swung with it, her skates scooting out from under her,
milk and bread tumbling out of her grasp. Wyatt watched her fall onto her
stomach.

It was awkward, unexpected, painful.
She began to cry. Wyatt saw her turn onto her back, sit up, and test her skates
and brush at her knees and elbows. Then she got up, gathered the milk and the
bread, and continued shakily along the footpath. He watched her go. There was
no-one else in the street.

When she was out of sight he watched
the security camera for several minutes. It was the sweep-movement kind, but
wasnt moving. He crossed the road, stepped through the gate, and made his way
to the house, avoiding the gravel driveway.

He circled the house once, keeping
to the shrubs and trees, and then circled it again, testing doors and windows.
The window bars and fancy internal wooden shutters made it difficult for him to
see in. All the doors were closed. He didnt touch them. He assumed they were
locked. It was frustrating. Ivan Younger lived alone and he might well be in
there, shut away peacefully in an inner room.

Wyatt turned his attention to the
garage. The door was open, revealing a shabby Kombi van gleaming dully in the
light from the distant street. There was no other vehicle. Wyatt put his palm
against the Kombis engine panel. It was cold. The doors were locked. He tried
the door leading from the garage to the house. It, too, was locked.

He stood for a moment, moodily
contemplating the fuse box. It was on the wall of the house, next to the garage
door. He opened the grey metal cover, revealing the electricity meter. There
was just enough light from the street for Wyatt to see that the power disc was
not spinning. Ivan Younger was paranoid about security. He had a camera on the
gate and there would be alarms and beams inside the house. These used tiny
amounts of power, barely more than a trickle, but enough to register on the
meter. The alarm system had been turned off.

Suddenly the disc began to spin.
Wyatt froze, and ducked into an area of darkness, expecting lights, alarms,
shouting voices.

But nothing happened. He crouched,
thinking about it, then realised: the lights and alarms had been turned off but
the refrigerator would continue to cut in and out.

Certain now, Wyatt returned to the
garage. He found masking tape on a shelf next to twine and tins of glue. Then
he walked around to the back of the house. Bathroom windows were always the
easiest. He taped over the glass, cracked it with a stone, and removed a broken
section near the latch. He reached in, turned the latch, and tugged upwards on
the bottom half of the window. Nothing. The window had been locked where the
two sections met at the middle. All he could do now was remove the rest of the
glass and climb through. He hated doing that. It wasted time, and meant a
narrow aperture possibly lined with shards of glass.

Inside the bathroom, Wyatt stood and
listened. An old-fashioned clock ticked loudly in the hall. From where he stood
in the doorway, he heard nothing else and saw no telltale gleam of light in
other parts of the house. It all felt wrong.

This was confirmed in the sitting
room. He smelt cordite first, very faint, then saw a human shape in the
darkness, in an old armchair facing the television set. Hearing nothing,
knowing now that no-one was in the house, Wyatt flicked his torch on and off,
long enough to see Ivan Youngers head slumped on his chest.

He crossed the room and felt for a
pulse. There was none. He used the torch again. There was no apparent wound
either. He began to feel around the hairline, concentrating on the area where the
skull is at its thinnest. Thats where he found it, a small patch of crusted
blood. Small calibre, Wyatt thought. Someone who knew what he was doing.

* * * *

Thirty-nine

It
couldve been anybody.

If someone had money to spend,
skills to offer, Ivan did business with them. He would have made enemies over
the years. But Ivan worked from the shop, not his house. Whenever Wyatt had
bought goods and information from him in the past, it had always been
negotiated at the shop. Theyd planned the Frome insurance job at the shop.

The body slumped in the comfortable
armchair, the unactivated alarm system, spoke of a visitor, someone known or
expected.

Here was one twist following hard on
the heels of another, and the link was Sugarfoot. Wyatt speculated, testing
explanations. Sugarfoot is unnerved by his footbridge plan and asks Ivan to
help him. But Ivan is angry with him, says the wrong thing, and Sugarfoot puts
a bullet in him. Wyatt could sense Sugarfoot out there somewhere, too afraid to
go to the footbridge, too afraid to go home, but still stewing with skewed
logic on all the chances denied him, all the debts he was owed.

Wyatt slipped out of the house and
drove to a public telephone and called the safe house. Pedersen answered on the
first ring.

He didnt show, Wyatt said.

Pedersen was silent. Then he said
slowly, Hobba didnt show here. Anna did, but not Hobba.

Wyatt tensed. But you told him.

Pedersens voice rose. Couldnt get
hold of him. Been ringing all afternoon. Jesus Christ.

You there? he said, when Wyatt
didnt respond.

Ive just been to Ivan Youngers,
Wyatt replied.

Yeah?

Hes dead. Been shot.

There was a pause. Wyatt continued, Id
say Sugar has finally flipped.

He had a grudge against Hobba,
Pedersen said.

Ill get back to you, Wyatt said. You
and Anna stay put. Dont let anyone in.

He got back in the rental car. It
was seven oclock and the football fans, refreshed by hot showers, were now
pouring into the city. Music called from car to car, as if a nation were
mustering. Young teeth gleamed at Wyatt from the dim interiors of customised
Holdens, and stereos throbbed like eager hearts. All he could do was hunt for
gaps, brake, crawl along.

The traffic jerked onto Racecourse
Road. At the entrance to the Housing Commission flats he turned in and parked
the car, angling it for a clear run to the street.

He looked up at the looming towers.
Human shapes dreamed in many of the windows, backlit by the blue light of
television screens. Curtains were open. It was understandable: no-one to see
in, and a perfect view across parkland to the fingering skyscrapers of the
city.

As he stood there looking up, two
girls went by, watching him covertly, liking his hooked face and his air of
controlled energy. One, more daring than the other, said, Its not for sale.

He flashed a grin at her, but couldnt
afford to have them remember his face, so he turned and walked away. I dont bite,
called the girl to his departing back. He raised his hand.

Once inside the lift, he pulled on
latex gloves and put his hands in his pockets. He got off at the eighth floor.
When the doors closed behind him, he waited and listened. The heavy air carried
the chill of winter, laced with food odourscurry, fried onion, soggy
vegetablesand it trembled with cop show sirens and shrill advertisements. He
noticed the scratched wood and scuffed walls. Then a door creaked in a breeze
and he saw by the number that it was Hobbas. Light spilled out, onto the grimy
corridor floor.

That was bad. He turned to get away
from there. A voice said, Excuse me, sir.

A young policeman had appeared at
the bend in the corridor. He stood well clear of Wyatt, his right hand at his
revolver butt. He had wary eyes above a smudge of adolescent moustache.

Do you live here, sir?

Wyatt nodded at Hobbas door,
keeping his gloved hands in his pockets. Just calling on a friend, he said. Is
something wrong?

I think youd better speak to
Sergeant Hickey, sir, the policeman responded.

What happened? Is Rob all right?

Knock on the door, please, sir.

Wyatt tapped on Hobbas half-open
door, positioning his body to obscure the latex glove. The door swung further
open. All Hobbas lights seemed to be on. The air smelt stale. A print had been
pulled off the wall, the telephone stand was overturned, and through the
doorway at the end he saw heaped clothing, scraps of paper and empty, dumped
drawers. Then a uniformed figure loomed in the hallway, blocking the light, and
an irritable voice said, Who the hell are you?

Behind Wyatt the young policeman
said, I found him in the corridor, Sergeant. He says hes acquainted with the
occupant.

Well I never. Acquainted with the
occupant.