Cross Kill w-4 Page 3

  Rossiter was ten years older than his wife but looked twenty years older. He was jockey-sized, with the sunken chest, narrow face and knobbly features that his son had inherited, but not Niall’s viciousness. He’d cut himself shaving. He didn’t seem to know whether or not he should be pleased to see Wyatt in his kitchen doorway. He grew wary and still. ‘Wyatt,’ he said.

  The response was immediate. Niall stood up, looking punchy, pushing back his chair. The expression on Eileen’s face went from neutral to hard and she said, ‘Well, well,’ softly. Leanne looked confused. Wyatt watched them carefully. Rossiter had both hands on the edge of the table. He wasn’t a hard man, or bad or unpredictable, but that didn’t make him a safe bet. The hard one was Eileen, the bad and unpredictable one was Niall, Leanne was nothing.

  There was only one way to get through to these people. Wyatt held up his hand placatingly, said, ‘Take it easy,’ and took an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket. It contained the few thousand dollars he’d been able to make from small heists up and down the eastern seaboard in the past ten months. He counted out a thousand dollars. He sensed tension and anticipation in the room. He put the money on the table and said, ‘Ross, I want to apologise.’

  Niall looked at the money and then at Wyatt. ‘Apologise? Some guy comes along and knocks my old man around on account of you, and you want to apologise? I’ll give you apologise,’ and he started to move around the table.

  Rossiter blocked him with his chair. ‘Keep your shirt on, son. I’m still alive. Hear him out.’

  Niall had the face of a rodent and was driven by nameless grievances. He didn’t want to stop, so Wyatt pulled out his.38. Niall saw it. He backed up, said, ‘Hey,’ putting plenty of hurt in his voice, and sat down.

  The others saw the gun too. Eileen continued to watch Wyatt across the table. Leanne slapped one of her children again and went back to staring in fascination at it. Rossiter shook his head wearily. ‘Cut it out, you lot. Wyatt’s a friend.’ He looked up at Wyatt. ‘Put the gun away, pal, you won’t need it here.’ When the tension ebbed he said, ‘I hear you shot him.’

  Wyatt nodded.

  A look of drowsy appreciation settled on Leanne’s face. ‘You shot Sugarfoot?’

  Wyatt was tired of all this. It was wasting time. He had to force the words out. ‘Ross, can I come in?’

  Eileen stood, her movements saying she liked her large body and got pleasure from it. ‘I’d say you’re already in.’

  She watched Wyatt as she said it. A sexual current seemed to link the two and the others recognised it. Niall tore up a cigarette butt. Leanne’s face reddened. She reached across the table for the crisps and crammed some into her mouth. Rossiter grinned inanely. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.

  ‘Just a quiet word.’

  ‘In here,’ Rossiter said, and he left the room, Wyatt tailing him.

  The lounge room was furnished with pale orange nylon carpet, a floral-patterned suite of two armchairs and couch, a bar and a massive custom-built entertainment corner-television set, stereo and VCR stacked upon varnished chipboard shelves. ‘Nice place,’ Wyatt said.

  Rossiter stared at him, then laughed. ‘Mate, it’s a dump.’

  Wyatt smiled briefly. ‘Still, you got nice things.’

  ‘Well, you know, a bit of this and a bit of that. Niall chips in, pulls in the occasional quid.’

  Wyatt’s voice was suddenly edged with venom. ‘He’s a storm-trooper, Ross.’

  ‘Family, mate, you know. No, I guess you don’t. Pull up a pew.’

  Wyatt sat where he could watch the street through the window.

  ‘So,’ Rossiter said, when they were settled. ‘I suppose you know there’s a contract out on you? That Sydney crowd?’

  Wyatt knew Rossiter wanted to chat. He wanted to chat because he was nervy, but also because it was what people did. Wyatt never felt nervy and he never made small talk out of habit, but he was prepared to make an effort when he wanted something from someone. Besides, he was keen to know the street version of his war with the Outfit. ‘They’re offering twenty,’ he said.

  Rossiter shook his head. ‘Forty thousand to the bloke that knocks you. They reckon you stuffed up their Melbourne operations. They’re building up again and won’t feel happy till you’re off the scene.’

  The price was going up. It had been twenty thousand a few months ago. Wyatt shifted in his chair. The house, the terribleness of the Rossiters, were starting to get him down. He’d get what he wanted, then leave, bugger the small talk. ‘I want to knock over the Mesics,’ he said.

  ****

  Six

  The thing about a Capri is, it’s shapely, mean through the corners and not so expensive that you’d want to know how come a cop drove one. Bax slotted his little car into a gap between the wall and the decent family station wagon that belonged to Coulthart, his Inspector, a man obsessed with breaking the car rackets, and got out. He locked the Capri-a gift from old man Mesic before he died-and entered the main building.

  He gave the nod to a constable on the front desk and was buzzed through to a nervy zone of two-fingered typing, snatched smoking and close-mouthed phone calls. His desk was in the corner. Coulthart had left files on it, all flagged with yellow slips. The name Mesic and a question mark had been scrawled on some of the slips.

  At eleven o’clock Coulthart called him in for an update. There was a dusty African violet on the Inspector’s windowsill and coffee rings on his blotter. Coulthart closed the door behind Bax and said, dropping his voice, ‘I put some files on your desk.’

  Bax nodded.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Boss, an operation like this, we’re steering pretty close to the edge.’

  Coulthart was a soft, untidy looking man. He banged his right fist gently into his left palm, the closest he ever got to passion. ‘But not close to the Mesics.’

  Bax’s elegant suited shoulders expressed regret. ‘Nothing leads to them, boss. That’s the way it is.’

  ‘You keeping tabs on everything? Every motor, every transmission, every outer shell? Every flaming wing mirror?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And you’re saying the Mesics handle none of it? Come on, Bax.’

  Bax checked that there was no gap above the knot in his tie. ‘Boss, I keep telling you, there don’t seem to be any big fish involved, only a lot of little fish, blokes like that panelbeater we nailed last month. We caught him cold with a chassis off a Fairmont swiped from Shopping Town six months ago.’

  ‘Who swiped it?’

  Bax stared at Coulthart, saying nothing. Coulthart knew the rules, he’d set up this fuckwitted operation.

  ‘Forget I asked,’ Coulthart said. ‘How do we know your man isn’t selling to the Mesics on the sly? Is the paperwork tight on this?’

  Any paperwork that Coulthart needed to know about was, so Bax said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘These small operators,’ Coulthart went on, ‘blokes like this panelbeater. He’s not working for the Mesics?’

  ‘No,’ Bax said. ‘That’s where the trail ends, every time, with the small fish. But I’ll keep digging. As for the Mesics, they might be diddling the tax man, but that’s about it. They seem clean.’

  Coulthart clearly wasn’t convinced. Meanwhile he was responsible for an off-colour operation that could bring Age ‘Insight’ reporters down on him like a ton of bricks, so he asked Bax worriedly, ‘How many vehicles are we up to now?’

  ‘Forty.’

  Coulthart looked hard at the top of his desk. ‘Forty,’ he said.

  He said it slowly, as if doubts were finally creeping in. He’d devised an operation that could get them all into trouble. Bax had been ordered to recruit two professional car thieves, promise them good money and immunity from prosecution, get them to swipe late model luxury Fords, strip each car, stamp ID numbers on everything, release the parts on the black market, and follow the trail to the receivers. Clearly Coulthart hoped he’d turn over the Mesics that way, bu
t it was a mad scheme, doomed to stuff up in a big way.

  Well, Bax thought, so long as it’s Coulthart’s neck on the block, not mine. Bax had been working the scam for six months now. He’d arrested a dozen characters like last month’s panelbeater, he’d juggled like crazy to keep the Mesics out of the frame, and the whole thing had him living on a knife edge.

  ‘Forty cars,’ Coulthart said. He smothered a groan. ‘If what you say is right, we’re just feeding a habit that’s always been there anyway.’

  Bax adjusted the back of his suit coat so that it wouldn’t crease in Coulthart’s office chair. ‘That’s about it, boss. There’ll always be blokes who swipe cars, always be chop-shop cowboys who flog or use the parts off them. If you want my advice, the only way you’re going to make a killing in this game is to put a cap on the iffy Mercs coming in from Hong Kong.’

  Anything to get Coulthart off the track. It wasn’t easy for Bax now, earning his five hundred a week from the Mesics. In the old days it simply meant steering the law away from them. Now, with the old man dead, it also meant protecting them from opposition firms like the guy in the Volvo yesterday, and protecting them from dangers within in the form of Victor Mesic.

  Plus which, old Karl Mesic had agreed to buy complete cars from Bax before he died. All Bax had to do was steer one car in ten to a Mesic chop-shop and keep it out of the paperwork. This scam promised to earn him thousands of bucks a year on top of his five hundred a week, and he badly needed it. But the old man had died before Bax could get the scheme up and running, the Mesics were falling apart, and if Coulthart’s operation came unstuck, he, Bax, could fall with it.

  He stared at the African violet while Coulthart continued to groan. The answer was Stella Mesic. She was the strong one. If he could help Stella and Leo divert Victor, maybe send Victor back to the States, the firm could take over where Karl had left off, Leo providing the muscle, Stella the management, Bax the brains and protection.

  Coulthart pushed away from his desk and lifted out of his chair. He favoured creased, lightweight suits summer and winter and sometimes Bax glimpsed flesh between the straining buttons of the man’s drip-dry shirts. He avoided Coulthart’s midriff and stood up too. ‘So, what’s it to be, boss?’

  ‘Give it another month,’ Coulthart said. ‘I want a couple of lightning raids on known Mesic outlets.’

  ‘I’ll need warrants.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Bax said, ‘but I’m telling you, you won’t find anything.’

  ‘Try, okay?’

  Then, when Bax was opening the door, ‘Baxy?’

  Bax stopped. ‘Yes, boss?’

  ‘Do the blokes, you know, take you seriously, got up like that?’

  Jesus Christ, did he mean did the blokes think he was on the take? Bax looked down, checking his long frame, the expensive dark suit that shaped it. His shoes gleamed, his shirt was spotless, thick white cotton. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  Coulthart’s face reddened, the look of a man caught out in a cheap thought. ‘What I mean is, it’s a dirty job, you’ll ruin your dacks.’

  To help the poor bastard out, Bax grinned and winked. ‘I like to set standards, boss. Be on the cutting edge.’

  Coulthart relaxed. ‘Yeah, well, see if you can cut your way through to the Mesics.’

  ****

  Seven

  In the lounge room of the house in Abbotsford, Rossiter stared at Wyatt. ‘You want to hit the Mesics?’

  Wyatt said nothing, waiting for his words to sink in.

  ‘At least your timing’s right, but aren’t you heading a bit off course?’

  Wyatt knew what he meant. The Wyatt that Rossiter knew hit banks, armoured cars, not the cash reserves of other crims.

  ‘I mean, they’re ripe for a takeover. The flash boys are sniffing around, seeing what they can pick up, but not you, Wyatt.’

  ‘That’s my business.’

  Rossiter regarded him for a while. ‘This wouldn’t be personal?’

  ‘Information, Ross, that’s all I want at this stage.’

  ‘You’ll need a darn sight more than information.’

  ‘Let me take care of that.’

  Wyatt waited, letting the old crim get used to the idea. Someone passed by the side window. He stiffened, looked at Rossiter sharply.

  ‘Leanne’s going,’ Rossiter said, a grin on his staved-in face. ‘Back in a tick.’

  He went out the front door. Wyatt went to the window, saw Rossiter and Eileen kiss and hug Leanne and the children goodbye. No one else was around. Wyatt returned to the armchair as Rossiter came back into the room.

  ’Information, Ross.’

  Rossiter shrugged. ‘I’ll tell you what I can.’

  ’I checked the Mesic place out yesterday-’

  Rossiter grinned. ‘Wog heaven?’

  Wyatt made a cutting motion with his hand. He was not good at this kind of conversation. ‘I need to know about the people living there.’

  ‘You heard the old man died?’

  ‘I’ve been on the move,’ Wyatt said. ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘Old Karl died a couple of weeks ago, leaving Leo, the youngest boy…’

  ‘Solid? About thirty? Moustache like a cop?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ’Who else?’

  ‘His wife, Stella.’

  ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘Smart, but bottom drawer, if you know what I mean. Leo brought her back from a Gold Coast holiday one time. Cluey though, smarter than Leo.’

  ‘I saw an older bloke, skinny, long hair, flashy dresser.’

  ‘That would’ve been Victor, the old man’s favourite. He’s been handling things in the States. They reckon there you can pay some kid a hundred bucks to hot-wire a Mustang and drive it straight to the wharf and onto a container ship. Convert it to right-hand drive here and sell it for twenty grand.’

  Wyatt didn’t care about any of that. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘That’s all I know of.’

  There were footsteps, then another shape passed the side window. Wyatt heard noises in the carport. A powerful motor was run viciously at full throttle for a few seconds, allowed to subside, punished again. Rossiter shrugged. ‘He’ll quit in a minute.’

  They waited. A short time later Niall went around to the back of the house again. Wyatt said, ‘So who’s the brains of the show?’

  ‘Well, there you go, mate. The Mesics have never been that big or that smart, just lucky. Somehow or other they managed to end up with a fair old slice of the stolen car racket, plus some small-scale pushing interstate. The word is, now the old man’s dead they’re losing their grip. Mates of mine seem to think Stella and Leo could run the firm okay, only Victor’s got other ideas.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning Victor’s got big plans for them. Stolen cars? Forget it. I’ve heard he intends to convert everything to cash so he can be the front man for some funny money coming in from the States to run the clubs and casinos, caper like that.’

  This was all speculation. Wyatt was more interested in the here and now. ‘Tell me about the day-to-day side of things.’

  ‘The money side of things?’

  Wyatt nodded.

  ‘Simple. Cash comes in every day from all their chop-shops, spare parts outlets, car dealerships.’

  ‘All legitimate businesses?’

  ‘With two sets of books, one for the tax man, the other for the black stuff.’

  ‘What happens to the cash?’

  ‘Once a week, on a Friday, everyone gets paid and the rest gets laundered.’

  Wyatt liked that. The strictly cash heists had been drying up for him. It seemed no one used cash anymore. ‘So I need to hit on a Thursday night.’

  ‘Better make it soon, or it could all be gone,’ Rossiter said. ‘Thursday week should give you time to set it up. I wish you luck.’

  Wyatt didn’t believe in luck, good or bad. He believed in people
who had skills and nerve. He wandered to the window again, mentally putting a team together.

  Behind him Rossiter said, ‘Anything else you want to know?’

  ‘You ever hear from Frank Jardine?’

  ‘He lives in Sydney now. I can give you the address.’

  Wyatt waited while Rossiter scribbled on the back of an envelope. ‘I’ll be in touch later with a shopping list. Plastic explosive, drills, radios, stuff like that.’

  ‘Easier said than done,’ Rossiter said sharply. ‘Last time I helped you I almost got killed.’

  Wyatt turned around. He focused on Rossiter without blinking, unemotional and remote: ‘How much?’

  Rossiter met his look for as long as he could, then glanced away. ‘Another thousand?’

  Wyatt counted out ten one-hundred dollar notes. ‘There could be more later.’

  ‘Call it a retainer.’

  ‘There could be more later,’ Wyatt said, still hard and dispassionate, ‘so long as no one gets wind of what I’m doing.’

  ‘Reading you loud and clear,’ Rossiter said, buttoning the notes into his shirt pocket.

  Wyatt was still standing. Otherwise he might not have noticed the Laser parked beyond the pub. In the daylight it was blue, last night it had looked black. There was a dent on the rear panel, three registration stickers on the windscreen.

  He didn’t say anything. He turned away from the window and left the room. He passed through the kitchen, ignoring Eileen, who was dipping a wet finger into a packet of crisps. He couldn’t see Niall anywhere. He kicked a wheel-less fire engine out of his path, and paused at the screen door. In front of him was the grey yard, guarded by a high paling fence. The stiff clothes creaked in the breeze. Apparently the dog was asleep.

  Wyatt slipped outside, ran lightly to the kennel, used it as a step, and vaulted over the side fence into the truck driver’s backyard. In his wake the dog growled, the door opened in the granny flat, and Niall said, ‘What the fuck…?’

  Wyatt waited, crouched behind a thicket of staked tomato plants. The garden was empty. He couldn’t see anyone inside the glass windows that extended along the back of the truck driver’s house.