Not that she was going anywhere, handcuffed like that.
Wyatts expression was gawking now, the nine-to-five citizen finding a little vicarious drama in his day. He kept the look pasted there as the doors closed again, shutting off Anna, the plainclothes men, the uniformed cops in the corridor behind them.
Wyatt got out on 9, a long corridor with unmarked doors on either side. Somewhere he heard a racking cough but otherwise the place was deserted. According to a notice on the wall opposite, the toilets were to the left. Wyatt followed the arrow and came to the stairwell door. He opened it and went in. The air was musty. Somewhere far below him a door banged.
He took a first step down and then another. He couldnt stay in the building: she might say that shed seen him, use him to trade her way out of trouble. His head was pounding again. He wanted to run, but forced himself to go slowly all the way to the bottom. There could be a cop on the stairs, there could be someone snatching a smoke break. A running man in a stairwell would not look right.
At the ground floor he eased the door open. Through the main doors at the end of the foyer he could see the plainclothes men, an unmarked car, Anna being bundled into it. Thats it for her, he thought. Theyll give her ten years.
Wyatt closed the door and waited. He thought about his options. Hed pocketed fifteen thousand dollars of loose cash from the vault, which was better than nothingenough, anyway, to finance a hit somewhere that would support him until it was safe to return to Melbourne and get his money back from the Mesics. Stolle and Mostyn must have been operating alone, he realised. He began to picture Stolle, the mans place in Melbourne, the quarter million hidden away somewhere, and left TrustBank behind him forever.
Thirty-seven
Stolle whooped as he drove away from the city. He couldnt help it. He giggled and whooped and pounded the flat of his hand on his knee.
He owed it all to a combination of idle curiosity, hatred and lack of funds. Just over a week ago hed been blinking in the afternoon light outside Jupiters, wondering whether to run his last twenty dollars through the poker machines or buy a ham sandwich and take the first flight home, when hed seen Wyatt step down from a tourist coach.
Hed ducked into a boutique and watched Wyatt through the racks of string bikinis against the window. He waited to see if the woman was with him. A bunch of Japanese, a couple of pensioners and a handful of breezy backpackers but not the woman whod hired him to find the man.
Help you, sir? Something for the wife, is it?
Stolle motioned the assistant to leave him alone. He didnt turn around. Perve, she muttered.
As Stolle watched, a kind of shiver had crawled across his skin. Something was going on and he owed it to himself to check it out. If Wyatt had been needed so urgently, why was he down here on the Coast a couple of days later with a load of tourists? If sex was the reason the woman in Brisbane wanted Wyattand Stolle had come to accept that that was the casethen how come shed let him free with a bunch of leggy sheilas half his age?
He saw them pour into a cafe near the bus. Wyatt did not go in with them. Wyatt walked off alone. A while later, Stolle followed. What did the guy want, if not to play at being a tourist?
Hanging well back, hed tailed Wyatt for thirty minutes. Wyatt walked slowly and he seemed to be acutely aware of his surroundings, a stranger in a strange land. He looked in clothing shops. He stood near sidewalk cafes, eyeing the patrons intently. Once or twice he went right around beachfront motels, checking windows and doors. Was he casing the place? The man did armed robbery; he wasnt a cat burglar.
There was a risk that Wyatt would tumble him if he kept this up. Stolle remembered Wyatts treachery in the pump house at the farm, the way hed treated Mostyn at the motel, the womans curtness at the bus station, and had allowed a kernel of hate to grow for both of them.
He dropped away a few minutes later and rang the coach company. He learnt that they ran a full-day bus tour each day, taking in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, finishing back in Brisbane just before 7 pm. Did sir want a ticket? There were spare seats today, pick-up outside Jupiters at six oclock.
Future reference, Stolle told the operator, and cut the connection.
Curiosity, hatred and lack of funds. Stolle looked at his last twenty dollars. Wyatt robbed banks and armoured cars for a living, so if it wasnt sex the woman wanted him for, maybe she had a job lined up for him.
Stolle had two options: wait around and see if he could grab a piece of the action, or fly home to Melbourne. Given that the tingling in his spine was working overtime, the second option was out. He trusted that feeling, every time.
So, he stayed in Queensland. He would follow the woman, follow Wyatt. See where they went, who they saw, what they were spending their money on.
But hed known he couldnt do it alone. He fed five of his remaining dollars into an STD phone inside a Burger King and called his office in Melbourne. How are you doing with those jobs I gave you?
Had an argument with the grocer, Mostyn said. Now hes got his nephew riding shotgun, stupid prick. The Plastico strike was called off. Thought Id start that other job tomorrow.
Leave it. Itll keep. I want you in Brisbane first thing tomorrow morning. Check a couple of guns and permits through on the same flight, and scrounge what cash you can. Plus a couple of infra-red binoculars and the Nikon with a range of lenses. I think Im onto something here.
Fifteen dollars left. Stolle had walked into Jupiters then. An hour later he walked out again with five hundred dollars in his pocket. He went to the Avis office, rented a Falcon and was waiting in it when the coach pulled up outside Jupiters at five-forty-five. He didnt know if Wyatt would be among the passengers or not. If the hit was somewhere on the Gold Coast, Wyatt might not go back to Brisbane. Tailing him locally would be tricky: the Coast was a small place and Wyatt would spot him eventually.
But Wyatt did board the coach. Stolle saw him hang back and let the others on first. The man was a pro, the way he guarded his back out of habit, even on a bus trip among a bunch of tourists; the way he stood where he could watch the pedestrian traffic, waiting until the last moment so he wouldnt be boxed in on the bus itself.
Stolle got to the freeway ahead of the coach. He let it pass him and draw away. When the city skyline appeared, he accelerated, catching the coach and passing it. He was waiting half a block away when it pulled into Adelaide Street to unload.
It was a useful evening for Stolle. He tailed Wyatt and found where the woman lived. He rooted around in a rubbish bin under her house and came up with a name: Anna Reid. At three oclock in the morning he discovered where Wyatt was staying.
The next morning, Sunday, he drove out to the airport. Mostyn had checked through two. 45 automatics and was carrying three thousand dollars in cash. They claimed the guns and Mostyns luggage and drove to Wyatts hotel. A little before eleven oclock Wyatt emerged and caught a bus.
They had tailed him to a new shopping centre halfway to the Gold Coast. It was puzzling. Was the guy meeting someone? Stolle went carefully. The streets were deserted and he knew Wyatt had only to spot the Falcon twice in two separate locations to know he was being followed. When the bus signalled for the stop, Stolle parked two blocks behind it, pulling in tight against a small car with a high roof and plenty of glass on all sides.
Train the camera on him. Telephoto.
While Mostyn fiddled with the Nikon, Stolle tried to figure what Wyatt was up to. First Wyatt went into a milk bar. He was in there a while and when he came out he was reading a newspaper as if he had all the time in the world. He ambled across the street, eyes on the paper. He went down a side street and they lost sight of him. A couple of minutes later, he was back again.
Hes scouting, Mostyn said. Has to be.
The bank, you reckon?
Has to be.
I guess well find out, Stolle said.
He started the car and they drove back to Brisbane. Wyatt had still been at the bank but Stolle didnt want to push his luck by sticking to him any longer. They bought sandwiches in the mall and staked out Wyatts hotel again.
