Cross Kill

Thirteen

An hour later, Wyatt was waiting to catch the Sydney train. There was a risk that the Outfit would have staked out the Melbourne terminal, so he was waiting at an outer suburban station where the day train stopped. He would get off at Wodonga and transfer to a road coach for the remainder of his journey, finishing at Strathfield, not the central Sydney terminal. He waited near the end of the platform. If something didn’t look right, if something spooked him, he could lose himself among the sheds, wagons and stacks of rotting equipment in the shunting yards.

The Sydney train drew in and he found his seat. He dozed through the long morning, his collar turned up, his face turned to the endless flooded plains and farmland outside the window. His ticket was punched. He didn’t look at the conductor but sat, forbidding and still. No one spoke to him. No one wanted to speak to him.

The coach from Wodonga drew in to Strathfield at 9.15 pm. Several people alighted with him. He waited for his bag and then joined the knots of people milling on the footpath. He wasn’t stopped or accosted. No whistles or shouts or hands reaching out to spin him around.

He walked slowly away from the building, waiting for the cars and passengers to clear. Something about the air buoyed him up. It was risky, careless, an enlivening Sydney smell. When he thought the way was clear, he walked back. A lone taxi was waiting at the rank.

‘Thought I’d missed out,’ the driver said as Wyatt got in.

‘Must be your lucky night,’ Wyatt said. Luck seemed to be in the air. He could smell it, even if he told himself that he didn’t believe in it. ‘Newtown,’ he said.

‘Newtown,’ the driver said, clearly baffled as to why Wyatt hadn’t taken the coach to the central terminal.

They passed through leafy red-tile suburbs. The camphor laurels were flowering. A couple of skateboarders, swift shapes in the moonlight, plunged down the sloping streets and brassy foreign cars darted through the traffic. Streets twisted, heaping the suburbs over small, distinct hills, and Wyatt felt invigorated after Melbourne’s flat reaches. He breathed in and out and sank into his seat. ‘Anywhere along here,’ he said when they got to Newtown. He paid the driver and got out.

He walked through to Broadway. The footpaths on either side were crowded with people leaving restaurants, pubs and takeaway joints. A couple of greengrocers and video libraries were open and he edged past a drunken group bargaining good-naturedly with a doorstep jewellery vendor, fingering the trinkets laid out on black velvet. The address Rossiter had given him was a hotel called the Dorset and he could see it a block away.

When he reached the all-night cafe opposite the Dorset he realised how hungry he was. He went inside and claimed a stool at the window bench. ‘Foccacia and coffee,’ he said, and sat down to eat and watch. The watching was habit. He wasn’t expecting trouble in the Dorset.

Thirty minutes later, convinced the place was clean, he paid his bill and crossed the street. The Dorset’s massive front door opened onto a room the size of a tennis court. At one end a set of padded armchairs faced an empty fireplace and an ancient television set. The picture was rolling and the sound was off. At the other end was a highly polished reception desk next to a broad staircase. There were key tags dangling from half of the dozen or so pigeonholes behind the desk. The woman on duty was smoking and flicking through a magazine, like Basil Fawlty’s wife. Under the odour of her cigarette Wyatt could smell furniture polish. The place was worn and old, he noticed, but solid and cared for. The ceiling was low and there were bulky pillars at intervals through the vast room. Thick paint had been splashed on the walls. The floor gleamed darkly.

Keeping back so mat he wouldn’t be noticed by the woman at the desk, Wyatt edged around to the public telephones in the far corner. There were three of them, in roomy, old-fashioned booths with pneumatic-operated wood and glass doors. He stepped into the first cubicle, checked the Dorset’s number and dialled it.

He saw the woman pick up the phone and then he heard her voice. ‘Dorset Hotel. Can I help you?’

‘I’ve got a message for Frank Jardine,’ Wyatt said. ‘Could you tell him the car will be waiting out the front in about five minutes?’

‘I’ll check if he’s in,’ the woman said. Wyatt saw her turn around and check the pigeon holes.

‘Yes, he’s in. Who shall I say is calling?’

‘He’s expecting me,’ Wyatt said, and hung up.

He settled back to watch what the woman would do. If she made any phone calls or otherwise indicated that Jardine was marked in some way, he’d be out of there. The woman wrote the message on a small pad then lifted her head and shouted something. An elderly man came through a swing door on the other side of the staircase. Wyatt watched him take the note and labour upstairs with it. Two minutes later he came down again, spoke to the woman and disappeared through the swing doors. Nothing else happened. Wyatt imagined Jardine scratching his head over the note, perhaps warily checking his gun, but he’d get over it. Meanwhile Wyatt wanted to make sure the place was safe before he spoke to him.

After five minutes he stepped out of the telephone booth. Keeping the columns between himself and the woman at the desk, he began to edge around to the staircase.

The gun barrel tickled his spine before he was halfway there. He froze. ‘You haven’t lost your touch,’ he said.

‘No, but you have. Jesus, chum, don’t you know there’s a contract out on you?’

Wyatt turned slowly and faced a man who years ago had been his friend. ‘That’s partly why I’m here,’ he said.