Cross Kill

Thirty

On Wednesday afternoon Rossiter delivered boltcutters, plastic explosive and radios. When he was gone, Wyatt examined the boltcutters. They were Taiwanese, cheaply made and too small. ‘We’re going shopping,’ he said. He didn’t want their faces to be remembered by some clerk in a hardware store, so he said to Jardine, ‘We’ll try pawnbrokers.’ Wyatt felt strangely allied to pawnbrokers. Pawnbrokers were always being hassled by cops with stolen goods lists. ‘Smith Street,’ he said, and he let Jardine drive one of the two rental cars they were using.

They drove in silence. Then, in a bottleneck in Clifton Hill, where men in hardhats were ripping up the tramtracks, Jardine said, ‘The Mesic woman’s having it off with some geezer.’

Wyatt looked at him.

‘Lunchtime yesterday, again today.’

‘Where? Her place?’

Jardine shook his head. ‘I decided to follow her. She met him on the edge of the city, they got in her car, and they drove to a flat in South Yarra.’ He fished a scrap of paper from his pocket. ‘Here’s the address.’

‘Describe him.’

‘Tallish, wears a suit or classy casual clothes, but somehow he doesn’t look corporate, if you know what I mean. Very wary, kept looking around when he got into her car and went into the flat. Drives a red sports car, don’t ask me what kind.’

‘I’ve seen him,’ Wyatt said. ‘I think he used to visit her at home. Something’s made them more careful.’

In Collingwood Jardine parked outside a Vietnamese grocery. Wyatt fed the meter and jerked his head at Jardine to follow him. There had always been dusty furniture shops, Greek coffee bars, op shops, fabric discounters and seconds clothing shops along Smith Street, but the recession had brought in pawnshops as well, though not all of them called themselves that.

The first pawnshop had a security grille bolted to the windows. Poster paint on the glass said, ‘Cash for everything.’ They went in.

A man was reading a book behind the counter, sucking the ends of his moustache into his mouth as he concentrated. He saw them come in, threw the book down and beamed. ‘Help you, gentlemen?’

‘I need a heavy-duty boltcutter,’ Wyatt said.

‘Boltcutters, boltcutters,’ the man said. ‘Let’s see.’ He peered into the glass cabinets that lined three sides of the shop. From one of them he drew out a small hand implement. ‘Got a good pair of tinsnips.’

Wyatt said, ‘Come on,’ and led Jardine out of the shop. Behind them the man called, ‘Try us next week.’

A sour-looking husband and wife team ran the second pawnshop. They watched Wyatt and Jardine without expression and seemed to miss nothing. They had heard a lot of hard luck stories in their time and clearly they expected to hear another one today.

‘I need a heavy boltcutter,’ Wyatt said.

There was no response from the woman. Her husband expelled air through his nostrils. It might have been laughter, it might have been cynicism. ‘I bet you do,’ he said.

Wyatt waited.

Eventually the man said, ‘Can’t help you.’

They went into a third pawnshop. There Wyatt didn’t have to ask for a boltcutter. One about a metre long was gathering dust among tangled radio parts and tape recorder spools in a display case. He paid the asking price, thirty-five dollars, and left the shop.

Jardine fell into step with him. ‘Togs next?’

Wyatt looked at his watch. ‘It’s five-fifty. We’ve got ten minutes.’

The Sgro Clothing Emporium sold cheap acrylic and cotton clothing-jeans, dresses, T-shirts, tracksuits-as well as sheets and pillowcases. Wind gusted into the shop, stirring the plastic earrings and hairbands on the display stands next to the cash registers. Exposed pipes ridged the walls and ceiling. The linoleum floor was torn and buckled. A small, elderly man smiled at them from the shadows. He had a tape measure around his neck. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, flapping his hands at them. ‘You look, you see something you like.’

The two men selected black jeans, T-shirts and windcheaters, trying them on in the changing rooms. The proprietor said nothing about their choice. He treated them as if they were the first customers he’d ever had. He wrapped the clothing in brown paper, stuck the flaps down carefully, tried string around each parcel, finished with a plaited loop. Wyatt watched him, feeling again that he was unconnected to the world in fundamental ways. He didn’t even know how to say thanks or express pleasure and surprise to the old proprietor. He let Jardine do that.

It was not much past six o’clock and the sky was darkening. They bought takeaway hamburgers, ate them in the car, then Wyatt threaded the car through to Hoddle Street and onto the freeway. By seven o’clock they were parked at the rear of the Mesic compound.

They didn’t speak. There was nothing to say. Jardine had brought two pairs of infra-red night binoculars with him from Sydney and each man settled back in his seat and watched the grounds and the two squat houses.

‘If we cut the wire we run the risk of being spotted by neighbours, the alarms will go off, the Mesics will meet us with guns blazing,’ Wyatt said.

‘How about we blow the fence and drive through? It will be quick, scary-’

‘And attract the attention of the cops as well as the Mesics.’

They fell silent, thinking through all the angles. Wyatt felt swamped with tiredness. This was a new sensation for him, a glimpse of life’s useless shunting, loose ends and wasted effort. The waiting, the problem solving, were tedious, and he hadn’t felt like that about a job before. Somehow he couldn’t shut down today, couldn’t step outside of himself until the job was over and the money was in his pocket. He looked at the security fence, the ugly twin houses, and felt that for the past few months he’d been marking time while the money stayed a jump ahead of him. The city itself seemed fatigued by his existence in it. It was as if he’d never pulled a swift, clean hit and never would. He was trapped in an endless job that was not his and carried no reward. ‘Christ,’ he said, low and bitter.

Jardine put down the glasses. He seemed to know what was going on in Wyatt’s head. ‘Final stage, old son.’

Wyatt said, letting the venom show, ‘Once this is over, I’m staying clear of mobs, amateurs, and jobs with question marks over them.’

‘Now you’re talking,’ Jardine said. ‘But we’re hitting them tomorrow night and the problem still remains, how do we go in?’

Wyatt said nothing. Jardine put the glasses to his face, observed, said, ‘Here he comes again, regular as clockwork.’

‘Who?’

‘Victor. Back from the gym.’

The skin tingled along Wyatt’s forearms. He’d been slumped in the seat but now he sat upright. ‘This gym,’ he said, ‘doesn’t have a nice dark car park, by any chance?’