Cross Kill

Thirty-three

Victor Mesic was feeling acutely alert and alive. It was Thursday evening, and he’d just spent an hour on the Nautilus gear, finishing with a sauna and a shower. Seven o’clock, everything blurred and softened in the half light of evening, all his senses heightened. His Saab gleamed darkly, a mean, squat shape. He could smell onions cooking somewhere. Birds were settling in the short young gumtrees around the car park perimeter. Bass notes drummed from a weatherboard house opposite the gym.

Then a car door opened, clicked closed softly, and suddenly something about that didn’t feel right to Victor. He was sure of it when a gun barrel probed the hinge of his jaw and a voice whispered, ‘That’s not my finger, Vic’

He froze and put up his hands.

‘Don’t be a dickhead,’ the voice said. The gun nudged him. ‘Open the door, passenger side.’

It was finally happening, just as he’d warned them it would, opposition firms moving in on the family itself. Victor fumbled a key into the lock and opened the door. ‘Slip across to the driver’s seat,’ the voice said.

Victor stood there. He wanted badly to relieve the pressure on his bladder. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ It came out as a croak.

‘Just get in the car, Vic,’ the voice said, and Victor felt the gun dig into his spine this time.

He got in. He felt the gun tickle his ear as the man followed him into the car. With the interior light on, Victor saw the gunman’s face clearly. It was a narrow face full of scooped shadows and hard planes. If a face like that ever smiled, it would still look bleak and detached. The body was long and loose. The man seemed to fold up in order to fit into the little car. He was wearing latex gloves. ‘You can have my wallet,’ Victor said. ‘Take the whole car if you like. Just leave me here.’

‘Maybe later, Vic. Right now, all I want you to do is drive home.’

The voice was low, calm, and somehow reassuring. ‘Home?’

‘Through the gate and into the grounds. No one’s going to get hurt, so there’s no need to go off half cocked about anything. Another vehicle will be coming in immediately behind us. No noise or fuss means no one gets hurt, nothing gets broken, okay?’

‘You won’t get away with it. We’ll put the word out on the street.’

The gunman tapped the barrel on Victor’s knuckles. ‘Drive, Vic. That’s all you have to do for now.’

Something about the man’s stillness made Victor work the Saab’s gears and pedals hard, getting the full effect of the car’s acceleration and exhaust note. He stopped that when the man said, ‘Grow up.’

Ten minutes later the dark mass of the man stiffened and he peered forward through the windscreen. ‘We’re almost there. Okay, Vic, I know the gate is operated by an electronic signal. I want you to open it, then drive into the grounds, wait for the van behind us to drive in, and shut the gate. Then park outside your house. If you activate any sort of alarm at all, I’ll shoot both your kneecaps. You’ll never walk properly again. Do you understand what you have to do?’

Victor didn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded.

‘Fine. We’re going to get along just fine, Vic. All right, slow down, blinker on, open the gate.’

Victor did all that. The only hope for him came when Stella appeared on the steps of her house, shading her eyes from the headlights. He wound the window halfway down to shout something, but the gun changed his mind. The gunman murmured, ‘I’m a friend you’ve brought home for dinner, okay?’

Victor nodded. He stopped the car and opened the window fully. ‘Stella,’ he said.

‘I wanted to catch you before you went in,’ Stella said, ‘to invite you to dinner.’

Victor jerked his head. ‘Actually I’ve got a friend with me.’

A strange look came and went on Stella’s face and Victor heard her say, ‘Why don’t you both come?’

There was a low, pleasant voice next to Victor, a gun in his ribs: ‘Why not? That all right with you, Vic?’

Victor nodded.

Then a second set of headlights swept over Stella. She stepped back, frowning. ‘Telecom? What do they want?’

‘No idea.’

Victor needed guidance here. He looked at the gunman. Stella was walking toward the Telecom van, maybe into the face of another gun. ‘What now?’

The gun pressed harder. ‘Close the gate, switch off and get out of the car. Don’t try to run or shout or do anything at all.’

Victor got out, stood waiting on the gravel drive. The man joined him. Victor didn’t speak again: the barrel jammed against his kidney was conversation enough.

Then the Telecom van’s lights went out. The air was mild, the strongest stars fighting through the city’s night glow. Victor heard footsteps coming toward them along the drive. Feet scrabbled for purchase, someone swore, the footsteps came on again. Two figures appeared, Stella walking ahead of a second man. He was like the first, tall, hard and easy with his size and the gun in his hand. Stella stopped when she reached them. Full of loathing, she said to both gunmen, ‘You won’t get away with this.’

Wyatt would have liked a dollar for all the times he’d been told that. He pressed his.38 against Victor Mesic’s temple and said around him to the woman, ‘We’ll get away with it.’

She scowled. ‘I mean after. Any idea who you’re dealing with here?’

Wyatt had heard that a few times too. He said, ‘We’re going into your house. Time to find your husband.’

They went in by the front door, Stella Mesic first, followed by Jardine, Victor and finally Wyatt. He looked around. Concealed lighting smeared striped wallpaper and threw the shadows of clocks onto the parquet floor. The place seemed to be full of clocks: fussy gilt affairs on spindly tables, a couple of grandfather clocks in wall recesses. Wyatt told them to stop in the hallway. The woman had been cooking; he could smell curry. Light spilled out of a half-open door nearby; a TV muttered; somebody coughed.

Wyatt put his mouth to Victor’s ear. ‘Show yourself in the doorway, but don’t go in. Tell him you need a hand with your car.’

The next step was Jardine’s. Jardine flattened his back to the wall next to the door, his gun arm extended, as Victor Mesic said, ‘Leo, can you come here a sec? I stalled the car and can’t start it again.’

The doorway darkened. ‘Maybe you flooded-’

Leo felt the gun under his jaw and he stopped in his tracks. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Shut up and on the floor,’ Wyatt said.

There was a long, slim-line European radiator bolted to the hallway wall. It ticked and complained softly. Wyatt motioned with his.38: ‘On the floor, backs to the heater.’ He covered the Mesics while Jardine cuffed them to the support clamps.

Very little was said after that. This was the stage Wyatt preferred, professionals doing what they did best. The heart of the Mesic operation was a large office across the hall from the sitting room. Wyatt wasn’t interested in the massive dimpled leather sofa or the glossy desk and bookshelves. He led Jardine to the safe. It was thick, solid, painted grey. Jardine squatted in front of it. His strong fingers reached out and touched the door. ‘No problem.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘You see it all the time. They throw a few thousand bucks into a security fence and alarms, and hang onto crappy safes.’

‘How will you do it?’

Jardine brushed his fingertips around the circumference of the door. ‘Drill a hole in each corner, load with nitro, blast her open.’

Wyatt nodded. ‘If you need me I’ll be scouting around.’

Jardine took a heavy drill from his bag and started drilling. Wyatt left him there and turned off the alarm system and power to the gate. Then he prowled through the house looking for pickings. He knew the real reward would be in the safe, but he was moving instinctively toward darkness, concealed opportunities, closed in spaces.

He also wanted to remove himself from the Mesics. They were so full of loathing for each other that an unease was settling in him. Something about the whole operation bothered him. They’d done their homework, everything was going smoothly, but it was all too smooth and he was waiting for a cross.

He started with the main bedroom. On a dresser next to the bed he found a thin Louis Philippe watch and a wallet stuffed with fifties and hundreds. He counted it quickly-about a thousand dollars. He pocketed the watch and the cash and ranged quickly through the other rooms, finding nothing else. There were plenty of pictures, vases and ornate clocks, but they were all so much junk to him.

Then he went downstairs and into the office, ignoring the Mesics cuffed to the radiator. Jardine had turned the desk on its side to shield the room from the blast. He had finished drilling and was packing the holes. He didn’t acknowledge Wyatt.

Wyatt opened the front door and stepped outside. Silence was his element so he kept to the lawn, skirting the gravel drive. The house that was now Victor’s and had been the old man’s was cluttered, every flat surface crowded with vases and figurines, the pictures on the walls mostly Sunday market bush-hut scenes. The sofas and chairs were made of pinewood and red- and green-stained leather. Clunky, box-like pine dressers jutted into most of the free space. Every other surface was dazzling white enamel.

He didn’t spend more than ten minutes going through the rooms. He discovered a second watch, a gold lighter, three hundred dollars in cash, things he could carry in his pockets.

Outside again, Wyatt watched and waited in the darkness. He heard traffic in the distance, a car accelerating along a nearby street, random noises in the houses opposite the compound. There was no wind. He seemed to hear his blood flowing. He began to feel better. He liked risk, liked being alone, found the tension addictive.

Back at the first house, Jardine said, ‘Ready to blow.’ They waited in the hall with the Mesics. The nitro blast created noise and smoke but Jardine had contained the effects to the door of the safe. When the smoke cleared Wyatt could see it hanging open on one hinge. There was money stacked inside, untouched by the explosion.

‘All yours,’ Jardine said.

Wyatt made an approximate count of the money. There was over two hundred thousand there, that’s all he was interested in knowing. He began to stack it into a nylon bag, wanting to feel secure but knowing he wouldn’t be until he was well clear of this place. Two hundred thousand dollars was peanuts compared to the millions the Mesic operation would earn for the Outfit, but that didn’t mean the Outfit intended to part with it. He zippered the bag closed and joined Jardine in the hall. ‘We’ll find you,’ one or other of the Mesics began, but Wyatt closed the door on their voices.

Leo had recognised the drunk from the Volvo, only this time it was no act the man was putting on. He didn’t recognise the second man, only his style-economical, a flat expression on the runnelled river-stone face. The men weren’t gentle but they weren’t rough either. They didn’t apologise, raise their voices, speak unnecessarily, say who they were or what they were doing. They were entirely mechanical and disinterested and Leo went along with it. What Bax had said made sense. Tackling them would have been a mistake.

Then the men split up. Leo heard a drill bite into metal and he knew it was the safe. He didn’t say anything, got comfortable on the floor, turned his wrists so that the handcuff bracelets didn’t cut off his circulation. Victor and Stella were doing it too.

Then Victor said, turning his head to look at Stella, ‘See? We’re wide open. They just walked in. No security at all.’

‘Get lost, Victor.’

‘The Mesics are a pushover, that’s what this will look like.’

‘Just shut up.’

Victor’s voice was low and insistent. ‘Think about it. It’s time to get out of this Mickey Mouse business, into something where the people you meet don’t have records, don’t wear greasy overalls, where your money’s secure in some Cayman Islands bank, not sitting around in a safe waiting to be picked up by a couple of hoods, where you’re paying off the bloody police commissioner, not some sleazy plainclothes cop like Bax.’

Leo heard his wife say venemously, ‘You’ll be paid off, Victor. Just shut up.’

‘I don’t want to be paid off. I want to put my money where it’s going to quadruple itself every few months.’

Leo listened. Victor had been saying things like this to him all week when Stella wasn’t around, drawing flow charts, jabbing his finger at columns of figures. Toward the end, it seemed to make sense. Victor had also said, ‘See if you can convince the bitch-no offence, old son.’ Leo had tried. He wasn’t sure that she’d listened, though. Now, chained up while their house was being robbed, Leo tried again. ‘He’s got a point, Stel.’

But then the man with the flat look of a killer came back from his search of the property, and shortly after that Leo heard the safe blow open. He was silent, and it was a strain on him. He watched the men leave. When they were gone he jerked the handcuffs, but it was useless and suddenly every clock in the place chose that moment to chime eight o’clock.