Cross Kill

Thirty-seven

East Melbourne was leafy, damp and full of shadows, but a hundred metres away some light leaked into the darkness from the Outfit apartment building. Wyatt checked the time-11.30-and settled against the door of Ounsted’s car to wait.

Some time later he straightened. He saw the glass door open and a uniformed doorman touched his cap to a man in a hooded grey tracksuit. Wyatt didn’t know who the jogger was. He only knew that twice since Monday’s meeting he and Jardine had met with Towns late at night after watching the Mesics, and each time he’d seen joggers leave the building. The jogger padded past the Peugeot and out of sight.

A couple of minutes later a second jogger came through the door. He got closer. Wyatt had already removed the car’s interior light, so there was nothing to warn the man that the passenger door was swinging open. He smacked hard against it, the breath gushed from his body, and Wyatt watched him collapse onto the footpath.

There was no one around. Wyatt got out, poured ether from Ounsted’s surgery onto a handkerchief, and clamped it over the jogger’s face. He finished by stripping off the man’s tracksuit, putting it on over his own clothes, and hauling the man into the back of the car.

He waited. Fifteen minutes later, the first jogger finished his circuit of the nearby streets and approached the building. Wyatt slipped out of the car and caught up to him. They ran in place on the footpath, marking time, Wyatt with the tracksuit hood concealing his face. He let his breathing sound hoarse and strained. It was a sound of the city, and as necessary to jogging as two hundred dollar shoes, and it worked. The first man glanced around at him, nodded abstractedly, rapped on the glass door a second time. The doorman acknowledged them, the lock clicked open, and they were in.

The first jogger entered a ground floor apartment. The lift door was at the far end of the foyer. Staying in character, Wyatt trotted across the marble floor, pushed the up button, and touched his toes until the lift arrived.

The door slid open and he stepped into the lift. The interior walls were mirrors. He was disconcerted to see his reflection, a hooded figure wearing clothes he’d never normally wear. He turned his back on the mirror, stared out across the foyer, waited for the doors to close.

The lift was whisper quiet. Wyatt took out his.38. He was wearing gloves. The lift shook gently to a stop, the doors pinged open, and he Stepped out into the Outfit’s little entrance hall and pushed the gun under the chin of the man called Drew. There was a pair of suitcases in the bald accountant’s hands. He froze when Wyatt said, ‘Freeze,’ and dropped the cases.

‘Inside,’ Wyatt said.

He followed Drew into the apartment. Apart from Towns, who was in one of the bedrooms stacking shirts in a suitcase, the place was empty. He pushed both men face down onto the floor. ‘You seem to be leaving in a hurry.’

Towns said, as if that explained it, ‘Rose hasn’t come back.’

‘Where’s Hami?’

‘Fetching the car around.’

‘Towns, we had an agreement. I want my money back.’

Towns twisted his head around to stare at Wyatt, looking puzzled, his mind working but not finding answers. ‘I haven’t got your money.’

‘You knew about the house in Northcote and sent Rose after us,’ Wyatt said. ‘She jumped us and took off with the money.’

Towns shook his head. ‘There must be another player involved. We haven’t got your money.’

‘So she was acting alone?’

Towns put his cheek back down on the carpet. ‘Not her style.’

‘Her gun failed her the first time,’ Wyatt persisted, ‘and she came after us again. I’d like to know how she knew where we’d be both times.’

‘I tell you we didn’t know about your Northcote place. As for being at Ounsted’s, about an hour ago we got a tip-off. What have you done to her?’

Wyatt said levelly, ‘What do you think?’ Then, ‘Was it Kepler’s idea to send Rose in to knock us off?’

Towns craned his head around again. He was clearly frustrated. ‘I keep telling you, we haven’t got your money, and Rose wasn’t acting alone. You’ve got a fucking nerve, sending us into a trap, then accusing us of taking your lousy money.’

Wyatt frowned. ‘What do you mean, a trap?’

Towns said heavily, ‘Aah, knock it off, Wyatt. You killed the Mesic brothers and tried to set us up for it.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Luckily we were still outside the compound when the cops showed. We came back here, got the tip-off you’d be at Ounsted’s, and I sent Rose to knock both of you. She hasn’t come back, she hasn’t contacted us, meaning you got her first, so we’re heading back to Sydney. Fucking end of story.’

Wyatt sat on the end of the bed. He kept clear of Towns and Drew, but he wasn’t being so zealous with the.38 in his hand. ‘Something’s going on. The Mesics were alive when we left the compound. Tell me what you saw.’

‘After you gave the signal, we waited while you got clear. No one was tailing you, so we got ready to move in. Then this cop car shows up.’

‘How do you know the brothers are dead?’

‘It’s on the news already.’ Towns looked at his watch. ‘Five to twelve. Check for yourself if you don’t believe me.’

Wyatt took them into the main room. At midnight he turned on the television set and channel hunted with the remote control. The Mesic raid headed the bulletin on Nine. He saw a pool of darkness, the compound lights weak in it, police cars, their flashing red and blue lights spelling alarm and disaster. Then a policeman waved back the cameras and a reporter filled the screen, a microphone at her throat: ‘An armed robbery went terribly wrong in this house in Templestowe earlier this evening, leaving two brothers dead, shot in cold blood as they lay handcuffed on the floor, unable to defend themselves. A third occupant, a woman claimed to be the wife of one of the brothers, is unharmed and said to be staying with friends. Police are searching for two men, believed to be driving a white Toyota van and a Saab. They are armed and dangerous and should not be approached. Back to the studio.’

Towns said, ‘See it from our point of view, Wyatt. You got your money, killed the Mesics, set us up for it.’

‘Then why would I have left the woman alive? Why would I have come here looking for my money? I made a deal and I kept it.’

Wyatt watched the screen as he spoke. There was more about the Mesic raid on another channel. The victims were named, and police and neighbours talked to the camera. Earlier footage was repeated: ambulances, Stella Mesic being driven away, torches and dogs roaming the grounds.

Then, if it were possible to freeze-frame the picture, Wyatt would have done it: among the men grouped on the house steps, barely touched by camera lights, was the stranger he’d seen on the first day of his operation against the Mesics. The man was a cop and suddenly a lot of things made sense to Wyatt.

He pressed a button and the picture gulped and died. He said to Towns, ‘I can still give you the Mesics.’