Pay Dirt

NINETEEN

Snyder was the last passenger to board the 8.10 am flight to Adelaide on Monday morning. Letterman, stretched out comfortably in first-class with the Age for company, saw him come through the door looking like someone who’d always made someone wait. Letterman wanted to slam the heavy, cocksure face. Snyder was a real picture this morning: crisp white overalls again, a chain caught in his throat hair, chunky hippie rings on each hand. For footwear he was wearing dazzling white gym boots. His hair frizzed, catching the light. Letterman, on the other hand, was dressed in a light grey off-the-rack suit from David Jones. He thought, not for the first time, that all kinds flew these days. They didn’t make an effort. They flew looking as if they were slopping around the supermarket on a Saturday morning.

At least Snyder didn’t make eye contact. ‘From now on we don’t know each other,’ Letterman had told him the day before. He watched as Snyder swaggered through to the economy seats, his cabin baggage knocking the shoulders of passengers seated on the aisle. It was a tough, lightweight aluminium case. His radio gear, Letterman thought.

Breakfast was tinned fruit, toast and watery scrambled eggs. Letterman had the toast and two cups of coffee. It gave him indigestion and he had to ask the stewardess for Quick-eze.

Fifty minutes after take-off they landed at West Beach airport, filed off the plane and across the tarmac. A high wind, laden with hot, oily aviation fumes gusted across the airfield. As usual a couple of uniforms and a plain-clothes man watched them come through the glass doors into the luggage-claim area. Letterman wondered if they had him marked as a cop. He knew he looked like a cop. Despite the last couple of years, he still thought, moved and spoke like a cop.

He collected his bag and reclaimed his automatic from the airline security officer. It was a little.25 loaded with hollow-points. Letterman liked to work close- three or four rounds to the head, the hollow-points breaking up and mashing the brain. He’d had a permit to transport a gun on domestic flights since his days on the force. The airlines never questioned him about it, simply took the gun and gave it back to him at the other end.

Then he went out to the taxi rank. There were signs up advising a passenger-share scheme, but Letterman took one look at the tracksuits and gum-snapping jowls waiting in line and thought fuck that for a joke. He told the driver of the first vacant taxi, ‘City bus station,’ and got into the back seat. Snyder, he noticed, was getting into a cab with a fluffed-up blonde teenager and her younger sister, baring his teeth at them like a pig at a trough.

‘Good flight?’

Letterman looked up. The driver had his head cocked, watching him in the rear-view mirror.

‘Just drive,’ Letterman said flatly.

The driver opened and closed his mouth, shifted his shoulders around and drove. The traffic was sparse. They reached the bus station in twelve minutes. Letterman paid and got out. Three other taxis rolled up as he closed his door, Snyder’s among them. Snyder got out. Letterman saw him wave at the blonde as the taxi departed. He saw the blonde curl her lip at Snyder and go into a huddle with her sister.

Letterman went into the bus station and stood in line at the ticket counter. He looked around while he waited. The linoleum floors were worn and dirty. There were scuff marks on the walls. The lockers were chipped and dented, the plastic seats spotted with cigarette burns. It was nine in the morning and the place was wall to wall human garbage and they were all eating hotdogs. Letterman pictured it: lock the doors, toss in a Molotov cocktail.

‘Where to?’

‘Vimy Ridge, aisle seat, rear of the bus.’

This seemed to upset the clerk. He stabbed at his keyboard and said, not looking at Letterman: ‘Return?’

‘Yes.’

The clerk told Letterman the cost. He handled Letterman’s money as if it were contaminated. He was a dreary specimen and Letterman wanted this job to be over, wanted to be knocking back oysters and chablis in the sun somewhere.

Letterman was first on the bus. He sat in his seat at the rear, watching the others board. If there was trouble coming, he wanted to be where he could see it. All he saw was Snyder with a paper cup of vinegary chips, a sleepy soldier, a teenager plugged into a Walkman, and half a dozen defeated-looking individuals clutching trashy newspapers and plastic bags.

The bus left at nine-thirty and ran north through farmland. Letterman looked out at the ripening crops and his bleakness grew. He hated it, hated the emptiness, the panicky sheep, the farm kids watching the bus pass with their mouths open. Then he thought he might have to tramp across country like this when he went after Wyatt. He wasn’t dressed for it. His mood grew blacker.

The bus drew into Vimy Ridge just before eleven-thirty. It was a rest stop. Everyone filed out of the bus and looked about, blinking and stretching. Letterman was travelling light, only a weekender bag on the rack above his head. He grabbed it and strode across the street and into a cafe as though he belonged to the place.

The cafe was cluttered with artifacts from the town’s colonial era but Letterman didn’t notice that. He sat where he could watch the bus. He ordered coffee, nursing it for the ten minutes the bus was parked in the street. He continued to watch as the bus passengers filed on board again and the bus departed, leaving Snyder waiting there like a clown.

After a while, Snyder began to look at his watch. He picked his nose and peered both ways along the street. Then Letterman saw an old Holden utility pull away from the kerb a few hundred metres away. It had been there when the bus came in. As Letterman watched, the utility drew alongside Snyder. The driver made no sign to Snyder, just watched him. Snyder picked up his bag and approached the utility. He opened the passenger door and leaned in, apparently to talk to the driver. Then he got in and the utility drove away.

Letterman paid at the cash register and asked about accommodation in the town. His blues had vanished. He’d found Wyatt.