Port Vila Blues

Four

The bank was a ‘feeder’. The largest branch in the largest town in the upper reaches of the Yarra River Valley in Victoria, it ‘fed’ the smaller branches in the smaller towns. Fair enough-except that a cool half million was in the vault, twice the normal amount, and if they didn’t hit the place tonight, all that money would disappear into the wallets and paypackets of the locals tomorrow.

There was twice the normal amount in the vault because this was Wednesday and tomorrow was Thursday, payday and also the first day of the Upper Yarra Festival. According to the blueprints supplied for this hit, over the next four days wineries would be flogging raw whites at twenty bucks a pop, every village showground in the valley would stage a handful of run-down ghost trains and shooting galleries, and it all added up to a lot of people needing a lot of spending money, starting tomorrow morning.

Niekirk glanced at his watch. The town clock had struck midnight ten minutes ago, but the eight-to-midnight disc jockey was still inside Radio 3UY, next door to the bank. The midnight-to-dawn announcer had arrived, but until the other man clocked off and went home, Niekirk, Riggs and Mansell had to sit tight and wait.

Not that the waiting would be a problem. The three men sat in the van like clones of one another: silent, watchful men in their thirties, dressed in black balaclavas, black overalls. The van belonged to Telecom, stolen an hour earlier in Eltham. If anyone asked questions, Niekirk, Riggs and Mansell were tracking down a cable fault. They also had a stolen Range Rover with tinted windows stashed in Warrandyte. The Range Rover was Riggs’ and Mansell’s way out of the hills. They were wearing dinner suits under their overalls and if anyone stopped them later, they were a couple of winemakers celebrating the start of the festival.

Niekirk had his own way out. He’d be carrying the money and he didn’t want Riggs and Mansell to know where he was taking it. And once he’d made the delivery, Niekirk didn’t know where the money was going. De Lisle, the man who put these jobs together, wanted it that way, and Niekirk was in no position to argue, not when De Lisle could put him in jail for a long time, and especially not when De Lisle controlled the pursestrings. Disappear with the money himself? Forget it. De Lisle would find him in five seconds.

Mansell went tense suddenly. He was in the driver’s seat, a headset clamped to his ears, a police-band radio in his lap. He fine-tuned the radio, listening intently. ‘I’m getting something.’

Neither Riggs nor Niekirk spoke. If they had something to worry about, Mansell would soon tell them. Even so, they relaxed visibly when Mansell grinned. ‘Kid ran his car into a tree near Yarra Junction.’

Niekirk nodded. That was good: a car smash would tie up the local boys in blue for a while. He watched Mansell. Mansell disliked being the driver and radio man. But, as Niekirk continued to point out to him, Riggs was needed to open the safe, himself to oversee the job, leaving Mansell to keep watch.

Niekirk spoke. ‘Here he comes now.’

A man had come through the side door of Radio 3UY. He wore a denim jacket and jeans and his shaved skull gleamed in the moonlight. The three men saw him stretch, yawn, shiver, then climb into a sad-looking VW and clatter down the hill and out of sight.

Niekirk glanced at Mansell. ‘All clear?’

Mansell nodded.

‘Let’s go.’

Riggs and Niekirk slipped into the darkness and across the street to the metre-wide alley that separated the bank from the radio station. The bank’s rear door was flat and implacable, a dark steel mass in the wall. There were two locks, and Riggs knelt before the lower one, took a set of picks from the breast pocket of his overalls, and went to work. Niekirk watched him, training the narrow beam of a pencil torch at the lock.

A half minute later, the lock was open and Riggs started on the upper one. He breathed heavily as he worked, audible sounds of effort and concentration. Then the second lock fell open and he seemed to deflate, the tension draining away from him.

Niekirk folded back a flap of his overalls, where he’d stitched a tiny radio into a pocket above his breastbone. He depressed the transmit button. ‘We’re going in.’

He heard Mansell’s acknowledgement, a crackle of static, and pushed open the steel door. According to the briefing notes, there was minimal security inside the bank. There had never been the need for it-you didn’t get bank raids in these little hill towns, where lives were modest and every road was crippled with S-bends. But Niekirk hadn’t lived as long as he had by accepting the things he was told without checking first. He paused in the doorway and played the torch beam over the interior walls, floor and ceiling. Nothing.

He put his mouth to the radio, said, ‘It’s clear,’ and led the way into the bank.

Behind him Riggs shouldered a canvas bag of tools and closed the door in the rear wall, sealing them off from the cloudy moon.

The briefing notes consisted of floorplans, a description of the security system, external patrol times, notes on staffing levels and the size of the take, and an estimate of the minimum time elapse before cops might be expected to arrive if they happened to trip a hidden alarm. There was also a number to call if they were arrested. As with the other jobs they’d pulled for De Lisle, the groundwork and backup were impressive. Someone had done his homework. But Niekirk didn’t know who the someone was, and that was the big weakness in this job. All he knew from De Lisle was, they had a green light as far as the local armed-holdup squad was concerned.

The vault was in a room adjoining the staff toilets along the far wall of the bank. Veiling the torch beam with his hand, Niekirk led Riggs along the main corridor, past a storeroom and the manager’s office, and across an open area where desks and cabinets squatted like outcrops of granite on a wintry plain.

A heavy steel grille barred the entrance to the vault. The briefing notes hadn’t said anything about that. Niekirk murmured into the radio: ‘There’s a grille we weren’t told about. I’ll keep you posted.’

The radio crackled.

Again Niekirk trained the torch while Riggs probed with his set of picks. The steel grille gave him no more trouble than the door to the bank itself, and a minute later Niekirk was saying into the transmitter: ‘Final stage.’

Riggs unzipped his canvas bag. First he removed a heavy-duty industrial drill and rested it at the base of the vault. He followed that with a weighty metal device shaped like an ungainly handgun. It was an electromagnetic drill-stand and it hit the vinyl tiles of the floor with a thud. Finally he reached in and wordlessly handed Niekirk a small fluorescent camping lantern, two coils of thick black rubber power leads and a double-adaptor.

Niekirk flicked a switch on the lantern. A weak, localised glow illuminated the door of the vault. He searched the walls and skirting board. There was a power point in the corridor outside the grille door. He plugged in the two leads, switched on the power and said softly: ‘Ready.’

Riggs pulled the drill trigger experimentally. The motor whirred, muted and powerful. He rested the drill on the floor again then heaved to his feet, holding the drill-stand in both hands. He eyed the combination lock assessingly for half a minute, then pressed the leading edge of the electromagnet against the vault door. Metal slammed against metal, clamping the drill-stand to the face of the vault like an ugly handle. Finally he fitted the drill with a diamond-studded bit.

Neither man said anything for the next fifteen minutes. While Niekirk watched and listened, Riggs drilled three holes through the Swedish steel door of the vault. Guided by the electromagnetic drill-stand, he was assured of being accurate to within five millimetres of the crucial point in the locking mechanism, just above the tumblers. Metal filings curled to the floor, smoke wisps rose from the hot tip of the drill, and even with wax plugs in their ears the sound seemed to tear each man open.

After fifteen minutes Riggs undamped the drill-stand and rested it on the floor. He glanced at Niekirk, who said into the radio: ‘Anything?’

Mansell’s voice crackled: ‘All clear.’

Riggs fished in his bag for a small tin. It held powdered chalk, which he rubbed into the palms of his hands, the sound dry and satisfied. Then he took out another of his special tools. This was an aptoscope, used by urologists to examine the human bladder. He crouched at the drill holes, positioned the aptoscope, and began to examine the tumblers inside the lock. After a while he breathed, ‘You little fucking beauty,’ and started to poke and probe with a lock pick. Two minutes later, he had the door open.

Niekirk bent his mouth to the radio. ‘We’re in.’

They worked quickly. Riggs repacked his bag while Niekirk stepped into the vault and began to empty it. Their first job, back in February, had involved hitting the safety-deposit boxes of a bank in suburban Brighton, seizing bonds, cash, jewellery; this time the orders were clear-take the money only. The money was in small plastic containers similar to margarine tubs, stacked neatly along a shelf. As Niekirk piled them outside the vault, Riggs carried them away to the rear door of the bank, next to his tools.

Then things began to go wrong. Mansell came on the air and said, ‘A security patrol van just pulled in behind the bank.’

‘He’s early,’ Niekirk said.

‘I’ll keep you posted.’

Niekirk joined Riggs at the steel door. They heard a handbrake crank on just outside, heard a car door slam, and footsteps approached the bank. A moment later the door was rattled experimentally and they heard a faint slither as the patrolman slipped a calling card under the door. They expected the man to drive away then but instead he seemed content to wait there for a while. They heard him urinate against the wall, farting once with a sharp brap, and then a second vehicle arrived. Niekirk and Riggs heard whispers, a giggle or two, and knew they were stuck there inside the bank for the time being.

Niekirk walked back along the corridor to a point where his voice wouldn’t be heard outside the bank. ‘Looks like his girlfriend has just turned up. We’ll go with the other plan.’

‘Right,’ Mansell said.

This was their third heist. The newspapers had begun to call them ‘the magnetic drill gang’, stressing that they stamped their raids with efficiency and professionalism. Part of that was being ready whenever a situation reversed itself. That’s why they always had a backup plan to put into place. They’d each studied the bank earlier in the week, defining the likely problems. How could they get out if their planned route was blocked? The front door was no good-it faced the main street. They couldn’t burrow out or blast a hole in the wall, so that left the roof.

Working swiftly and silently, Riggs and Niekirk dragged desks and chairs to the centre of the main room and built a tower. Four desks placed together formed the base; two desks stacked on top of them formed the second tier; a single desk formed the third. Niekirk climbed to the top and reached up. His fingers brushed the ceiling, white acoustic battens. He called Riggs to bring him a couple of chairs. Now he could slide the battens away, giving him access to the space under the roof.

With Riggs passing to him from below, Niekirk stacked the money in the ceiling. Then he climbed down and both men ranged quickly through the bank, flashing the pencil torch at all the doors. They chose the storeroom door; it was long and sturdy and lifted free of its hinges as though it had been oiled for just that purpose. They went back to the desk tower. Niekirk climbed to the top, took the door from Riggs and slid it up into the ceiling.

It was warm and airless under the roof. Using the rafters for support, and working with the aid of the camping light, the two men carted the money and the door to the wall opposite the side wall of the radio station. The roof was steeply pitched here and they had to carry out the next stage doubled over. Removing the terracotta roof tiles one by one, stacking them silently, they opened a gap to the sky. Cool air poured in; clouds drifted across the face of the moon.

The roof of Radio 3UY was a little lower and less than two metres away from the roof of the bank. It was also flat. Niekirk saw a tarred surface, an airconditioning shack and a manhole cover. Using the storeroom door as a bridge, he crossed to the other side. For the next two minutes he stacked the money as Riggs slid the containers across to him. He could feel vibrations under his feet. Radio 3UY was blasting the night away.

They took the disc jockey with.38s in their hands and balaclavas over their faces. The DJ was playing an early Animals track, running his fingertips over an imaginary organ keyboard. He gulped when he saw the two men. He moved to cut the song and yelp into the microphone but Riggs moved first, smashing the edge of his gun across the DJ’s throat.

It was hard and vicious and unnecessary. ‘Steady,’ Niekirk said.

That was all he said. He had electrical tape in his pocket. He bound the man to his studio chair, then tipped man and chair onto the floor. The song finished. Both men froze. But it was an album. Another song started.

Songs had been short in the sixties and seventies. Niekirk guessed that he and Riggs had about two and a half minutes. He put his mouth to the radio: ‘Come and get us.’

Mansell backed the Telecom van onto the radio station’s forecourt. Parked like that it obscured the foyer doors from the street. The three men worked quickly, forming a chain, Riggs passing the money to Niekirk at the doors, Niekirk passing to Mansell, who stacked the containers in the rear of the van.

Another song started, ‘Sky Pilot’, droning from a speaker mounted to the wall above the reception desk. Good, a longish song, seven minutes at least. Niekirk kept the money moving, knowing there was no guarantee that the DJ wouldn’t free himself. There was no guarantee that loyal listeners wouldn’t investigate when 3UY went off the air soon, either.

Then they were loaded and Mansell was driving them out of there, Riggs in the passenger seat, Niekirk with the money in the rear of the van, just as ‘Sky Pilot’ ended, nothing following it, only a speaker hiss like a mute presence at the end of an open phone line.

Mansell turned left onto the main street, accelerating smoothly. A late cruising taxi cut in around them but otherwise the town was dark and deserted. Voices murmured on the police band: a domestic in Eltham; suspected prowler in St Andrews.

They’d parked the Range Rover at the rear of a used-car lot in Warrandyte, ‘sale’ stickers plastered across its windscreen. The entrance to the yard itself was a simple driveway with a hefty padlocked chain across it. Niekirk picked the lock, waited while Mansell drove in, looped the chain across the driveway again, and followed on foot to the rear of the lot.

Mansell parked in shadows next to the Range Rover. The three men got out and then stopped still and stared at one another. There was always this moment of uncertainty. If there was going to be a cross, this was the time and the place for it. They each carried guns and they stood with their gun-hands curled ready to snatch and fire, a standoff that could collapse into pain and blood.

Mansell broke it. He moved next to Niekirk and said, looking levelly at Riggs, the risky one: ‘We’ve been paid. It’s time we weren’t here.’

Riggs studied both men narrowly, then suddenly grinned. Moving carefully, he took out his gun and handed it to Mansell, butt first. Mansell was the quartermaster. The gun hadn’t been fired; he would issue it again, issue it for job after job until the time one of them fired it, and if that happened he would dump it in a river.

Then Mansell collected Niekirk’s gun and after that they loaded the money into a pair of small gym bags. Finally, still watching one another warily, the three men stripped off their overalls, gloves and balaclavas, Mansell bundling the clothing into a garbage bag, ready for burning. The clothing was evidence against them. When you went into a place you left part of yourself behind, and when you left a place you carried part of it with you. The forensic boys knew that, too.

The job was done. Mansell and Riggs were ready to leave but still Niekirk was wary. If Mansell and Riggs had the opportunity to drive away with half a million, why should they be satisfied with the twenty-five thousand dollar fee that De Lisle had paid into their accounts?

The silence stretched between them, Niekirk at ease with it, Mansell beginning to show signs of strain. It was always like that. There didn’t seem to be an end point to Niekirk’s eyes, only darkness, and no one ever endured his stare for long. Mansell turned and got into the driver’s seat of the car.

But Riggs seemed to think that he had something to prove. He winked at Niekirk, an expression edged with contempt. ‘See you on the next job,’ he said, climbing into the passenger seat.

Mansell fired up the engine. The Range Rover began to creep across the car yard. Niekirk watched it burble away, on to the road and into the darkness.