Free Wyatt - 03 - Death Deal by Garry Disher Page A

plane tomorrow morning.

    Wyatt stared fixedly at Stolle and
weighed it up. He could thump Stolle for the other half and walk out of here
with a thousand dollars now, but be arrested or shot tomorrow. He could let
Stolle take him to Brisbane and still find trouble, whether or not the promised
five thousand was attached to it. He didnt think this deal came free of
trouble. It was trouble in the sun, though, a place where his face meant
nothing to anyone, and those things were more important than anything else
right now.

    What does this woman want?

    She said there was something in it
for you. Maybe your parents died?

    Wyatt said nothing to that.

    A rich uncle maybe?

    Did she give you a name?

    No name.

    Describe her.

    Stolle swivelled unconcernedly in
the chair. He shook his head. Youve come this far. By lunchtime tomorrow youll
have answers, plus five thousand bucks in your pocket.

    What about you?

    Me? Stolle grinned. I pick up my
dough and go and play in the sun. He rattled imaginary dice in his palm and
tossed them across his desk.

    Wyatt shrugged. He didnt gamble and
didnt understand the compulsion. Chance came into his workthe bystander in
the wrong place at the wrong time, an unaccountable switch in routinebut
mostly he worked from verifiable information and he controlled all the factors.
He got up. Youve got the tickets?

    We pick them up at the airport.
Stolle looked at his watch. The flight leaves at ten. Im getting some
shut-eye. Id advise you to do the same.

    He disappeared. It was 4 am. Wyatt
stretched out on a sofa in the sitting room. When a board creaked in the hall
three and a half hours later, he came awake all at once, his eyes open and
staring upward into curtained daylight. He heard an extractor fan rattle into
life and then water gushed in the bathroom.

    They left Stolles house an hour
later. Wyatt had had his first shave in five days. He wore an old suit of
Stolles. It fitted badly, looking wrong by itself, so with Stolles help he
made a few additionsa lightweight overcoat to drape over his arm, a scuffed
briefcase, a rolled-up newspaper.

    No-one stopped them; no-one looked
twice at them. Stolle sat next to Wyatt on the plane but he didnt communicate
with him beyond indicating a picture of Jupiters Casino in the in-flight
magazine. The flight was direct to Brisbane and took two hours. Five minutes
before it landed, Stolle bent down and reached for something on the floor. It
was an envelope and he said to Wyatt, You dropped this. Wyatt put it in his
pocket. He guessed it was the other half of the torn one thousand.

    No-one stopped or noticed them at
the other end. Stolle collected his bag and led the way outside the terminal
building. The air was hot and dry. They took a taxi, riding in silence across
the flatlands near the airport. Dead grass lined the highway and closer to the
city Wyatt saw further signs of drought, patches of bare earth showing in the
parks and gardens. The sky looked brown and he could smell dust above the
traffic fumes. Somewhere in the interior strong winds were stripping the
topsoil, lifting it high and out over the coast.

    Then the taxi was plunging into the
canyons of the city. It was a glassy place, brash and fast. The taxi pulled up
in Adelaide Street. The driver pointed. Bus terminals through there, under
street level. He spoke rapidly, strangling his words: a Queensland way of
speaking.

    They got out and walked through to
the mall and the stairs that led down to the lockers and the bus stands. All
the while Wyatt felt focused and wary, the back of his neck prickling with the
weight of the hand that might reach out to spin him around. But there were only
out-of-work kids in the mall, bored police watching them, Japanese tourists in
baggy cotton shorts.

    The number on the key was 226.
Locker 226 was in the centre of several banks of grey-faced lockers. There were
people there, depositing or retrieving luggage, but the one of most interest to
Wyatt stood up from