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

a moulded plastic seat that was bolted to the floor and
intercepted him as he approached the lockers. He didnt say anything, didnt
move. She had nearly killed him three months ago and he wondered if death was
part of this deal.

    * * * *

    Fifteen

    Wyatt
backed away a little. It was a bad place to be plenty of exits but he was
underground, in a city he didnt know, among people who would profit by his
being dead.

    Anna Reid seemed to sense this in
him. She stood well clear, her hands where he could see them, and said, Wyatt,
its okay, as if shed backed a risky dog into a corner. He stopped, his eyes
restlessly scanning the crowd thronging the terminal.

    Mr Stolle, Anna said. She smiled
and shook Stolles hand.

    Wyatt watched them closely. He saw
Anna stand centimetres from Stolle and hand him a buff-coloured business
envelope from the bag over her shoulder. The envelope disappeared somewhere
inside Stolles coat. The transaction was quick and neat. No-one else saw it. Its
all there, she told him.

    The grin was wide on Stolles face. I
trust you. Listen, now Im here, how about dinner one night?

    He waited. Anna Reid stared at him.
Then she said distinctly, You must be joking.

    Stolle flushed. He said, You lousy
cow, and backed away.

    Anna watched him go. She wore a
sleeveless cotton dress, olive green, and black sandals. Her hair, black and straight
and fine, was drawn back behind each ear. It gave her a poised, challenging
air. When Stolle was gone, she turned back to Wyatt. Give me the key.

    He handed it to her. The number 226
stencilled on the locker door was chipped and faded. She opened it, took out an
Ansett bag, and gave it to him. He slung it over his shoulder wordlessly. It
felt light, but the bag had been padded out to give it bulk, probably with
balled-up newspaper. She said what shed said to Stolle: Its all there.

    Wyatt said harshly, Whats this
about?

    She ignored him. Have you had
lunch?

    Forget it.

    He wanted to get away from her, from
this place under the street where no natural light ever penetrated. He turned
to leave, and as he did so she caught his arm. Her grip was strong. Ive got a
job for you.

    The low voice, the pressure on his
arm, made him remember her, and at once some of the tension went out of him.
Anna Reid had embroiled him in a chain of disasters but he remembered the heat
of her, the kind of energy that spelt danger and risky rewards. They had
acknowledged one anothers lawlessness and there had been a time when hed
believed they could work together. Then it had all gone wrong. Hed had the
chance to kill her, just as hed killed Harbutt, but he had not done it and,
since then, whenever she had surfaced in his mind, hed been glad that he hadnt.
Hed mostly put her out of his thoughts but sometimes an image of her lurked in
the recesses of his mind. At those times a melancholy would settle over him.

    But he didnt trust her. He trusted
only himself, a fact that had kept him alive and on this side of the barred
windows and the razor wire.

    Wyatt? She shook his arm. Hear me
out?

    He looked at the ground. Someone had
stepped in chewing gum, a streak of it stretching from the heart of the wad. He
wasnt used to her and he wasnt used to this.

    Have lunch with me? Listen to what
I have to say?

    He nodded. It was the warmest he
could get.

    She took him into the mall, turning
right toward the river. A hundred metres down, in the centre of the mall, was
an open-air bistro. Anna led him to an umbrella-shaded table set flush against
the waist-high enclosure that separated the tables from the tourists and the
shoppers. The cover was good for the things they had to say to each other. A
Madonna clip blasted out from an adjacent Just Jeans outlet and a kid with a
squeezebox was busking for coins on the opposite side of the mall. There was
also a catwalk nearby, a man in a tuxedo squawking into a microphone as young
women paraded in bathing suits. Wyatt watched the people watching the parade.
Japanese