nothing of value in his
suitcase. His toiletries bag was crammed with soap and shampoo sachets hed
stolen from the Tradewinds. But in the wardrobe, next to a pair of carpet
slippers, was a small briefcase. With a handkerchief wrapped around her fingers
she pulled it out and upended it on the bed.
And found her ticket out of this
dump.
* * * *
Nineteen
Anna
Reid had reserved a room for Wyatt in a hotel in Logan City, and the first
thing he did after she dropped him off by car was check out of there and take a
bus back into central Brisbane. He paid in advance for two nights at the YMCA,
two nights at the Victoria Hotel on Astor Terrace, and by wire for two nights
at a chain motel in Surfers Paradise. Wyatt made it standard practice to arrange
more than one bolthole in any place he found himself, and he never made base
close to where he intended to pull a job.
A standard precautionbut there was
a concrete reason for it, this time. Until he knew for sure that Anna Reid was
not working for someone or did not mean him harm, any contact with her had to
be strictly on his terms.
For two days he did nothing. Then on
Saturday he began to fix the geography of the place in his mind. He spent the
day in a tourist coach: twenty Japanese, a handful of Swedish backpackers, a
retired couple from Perth and himself. Pick-up was at 9 am and they spent the
morning touring the city and nearby suburbs with stops at the Gabba cricket
ground, the Fourex brewery, coffee on Mt Coottha, lunch on the South Bank. The retired
couple from Perth seemed to adopt him for the day. They were fearful of
foreigners. The man referred to the Nips in the party and Wyatt guessed hed
been a serviceman during the war. The woman muttered under her breath about the
accents, singlet tops and horny, dirty feet and white teeth of the Swedish
girls. Wyatt let their words wash over him. He stared out of the window or sat
at kiosk tables and let the sun warm his bones as he thought about Anna Reid
and a bank vault that for one weekend only would have close to two million
dollars in it.
The city itself was difficult to pin
down. There was no fixed quality to it. If there were any buildings left
standing from the colonial era, Wyatt didnt see them. The coach would hurtle
down the snarling ribbons of freeway suspended above the rivers edge, crossing
one bridge after another, giving him a clear view of rakish buildings bared
like teeth, and he could feel flourishing energy in the place. Then they would
be prowling the slopes and valleys of the suburbs and he would see
colour-supplement mansions sharing a postcode with triple-fronted brick veneers
and sun-blighted wooden hovels on stilts. The camphor laurels and jacaranda had
finished flowering several weeks earlier, but there were plenty of fleshy,
tropical, over-scented plants to make up for them. The light was drenching,
draining all colour from the sky. They passed near Boggo Road prison more than
once. It dominated one of the citys hills, colder, longer, harder and more
miserable than any building Wyatt had yet seen there.
After lunch the coach ran them
south-east to the casinos and boutiques of the Gold Coast. Wyatt used the drive
to position Logan City in his mind. As they passed through the raw new suburbs
that made up the satellite city, he took in the freeway exits, the strips of
trashy, low-cost glass and concrete shops on either side, the patterns of
first-home-buyers houses behind them. One thing was clearif he pulled this
job he would stay well clear of these streets: they looped and curved like the edges
of jigsaw pieces, not a right angle among them, a living nightmare to a driver
who didnt know them well and had the law on his tail.
Wyatt slipped away from the others
when they reached Broadbeach. He had a pocketful of vouchers entitling him to
floor shows and chips at the Monte Carlo, but he tossed them into a bin and set
out to explore on foot. If he hit the Logan City bank and got away with
suitcase. His toiletries bag was crammed with soap and shampoo sachets hed
stolen from the Tradewinds. But in the wardrobe, next to a pair of carpet
slippers, was a small briefcase. With a handkerchief wrapped around her fingers
she pulled it out and upended it on the bed.
And found her ticket out of this
dump.
* * * *
Nineteen
Anna
Reid had reserved a room for Wyatt in a hotel in Logan City, and the first
thing he did after she dropped him off by car was check out of there and take a
bus back into central Brisbane. He paid in advance for two nights at the YMCA,
two nights at the Victoria Hotel on Astor Terrace, and by wire for two nights
at a chain motel in Surfers Paradise. Wyatt made it standard practice to arrange
more than one bolthole in any place he found himself, and he never made base
close to where he intended to pull a job.
A standard precautionbut there was
a concrete reason for it, this time. Until he knew for sure that Anna Reid was
not working for someone or did not mean him harm, any contact with her had to
be strictly on his terms.
For two days he did nothing. Then on
Saturday he began to fix the geography of the place in his mind. He spent the
day in a tourist coach: twenty Japanese, a handful of Swedish backpackers, a
retired couple from Perth and himself. Pick-up was at 9 am and they spent the
morning touring the city and nearby suburbs with stops at the Gabba cricket
ground, the Fourex brewery, coffee on Mt Coottha, lunch on the South Bank. The retired
couple from Perth seemed to adopt him for the day. They were fearful of
foreigners. The man referred to the Nips in the party and Wyatt guessed hed
been a serviceman during the war. The woman muttered under her breath about the
accents, singlet tops and horny, dirty feet and white teeth of the Swedish
girls. Wyatt let their words wash over him. He stared out of the window or sat
at kiosk tables and let the sun warm his bones as he thought about Anna Reid
and a bank vault that for one weekend only would have close to two million
dollars in it.
The city itself was difficult to pin
down. There was no fixed quality to it. If there were any buildings left
standing from the colonial era, Wyatt didnt see them. The coach would hurtle
down the snarling ribbons of freeway suspended above the rivers edge, crossing
one bridge after another, giving him a clear view of rakish buildings bared
like teeth, and he could feel flourishing energy in the place. Then they would
be prowling the slopes and valleys of the suburbs and he would see
colour-supplement mansions sharing a postcode with triple-fronted brick veneers
and sun-blighted wooden hovels on stilts. The camphor laurels and jacaranda had
finished flowering several weeks earlier, but there were plenty of fleshy,
tropical, over-scented plants to make up for them. The light was drenching,
draining all colour from the sky. They passed near Boggo Road prison more than
once. It dominated one of the citys hills, colder, longer, harder and more
miserable than any building Wyatt had yet seen there.
After lunch the coach ran them
south-east to the casinos and boutiques of the Gold Coast. Wyatt used the drive
to position Logan City in his mind. As they passed through the raw new suburbs
that made up the satellite city, he took in the freeway exits, the strips of
trashy, low-cost glass and concrete shops on either side, the patterns of
first-home-buyers houses behind them. One thing was clearif he pulled this
job he would stay well clear of these streets: they looped and curved like the edges
of jigsaw pieces, not a right angle among them, a living nightmare to a driver
who didnt know them well and had the law on his tail.
Wyatt slipped away from the others
when they reached Broadbeach. He had a pocketful of vouchers entitling him to
floor shows and chips at the Monte Carlo, but he tossed them into a bin and set
out to explore on foot. If he hit the Logan City bank and got away with
Similar Books
