Wyatt - 05 - Port Vila Blues by Garry Disher Page A

of the steps, then slowed. There was a
man below him, mounting the steps, and at the bend he stopped and looked up.
Wyatt tensed, gauging the danger in front of him, listening for footsteps
behind him. When he was putting a hit together he made it a point to avoid
lifts, undercover carparks, stairwells. He never let himself get boxed in.
Instinct and caution had got him through forty years on the planet but this
time hed allowed his guard to relax.

    He stopped and began to crouch, as
though to tie his shoelace. At the same time he turned his head and glanced
back toward the head of the steps. Clear. He glanced down again and relaxed.
There was fury on the mans face, directed at a daydreaming child, a small boy
trailing his fingers on the stone and singing softly to himself. Jesus Christ,
get a move on, the man snarled, reaching down to yank the boys arm.

    Wyatt straightened and continued on
down the steps. Who would come for him here, anyway? All the old scores had
been settled.

    He strolled the length of Salamanca
Place, keeping to the grass islands, avoiding the spill of tourists and
drinkers outside the cafs and bars. After a moments confusion about traffic
flow at the end of the walk, he circled around to the right, past a restored
ketch and on to the main dock area. More tourists, queuing for ferry rides,
reading menus outside one of the restaurants, gawking at the yachts.

    Wyatt gawked, too, but with a more
critical eye. For the past six weeks hed been paying an old yachtsman to take
him out in the mans two-master and teach him how to work the sails, navigate,
look after himself at sea. When he had the money, when he had cleared his
obligation to Frank Jardine, he would buy a boat and live on it. A boat made
sense, given the life Wyatt had chosen to lead, was forced to lead. He didnt
think that fate would let him live in one place year after year again, and he
didnt want to stake everything on a house and land if the police or some
death-dealer from the past managed to find him and force him to abandon it all
and run again. If he lived on a boat hed be mobile. He could follow the big
jobs around, or move on whenever the local heat got too much for him. Plenty of
people lived on boats. There were globetrotters moored in every marina and
yacht basin in the world. No one would ask him to justify himself, no one would
notice him. And although he wouldnt have the rolling open hills of the place
on the coast hed been forced to abandon three years ago, hed at least have
the vast sea and sky.

    Wyatt left the waterfront and headed
inland along Argyle Street, the climb steep and steady toward the top of the
mountain behind the city. He was tempted to buy a boat now and live on it
hereuntil something went wrong and he was forced to run again. Something would
go wrong, that he didnt doubt. If he were to rely only on himself, Wyatt would
be wealthy, known to no one, bothered by no one, as close to a perfect life as
he could want. But he never could rely only on himself. There was always
someone to please, bully, coax or manage, and inevitably one of them let him
down. They made mistakes or got greedy or didnt like the way he wouldnt have
a beer with them afterwards. Their life stories padded the daily newspapers, notable
usually for some act of viciousness or stupidity that ended in a remand cell or
on a slab at the morgue.

    Wyatt stopped at a flyspecked
barbershop half a block west of Argyle Street. The sun-bleached ads inside the
glass were fifteen years out of date and dust clogged an old pair of clippers
set alone on a crepe-papered hatbox in die centre of the window. Wyatt had
never seen any customers in the chairs or waiting along the wall inside, but hed
learned that the place had been there since the 1950s and the sort of men Wyatt
had to deal with from time to time swore that it had been a successful maildrop
for all of that time.

    The man reading the Hobart
Mercury in the barbers chair wore a white shirt with the