{"product_id":"port-vila-blues-isbn-9781616952921","title":"Port Vila Blues","description":"Wyatt, the cool, ever-evasive thief, snatches the cash easily enough. He bypasses the alarm system, eludes the cops, makes it safely back to his hideout in Hobart. It's the diamond-studded Tiffany brooch—and perhaps the girl—that undoes him. Now some very hard people want to put Wyatt and that brooch out of circulation. But this is Wyatt's game and Wyatt sets the rules—even if it means a reckoning somewhere far from home. In a murky world where the cops are robbers, old-style criminal Wyatt positively shines.\u003cu\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003ePort Vila Blues\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVoted one of \u003ci\u003eDeadly Pleasures Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e’s “Best Mystery-Crime Novels of 2012.”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“To Disher’s usual brisk pacing, add heaps of noir...a banquet for those who like it uncut and unsparing.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews, \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eStarred Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The scheming that goes into [Wyatt's] heists is outstanding in its originality.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eToronto Star\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Folks who are fans of Richard Stark's Parker will find much to like in Wyatt.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eReviewing the Evidence\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Recommended.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSpinetingler Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003ePraise for the Wyatt series\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eLike an Australian Bob le Flambeur, Disher's titular robber is smooth, calm and planning a big heist\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eGarry Disher is one of Australia's best-known novelists. He's published over 40 books in a range of genres, including crime, children's books, and Australian history. His Hal Challis series is also published in the US by Soho Crime. He lives on the Mornington Peninsula, southeast of Melbourne.\u003cp\u003e1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCarlyle Street, Double Bay, 7 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, the\u003cbr\u003e air clean and cool. Behind closed doors in the big houses set\u003cbr\u003e back far from the street, people were beginning to stir, brewing\u003cbr\u003e coffee or standing dazed under showers. Wyatt imagined the\u003cbr\u003e smell of the coffee, the sound of the water gurgling in the\u003cbr\u003e pipes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But not at 29 Carlyle Street. According to Jardine’s briefing\u003cbr\u003e notes, the house would be empty for the next few days. It was the\u003cbr\u003e home of Cassandra Wintergreen, MP, Labor member for the seat\u003cbr\u003e of Broughton, currently in Dili on a fact-finding mission.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ‘Champagne Marxist and ALP head-kicker from way back,’\u003cbr\u003e Jardine had scrawled in his covering note. That meant nothing\u003cbr\u003e to Wyatt. He’d never voted. If he read the newspapers at all it was\u003cbr\u003e with an eye for a possible heist, not news about political tussles.\u003cbr\u003e His only interest in Wintergreen lay in the fact that she had\u003cbr\u003e $50,000 in a floor safe in her bedroom: a kickback, according to\u003cbr\u003e Jardine, from a grateful developer who’d asked her to intervene\u003cbr\u003e in a planning dispute regarding access to a strip of shops he was\u003cbr\u003e building in her electorate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt continued his surveillance. Whenever he staked out a\u003cbr\u003e place he noticed everything, no matter how trivial, knowing that\u003cbr\u003e something insignificant one day can be crucial the next; noticing\u003cbr\u003e in stages, first the general picture, then the finer details; noticing\u003cbr\u003e routes out, and obstacles like a rubbish bin or a crack in a footpath\u003cbr\u003e that could bring an escape undone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There were two gateways in the long street frontage,\u003cbr\u003e indicating a driveway that curved up to the front door then back\u003cbr\u003e down to the street. Shrubs and small trees screened the front of\u003cbr\u003e the house from the footpath and from the houses on either side.\u003cbr\u003e It all spelt money and conviction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Conviction. Wyatt had grown up in narrow back streets. His\u003cbr\u003e mother had never spoken about his father and Wyatt had no\u003cbr\u003e memories of the man. Wyatt had earned himself broad convictions\u003cbr\u003e on those narrow streets. Later he’d read books, and looked and\u003cbr\u003e listened and acted, refining his convictions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jardine’s floor plans revealed a hallway at number 29, two\u003cbr\u003e large front rooms on either side of it, and a range of other rooms\u003cbr\u003e at the back and on the upper level. Jardine had marked three\u003cbr\u003e possible hitches for Wyatt’s attention. One, the house was patrolled\u003cbr\u003e by HomeSecure once a day, usually around midnight; two, the\u003cbr\u003e alarm system was wired to the local cop shop; three, he’d not\u003cbr\u003e been able to supply the cancel codes for the alarm system but the\u003cbr\u003e combination for Wintergreen’s safe was her birth date: 27–03–48.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jardine built his jobs on information supplied by claims assessors\u003cbr\u003e in insurance companies, the tradesmen who installed security\u003cbr\u003e systems, surveillance reports and bugged conversations collected\u003cbr\u003e by bent private detectives. A word dropped here and there by\u003cbr\u003e real estate agents, chauffeurs, taxi drivers, bank clerks, casino\u003cbr\u003e croupiers, clubland boasters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt watched for another five minutes. It was the variable\u003cbr\u003e in any situation that kept him on his toes. Without the habit of\u003cbr\u003e permanent vigilance he knew that he’d lose the edge, and that\u003cbr\u003e might mean a final bullet or blade or at the least steel bands\u003cbr\u003e manacling his wrists. There was always the unexpected change\u003cbr\u003e in layout or routine, the traffic jam, the flat battery, the empty\u003cbr\u003e safe. But these were things you could never fully prepare for, so\u003cbr\u003e you hoped they’d never happen. If they did, you tried to absorb\u003cbr\u003e them as you encountered them and hoped they wouldn’t trip you\u003cbr\u003e up. The innocent bystander was often the worst that could\u003cbr\u003e happen. Man, woman or child, they were unpredictable. Would\u003cbr\u003e they panic? Stand dumbly in the line of fire? Try to be a hero?\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt hated it if they got hurt or killed—not because he cared\u003cbr\u003e personally but because it upset people, particularly the police.\u003cbr\u003e Satisfied that the house was empty, Wyatt crossed the street\u003cbr\u003e to number 29, a brisk shoe-leather snap to his footsteps. Dressed\u003cbr\u003e in a dark, double-breasted coat over a collar and tie, swinging a\u003cbr\u003e black briefcase, he might have been the first businessman up\u003cbr\u003e that morning. Soon cars would be backing out of driveways,\u003cbr\u003e white exhaust gases drifting in the air, but for the moment Wyatt\u003cbr\u003e was the only figure abroad on the long, prosperous streets of\u003cbr\u003e Double Bay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He paused at the driveway. A rolled-up newspaper was lying\u003cbr\u003e in the gutter nearby. Wyatt had dropped it there unseen in the\u003cbr\u003e dark hours of the morning, but anyone watching from a nearby\u003cbr\u003e window now would have seen him bend down, pick up the\u003cbr\u003e newspaper and stand there for a while, looking indecisively up\u003cbr\u003e the driveway at the house as if he were asking himself whether or\u003cbr\u003e not he should take the paper in or leave it there where it could be\u003cbr\u003e damaged or stolen. They would have seen him decide. They\u003cbr\u003e would have seen him set off up the driveway, a kindly passerby,\u003cbr\u003e banging the paper against his knee.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The front windows could not be seen from the street or the\u003cbr\u003e houses on either side. Wyatt swung the briefcase, smashing the\u003cbr\u003e sitting room window. At once the blue light above the front door\u003cbr\u003e began to flash and Wyatt knew that bells would be ringing at the\u003cbr\u003e local police station. He had a few minutes. He wouldn’t rush it.\u003cbr\u003e The newspaper was tightly rolled in shrink-wrapped plastic.\u003cbr\u003e It had the stiffness and density of a small branch. Wyatt dropped\u003cbr\u003e it under the window and walked unhurriedly back down the\u003cbr\u003e driveway and onto the footpath again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the next street he took off the coat and tie, revealing a\u003cbr\u003e navy blue reversible jacket. There was a cap in the pocket. He put\u003cbr\u003e that on and immediately looked as though he belonged to the\u003cbr\u003e little Mazda parked near the corner. Dark, slanting letters on\u003cbr\u003e each side spelled out ‘Rapido Couriers’ and he’d stolen it from a\u003cbr\u003e service depot the night before. Couriers were as common now as\u003cbr\u003e milk vans in the old days, so he wasn’t expecting questions and\u003cbr\u003e he wasn’t expecting anyone to be looking for the car in Double\u003cbr\u003e Bay. He climbed in and settled back to wait, a street directory\u003cbr\u003e propped on the steering wheel—an old ploy, one that worked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He fine-tuned the police-band radio on the seat next to him\u003cbr\u003e in time to hear the call go out. He heard the dispatcher spell the\u003cbr\u003e address slowly and give street references.\u003cbr\u003e ‘Neighbour call it in?’ a voice wanted to know.\u003cbr\u003e ‘Negative. The alarm system at the premises is wired to the\u003cbr\u003e station.’\u003cbr\u003e ‘A falling leaf,’ the patrol-car cop predicted. ‘Dew. Electrical\u003cbr\u003e fault. What do you bet me?’\u003cbr\u003e Another voice cut in: ‘Get to it, you two.’\u003cbr\u003e It was as though the patrol-car cop had snapped to attention.\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt heard the man say, ‘Right away, sarge, over and out,’ and\u003cbr\u003e a minute later he saw the patrol car pass, lights flashing behind\u003cbr\u003e him on Carlyle Street.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The toothache didn’t creep into his consciousness, it arrived\u003cbr\u003e in full, lancing savagery. Nerves twitched and Wyatt felt his\u003cbr\u003e left eye flutter. He couldn’t bear to move his head. It was the\u003cbr\u003e worst attack yet, arriving unannounced, arriving when the job\u003cbr\u003e demanded his full attention. He tapped the teeth on his upper left\u003cbr\u003e jaw, searching for the bad one as though finding it would give\u003cbr\u003e him some comfort. It was there, all right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He snapped two paracetamol tablets out of a foil strip and\u003cbr\u003e washed them down with a bottle of apple juice. Then he took out\u003cbr\u003e a tiny jar of clove oil, shook a drop on his finger, rubbed it into\u003cbr\u003e his jaw and gently over the tooth. He’d been doing this for five\u003cbr\u003e days now. He didn’t know if the painkillers or the clove oil did\u003cbr\u003e much good. They didn’t make things worse, so that was something\u003cbr\u003e in their favour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt blocked out the pain and concentrated on the radio. It\u003cbr\u003e was good to be working alone, the appeal of the planning and the\u003cbr\u003e execution—and, if he cared to admit it, of the anticipated and\u003cbr\u003e actual danger. He thought for a moment about these jobs Jardine\u003cbr\u003e was blueprinting for him. In one instance, three months earlier,\u003cbr\u003e a millionaire had hired them to get back the silverware collection\u003cbr\u003e he’d lost to his ex-wife in the divorce settlement. In another, a\u003cbr\u003e finance company had paid to have a bankrupt property developer\u003cbr\u003e who owed them two million dollars relieved of two undeclared\u003cbr\u003e Nolans and a Renoir.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The radio crackled. The patrol car came on the line: ‘False\u003cbr\u003e alarm.’\u003cbr\u003e ‘Explain, please,’ the dispatcher said.\u003cbr\u003e The voice might have been writing a formal report. ‘Constable\u003cbr\u003e Wright and I approached the premises. We observed that a front\u003cbr\u003e window had been broken. On closer examination, we discovered\u003cbr\u003e a rolled-up newspaper lying on the ground under the window.\u003cbr\u003e Constable Wright obtained entry to the premises through the\u003cbr\u003e broken window. The premises are furnished but empty and\u003cbr\u003e intact. We await further instructions.’\u003cbr\u003e The sergeant came on the line. ‘Knock off the fancy talk.\u003cbr\u003e You reckon the paper boy got a bit vigorous?’\u003cbr\u003e ‘Looks like it, sarge.’\u003cbr\u003e ‘Okay, go back in, turn off the alarm, and shoot over to the\u003cbr\u003e highway. There’s been a pile-up.’\u003cbr\u003e ‘Right, sarge.’\u003cbr\u003e ‘Meanwhile I’ll give the security firm a bell and get them\u003cbr\u003e over to seal the window.’\u003cbr\u003e ‘Right, sarge.’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt continued to wait. When he saw the patrol car leave\u003cbr\u003e along Carlyle Street, he reversed into an alleyway, got out, and\u003cbr\u003e pasted HomeSecure transfers over the Rapido name. Finally he\u003cbr\u003e pulled on overalls stencilled with the name HomeSecure and\u003cbr\u003e drove around to number 29, spinning into the driveway with a\u003cbr\u003e convincing show of urgency. Pulling up at the front door, he got\u003cbr\u003e out, cleared the remaining shards of glass from the window frame\u003cbr\u003e with his gloved hand and climbed over the sill and into the\u003cbr\u003e house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He made straight for the main bedroom. It was a curiously\u003cbr\u003e flattened room: a futon bed base and mattress at ankle height,\u003cbr\u003e low chest of drawers, squat cane chair in one corner, built-in\u003cbr\u003e closet, no pictures on the walls. Only curtains existed above waist\u003cbr\u003e level and they admitted the blurry light of early morning onto the\u003cbr\u003e bed. It was also an asexual room, as though Wintergreen spent\u003cbr\u003e all of her passion brokering deals somewhere else, for her profit\u003cbr\u003e or for the profit of those who might one day help advance her\u003cbr\u003e career.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The safe was under a heavy Nepalese rug at the foot of the\u003cbr\u003e bed. Wyatt lifted the floorboard panel, keyed in the combination,\u003cbr\u003e heard a hum as the electronic lock disengaged.\u003cbr\u003e He opened the door and looked in on a cavity the size of a\u003cbr\u003e small television set. There were papers and files stacked in there,\u003cbr\u003e but not the fifty grand that Jardine had promised. Wyatt emptied\u003cbr\u003e the safe and knocked against the sides and base with his knuckles.\u003cbr\u003e He snorted. The bottom was false.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt pushed experimentally at the corners. The base lock\u003cbr\u003e was a simple push-pull, spring-loaded catch. He swung it open.\u003cbr\u003e The fifty thousand was there all right, bundled in twenties,\u003cbr\u003e fifties and hundreds. Wyatt stacked them into slits in the lining of\u003cbr\u003e his overalls. Twenty-five for Jardine, twenty-five for himself.\u003cbr\u003e He paused. There was something else down there in the\u003cbr\u003e darkness: a small, soft, black velvet bag. Wyatt reached down,\u003cbr\u003e pulled it out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The object that tumbled into his palm gleamed softly in the\u003cbr\u003e light of his torch. It was a butterfly, 1930s Deco style, with an\u003cbr\u003e eight-centimetre wingspan. The body consisted of 2-carat\u003cbr\u003e diamonds set in gold. The wings were also gold, set with flowing\u003cbr\u003e rows of baguette diamonds in channels alternating with rows of\u003cbr\u003e round diamonds. He turned it over. A thin line stamped in the\u003cbr\u003e gold read Tiffany \u0026amp; Co.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt added the butterfly to the fifty thousand dollars.\u003cbr\u003e Jardine would know someone who’d know what to do with it—sell\u003cbr\u003e it overseas as it was or melt the gold setting and sell the stones\u003cbr\u003e separately. A local buyer was out: the larger stones could be\u003cbr\u003e identified and traced too easily—they’d be on record somewhere,\u003cbr\u003e able to be matched to an X-ray or a photograph.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He was out of the house and easing down the driveway five\u003cbr\u003e minutes after he’d gone in. He paused for a moment at the gate,\u003cbr\u003e then eased the Mazda onto the street. There were more people\u003cbr\u003e about now: children walking to bus stops, men and women\u003cbr\u003e heading to work in glossy foreign cars. They looked scrubbed\u003cbr\u003e clean and well fed, that’s all Wyatt knew or cared about them.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 2\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt’s tooth was giving him hell by the time Ansett’s early\u003cbr\u003e breakfast flight from Sydney touched down in Melbourne on\u003cbr\u003e Wednesday morning. He always travelled light, knowing that if\u003cbr\u003e anyone intended to grab him it would be while he waited around\u003cbr\u003e for his luggage to tumble onto the carousel. He had an overnight\u003cbr\u003e bag with a change of clothing in it, wrapped around the Tiffany\u003cbr\u003e and the fifty thousand dollars. And where possible he avoided\u003cbr\u003e leaving a paper trail, even with fake ID, so he walked past the\u003cbr\u003e hire-car booths and caught a taxi.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Thirty minutes to Brunswick Road, and even on the exit\u003cbr\u003e ramp it was bumper to bumper. He checked the time: 8 a.m.\u003cbr\u003e They should be awake in the Coburg house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The cab driver turned left off the exit ramp and headed east\u003cbr\u003e along Brunswick Road.\u003cbr\u003e ‘I’d like to give Sydney Road a miss,’ he said, ‘if that’s okay\u003cbr\u003e by you?’ Wyatt nodded his assent. Sydney Road was the most\u003cbr\u003e direct route into Coburg but he knew that it would be bad, locked\u003cbr\u003e with peak-hour trams and heavy transports. The driver turned\u003cbr\u003e left a couple of streets before Sydney Road and wound his way\u003cbr\u003e deep into Coburg, a region of hot little streets and weatherboard\u003cbr\u003e houses, finally delivering Wyatt at the entrance to a dead-end\u003cbr\u003e strip of asphalt ten houses long. Wyatt got out, paid the man, let\u003cbr\u003e his senses register that he was safe, then headed for the white\u003cbr\u003e weatherboard where Jardine was maybe slowly dying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jardine’s sister opened the door. She was careworn, thin, a\u003cbr\u003e spasm of emotion pulling her mouth down at one corner when\u003cbr\u003e she saw it was Wyatt at the door. It was a look Wyatt knew well,\u003cbr\u003e so he said her name carefully, softly, barely murmuring it:\u003cbr\u003e ‘Nettie.’\u003cbr\u003e Sourness became exasperation and she said, ‘Why don’t you\u003cbr\u003e leave us alone? We’re managing. You’re just bringing back bad\u003cbr\u003e memories.’\u003cbr\u003e ‘Did he say that?’\u003cbr\u003e She looked away stubbornly. ‘It doesn’t do him any good,\u003cbr\u003e seeing you.’\u003cbr\u003e ‘Let him be the judge of that, Nettie.’\u003cbr\u003e Jardine’s sister bit her lower lip. Then she shrugged, closed\u003cbr\u003e the screen door in Wyatt’s face and disappeared down the gloomy\u003cbr\u003e hallway to a room at the back. The house was in need of\u003cbr\u003e restumping and the interior smelt of cooped-up humans and\u003cbr\u003e dampness. The house was rented. The wallpaper, carpets,\u003cbr\u003e light fittings and laminex benches were left over from the dismal\u003cbr\u003e end of the 1950s, and Wyatt looked forward to the day when he\u003cbr\u003e could rescue Jardine and the sister and place them somewhere\u003cbr\u003e better.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Nettie materialised from the shadows, hooking limp strands\u003cbr\u003e of hair behind her ears. She resembled an Oklahoma dustbowl\u003cbr\u003e survivor, etched cheekbones and eyes wide, dark and longsuffering.\u003cbr\u003e ‘I just want you to know,’ she said, opening the screen\u003cbr\u003e door to admit Wyatt into the house, ‘he doesn’t blame you but\u003cbr\u003e the rest of us do.’\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt stopped and stared at her. His voice was cold, factual\u003cbr\u003e and remote, with no detectable emotion in it: ‘Nettie, he knew\u003cbr\u003e the risks.’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jardine came from a family of half-bent secondhand dealers\u003cbr\u003e and back-of-a-truck merchants. They were careful and stayed out\u003cbr\u003e of trouble. Jardine’s getting head-shot six months ago on a job\u003cbr\u003e with Wyatt had been unaccountable, the kind of thing that could\u003cbr\u003e have happened to anyone, but it was a first for Jardine’s family\u003cbr\u003e and Jardine was the only one who wasn’t blaming Wyatt for it.\u003cbr\u003e ‘He knew the risks,’ Wyatt repeated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What Wyatt wasn’t admitting was that he did feel some\u003cbr\u003e responsibility—not for the fact that he’d put Jardine at risk, but\u003cbr\u003e for what had happened since. When he’d first seen Jardine again\u003cbr\u003e after the job, Wyatt had been shocked by the change in the man\u003cbr\u003e with whom he’d pulled a dozen successful jobs over the years, a\u003cbr\u003e man he liked and trusted—as much as Wyatt liked and trusted\u003cbr\u003e anyone. Six months earlier, Jardine had come out of retirement as\u003cbr\u003e backup on the hit on the Mesic compound looking fit and alert, a\u003cbr\u003e man with a slow-burning good humour, but they’d been ambushed\u003cbr\u003e after the Mesic job and Jardine had been head-shot, a graze above\u003cbr\u003e one ear. Wyatt had paid Jardine his fee, taken him to a doctor\u003cbr\u003e who didn’t ask questions, and gone to ground in Tasmania, a base\u003cbr\u003e where the wrong people would never find him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He’d assumed that Jardine had gone back into peaceful\u003cbr\u003e retirement, but the Jardine he’d seen in Sydney a few weeks later\u003cbr\u003e was partly paralysed along one side, kilos lighter, a few IQ points\u003cbr\u003e slower and duller. Jardine tended to forget things. He owed two\u003cbr\u003e months rent. Pizza cartons and styrofoam coffee cups littered his\u003cbr\u003e pair of rooms at the Dorset Hotel in Newtown, and it was clear\u003cbr\u003e that he wore the same clothing for days at a time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt had hauled his old partner off to a 24-hour clinic,\u003cbr\u003e fabricating a cover story to account for the wound which still\u003cbr\u003e showed as a raw slice in Jardine’s scalp. ‘Stroke,’ the doctor\u003cbr\u003e diagnosed. Probably brought on by the injury. Jardine needed\u003cbr\u003e professional care. Was there someone who could look after him\u003cbr\u003e for the next few months? A friend? Family? A live-in nurse, if that\u003cbr\u003e could be afforded?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt contacted the family in Melbourne. For two days he\u003cbr\u003e let himself be tongue-lashed by them. Finally Nettie said she’d\u003cbr\u003e take Jardine in. Wyatt had known someone would. All he’d\u003cbr\u003e wanted was for them to say so. ‘I’ll pay the bills,’ he told them.\u003cbr\u003e Nettie had never married. She’d had a job in the Kodak\u003cbr\u003e factory but lost it a year ago and didn’t like her chances of getting\u003cbr\u003e another. She found the Coburg house, a dump with enough room\u003cbr\u003e for two adults at a monthly rent that wouldn’t cripple Wyatt, and\u003cbr\u003e Jardine moved in with her. All their needs—medical, domestic—\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt paid for.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He knew it was temporary and he looked forward to the time\u003cbr\u003e when he could score big and set Jardine and Nettie up for life.\u003cbr\u003e Get that unwanted weight off his mind, his back.\u003cbr\u003e ‘I promise not to upset him,’ he told Nettie now.\u003cbr\u003e Nettie had made her point. She turned away from Wyatt in\u003cbr\u003e the hallway and opened the door to one of the front rooms. She\u003cbr\u003e jerked her head: ‘He’s out the back.’\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt clasped her arm gently and gave her a package. ‘To\u003cbr\u003e keep you going,’ he said. ‘Twenty-five thousand.’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Nettie didn’t look at the money, didn’t count it. The money\u003cbr\u003e disappeared with her into the front room and Wyatt’s final\u003cbr\u003e contact with her that morning was the sensation of her thin arm\u003cbr\u003e in his fingers and a sound that might have been a muttered\u003cbr\u003e ‘thanks’ hanging in the air between them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He walked through to the back of the house, a fibro extension\u003cbr\u003e with a low, buckled ceiling and dust-clogged louvred windows.\u003cbr\u003e The only good thing about it was the morning sun striking it\u003cbr\u003e through a fig tree in the yard outside. The air was warm, a little\u003cbr\u003e streaked and blurry owing to the dust motes stirring in the angled\u003cbr\u003e sunlight, and smelling only faintly of illness, privation and\u003cbr\u003e cut-short dreams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jardine clawed a hand over the old bakelite smoking stand\u003cbr\u003e next to his lumpish armchair. His mouth worked: ‘Mate,’ he said\u003cbr\u003e at last, smiling lopsidedly. ‘Where did you spring from?’\u003cbr\u003e ‘The Double Bay job, remember?’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt spoke harshly. He hated to see the weakness in Jardine.\u003cbr\u003e Jardine seemed to exist in a fog a lot of the time now and he\u003cbr\u003e wanted to cut through it. ‘The MP on the take, Wintergreen.’\u003cbr\u003e Jardine looked across at him, wavering, trying to draw back\u003cbr\u003e the spittle glistening on his lips. His left hand rested palm up in\u003cbr\u003e the threadbare brown blanket in his lap. The left half of his face\u003cbr\u003e was immobile. A strange, inappropriate expression formed on his\u003cbr\u003e face and Wyatt realised that his old friend was frowning, trying\u003cbr\u003e to recall the briefing session, the job itself. Then Jardine’s face\u003cbr\u003e cleared. A smile of great sweetness settled on it, and his voice was\u003cbr\u003e clear: ‘Got you now. No hassles?’\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt shook his head. ‘I gave your share to Nettie.’\u003cbr\u003e Jardine shook his head. ‘Mate, I don’t know how to thank\u003cbr\u003e you. Me and Net—’\u003cbr\u003e A lashing quality entered Wyatt’s voice. ‘Forget it.’\u003cbr\u003e Jardine straightened in the armchair. His right hand fished a\u003cbr\u003e handkerchief from the pocket of his cardigan and he wiped his\u003cbr\u003e chin defiantly. ‘Okay, okay, suit yourself.’\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt unbuckled his overnight bag. ‘I found a piece of\u003cbr\u003e jewellery hidden with the money. Valuable, Tiffany butterfly.’\u003cbr\u003e ‘Nice.’\u003cbr\u003e ‘We need someone who can offload it for us.’\u003cbr\u003e Jardine laboured to his feet and shuffled into the adjoining\u003cbr\u003e kitchen. A short time later, Wyatt heard his voice, a low murmur\u003cbr\u003e on the telephone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He stared across the room at the little computer perched\u003cbr\u003e mute on a card table. Jardine used it to cross-reference jockey\u003cbr\u003e weights, track conditions, blood-line and other horse-racing\u003cbr\u003e factors. In five years he claimed to have won $475,000 and lost\u003cbr\u003e $450,000 using his system. What people didn’t know was that\u003cbr\u003e Jardine had also spent the past few years selling burglary and\u003cbr\u003e armed holdup plans to professionals like Wyatt. Wyatt didn’t\u003cbr\u003e know how many jobs Jardine had on file, but he did know that\u003cbr\u003e they were all in New South Wales and that all would grow rapidly\u003cbr\u003e out of date the longer Jardine stayed in Melbourne with his\u003cbr\u003e sister.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jardine came back. ‘A sheila called Liz Redding, eleven this\u003cbr\u003e morning, a motel on St. Georges Road.’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wyatt watched Jardine carefully. Jardine’s face had grown\u003cbr\u003e more elastic in the past few minutes, as if his mind worked well if\u003cbr\u003e he had something to stimulate it. Wyatt even recognised an old\u003cbr\u003e expression on Jardine’s face, a mixture of alertness and absorption\u003cbr\u003e as he calculated the odds of a problem.\u003cbr\u003e ‘Fine.’\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Soho Crime","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301032972517,"sku":"NP9781616952921","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781616952921.jpg?v=1767734985","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/port-vila-blues-isbn-9781616952921","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}