A bus pulled in and he climbed aboard. He wanted access to an exit and a line of sight along the length of the bus, so he sat on a side-facing seat near the driver’s door. He didn’t know how well prepared this mob was. If they had a radio or a car phone they could call ahead and put someone on the bus.
The minutes passed and the bus belched its way along Johnston Street. Not many people boarded and none of them looked like trouble. They were pensioners, deadend teenagers, women with shopping trolleys and small children. The Laser stayed four car lengths behind the bus through Collingwood and Fitzroy and up into Carlton.
Several people got ready to alight at the stop on Lygon Street. Wyatt let them get off first. He didn’t want them behind him but on the street where they could shield him. The Laser had closed in on the bus. Wyatt walked for a hundred metres along Lygon Street toward the city, and paused outside Readings bookshop. He gazed without taking in the details at a poster advertising the latest Claire McNab, then switched direction and darted across to the other side of the street. Let’s see how good you are on foot, he thought. Let’s see if you’ve got any backup.
He jogged along Faraday to Genevieve’s, where people were drinking coffee under sidewalk umbrellas, and ducked left into a narrow side street. Halfway down he paused and looked back. The street was clear.
But he knew he hadn’t lost them. By running he’d announced himself. They were out there, regrouping, setting up the next stage. He had to nip this in the bud, and the only way to do that was to let himself be the bait.
On Lygon Street again he headed south, keeping pace with the crowd. Half of the people were fashion plates, the other half wore Reeboks and tracksuits the colour of poster paints. Once Wyatt would have despised them but he didn’t have the energy for that anymore. The mass of the population was vulgar and herd-like and some of them had money. That was enough.
He edged through the students huddled outside the room-to-let notices in Readings’ window. There are ways of tailing people so you can’t be spotted and ways of spotting a tail. Wyatt used reflective surfaces-car chrome and duco, shop windows, people’s sunglasses-to check movement behind him. He double-backed twice, and occasionally lingered outside shop windows, glancing casually along the stretch he’d just come. Careless tails always gave themselves away, breaking rhythm with the crowd, pausing outside an unlikely shop window, diving into a phone box. Nothing. He entered a vast, noisy pasta restaurant by one door, read the chalked menu for a while, then left by a side door. At the Grattan Street intersection he saw a taxi pull over and discharge a passenger. He got in, told the driver to U-turn, and watched to see the response. Nothing. They were good. He didn’t see a thing that looked wrong.
He got out again near Jimmy Watson’s wine bar, gave the complaining driver twenty dollars, and retraced his movements along Lygon Street. Wyatt was prepared to do this for two or three hours if necessary. He assumed they’d have more than one man on him. There might even be a tail in front of him. Wyatt didn’t care who or when-he wanted to flush out just one man, disable him, ask him some hard questions.
But they were good. Wyatt went through the shopping precinct a second time, crossed Grattan Street and was opposite the Argyle Square park before he spotted the tail. It was a face he remembered from a shop window, more easily identifiable now where there were fewer pedestrians. Wyatt stiffened, then absently scratched his backside: he didn’t want the tail to see tension in him. He kept walking. The street was broad and open. He couldn’t see where or how he’d be able to take out the man behind him.
Then he did go tense. The man he’d disarmed in the alley behind Rossiter’s house was keeping pace with him on the other side of the street. Wyatt knew instantly what the plan was. Neither man was bothering to conceal himself now, meaning they had backup nearby. They were hunting him as a team, prepared to hand him over to one another until they had him boxed in.
Wyatt put his right hand in his jacket pocket and fitted his keys between his fingers like spines. The.38 was in the inside pocket, but only a mug would want to shoot it out in the middle of Lygon Street. He didn’t think the other side would want a shooting either. He kept walking.
It was a classic herding action. The second tail paced him step for step on the park side of the street. Wyatt took note of the man’s arms: they looked unrelaxed, hanging out from the stocky trunk, indicating he’d rearmed himself. Wyatt looked back over his shoulder. The first tail was twenty metres behind him now. They were shepherding him to where he could be ambushed by the rest of the team, presumably farther down the street.
Wyatt wanted to run but controlled the urge. He walked. Cars, taxis, a bus, a courier motorcycle, people shopping, a kid on a skateboard-it was an ordinary, moderately busy street, and it was about to turn chaotic. He felt a bleakness settle in him. Nothing was finished yet. Nothing was ever finished.
A block closer to the city were two rows of faded terraces, home to several struggling shops under the rusted verandahs over the footpath. The terraces were separated by an alley. The Laser was parked just beyond the alley. Then someone stepped out, blocking Wyatt’s path. It was the woman who’d tried to kill him ten months ago and again last night. A fourth figure stood near the car. He had blunt Melanesian features and the build of a weightlifter. Wyatt saw him rub his hand once over his cropped black hair then crouch slightly, waiting to see what Wyatt would do.
Wyatt stopped, looking for leverages. He couldn’t find any. The men were keeping well back from him and the woman posed problems. If she’d had long hair or loose clothing there would be something he could hold, jerk or twist, but she had a short fine down over her scalp and skintight jeans and top. There was only her body, hard, quick-looking, like a coiled black spring, and the tiny pistol she let him see in her gloved palm, a chrome automatic gleaming against black leather. She jerked her head at the alley, meaning in there.
Wyatt walked a few metres into the alley and stopped. He turned around. The woman was following him, and she stopped when he did. The others were stationed on the footpath behind her. She didn’t speak, just stared flatly at him. The gun was in view now. She gestured with it. He turned and began to walk again. After a few seconds he heard soft footfalls as she paced him. If this was a professional hit it would be done in silence-no arguments, no explanations.
Wyatt stopped. The alley was damp and narrow, smelling of urine and garbage scattered by rangy cats. Faint grey light leaked in from the street behind him. In front of him was a wall.
They were not counting on what he did then. He spun around. He began to shout. At the same time he moved, zigzagging down the alley toward them, bouncing from wall to wall. The woman swung her gun, tracking him, but she lacked the time she needed to aim and decide. One second. Wyatt reached her and raked the keys across her face. Two seconds. Her eyes filled with blood. She screamed and, her first instinct, put both hands to her face. Wyatt wheeled, swung his fist, drove the air from her body.
Three seconds. The men reached for their pistols. They hadn’t expected this. They had thought it would be easy, four against one. Now they didn’t know if they should shoot, or keep Wyatt trapped, or rescue the woman. ‘Bastard,’ one of them said. They started toward him.
Wyatt continued to run, swift, low, shouting unnervingly. He ran right into the face of their guns. They aimed, but he was crouched over, weaving rapidly. They jerked, trying to aim, but the woman was in their line of fire, and they didn’t want ricochets, the metal fragments flying like hornets in that narrow space.
Five seconds. Wyatt’s shoulder drove into the weightlifter, who doubled over, his mouth opening and closing. He dropped his gun, then fell. Wyatt scooped up the gun, a 9mm, and swung it around on the other two. They backed onto the footpath, shocked at the speed and fury of the turnaround, then fled, scuttling in panic down the street. Seven seconds.