Introduction

Garry Disher's cool, enigmatic anti-hero Wyatt has a job--a jewel heist. The kind Wyatt likes. Nothing extravagant, nothing greedy. Stake out the international courier, one Alain Le Page, hold up the goods in transit and get away fast.

Wyatt prefers to work alone, but this is Eddie Oberin's job. Eddie's very smart ex-wife Lydia has the inside information. Add Wyatt's planning genius and meticulous preparation, and what could possibly go wrong?

Plenty. And when you wrong Wyatt, you don't get to just walk away.

Taut plots, brilliant writing and relentless pace; plus an unforgettable cast, including the ever-elusive Wyatt himself: these are the hallmarks of Garry Disher's Wyatt series.

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Excerpt

1

Wyatt was waiting to rob a man of $75,000.

It was a Friday afternoon in spring, and he was parked near

a split-level house in Mount Eliza, forty-five minutes around the

bay from the city. The house belonged to a harbourmaster for the

Port of Melbourne and offered water views but was an architectural

nightmare—not that Wyatt cared, he’d always known that wealth

and crassness went together. He was only interested in the

money.

So far, he was down $500, the brokerage fee he’d paid Eddie

Oberin for the harbourmaster tip. The way Eddie explained it,

the waterside unions were powerful, but so was this harbourmaster.

It was in everyone’s best interests for ships to moor, unload, load

and depart as swiftly as possible, but some delays were

unavoidable—a Filipino sailor breaking his neck in a fall, for

example; a customs raid, or a strike. And some delays were of the

harbourmaster’s own making: three or four times a year he would

quarantine a ship.

The guy’s salary was pretty good, but he had expenses—

gambling debts, child support and the cost of running two

dwellings. An apartment near the docks, where he lived five days

a week, and this split-level monstrosity in Mount Eliza. He’d paid

a lot for his view of the bay, the repayments were killing him, and

so from time to time he quarantined ships. Another term for it

was extortion: give me seventy-five grand, Mr Ship Owner, and

I’ll give your ship a clean bill of health.

Time passed, Wyatt waited, and he thought about Eddie

Oberin. Eddie had been a useful gunman and wheelman—a

couple of credit union robberies, a payroll hit—but now he was

mostly a fence and the kind of man who hears whispers and then

sells or trades the things he hears. Five hundred bucks for a whisper

in the right ear, thought Wyatt.

Just then a Lexus nosed out of the harbourmaster’s steep

driveway, a smooth, silvery car quite unlike the man himself, who

was pale, sweaty and beer-fed, with small features crammed

together at the centre of a large, balding head. Wyatt knew all that

from having shadowed him for several days, and everything said

the harbourmaster would be no threat. Unless he’d brought a hard

man with him this afternoon, riding shotgun.

He hadn’t. Wyatt turned the key in the ignition of a battered

Holden utility with ‘Pete the Painter’ logoed on both doors and

tailed the Lexus out of the street. Eddie Oberin had rented him

the vehicle. There really was a painter named Pete, currently

serving two years for burglary and unable to enjoy what Wyatt

was enjoying: the bay waters smooth and shiny as ice, the distant

towers of Melbourne like a dreamscape in the haze, the sun

beating from the windshields of the vehicles toiling around the

dips and folds of Mount Eliza, the opportunity to steal $75,000.

Soon the harbourmaster was heading down Oliver’s Hill to

where Frankston lay flat and disappointed beside the bay. Frankston

was testament to the notion that you couldn’t have too much

commerce, but it was cheap, noisy, exhausted commerce, for this

was an area of high unemployment and social distress. Wastedlooking

junkies lurked around the station, overweight shoppers

crowded the footpaths and sixteen-year-old mothers slopped along,

snatching mouthfuls of cigarette smoke and urging their kids to

drink Coke laced with downers to keep them docile. The fast-food

joints did a roaring trade and little girls paid too much for plastic

jewellery in the specialty shops.

And so Wyatt was surprised when the harbourmaster turned

off the Nepean Highway into the shopping precinct. Perhaps he

wanted a haircut or had run out of bread and milk, and wasn’t

here to collect an envelope containing $75,000.

The Lexus turned and turned again, eventually pulling into

an undercover car park beneath a cinema complex. Wyatt

considered his unbending first rule: always have an escape route.

He didn’t want to drive into the car park. He didn’t want to be

boxed in by concrete pillars, people pushing shopping carts, delays

at the boom gates. He parked Pete’s utility in a fifteen-minute

zone, wiped his prints off the wheel, gear knob and door handles,

and entered the car park on foot.

He found the Lexus in a far corner. The harbourmaster was

locking the doors with a remote before pausing to glance around

uncertainly. He was carrying a cheap vinyl briefcase. Was this the

drop-off point? Wyatt hung back beside a pillar, where the weak

light from outside and from a handful of overhead fluorescents

barely penetrated. The air smelt of urine and trapped exhaust

fumes. There was something sticky on the underside of his shoe.

His hands felt grimy.

He waited. Waiting was a condition of Wyatt’s life. He didn’t

fidget or get impatient but stayed composed and alert. He knew

that nothing might come of the waiting. He continued to watch

the harbourmaster, ready for a sound or a smell or a shift in the

quality of the air that meant he’d better run or fight. In particular,

he was watching for certain signs in the people nearby: the way a

man carried himself if he was armed, listening to an earpiece or

staking out the car park; the clothing that didn’t look right for the

conditions or the season but was intended to conceal.

Suddenly the harbourmaster was on the move again. Wyatt

held back as he tailed the man out of the car park and through

heavy glass doors that led to the cinema foyer. The harbourmaster

led him across the vast space and out onto the footpath. Here

Frankston’s extremes were most apparent: the glittery new

multiplex on one side, a strip of miserable two-dollar shops, a

butcher, a camera store and a chemist on the other. The

harbourmaster crossed the road and went down into a short mall,

where a busker tuned his guitar, racks of cheap dresses crowded

the pavement, and exhausted shoppers sat hunched over coffee at

a few outside tables.

Soon Wyatt knew how the payment would go down. Seated

at an otherwise empty table was a man wearing a suit, an identical

vinyl briefcase at his feet. He was young, disgusted-looking, and

Wyatt guessed that he worked for the shipping company. The suit

knew why he was there. He watched sourly as the harbourmaster

nodded hello, put down his briefcase and pulled out an adjacent

chair. No talking: the young man drained his coffee, grabbed the

harbourmaster’s briefcase and walked away.

That’s when Wyatt moved. He was counting on swiftness and

surprise. He wore a faded blue towelling hat, sunglasses, jeans and

a roomy Hawaiian shirt worn over a white T-shirt. Clothing that

distracted attention from his face. His features were attractive on

the rare occasions he smiled or was lifted by some emotion;

otherwise repressive, unimpressed, as if he understood everything.

Knowing this, he always hid his face.

He slipped into the vacated chair and his slender fingers

clamped over the harbourmaster’s wrist.

The harbourmaster recoiled. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

Wyatt murmured, ‘Look at my belt.’

The man did and went white.

‘It’s real,’ Wyatt said, and it was. A little .32 automatic.

‘What do you want?’

‘You know exactly what I want,’ Wyatt said, increasing the

pressure and leaning down for the briefcase. ‘I want you to sit here

quietly for five minutes and then go home.’

His voice was mild, soft, calming. That was the way he worked.

Most situations demanded it. In most situations it was failsafe. He

didn’t want a panic, a scuffle.

The harbourmaster took in the hardness and long muscles of

Wyatt’s shoulders, arms and legs. ‘Are you from the shipping

company? I’ll just detain your next ship, you stupid prick.’

‘I’ll be there to intercept that ransom, too,’ Wyatt said

expressionlessly.

The harbourmaster adjusted his impression of the man who

was robbing him, seeing behind the dark glasses a relaxed,

immobile face, the face of a man who might have been sitting

alone in a room. He swallowed and said, ‘Go your hardest, pal.’

‘A wise decision,’ Wyatt said.

He got to his feet, mildly irritated for saying too much, playing

this out for too long. The little mall was thronging with the

lunchtime crowd and he began to edge into it when a voice shouted,

‘Police! On the ground! Both of you! Now!’

There were three of them, two hyped-up young guys in suits,

and the busker. Uniformed police were probably guarding each

end of the mall. Wyatt ran at the detectives, windmilling with the

briefcase, which struck an umbrella stanchion and flew open,

tumbling a large, crammed envelope into the air. Wyatt caught it

neatly, a small part of him wondering if in fact it held only paper

scraps, the main part telling him to escape or die.

People were screaming or struck dumb, seeing the detectives

with drawn .38s, the broken crockery and now racks of cheap

clothing rolling along the footpath and into the street. A stonedlooking

bikie whooped as Wyatt tipped over tables and chairs and

ducked into a narrow space between racks of dresses and T-shirts

in the adjoining shop.

It was dim inside, cramped, the air percussive. Wyatt didn’t

recognise the music. It wasn’t music. It was loud, that’s all, and

supposed to attract customers. There were no customers, only one

shop assistant avidly watching out of the main window and another

snapping gum behind the cash register in the rear.

‘Can I help you with anything?’ she asked. She didn’t think

she could help the man, who was tall and prohibitive and gave off

waves of coiled energy, but it was her job to ask. He passed her

unhurriedly and her jaws continued to chomp.

Wyatt found himself in a short corridor, with a staff washroom

on one side and a storeroom on the other. Peeling floor tiles, a

broken-wheeled clothing rack, a bin of coat hangers and a wad of

thick plastic shopping bags, deep purple, bearing the store logo.

He crammed the harbourmaster’s ransom money into one of the

shopping bags and kept going, out into the alley.

2

The alley was empty, but Wyatt took no comfort from that. He

didn’t want to shoot it out with the Frankston cops, or be arrested

carrying the .32, so he wiped it down and tossed it up onto the

roof of the clothing store. He heard it clatter to stillness on

the galvanised iron. Then he tore off the brightly coloured shirt

and the towelling hat and crammed both into a rusty downpipe

further along the alley. That left the sunglasses. He wiped them

too, smashed the lenses under his heel and tossed them into a

dump bin. Now he no longer resembled the man who had hijacked

the harbourmaster’s ransom money.

But he needed to get out of Frankston. Forget about a train,

bus or taxi. Forget about waiting around for the heat to die down,

too. The police would soon be at saturation strength on the streets

and in and around the station and the bus stops.

Still carrying the harbourmaster’s cash in the purple bag,

Wyatt headed away from the warren of lanes and turned in to the

Aussie Disposals on Beach Street. He bought combat pants, purple

mirrored sunglasses, a black T-shirt, an Army forage cap and a

daypack, reflecting that women had it easier in this game. Small

alterations—a ribbon, a scarf, hair up or swinging free—could be

an entire makeover. The kid who served him was incurious: she

had seen it all before, homeless guys who’d come into a few dollars,

students trying out a new image. Wyatt in his jeans and T-shirt

was just another guy.

Bundling his old clothes and the purple bag into the pack,

Wyatt thumbed the ugly sunglasses onto his nose and headed

down side streets toward the waters of the bay, a block south-west

of the Nepean Highway. As soon as he reached the sand he

intended to stroll away from danger, bearing north towards the

city for five or ten kilometres, which would bring him to the

beachside suburbs of Seaford, Carrum and Chelsea. He could risk

catching a train or bus from there. But then, as he was crossing

the Nepean, he saw the service station.

It was like every fuel stop on every highway: fill the tank,

check your tyre pressure, buy a pack of cigarettes or a stale donut,

use the restroom.

At this one you could also book your car in for an oil change

and tune. You dropped your car off in the morning, went to work,

and collected it that afternoon. The mechanics were busy: if all

you wanted was a simple service, they’d do it quickly to free up

the hoists for more demanding jobs. They’d park your car outside,

next to the rental trailers and the barbecue gas. Sometimes they’d

lock your car and hang the keys on a hook in the office. If they

knew you they might leave your car unlocked, keys in the

footwell.

That’s what Wyatt was counting on, and it got him a wellcared-

for Toyota Cressida. He checked behind the rear seats

because he always did, and was gone before anyone noticed. As

he drove, Wyatt visualised the owner, a man of precise habits. A

man like himself in fact, but older and from the other side of the

fence.

Wyatt kept to the Nepean Highway as far as Mentone, where

he took Warrigal Road and then Centre Road into Bentleigh, an

endless tract of small brick veneer houses and modest, easily

dashed expectations. The people of these suburbs were the

backbone of governments that taxed them dry and sent their sons

to die in foreign wars. Wyatt found Lithgow Street, looking for a

particular house. Especially the granny flat in the backyard, where

six years ago he’d secreted a .38 Smith & Wesson, $5000 in cash

and papers in the name of Tierney.

The house no longer existed. In its place was a block of flats

in a carpet of concrete. He turned around and drove out of there,

wondering if they’d found his stash. Maybe it was buried in a

landfill somewhere.

He headed across the city to Footscray and another house,

weatherboard this time. The house was still there. It hadn’t been

altered. The street hadn’t been altered. But the residents had.

There were two police cars out the front, another in the driveway,

lights flashing, and surging around them were a dozen Somali

teenagers, abusing the cops who were arresting their friends.

Wyatt drove by.

Battling heavy traffic, he pulled into the car park at the rear

of a Sydney Road pub, where he checked the harbourmaster’s

pay-off. He’d been partly right about the contents of the envelope.

There were eight tight wads of cash in it, green-toned hundreddollar

bills showing top and bottom, so that at a glance the

harbourmaster would have counted seven bundles of ten grand

each and one of five, buying the police time to move in and arrest

him. But between the genuine bills it was all scrap paper. So Wyatt

was wealthier by only $1600 and poorer by one handgun.

The gun mattered. It was an essential tool in his line of work.

Ditching the car, Wyatt caught a tram back into the city. It was

almost 5 p.m. He didn’t want to miss Ma.

If she was still alive.

If she was still in the game.

Excerpted from Wyatt by Garry Disher. Copyright © 2011 by Garry Disher. Excerpted by permission of Soho Crime, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. “Heist novels and movies are popular because they tap into people’s desire to pull the perfect crime.” Discuss in relation to Wyatt.

2. Wyatt commits armed holdups and kills those who betray him, yet is a sympathetic character (readers tell me they don’t approve of him but want him to win). How does the novel achieve this?

3. Would the novel work if Wyatt was into drug dealing?

4. Does Wyatt have a code or is he totally amoral?

5. Now and then we catch fleeting glimpses of a gentler Wyatt. Do these weaken or strengthen our image of him?

6. Discuss the ending (some readers and critics have argued that it’s perfect, others want more).

7. My Australian editor argued that Wyatt should hook up with Lydia again, I said no. What do you think?

8. This is a multiple viewpoint novel, taking us into the minds and actions of the good guys and the bad guys. How does this help create tension and suspense?

9. As a crime writer I often have more fun with the minor characters than the hero. Are there hints of that in Wyatt?

10. One of crime fiction’s great strengths is its ability to tell us about the world we live in (literary fiction lets us down in that regard), often by viewing it with an unimpressed eye. Discuss in relation to Wyatt and other crime novels you’ve read.

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