Pay Dirt Read Free Page A

an Adelaide train, getting off in the Adelaide
Hills.

    He walked the final ten kilometres
to Leahs house, taking small back roads which were choked on either side with
blackberry bushes. Soon his heart stopped hammering. The hills reminded him of
the small farm on the Victorian coast which hed been forced to abandon a few
weeks earlier. There were the same orchards and fat white sheep, the same
geometric patterns of roads, paddocks, hedges and townships. Only the sea was
missing. He breathed in and out, almost enjoying himself.

    He let the tension run out of his
body and started to think about the chinks hed identified in the Steelgard
operation. Wyatt didnt take foolish risks. Having a shot at the Belcowie
payroll now would be risky but he thought he could make it a calculated risk.
He acknowledged the element of frustration in his motives, but frustration wasnt
an emotion he had much time for.

    Wyatt was forty years old.
Respectable men his age were marking time until their retirement. The hard men
his age were dead or in gaol. Wyatt was different. Hed never been burdened by
doubt, uncertainty or personal ties. He worked from an emotionless base. He
could cut to the essentials of a job and stamp his cold hard style on it.

    The essentials of this job were
clear-the Steelgard operation was vulnerable, at least on the Belcowie run.
The guards were careless and lazy, the delivery itself unvarying and insecure.
Hed have to change the how and the where, though. Belcowie and the Brava camp
would be in a state of tension for the next few weeks.

    A car changed down to first gear
behind him and began to labour up the hill. He stepped off the road and into a
clump of trees. The vehicle came into view, a faded green Land Rover with dogs
and fencing wire in the back.

    When it had gone, he continued
walking. Ten minutes later he came to the little town where Leah lived. It was
called Heindorf and revealed the German influence in its cottagey stone houses,
painted wood trims and European trees.

    He stood at the end of her street
and crouched as if to tie his shoelaces. He couldnt see anything that shouldnt
be there. The cars were the same ones hed seen a few weeks ago. No one was
about. He stood up, entered the street, and walked to the end. Leahs house was
halfway along. Everything looked all right. He turned the corner. The street
backed onto a small pine forest. He climbed through a wire fence, circled
behind the first row of trees, and stopped at the rear of Leahs house. He
checked for life in the neighbouring houses. No windows were visible, only
fences and backyard fruit trees. It was early evening. Here and there a light
was on.

    Leah was squatting with a trowel at
the edge of a strawberry patch when he cleared her back fence. He landed neatly
and crouched, as still as a spooked cat in the twilight. She didnt seem
surprised to see him; she merely stabbed the trowel into the black soil and
stood up.

    It was on the six oclock news,
she said, brushing her hands on her jeans.

    Immigration?

    She nodded. They detained eight of
Jorges Chileans.

    Anything about me?

    Only that one man had escaped in a
stolen car, Leah said.

    Then she looked bitter. I had to
tell my girls to pull out. The feds were getting nosy. She shook her head. It
was a goldmine while it lasted.

    She was getting depressed. Wyatt
knew her well enough to read the signs. Shed sometimes fall into a fatalistic
blackness of spirit that might be triggered by some reversal but was never
entirely absent from her makeup. She thought of her past as a yoke. Shed been
on the game for years, and now she ran girls whod once been like her. She
believed that shed be happy when she broke out of that pattern. She needed
luck, shed say sometimes. Luck and money.

    Ive been thinking, Wyatt said.

    Thats what youre good at, Wyatt.

    He let it go. He said, I want
another crack at the payroll. I need your help.

    He knew that she welcomed action
when she got the blues. He watched