After she had gone, Wyatt rang Hertz in Frankston and reserved a Falcon using the name on his fake ID. Then he bundled old clothes into a shopping bag, pocketed a spare clip and a silencer for the Browning, and ate a sandwich. Before leaving he rang Rossiter and got Sugarfoot Younger’s address. Finally he drew on gloves: he didn’t want his prints on the rental car.
On the way to Frankston he thought about Sugarfoot. Like all amateurs, the punk seemed to be working to a pattern, repeating himself, comfortable with moves he’d made before. He’d set his mind on a big score and was taking it personally that Wyatt had excluded him. He would not let up until he got payment or got even-and he probably wanted both. He’s emotional, Wyatt thought. He’s incapable of waiting or watching or breaking new ground or trying a new pattern. He lacks control. He’s announced his hand, made himself the target.
An hour after picking up the Hertz Falcon Wyatt was in Kew, parking at the nine-hole golf course on Studley Park Road near the river. He got out, carrying the shopping bag, and cut across the golf course to a vantage point on Yarra Boulevard, trying to anticipate how Sugarfoot would do this. He had no doubt that Sugarfoot intended an ambush-and from the Kew, not the Abbotsford, side. Too many houses, cars, potential witnesses on the Abbotsford side, but here in the park Sugarfoot would have the advantage of high ground, trees and a dozen exits.
Wyatt was early by almost two hours. He didn’t expect Sugarfoot to be that early. He walked down into the park, skirting a dense belt of trees, and entered a muddy track which meandered through weeping willows, mossy logs and clumps of onion weed. No respectable person ever ventured here. Shadowy, overcoated figures coupled, softly moaning, in the gloomy light. A pale-faced man stepped onto the track, saw Wyatt’s prohibitive face, and slipped away again. Here and there a solitary shape was hunched in miserable, tense-wristed pleasure.
Wyatt passed through the trees to open ground on the far side. Avoiding two Harley-Davidsons being tested on the Boulevard’s curves, he made his way back to the footbridge where Sugarfoot had suggested they meet. It occurred to him that the noisy bikes might provide Sugarfoot with sound cover.
He stood on the top end of the path leading to the footbridge. To the left were the trees, to the right grassy open ground with seats and swings.
No-one was around. Taking temporary shelter behind a peeling gum, he emptied the shopping bag and pulled his shabby gardening coat and trousers on above his normal clothes. He put a torn, stretched woollen cap on his head. The Browning was behind his right hip. It was a flat gun, resting comfortably above his right kidney in a forward-canted holster. Finally he took out a sherry bottle bagged in brown paper, and crossed to the swings.
One of the seats faced the slippery dip and the river. He slumped in it in an attitude of dejection and prepared to wait. Three o’clock, one hour early. Now and then he raised the sherry bottle to his lips but was otherwise perfectly still, his chin on his chest, the frayed cap concealing his face. He kept one hand under his coat, holding his Browning. He had a clear view of the footbridge. When Sugarfoot arrived to make his inspection, Wyatt would spot him immediately.
During the next hour, five people entered the park from the footbridge. The first two were a businessman and a teenager with wisps of orange and blue hair who disappeared into the trees a minute apart. Two joggers thumped across the bridge soon after that. They were followed by a wino, who homed in on Wyatt’s bottle. The wino shuffled past the seat twice before hovering nearby in a test of Wyatt’s sense of brotherhood.
About to tell him to scram, Wyatt thought better of it and inched along the seat to give the man room. ‘Sit down,’ he said. He raised the bottle. ‘This’ll warm your guts.’ The wino said Ta’ delicately and drank deeply from the bottle. ‘Ah,’ he said. He wiped the rim with his sleeve.
‘Have another,’ Wyatt said.
The man was ideal cover: so obviously derelict that he coloured Wyatt and the entire playground area. Sugarfoot would discount them immediately.
When it reached four-fifteen and Sugarfoot had not showed himself, Wyatt turned side-on in the seat. To an observer he appeared to be in animated conversation with his drinking mate, but he was looking beyond the bleary, whiskered face to the golf course, the bridge and the dense trees. Shadows were lengthening in the bad light of late afternoon, making objects difficult to assess. A misty rain began to fall and he hunched deeper into his coat. He stayed like this until four-thirty, but saw nothing. At quarter to five, he knew that it was a no-show.
‘Keep the bottle,’ he said, cutting the derelict off in mid-ramble about a shearing shed and a shearing record in 1954.
Hawking and spitting, Wyatt shuffled back across the golf course. He felt tense, wondering if Sugarfoot was smart after all, had support, had the cross-hairs of a telescopic sight on him all this time, waiting for a clear shot.
He kept his head down. Golfers swore at him. A golf ball bumped past him, someone yelled ‘Fore!’, another laughed.
Behind the clubhouse he stood at drunken attention and surveyed the parked cars. Some he remembered, others had arrived more recently. There was no two-tone Customline, but nor did he expect there to be. He was watching for warning signs: a man taking too long to find his car; a car circling the rows instead of leaving; a silhouette showing suddenly in a car window.
After a few minutes he wandered among the cars, looking for the one that didn’t belong. It was an empty gesture at best, since every car looked exactly like a family car used to cart golf clubs around.
He returned to the Hertz Falcon. Just before reaching it he dropped a handful of coins. They rang out, clear and metallic, on the hard asphalt. He knelt to recover them. He also swung round on the soles of his shoes, scouting for figures crouching behind nearby cars.
Nothing.
He checked the back seat and got behind the wheel. It was unlikely that the car had been wired, but still, he felt a prickle of fear as he turned the key in the ignition.
He drove to a secluded street and removed his coat, trousers and cap. They were damp, and had made his clothes underneath feel damp, but there was no time to do anything about that. Sugarfoot had not shown. He might have changed plans, had a fight with Ivan, sought help, decided on a different surprise.
Wyatt started the car again and drove to the Collingwood address Rossiter had given him. Time to go after Sugarfoot, not wait for him.