Read Pay Dirt for Free Online Page B

youre wearing a shirt or a jumper.

    His Avis Fairmont was parked outside
the motel room, its long snout overhanging the tyre-stop. He made the usual
checks before getting in. He noted that there was no one in the space behind
the front seats, then opened the boot lid gingerly, checking for wires before
opening it fully and searching for a mercury electrode. Finally he examined the
drivers seat for pressure bombs and checked for wires under the bonnet. The
car was clean. He put on the black horn-rims he wore for driving, got in and
backed the Fairmont out of the motel carpark.

    He left St Kilda and drove down the
Nepean Highway to Frankston. There he cut across to Shoreham and found the post
office. It was attended by an elderly, watery-eyed man. I work for the Courier
Mail in Brisbane, Letterman said. Im doing a story on the gangster who
lived near here.

    You mean Warner? the postmaster
asked.

    Letterman nodded. Hed been reading
back issues of the Melbourne newspapers and knew Wyatt had used that name. Hed
also obtained photocopies of the police identikit picture. He pulled one out
and showed it to the postmaster. This him?

    They both examined it. According to
the police artist, Warner had a thin face, loose shortish hair and bleak
features.

    Not a bad likeness, the postmaster
said. I tell you what, we were flabbergasted. Seemed a nice sort of a bloke,
kept to himself, kind of thing. No one here had a clue.

    Letterman put the picture away.
Everyone had a clue now, though. It was quite a story, front-page stuff. Gang
warfare, the headlines said. Organised crime elements from Sydney battling it
out with local criminals, several of whom had been shot dead. Police were
looking for a man who called himself variously Warner, Lake and Wyatt, last
seen at his farm on the Mornington Peninsula.

    Im putting together a story about
the hidden lives of people like him, Letterman said.

    The postmaster pursed his lips and
looked out of the window. Letterman wasnt perturbed. The guy was trying to say
he was canny, you couldnt put anything over on him. A Brisbane paper, you
say?

    Thats right, Letterman said.

    You heard about it up there?

    The way to this blokes heart was
pride. Ill say, Letterman said. It was a bloody big story.

    The postmaster beamed, then looked
regretful. Theres not much I can tell you, though.

    For starters, did he get any mail?
Readers like to know about that kind of thing. You know, letters from
girlfriends, letters from overseas, letters from interstate, stuff like that.

    The postmaster shook his head. Like
I told the police, he mightve posted letters, but he never received any.
People dont write like they used to. They use the phone these days.

    Letterman thanked him and got
directions to Wyatts farm. The house was sealed up. All the grass needed
cutting. The dirt track showed no sign that vehicles had been along it
recently. Wyatt is long gone, Letterman thought, and he wont be coming back.
Letterman said as much to a neighbour, an angry-looking farmer. Youd be mad,
wouldnt you, the man demanded, to try coming back? We were pretty upset
about the whole thing. If he did show himself now, no one would give him
the time of day.

    Letterman got back into the
Fairmont. It had been a wasted trip, a long shot that hadnt paid off, and hed
stepped in cow shit and pulled a thread of his suit on a barbed wire fence. He
hated the bush, didnt know why anyone would want to live there.

    Frustration brought on his
indigestion, and during the long drive back to Melbourne he let himself reflect
upon the past couple of years. Theyd said he could make Commissioner one day.
Hed come up through the ranks, and hed done law and accounting part-time in
his younger days. Hed had his own detail in the vice squad, and been second in
command in the drug squad.

    But you dont get anywhere waiting
for information, so hed built himself a good network of snouts, turned a blind
eye where necessary, picked up the odd suitcase from a