Pay Dirt by Garry Disher Page B

a
nightwatchman, or kids taking short cuts home from the video library. Holding a
container of petrol in each hand, he waited for five minutes, watching and
listening. He could hear the sound of a television set coming faintly from
inside Lomans house. When he was satisfied, Letterman ran doubled-over to the
back door. He didnt tripthere was nothing to trip on. The yard surrounding
the house looked as if it had been swept to within an inch of its dull life.

    Letterman never ate or drank before
a job. He felt concentrated, full of nerve endings.

    This had to look right. He went from
window to window of Lomans house, checking for security alarms. He supposed a
man as neat as Loman was, a petty crim like Loman, would have some sort of
security fitted, and he found it on every window, a silver strip that would
activate an alarm if it were cut.

    In other circumstances windows like
these were no problem for Letterman. Hed simply pry out the putty surround
and-move the whole pane aside. But this had to look innocent all the way.

    He went around to the front door. It
was in darkness and faced a side wall of the storage shed. Putting the litre
containers down, he bent to examine the lock. It looked pretty standard. He
took out his folder of lock picks and went to work.

    There were twenty picks in his kit.
Hed got themand lessons in how to use themfrom a crim hed put in Long Bay
five years ago. They were long, flat gunmetal strips with small indentations at
various stages and angles along both edges. The kit also contained key blanks,
small pry bars and ratchets, but he wouldnt be needing them tonight, only the
raking bar. He selected a pick, inserted it into the lock and pushed against
the first tumbler pin. Then, inserting the raking bar, he raked the tumbler pin
open. He repeated this operation several times, pushing the pick deeper and deeper
past the opened tumbler pins.

    He reached the end, straightened to
ease the strain on his back, and opened the door. He didnt push it fully open
but waited and listened. Satisfied that no alarm had gone off, he pushed the
door open in stages. Still no alarm sounded. It probably meant that Loman had
separate systems for the door and the windows. Hed turn off the door system
when he was at home, but generally leave the window system on.

    Letterman closed the door. He had
stepped straight into a lounge room. The television set wasnt here, though, it
was in one of the other rooms.

    The bedroom in fact. Through the
partly open door he could see Loman stretched out on a monastic-looking single
bed, watching a night football game. He wore short pyjamas and a dressing gown.
His good leg was horribly scarred. The other was a stump. The plastic leg was
on a chair next to the bed. Apparently Loman felt the cold, for a bar heater
glowed on a floor rug in the centre of the room.

    Letterman didnt waste time. He didnt
bother with pointing out Lomans sins to him but ran into the room and stunned
him with a heavy blow to the temple. He hit him again.

    When he was sure that Loman was
fully unconscious he turned off the bar heater. Next he took out his knife and
gouged holes in the caps of each petrol container with the sharp, narrow point.
He squirted the room with petrolonto the walls, the wardrobe, the ceiling and
the curtains. Apart from the area around the bar heater on the floor, he
sprayed high, knowing that the arson squad would be suspicious of intensive
burning on the floor or low down on the walls. He made sure the ceiling got
plenty. He was relying on it catching early and collapsing on Loman.

    Finally he soaked the quilt and
dragged a corner of it down to touch the bar heater. Then he turned the heater
on and hurriedly stepped back into the doorway. The bed caught at once. When
the flames were strong, he tossed the petrol containers onto the bed. They
wouldnt last long.

    By nine oclock Letterman was back
at his motel arranging an early wake-up call. He showered, packed his bag,