Chopper Unchopped (113 page)

We got to the Tope Street address and I rang the bell. We had to wait for a while, then a Little Indian chick answered the door. Her name was Zalinda. She was dark and beautiful with sort of Chinese eyes and those lips that look like they’ve been sucking lollypops since she was six years old. Her hair was like black silk and she was tiny, about five feet tall and as skinny as a rake. She was quite breathtaking.

My mood mellowed as soon as I saw her.

‘Is Georgina in?’ I said in my Sunday best voice.

‘She is upstairs,’ said Zalinda. ‘Who may I say is calling?’

‘Tell her Jackie Young wants a private word with her, please.’

Zalinda invited us inside and showed us into a plush waiting room. It had a bar fridge, which Redda noticed immediately. The old bugger could smell a bar fridge at 50 yards through concrete walls. Zalinda was quick off the mark and invited Redda and my goodself to help ourselves. Then she turned around and bounced her little black bottom up the stairs to get Georgina.

‘This will be money for jam,’ whispered Redda.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Getting money out of molls is like getting blood out of a stone.’

‘Well then, blood it will be,’ laughed Redda. ‘But we ain’t leaving empty handed.’

He pulled the cork out of a small bottle of Johnny Walker Whisky and drowned half the contents in three large swallows and handed the rest to me. I finished the rest off and Redda reached for a larger bottle of Black Douglas Whisky and we proceeded to do likewise with it. After about ten minutes we heard footsteps on the staircase and a tall, wet dream redhead walked into the room with the little Indian princess close on her heels.

‘Hello Jacko,’ she said. ‘We haven’t met before, but I know your dad.’

I thought to myself for a moment, was there anyone in fucking Melbourne who didn’t know my dad? For a man who hadn’t been out of the house in the last 20 years, that was pretty bloody amazing.

‘Oh,’ I said with a surprised look, ‘Where do you know my dad from?’

‘He is a friend of my father’s,’ said Georgina.

‘And who is your dad?’ said Redda.

‘Earl Cartwright,’ said Georgina. ‘He’s the MLA for the seat of …’

‘Yeah, Yeah’ interrupted Redda. ‘I know him. Shit, you’re his kid. Shit, Jacko,’ he said to me. ‘Cartwright and Bunny Whales run the docks. Biggest pair of dogs in the western suburbs.’

Georgina froze and snapped at Redda, ‘Who the hell are you, ya silly old turd?’

‘I’m Redda Maloney, and you’ll be copping this whisky bottle up the clacker if you snap at me again.’

Her mood suddenly softened. ‘Look, what’s going on and what do you want?’ she asked.

‘15 grand’ said Redda. ‘You owe Rolly Wooden 15 grand.’

‘Listen,’ said Georgina. ‘Bobby Dixon is a good friend of mine, and he said that debt was cancelled.’ Redda was about to tear strips off her but I cut him off. He had a tongue like emery paper and broken glass. I went for the smooth approach. As my dad told me many a time, you can turn nasty anytime.

‘Look Georgina, I think we have gotten off to a bad start,’ I said. ‘Let’s all go upstairs and talk this shit over.’ Georgina gave me a little smile and her eyes gave out a professional twinkle. I could tell she was thinking that this whole unpleasantness over the $15,000 could be sorted out with a little bedroom accounting upstairs. She paid all her debts and bills off that way, so it was quite natural for her to misunderstand my intentions, which were entirely honourable, I can assure you.

Zalinda was a mind reader. She gave Georgina a quick look, then gave me and Redda a dazzling smile. Poor little Zalinda had no idea what any of this was about, but she was quite convinced that it would involve the removal of her knickers in about five minutes, and she seemed quite happy to help solve any pressing problem Georgina was faced with.

We all went upstairs. It was obvious at one glance that the two women had been sharing the same large queensize double bed. Georgina removed her little flimsy dressing gown and fell back on the bed, spreading a rather long set of legs.

‘How about we work this off on a time payment scheme,’ she said in a voice that had launched a thousand stiffs.

Zalinda took the cue. She made her little white silk dressing gown vanish in no time flat, and got to her knees in front of old Redda, and I don’t think it was because she intended to tie his shoelaces. I stepped toward Georgina, took out my Beretta and brought it down across the her face. Her top lip and top teeth exploded in a shower of blood. She screamed and started to choke as her top teeth got caught down the back of her neck. She rolled off the bed and fell on all fours, vomiting blood and teeth, crying and gagging. Zalinda froze in horror. People are always surprised when you act honourably like that, instead of taking advantage of defenceless women. All we wanted was to collect a debt, not indulge in hanky panky.

‘Where does she keep her money, princess?’ I said to the little Indian beauty.

Zalinda wasn’t feeling very brave just then. She stood up and, like a frightened child, walked into the kitchen and removed a kitchen drawer and reached in and took out a small locked metal strong box.

‘I don’t know where the key is,’ she whispered. ‘Georgina has got it.’

I took the box and shook it. It was heavy. ‘How much is in here?’ I asked.

‘Friday, Saturday nights’ takings and I think Sunday and Monday as well. Six girls working the night shifts, 12 hour shifts,’ said Zalinda. ‘Each girl makes $200 an hour, 50 bucks goes to Georgina, 12 times $50 is $600, $600 times six is $3600, $3600 times four is $14,400 plus a $2000 float petty cash. I reckon there would be 16 grand in there. Probably more,’ she said.

I was a bit taken back at Zalinda’s accounting. Then again, most molls had brains like pocket calculators. That’s why they got into the hawking the fork caper in the first place. I walked over to Georgina, who was still on all fours, crying and bleeding.

‘Where’s the key to the money box?’

‘I haven’t got it,’ she sobbed.

‘Look honey,’ I said. ‘Give us the key or I’ll smash your little black plaything here in the face so many times she won’t get a job selling her arse in a horror movie.’

‘Smash the dog of a thing,’ said Georgina, ‘I haven’t got the key.’

I looked at Zalinda, her eyes turned from fear to deep hurt and then to fury. Hell hath no fury like a lesbian in love, who’s just been told she don’t matter any more. I sort of felt a bit sorry for little Zalinda. None of this shit was her fault. I gave Georgina a swift kick in the side of the face; she screamed and rolled on her back and curled up into a foetal position.

I said one more time, ‘where’s the key?’ and reached down and pushed the barrel of my Beretta into her right eyeball. She screamed again and yelled, ‘In the fish tank. It’s in the fish tank.’

I turned to Zalinda. ‘Where’s the bloody fish tank?’

Zalinda was attempting to dress herself. She put on a pair of white short pants that came down to her knees, and a tee shirt. The clothes looked ten sizes too big for her, but she did look cute. She looked at me with a start.

‘Can I get dressed please?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, go on,’ I said. ‘But where’s the fish tank?’

‘It’s downstairs,’ she said, putting on a silly pair of slippers.

‘I’ll show you,’ and off we all went downstairs into the waiting room again. I hadn’t noticed the fish tank when I first came in. It stood alongside the TV set. Zalinda pointed to it.

‘Well, reach ya bloody hand in and get the key,’ I growled at the girl. She did, and after about a minute of hunting around in the pebbles on the bottom of the tank she came up with the key. I opened the money box.

‘Shit,’ I said to Redda. ‘There is about 20 grand easy in here. Let’s go.’ Redda and I headed for the door. ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘Wait. What about these sheilas.’

‘I won’t tell,’ said Zalinda. ‘I’m going to pack my gear and get out of here, if that’s okay with you?’ I looked at her and said, ‘Do what you like, darling’.

I went back upstairs to Georgina and said, ‘Tell Bobby Dixon I took ya money and if there is any police involved in this, if I can’t kill him, I’ll kill his family. I’ll kill your dad. Just cop it sweet and say nothing. If ya want to back up and kill me, fine. Do it or try to but tell on me and you and every relative you’ve got will be declared dogs and I’ll drown you in a river of your own blood. Your dad, your mother, brothers, sisters, kids. She sobbed and cried. ‘I won’t tell, I’m not a give up.’

‘I’ll eat your mother’s eyes if you do,’ I said. ‘Now cop it sweet.’

I put my boot into her ribs for one last goodbye. When I went downstairs Zalinda was standing there with a plastic rubbish bin bag full of clothes and she had changed into a pair of white high heels and a white silk dress that looked like some sort of baby doll sexy dressing gown. She looked like a refugee from a porno movie.

‘Can you give me a lift, please?’ she asked. ‘I want to get out of here.’

I said, ‘Yeah, come on.’

We all walked out. She got into the back of the Dodge and I said, ‘you got any dough?’

‘Only my wages for the last three days.’

‘How much is that?’ I asked.

‘$4500,’ she said, without batting an eyelid.

Redda coughed. ‘Four and a half grand, Jesus Christ.’

Zalinda had that cute, puzzled look, like a kitten who can’t work out where you’ve hidden the saucer of milk. ‘Well,’ she explained, ‘ten mugs a night at $150 each in my pocket is $1500 times three is $4500’.

‘Ten a night,’ I said. ‘How many nights do you work?’

‘Five nights a week’ she replied.

I thought about this, little Zalinda was earning more hard cold cash in a week than me and Redda earned in a month. In fact, most of the hard men in Melbourne wouldn’t pull six grand a week. It was really quite shameful.

Blokes like me spent our lives wading through a sea of blood and guts on a razor blade between life and death to earn less dough a week than your average cracker with a tube of KY Jelly, a jumbo size box of condoms and a bucket for a bum. The silly part was that a lot of working girls hero worshipped gunnies and gangsters the way rock and roll groupies were mad about long-haired pansies with swivel hips and poofy guitars, yet the gangsters earned less regular income than the gobble doc girls. But, of course, they didn’t know that and none of us was about to tell them. Call it professional pride.

I shook my head, the whole thing was a shameful comedy. Redda drove along sucking on a bottle of Johnny Walker whisky he had taken from the bar fridge. Back at Tope Street I asked Zalinda where she wanted to get dropped off. ‘The Park Motel in North Carlton,’ she said. ‘I’m enrolling at Melbourne Uni next month so that will be handy.’

‘Melbourne Uni,’ I said with surprise. ‘What are you doing working in a whore house?’

‘Saving money,’ she said. ‘I’ve saved quite a bit over the last year.’

‘I bet you have,’ said Redda. ‘I bloody well bet you have. What will you be studying?’

‘Criminal Law,’ said Zalinda.

Redda and I both broke up laughing. ‘How old are you, princess?’ I asked.

‘I’m 18,’ she said. ‘I’m having a year off before I start Uni.’

I wondered out loud if many lady lawyers took a year off doing such things to subsidise their studies. ‘At least two more that I know of,’ said Zalinda. ‘Carmella, she works part time on the night shift, is a second year law student.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘Who knows? One day you might be able to defend me.’ Zalinda reached over and put her little arms around my neck and giggled. ‘I’ll get you off as well, Jacko, even if I have to pork the prosecutor.’

‘Ha, ha. You may very well have to,’ said Redda with a chuckle like a chainsaw. ‘The last bloke Jacko shot was in front of 78 eye witnesses outside Flemington racetrack.’

Zalinda thought a second about 78 eye witnesses. ‘What did you plead?’ she asked.

‘Not guilty, of course’ I said, indignantly.

‘Perfectly correct,’ said Zalinda. ‘Bodgie witnesses and police verbals. How long did you get?’

‘Two years’ I told her. ‘Do ya reckon ya could have gotten me off that one?’

‘Not unless it was an all male jury and I had their phone numbers,’ said Zalinda, quick as a flash. The girl had a sense of humour as well as her more obvious assets.

We dropped her off at the Park Hotel and with a kiss goodbye and a wave and a laugh she bounced across the footpath and into the joint. As we drove off I wondered if she ever would become a criminal lawyer. Most working girls were space cadets and dream merchants, but that kid seemed to have her shit together.

We headed off the Beach Road, Brighton, to Rolly Wooden’s place. Rolly drove a 1973 Rolls Royce, powder blue or sky blue, call it what you will. And he had it parked up on his nature strip. We got out of the car and walked up the driveway. Rolly opened the front door and stood in the doorway.

‘You two dickheads made a nice pig’s breakfast of that one,’ he said before I’d even spoken.

I pulled out 10 grand and said, ‘Here’s ya money,’ and Rolly laughed. ‘That’s not my money you collected. That’s money off ya own bat. You heard about the debt and did a bit of freelancing work and used my name without permission. You’re a pair of dead men.’

‘That’s bullshit,’ I said.

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Rolly, ‘but that’s what I just told Bobby Dixon. He was on the phone to me 20 minutes ago. Why didn’t you mask up? Why introduce yourselves, I’m sorry Jacko but you and Redda are on ya own. Keep the 10 grand. You’re both dead men.’

Redda and I stood there. Rolly went inside and slammed the door.

THREE months passed by and I never heard any more about nothing to do with the 20 grand, Georgina, the brothel in Tope Street, Rolly Wooden or Machinegun Bobby Dixon. The shooting of Chicka Charlie Doodarr in the Coliseum Hotel by some lone wolf gunnie overshadowed all other news, and underworld crews all over Melbourne were running for cover or hiding under their beds. My old dad was a personal friend of Johnny Go-Go’s dad, so even though I knew Go-Go only at a waving distance, a polite nod of the head in passing sort of thing, because of my father I felt committed morally and emotionally to the Collingwood side of any argument. This was despite the fact I was an Ascot Vale boy and I was seeing a stripper who lived in Ascot Vale named Jandie, an all tits and legs glamour girl who could melt fly buttons and zippers with a smile.