Chopper Unchopped (116 page)

‘Ten grand,’ said Texas Terry. ‘That’s what’s of him. Ten grand. That’s five each,’ he added helpfully.

‘We can count,’ snapped Stan. Texas Terry got up to leave. He put his hand out and Tommy shook it, but Stan refused to. He was busy looking at Terry’s shoes.

‘You’ll have the dough in advance by the weekend, okay?’

‘No problems,’ said Tommy.

Terry walked out. Stan was livid. ‘What’s wrong, Stan?’ asked Tommy.

‘That bastard,’ said Stan. ‘He’s what’s wrong.’

‘What do ya mean, mate?’ asked Tommy. ‘Ya not making any sense.’

Stan yelled, ‘Are you friggin’ blind? Didn’t ya notice what he was wearing?’

‘No,’ said Tommy. ‘What the hell are you on about?’

‘Hush Puppies!’ screamed Stan. ‘The bastard’s wearing bloody Hush Puppies.’

‘Oh,’ said Stan, pretending to be serious as he looked out the shop window at Texas Terry Longfellow getting into his car. ‘Hush Puppies, you say. Well, well, well.’

‘Stanley, there’s only one thing for it.’

‘Yeah,’ said Stan. ‘What’s that?’

‘Kill him,’ said Tommy. ‘We’ll have to kill the bastard.’

Tommy started laughing, which made Stan more angry.

‘Stop taking the mickey,’ he said. Then they both broke up laughing and started tossing shoes at each other.

‘Between giant fish and Hush Puppies, Stan, you’re as sane as anyone,’ said Tommy.

TEXAS Terry walked into his Port Melbourne home. His right hand man and partner in crime and union matters, Joe Beazley, sat in the lounge room.

‘Meal Man is running at Olympic Park dogs tonight, and he’s 10 to one,’ Joe said when he heard Terry’s familiar footsteps. Joe the Joker Beazley dearly loved the dishlickers, whereas Terry was particularly partial to the ponies.

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Terry ‘and Big Philou is racing at Caulfield tomorrow, so it will be a few good wins for us.’

‘How did it go with the hippies?’ asked Joey, remembering Terry had been doing business while he did the formguide.

‘Okay,’ said Terry. ‘That bloody Stan is a nut case, but Tommy is all right. We will have to get the ten big ones to them by the weekend.’

‘Will they do it?’ asked Joe. ‘Yeah,’ replied Terry. ‘I reckon those two whackers would shoot themselves if the price was right. The only problem is they may as well hold a sign over their heads with “Please arrest me” written on it.’

‘Yeah,’ said Joey. ‘They are a bit hectic.’

‘Hectic!’ said Terry. ‘When I walked into the bloody shoe shop they were arm in arm waltzing the “Blue Danube.” They are totally insane.’

‘Yeah, but they will come in handy,’ Beazley laughed.

‘You’re right, my old friend,’ said Terry. ‘But when we are finished with them, I think we’ll have to kill them.’

Joey Beazley nodded. ‘Yeah, so what’s new? As long as we rip the guts good so they sink when we throw ’em in the drink.’

They laughed like hyenas. Terry picked up the newspaper. ‘Shit, Joe,’ he said. ‘Forget the dogs.’

‘Why?’ asked Joe.

Terry read from the TV guide: ‘Long John McGovern is fighting Foster Bibron tonight.’

Joe looked put out. ‘They got TV sets in the bar at Olympic Park,’ he protested. ‘We can do both.’

‘Yeah, ya right,’ said Terry. ‘Looks like being a top night.’

THE ten grand arrived by messenger to the shoe shop Friday afternoon. Tommy and Stan didn’t bat an eyelid. Tommy took the money and nodded to Stan, who was attending to a lady customer who had brought in her little boy for a pair of shoes.

‘I thought, young man,’ said the middle-aged lady with an upper-class voice, ‘that a nice pair of Bata Scouts would suit.’ Stan ignored this request and presented the lad with a sturdy pair of Scottish brogues.

‘Try these on, sport,’ he said, ignoring the woman. The kid tried the brogues on, then gave his mother a sour look. ‘Young man,’ said the woman severely. ‘I distinctly said Bata Scouts.’

‘Here ya go, sonny,’ said Stan. ‘Try these on.’

He grabbed the young lad’s foot and put an R.M. Williams boot on it. The boy turned to his mother again, looking as if he was going to start bawling any minute. Mother was getting nice and dirty by this. Her voice went all shrill.

‘Young man, are you deaf?’ she demanded. ‘I said Bata Scouts.’ Again, Stan the Man ignored her.

‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘We’ve got some bloody top pairs of Wing Tips’. The woman shook her head.

Stan was getting annoyed. ‘Julius Marlows?’ he said. ‘We’ve got some great Julius Marlows’.

The woman glared at him as if he were mad. She didn’t know how right she was.

‘Footy boots?’ grated Stan, with an evil look in his eye.

‘Bata Scouts,’ said the woman stonily.

‘Runners?’ said Stan.

‘Bata Scouts,’ she replied.

‘Desert Boots?’ said Stan.

‘Bata Scouts,’ she repeated.

At last, Stan cracked. ‘Well, we’ve got no bloody Bata Scouts, ya fat arsed cow!’ he screamed.

The woman went silent.

‘Now,’ said Stan dangerously. ‘Here’s a top set of Julius Marlows. They’re $22, now either buy ’em or piss off. And if ya ask for Bata Scouts again, I’ll stick this bloody shoe horn up ya fat arse.’

The woman took her son, now in tears, and left. ‘Yeah,’ Stan yelled after her, ‘and don’t come back, ya toffy-nosed slag. Bata Scouts! I’ll give ya friggin Bata Scouts if ya come back.’

‘Another satisfied customer,’ said Tommy, deadpan. He’d been watching the comedy.

Stan started ripping through the shoe boxes.

‘How come we got no Bata Scouts?’ he yelled.

‘Because,’ said Tommy, ‘you pulled a gun on the Bata Scout representative three days ago.’

Stan stopped. ‘Is that who that poofter was?’

Tommy was glad of the ten grand, because Stan threatened any customer who didn’t want to buy footy boots and even if he didn’t pull a gun he had the sales skills of a bull terrier. He had already belted several customers over the head with shoes they didn’t like, and stabbed one unlucky chap in the eye with a shoe horn. Mind you, it had worked. As soon as he got a jab with the shoehorn the shoes the customer had been complaining were tight suddenly went on easy as pie. But with one thing and another, the police had been called several times. Stan was very lucky he had not been arrested, but he didn’t see it that way.

‘I’m gonna shoot the next arsehole who asks me for Bata Scouts,’ he announced. ‘Bata Scouts can go on the Hush Puppy list. We don’t stock the bastards, okay?’

‘Yes,’ said Tommy. ‘Okay.’

BIG Pat Shanbuck was spending a quiet Saturday night drinking with his mates in the bar of his favourite pub in South Melbourne. His bodyguards, Roger Dunford and Kelvin Symons, were in attendance but relaxed and not really on guard at all. The bar was full of local hoods and knockabouts and dockies. Sobrios the Greek, Teddy Capone, Frankie Alfred, Bobby Jarvis, Dave Epstein, Mickey Sanders, Buggsy Brown, Tony Pyke, Terry Scott and a varied collection of molls to match.

Pat the Rat Shanbuck was sitting side-on to the front door of the pub and didn’t even turn around as T. Bandettis and S. Gonzalas walked through it. In fact, no-one bothered looking up. Tiger Tommy couldn’t believe it. Two men in the main bar, both wearing long overcoats, and no-one even noticed them walk in.

Nancy Sinatra was singing on the juke box: ‘These Boots are Made for Walking.’ The music was loud. Stan the Man pulled out a sawn-off double barrel shotgun. Tiger Tommy did the same. It was a big night and two double barrels would be needed. Stan aimed the gun at Shanbuck’s head and fired.

Sobrios the Greek yelled, ‘Look out Pat,’ but it was too late.

The blast caught Shanbuck on the side of the face and sent most of it splattering across the bar.

Part of Shanbuck’s tongue hit Frankie Alfred in the face and the lips, chin and cheeks sort of came to rest all over Teddy Capone’s white suit. Bobby Jarvis and Mickey Sanders dived for cover and big Roger Dunford and Kelvin Symons went for their guns just as Tiger Tommy aimed his shotgun at them. Then they changed their minds, and dived through the dunny door just as Tommy fired. The blast hit the juke box. Nancy Sinatra died and another record jumped into life. It was Johnny Horton singing ‘North to Alaska’.

Pat Shanbuck wasn’t dead but he was getting there. Half his face was blown away and still he got to his feet.

‘No ya don’t!’ yelled Tommy. ‘Not this shit again.’ Visions of Ray Costa were still in his mind. He put the shotgun against the side of Shanbuck’s neck and let the second barrel go. It cut Shanbuck’s neck in half, and the big man fell down.

Stan, not to be outdone, let his second blast go into Shanbuck’s stomach, sending a bucket of guts splattering across the floor.

It was time to leave.

They left.

TERRY Longfellow and Joey Beazley heard the sad news on the radio on Sunday morning as they were enjoying their morning cup of tea in the kitchen.

‘Well, well,’ said Texas Terry, shaking his head sadly. ‘Poor Pat, I wonder who could have done that?’

‘Yes, indeedy,’ said Joey Beazley. ‘It makes you wonder about the world we are living in, Terry.’

‘Yes, Joe, it’s a sign of the times. I blame it all on television,’ said Terry, a little more cheerfully.

‘Yes’, said Joey, ‘I agree, Terry. Bloody television.’

Both men sat shaking their heads and murmuring.

‘More tea, Terry?’ asked Joe politely.

‘My goodness, yes’ said Terry. ‘And a lovely cuppa it is too.’

They filled their cups and raised them in a mock salute.

‘To poor Pat,’ said Terry. ‘Yes indeed,’ said Joe with a sly smile. ‘To poor Pat.’

Not one person at the pub was able to give police any help at all in relation to what the two men who shot Pat Shanbuck looked like. Nevertheless, Tommy Bandettis and Stanley Gonzalas suddenly felt the need to make yet another fashion switch, this time with square back semi-crew cuts, sharpie style jumpers, Lee jeans, cuban-heeled, chisel-toe shoes.

They had gone from mods to rockers to sharpies all in seven months. The FJ Holden had gone and a brand new GT Falcon took its place.

However, the LSD trips had not changed. At heart, Stan and Tommy were still hippies, when it came to drugs of choice. They would mix purple hearts with black dot LSD trips. Then Stan would spend hours sitting in the shoe shop telling customers to piss off unless they wanted footy boots, convinced he was being spied on by a giant Murray Cod fish.

‘It was a big fish,’ Stan would say, ‘with big lips and flapping fins. It was wearing dark glasses and a raincoat and sometimes it stands across the road from the shop and just looks in.’

‘It’s all part of the National Civic Council’s plot to destroy the footwear industry,’ Tommy told him. ‘If I see this bloody fish I’ll shoot it,’ he promised.

Tommy was thoughtful like that.

TEXAS Terry and Joey the Joker were both at a party at Trades Hall. Frank ‘Tricker’ Farthing the Trades Hall General Secretary was hosting a congratulations party for Terry Longfellow, who had won the dockies’ union election and was now one of the most powerful men on the waterfront.

Farthing pulled Terry Longfellow to one side and said, ‘someone wants to meet you.’ The pair went into the General Secretary’s office. Terry was shocked to see Bobby Falcon, boss of the National Federation of Australian Workers’ Union, making him the most powerful union boss in the country.

Falcon usually had a pair of glasses on his face and about a dozen inside him. He was a famous drunk but also a famous brain. The son of a defrocked Catholic Priest and a Protestant school mistress who should have known better than to surrender her flannel knickers to a drunken old lecher who’d duffed half a dozen ‘housekeepers’. If he’d stuck to altar boys, like the rest, he would never have got into trouble.

Like his father before him, Bobby Falcon was a friendly man, especially with any stray women who crossed his path. He loved being all things to all men, everyone’s friend, and loved attention from the newspapers and TV and radio … and Terry Longfellow wouldn’t trust the lying, treacherous dog as far as he could spit. But Longfellow was no fool. Falcon was too bloody powerful, and Longfellow always pretended to like him, and he knew full well Bobby Falcon only ever pretended to like him.

‘Congratulations, Terry, on a great victory,’ gushed Bobby.

‘Thanks Bob,’ said Texas Terry drily.

‘Pity about poor Pat,’ said Falcon, innocently.

‘Yes,’ said Terry. ‘Most sad.’

‘Try not to kill any more,’ said Bobby Falcon quietly, with a smile like a white pointer shark.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Terry, trying to look hurt, surprised and angry all at once, and not quite pulling it off.

‘No, no. I’m sure you don’t,’ said Falcon with a grin. ‘Anyway, brother,’ he continued. ‘I must be off, just popped in to say hello.’ He walked towards the door, but turned and spoke before he reached it.

‘Oh yes, by the way, Terry, I was talking to the Attorney General last week. He gave me the hint that a Royal Commission may be in the wind.’

‘Yeah?’ said Terry. ‘How’s that affect me?’

‘No, no, of course I’m sure it won’t,’ said Falcon smoothly, ‘nevertheless I advise you to clean house. It’s all bad news for the whole union movement.’

‘What do ya mean, clean house?’ asked Longfellow.

‘Well Terry, my old mate, that’s up to you. But my advice would be to stay out of shoe shops. Anyway, must go.’

And with that Bobby Falcon walked out.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Frankie Farthing.

‘Ah, nothing’ Terry said. ‘Just Bob’s little joke.’ He looked out the window into the night. Bandettis and Gonzalas had to go.

IT wasn’t a dark and stormy night. A full moon lit the beach. Stan Gonzalas stood on the sand looking out to sea. He saw a man with a white cane and dark glasses coming towards him. It was Grantley Dee, the blind rock singer and disc jockey with the 3AK Good Guys. Grantley Dee began to sing ‘Let the Little Girl Dance’.

A dance band played music behind him. All the band members wore pirate eye patches. Then, out of the sea came Texas Terry Longfellow. Stan was frightened. Longfellow looked like a giant fish. Then the fish with Longfellow’s face walked up onto the beach and kissed Stan on the lips. Stan spat in disgust and freaked out. He fell back onto the sand and looked up at the moon. The moon looked like Ray Costa; Stan aimed his gun at it and emptied the seven-shot clip of his .45 automatic handgun, but Ray Costa only laughed at him. Then he felt a pain in his leg. Terry Longfellow was lying on the sand eating his left leg.