Chopper Unchopped (118 page)

TOMMY Bandettis and Stanley Gonzalas were deep in thought. ‘Two grand for an M21 flame thrower is a lot of money,’ said Tommy slowly.

‘Yeah,’ said Stan. ‘By all accounts it is, but Sid’s tossing in an Owen machine gun as well, along with a full box of M26 hand grenades, 40 in a box. And for an extra 200 bucks we can get an M79 grenade launcher, all good Aussie army gear that never made it to Vietnam.’

‘Is Sid trustworthy?’ asked Tommy.

Stan thought, then told Tommy a rare lie. He knew little or nothing about Sidney Collingville.

‘Yeah,’ said Stan. ‘I vouch for him, he’s a good bloke.’

‘Okay,’ said Tommy. ‘Make the deal, we’ll take the lot.’

Sidney Michael Collingville had been an undercover policeman for the Special Branch for 10 years and reported directly to Cliff Corris. Collingville had infiltrated the Labor Party, Liberal Party, Communist Party and, last but by no means least, the union movement. However, his recent orders to infiltrate the Australian footwear industry and to join an Army Reserve commando unit, the Duke of Wellington Light Horse Regiment, and then to set himself up as an arms dealer, was indeed strange.

Collingville reported back to Corris that the deal with the shoe shop men had been done. ‘Good,’ said Corris. ‘Now vanish.’ Then he picked up the telephone and said, ‘Sir Lewis Linkletter, please.’

He waited for Sir Lewis to answer the phone, then said, ‘Corris here. The trigger has been armed, the situation loaded.’

Linkletter said, ‘I understand, thank you. Don’t ring me again on this number,’ then hung up and turned to his three American friends.

‘The game is afoot, gentlemen,’ he announced.

The biggest of the three Americans spoke. ‘Doc Evans, Bobby Lee and Godfrey Whitman are the only three Langley is interested in. The American footwear company in Langley, Virginia, is the financial power behind the International Federation of United Shoe Salesmen. The thinking is, Sir Lewis, as you well know, we cannot allow the commies to take over the footwear industry.’

‘So true,’ said Sir Lewis wisely, ‘so true. The people who control the shoes people wear control the political direction they walk in.’

The Americans muttered and nodded in agreement. ‘Hell,’ said the big American, ‘the commies have to be stopped. They’ve already taken over the international dental industry.’

Sir Lewis was surprised. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Sure,’ said the big yank, ‘them commies have been putting miniature bugging devices into people’s fillings and false teeth for years.’

‘Really,’ said Sir Lewis, as he rose and walked to the window of his luxurious office. He looked out the window and murmured to himself, ‘Bugs in false teeth. Will these devilish communists stop at nothing? They have to be stopped.’

DETECTIVE Chief Superintendent Corris was dressed in a black dinner suit and black bow tie. He wore a white and gold apron and wore a white and gold sash from his left shoulder across his chest and stomach.

His right trouser leg was folded up to his knee. His left shoe was removed. He entered the black door to the temple of the east room, the Grand and High Holy Chamber of the Lodge of the Loyal Order of the Golden Billy Goat. He entered the chamber and bowed his head.

‘Enter and approach, Brother Corris,’ a voice said from out of the gloom.

He went in and stood before a gathering of 50 men all dressed as he was, but wearing black peaked hoods with eye holes. Corris kneeled down on one knee and said, ‘Worshipful Grand Master, all is in place.’

The Grand Master spoke, ‘Are any of the profane aware that you are one of our number?’

‘No’ Corris replied.

‘Good,’ said the Grand Master, ‘our hand in this and other affairs must never be revealed. See to it that our wishes are carried out.’

Corris said, ‘All is in place, my Lord. I swear by the Great Architect of Solomon’s Temple and by the Knights of the Loyal Order of the Golden Billy Goat that I will not fail in my sworn duty, lest I die if I fail.’

‘Go now, brother,’ said the Grand Master, ‘and see our orders are carried out.’

Cliff Corris got up and bowed to the Grand Master and walked out.

‘Gentlemen,’ said the Grand Master, ‘there is us and only us, the light is ours alone. By the holy pillars we show the way, only we are the invisible. We must show the way and must never reveal ourselves. Go now, you know the task at hand, by the Great Architect I herald this gathering to close. Go in silence, but with hearts of steel, so mote it be.’

‘So mote it be,’ muttered the 50 men obediently, and slowly the chamber emptied.

THE reception rooms in Sweetheart Street, South Yarra, rocked to the music of a 14-piece big band named Big Bad Bruce and the Little Loose Goose. Big Bad Bruce was, in fact, a dwarf standing some four feet five inches short with an amazing falsetto voice. His band, Little Loose Goose, was 13 of the most outrageously good-looking ladies in the local music industry. The dance floor was chocker and the joint was rocking. The guest of honour, Eddy Bullman, was already drunk and had a scantily-clad young woman perched on his knee. At his table sat Doc Evans and Sir Perry Parker, also drunk.

Topsy Carr and Big Jim Starling sat at the next table, both drinking hard. By contrast, Reg Willingsworth, the Commissioner of Police, was very sober and hovering near the rear exit. Sir Samuel Colt, the Premier, declined to sit at the table of honour and picked a table near the exit. Bobby Falcon and Godfrey Whitman had not arrived, but everyone else seemed to be rocking on. The room was full of sporting football, boxing, racing, TV and newspaper and union identities. No-one suspected a thing.

Stan the Man Gonzalas was first through the front door. He burst in with the M21 flame thrower strapped to his back. The burst of flame shot 30 feet across the room. There were screams of pain and panic. Tiger Tommy Bandettis appeared beside his mad mate, brandishing an Owen machine gun, and he opened fire into the body of the terror-stricken crowd.

Eddy Bullman and his table were well alight and burning to death. Then, whoosh! Another 30-foot tongue of flame roared across the room. The whole room was ablaze as Bandettis emptied the Owen gun into the burning huddle.

But at the rear of the room, Terry Longfellow and the Police Commissioner and the Premier made their way safely out the rear exit. A car pulled up and Cliff Corris yelled, ‘Get in.’

Longfellow, Willingsworth and Sir Samuel Colt got in the car, and Corris drove off at top speed. What they did not see was the special branch undercover cop, Sidney Collingville, step up to the open rear exit and close and lock the door from the outside, making sure no more survivors could escape.

As Tiger Tommy and Stan the Man emerged from the blazing inferno Tiger Tommy tossed an M26 hand grenade into the main entrance, exploding the entrance shut in a wall of flame.

They ran to GT Falcon and drove away, leaving behind a wall of flame and 100 dead or dying people.

Corris pulled his car into a laneway in Port Melbourne and turned to the men in the car with him.

‘Commissioner, will you please put these handcuffs on Longfellow?’ he said, producing a handgun and holding it on Terry Longfellow.

‘What’s going on?’ said Reg Willingsworth.

‘Sir,’ said Corris, ‘I’m arresting this scum for planning this whole outrage. It was Longfellow who was behind it all, and he must stand trial.’

The Commissioner smiled. ‘Good thinking, Corris.’ Then he slapped the cuffs onto Longfellow. Sir Samuel smiled. ‘Yes indeed, let Longfellow take the blame. Splendid result.’

Texas Terry turned and spat: ‘You’re all involved. You backed me in it all.’

Sir Samuel Colt laughed again, and said, ‘and who will ever believe you?’

‘You’re quite right Sir Henry,’ said Corris. And with that, he turned his gun on Sir Samuel and Reg Willingsworth. He fired three shots into Willingsworth’s chest and two into the premier’s. Then he turned his gun on Longfellow and said, ‘Terry Longfellow, I arrest you for the murders of the Commissioner of Police and the premier.’

‘You’re mad,’ yelled Longfellow, ‘you’ll never get away with it.’

‘Oh, I think I will,’ smiled Corris. ‘I’ve gotten away with much worse.’

A LARGE American gentlemen knocked on the front door of Bobby Falcon’s home. Falcon answered the door. The shot from the .357 magnum snubnose handgun in the visitor’s hand hit poor Bobby in the guts. He fell to his knees.

‘Why, why?’ he cried.

‘Sir Lewis Linkletter sends his regards,’ said the American as he put the barrel of the snubnose .357 into Bobby Falcon’s open mouth. Meanwhile, a softly-spoken Englishman representing the Royal Footwear Guild was sitting in the lounge room of Godfrey Whitman’s home.

‘It was a lovely dinner, Godfrey, so nice of you to invite me,’ said the Englishman.

‘Brandy?’ said Whitman.

‘Absolutely topping idea,’ said the Englishman.

Godfrey Whitman poured two brandies, then sat down.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Whitman, ‘Why Sir Lewis Linkletter should want to financially back me in my political campaign.’

‘Well really, Godfrey,’ said the Englishman, ‘I’m afraid I told you a tiny white lie.’

‘Oh,’ said Whitman, a little annoyed. ‘Well, please explain.’

The Englishman pulled out a neat automatic handgun and said, ‘the truth is, Godfrey, Sir Lewis sent me here to kill you. Goodbye, old bean.’

He fired three shots into Whitman’s large chest. He was dead after the first two.

TEXAS Terry Longfellow never went to trial. He was certified criminally insane and held at the Governor’s pleasure.

Longfellow’s wild yarn that it wasn’t him who’d murdered the premier and the Commissioner of Police, but in fact the head of the Special Branch, didn’t go down too well with the authorities.

The last nail in Longfellow’s was when he told the court that Corris admitted to him that he did in fact work as a paid killer and general enforcer for the Australian Footwear Industry. After that little outburst, there was no chance Texas Terry could prove his sanity or his innocence.

‘MY Lord Grand Master,’ said Corris, as he kneeled in the Grand and Holy Chamber, ‘my work is done.’

‘Not quite,’ said the worshipful Grand Master as Cliff Corris kneeled.

Tommy Bandettis and Stanley Gonzalas approached from behind.

‘Brother Corris,’ said the Grand Master, ‘Linkletter is still alive.’

Cliff Corris choked. ‘My Lord Grand Master, we can’t kill everybody,’ he protested.

‘Oh, my dear fallen brother, you are most terribly mistaken. No-one escapes the Justice of the Golden Billy Goat,’ said the Grand Master.

At that, 50 men gathered in the chamber and all called out aloud ‘Praise the name of the Golden Billy Goat.’ It didn’t sound good to Corris. He didn’t like the way this fellow members looked. Especially at him.

‘You have failed us, Brother,’ said the Grand Master ominously.

‘Please,’ begged Corris, ‘give me a second chance.’

With that the Grand Master raised his hand and Tommy Bandettis grabbed Corris by the head and cut his throat. Corris fell backward and Stan Gonzalas reached forwards and cut open the policeman’s stomach and tore out his guts and tossed the contents of his stomach over the left shoulder of the dead policeman.

‘So mote it be,’ called the men in the chamber. ‘So mote it be.’

SIR Lewis Linkletter was sitting in his garden on a quiet Sunday morning enjoying the sunshine. He was pleased with himself. In one fell swoop he had gained full and total control not only of the Australian Footwear Industry, but had consolidated a worldwide network of footwear industry federations, all of which acted as a front for a Vatican controlled CIA. Now the Prime Minister of Australia, Sir Gordon McKuen, was on his way to visit. The National General Secretary of the Australian Footwear Association had become a powerful force indeed.

Sir Lewis watched as his butler walked across the lawn toward him.

‘What is it, Marsden?’ said Linkletter, ‘has the Prime Minister arrived?’

‘No sir,’ said Marsden.

‘Well, what is it?’

‘Sir,’ said the butler, ‘there are two gentlemen at the door who demand to see you.’

As the butler spoke, Tommy Bandettis and Stanley Gonzalas walked across the lawn. Linkletter didn’t notice them. The butler was blocking his view.

Sir Lewis Linkletter said, ‘Two men demanding to see me? Who the hell are they?’

Marsden continued. ‘Well sir, they claim to be shoe salesmen. I tried to explain that you would hardly be interested in buying any …’

The first shot killed Marsden as dead as the Leyland P76, maybe deader. That’s when Linkletter realised he had two more seconds to live.

‘Excuse us,’ said the big American to the bodies when the gunsmoke had cleared. ‘We’ll show ourselves out.’

THEY called Big Bill Riley ‘The Ringer’. He was a gun shearer. He’d average 200 sheep on a lazy day. He once did 197 in a day with a broken wrist. His record, so they say, was 260. He died in the shearing shed aged 76 and they reckon he was on his 227th merino when he dropped, but continued to shear sheep for a full three days. This was an exaggeration. The truth was that he kept shearing, dead on his feet, until knock-off time that night.

Yeah, when they told a wild yarn up around the Riverina they didn’t mess about. The yarn about Big Bill’s young son takes a bit of believing. But I was there and every word is true or my name ain’t Larry O’Toole.

Young Les Riley was a quiet sort of kid with a mop of sandy hair and a face full of freckles. They nicknamed the young scoundrel ‘Ringer’ after his father. No-one really paid much attention to young ‘Ringer’ Riley until the day he lost his left hand in Murphy’s hay baler. Bloody hell, it was a mess. Little Ringer ran through town one quiet Saturday afternoon waving his left arm. ‘Hang on,’ I said to myself when I saw him, ‘something’s wrong here.’ The blood was pissing out about a yard high in the air, and his hand wasn’t on the end of his arm. I said to Dad, ‘Hey, do y’reckon young Ringer’s in a bit of strife?’

Dad looked at the screaming kid with the missing hand and said, ‘Nah, she’s sweet. Them Rileys have been out-shearing every man in the district with one arm tied behind their backs for years. Don’t worry boy, he’ll never miss it. Ha ha.’ He was right. In six months Young Ringer was knocking about with a stainless steel two-hook claw.

Jeeze, we kids were dead set envious. We all wished we had one. Ringer sold papers in the Diamantina Pub and he’d hook out a paper with that steel claw real flash. he’d make a shilling in tips alone and this was in the bloody 1930s, the depression, when a shilling a day was real money. Christ, a man could call the world his for a night with a quid in his kick and buy the Riverina 100 acres at a time with a farmhouse thrown in for 100 guineas. That’s right, 100 quid and 100 shillings and you could buy a man’s whole life and water the new farm with his tears.

Ringer Riley’s stainless steel hand cost Big Bill 100 quid for the medical bills and 60 quid for the fancy two-hook claw. Big Bill sent the lad all the way to Melbourne for the operation. The Rileys sold the farm to save the boy. It wasn’t much of a farm. It grew dust in the dry season and mud in the wet, but it was all they had, and they sold it for Young Ringer, but when your dad’s the best shearer in the district you don’t starve anyway.

We called Ringer Riley the ‘Hand Man’, because he never had one. Reggie Bell we called ‘Dinger’ Bell, and Robbie Malloy ‘Blinkie’ because he only had one eye. Lee Donnegan got ‘Swifty’ on account of he walked with a limp, one leg shorter than the other. Ya know the buggers even had a nickname for me; they called me Larry ‘The Liar’ on account of I always told the truth.

Anyway, there wasn’t a lot to do around Ringaranda after school and on weekends. Oh yeah, we had the wireless. We listened to ‘Blue Hills’ and Mo McCackie yelling ‘Strike me Lucky’ to one and all. There wasn’t a big lot in the ice box, not even ice. Life was a roundabout of bread and dripping or roo stew and ya could get a pair of bunnies off the Rabbito for a penny a pop. Wallabies, wombats, roos – if it moved we’d shoot it and eat it, but I reckon me favourite of the lot was damper and jumbuck chops with baked Rosella. And I don’t mean tomato sauce. Things were so tough we ate a power of Rosellas … what with them and baked Galahs it was a wonder there was any birds left at all. So, with eating out of the way, the only thing left to do was get outside with ya mates and muck about.

We could get down to Nancarrow’s store and sit about doing nothing, or hang around outside the Wheatsheaf Hotel or the Diamantina pub and do nothing. Or we could grab our .22 single shot rifles and go bird shooting or rabbit shooting or maybe ping a roo if we got lucky, or even shoot a boong in the arse if we saw one. It was rare to see an abo around the Ringaranda area. Back in 1880 Lee Donnegan’s granddad and old Grandpop Riley, along with the Fennessey brothers, who were troopers, drove 37 blackfellas down to Finnegan’s Creek and shot ’em all. They cut the featherfoot’s head off and put it on display in a pickle bottle on the bar of the Diamantina.

An old Kadaitcha man showed up in the town four nights later and stood outside Donnegan’s place singing and pointing the bone. Donnegan died two weeks later. Broke his neck on his way to the thunder box dunny. No-one knows how.

Old man Riley and the Fennessy brothers got the Kadaitcha man and drowned him in the Moonlight Billabong. The Fennessys were found dead along creek a week later and the crows had eaten their eyes. Bit spooky really. Any rate, the abos all reckon that the Ringaranda area, Finnegans Creek and especially Moonlight Billabong is all bad magic and we ain’t seen a boong around these parts in donkeys.

Anyway, if we did we’d shoot ’em because even in the 1930s it was near enough to legal. Like my old dad said when they pinched him for shooting three abos back in 1911: ‘They tried to pinch me swag, your honour.’

‘Slap on the wrist and a five bob fine for each dead boong, and try to be a bit more careful where you leave your swag next time, Mr. O’Toole.’ Funny thing, soon after that a Kadaitcha man mistook my Uncle Ernie for my dad. Ernie had the bone pointed at him and broke his back while breaking brumbies up near Omeo somewhere. I reckon it’s probably best to leave the Kooris alone.

Anyway, getting back to Finnegan’s Creek. Us kids would grab our guns and our towels and head off down to the creek about a mile south of town. She’d get to 100 degrees in the shade on a cold day around December and Finnegan’s Creek was cool and fresh, it ran into the Moonlight Billabong but we were told to stay out of the billabong because they reckon it had no bottom. Kids being kids, we didn’t pay attention. Ringer Riley always came along with his faithful old dog Ringo, a tough blue heeler-kelpie cross. Wherever Ringer went, Ringo went.

Finnegan’s Creek was a raging river to us boys. We’d pretend to be pirates and all sorts of adventures would follow. We’d soon work our way down to the billabong. It was surrounded by stringy barks and coolabah trees, willows and wattles, with giant ghost gums towering over it all and the skies were filled with birds. It was another wild world all of its own.

Ringer Riley never went swimming without taking off his steel claw hand. He’d leave it on the bank and jump in. Porky Patterson and Dingo Milligan couldn’t swim, and for some reason they always enjoyed picking on little Ringer. They would pick up the hand and yell, ‘Hey Ringer, dive for this’ and toss it in the water, and poor Ringer would have to dive 20 times to find it. We all thought this was funny but Ringer didn’t think so. Tossing Ringer’s hand into the drink and making him dive for it became a regular lark. But Ringer knew his family sold everything to pay for that fancy steel claw and he didn’t see the funny side at all.

Then came the day none of us expected. It was bad weather and none of us went in. We just stood there looking at the raging torrent flow from the creek into the billabong. The current had caused a whirlpool to form in the middle of the billabong and it looked dangerous. We were about to leave when Bunghole Hooper and Patterson and Milligan grabbed Ringer and took his hand off and tossed it way out right into the whirlpool.

Poor Ringer stood there with tears in his eyes. All of a sudden, we realised that what had been done was not the least bit funny. Big Bill Riley wasn’t in town. He was breaking brumbies down near Yackandandah, but when news of this got out he’d be back and he’d skin us all alive.

The next thing we know, young Ringer dived into the water with all his clothes on and swam out into the whirlpool.

‘God,’ said Porky Patterson ‘He’s bloody mad.’

But Ringer wasn’t mad, just tough. He dived down and we couldn’t see him, then up he came again, then he went. We watched him dive a dozen times, then we didn’t see him again. We all stood by the bank of the billabong for an hour. Then it was getting dark, so we decided to raise the alarm.

Old Ringo the dog didn’t come with us. He just stood looking at the water, then suddenly jumped into the water. He swam out and disappeared. That was enough for us, we ran to town. I’ve never been so frightened in all my life. I was shaking all over.

The alarm went up. They rang the church bell for 20 minutes. People from the whole district came running, and took lamps and ropes down to the billabong. We changed the story a bit. Ringer fell in the billabong, his dog went in to save him and both went under. We didn’t mention what Hooper Patterson and Milligan did, just stuck to the accident yarn. ‘The funny thing was,’ said Donkey Donnegan, Lee Donnegan’s dad, ‘we found young Ringer but we never found his hand, and we hit the bottom at 70 feet. We dragged it clean.’

‘No sign of the dog either,’ said Razzle Roberts. ‘I reckon there was a bit of larrikining about down there. I reckon them boys didn’t tell the whole yarn.’

BIG Bill Riley didn’t say much, just buried his boy, took his family and headed back down to Yackandandah, never to be seen again. But before he left town he burnt the church down. We couldn’t prove it but we all knew he did it. He was a churchgoer before young Ringer drowned. The following night we could hear the howls of a dog, loud and long, coming from the direction of the graveyard. After about a month of nightly howling a group of the townsfolk got their lamps and went down to the graveyard. When they got there they froze.

A dead ringer for Ringo the cattle dog was sitting on Ringer Riley’s grave howling like a mad wolf. Next night Skinny McKinley went down and shot the dog, and so ended the story of Ringer Riley.

Twenty years passed and I had kids of my own. I married young Val Patterson, Porky s little sister. Life was pretty good, the depression was over. The war was long gone. I’d joined up in 1940 at the age of 17. In 1943 I fell off a ladder and broke my back at Puckapunyal. Never did see a day’s action, but I was walking again by 1947. Skinny McKinley came back with the DCM and no legs. Razzle Roberts came back with a chest full of ribbons and no eyes to see them. Gazza McNeil, Jimmy Sherron and Lee Donnegan never came back at all. Funny thing about Swifty Donnegan, that limp he always seemed to carry healed up after he broke his leg down the Murrindindi Valley – just in time to join up and get shot to bits an hour after he got off the boat. Never did see Dinger Bell again. He lost a leg and an arm in North Africa.

So what about Bunghole Hooper, Porky Patterson and Dingo Milligan, the three snakes who tossed Banger’s hand in the drink? This is where the yarn turns strange. Patterson, Milligan and Hooper all married local girls and all of them had kids. Just like our dads, we all warned our kids to stay clear of the Moonlight Billabong. And, just like us, they never did.

I was doing pretty well at the time flogging cartons of stolen Capstan Browns for a zack a pack in the Diamantina. I was flogging smokes in the pub one day when news hit town of three kids drowning in the billabong. They fell in the creek and got swept along to the billabong. The whole town went into panic.

It was little Neville Hooper, Bunghole’s young lad, little Lenny Patterson, Porky’s son and Kevin Milligan, Dingo’s boy. I didn’t bother going down to help or watch, just sat in the pub. They chain dragged the billabong for three days and never found the bodies. The only thing they did find was an old metal claw thing with two hooks. It was rusted in parts but the stainless steel still shone through. At midnight that night a dog started howling at the graveyard again, waking the whole town. After the third night a gathering of people got lamps and went to check. There was a dog sitting on a grave howling at the moon. They reckon it was a heeler-kelpie cross. They had the funny little two hooked claw on display behind the bar in the Diamantina. Me and Razzle Roberts went into the pub the next day and took the hand and together we walked down to the graveyard. I was blind drunk and poor Razzle was just blind, and we laid the hand to rest on Ringer Riley’s grave.

THE dog came back every night and howled, and after a week Bunghole Hooper shot himself. Two nights after that Porky Patterson hanged himself. Next night Dingo Milligan, who couldn’t swim a stroke, jumped into Moonlight Billabong.

The howling stopped and the old dog never returned. If it really was a dog. The only problem is I can still hear it howling. In my mind and heart that dog will always howl.

As I sit in my little room here in the Bandiana Mental Hospital and look back, the howling of that dog haunts me. You see, the dog came back the night after my own son drowned in Finnegan’s Creek. We never found his body, but what we did find put me where I am today. Another steel hooked claw was all they dragged out of the creek. And that night the dog returned to Riley’s grave.

I can still hear the dog howling outside my window as I write this story down. The doctors all reckon that it’s all in my head and that none of it is fair dinkum. They reckon the cockatoo has been picking my brain. They reckon I’m the only bloke in the whole nut factory who can hear old Ringo howling. So how come Razzle Roberts hung himself last week from one of the stringy barks near the Moonlight Billabong?

Val wrote and told me the news. She reckons the dog’s been heard howling ever since, every night, but here I sit with everyone laughing at me, all saying I’m balmy, calling me Mad Larry. Yeah, well maybe I am mad, but I don’t see none of them whackers running down to Finnegan’s to take a swim. If you reckon this is some tall tale, Ringaranda ain’t hard to find and you’ll find Finnegan’s Creek a mile south.

I’ve told you how to find the Moonlight Billabong. If you don’t believe me, take a dive in yourself. I reckon Ringer Riley would be real glad to see you.