Chopper Unchopped (124 page)

Benny had arranged to meet Suzi at the Bowling Green Hotel in Carlton, one of his favorite haunts. He hadn’t mentioned his uncle to her, but he didn’t think it would be a problem. Suzi once said that she’d gobble a racehorse and break the jockey’s jaw for a $1000, and Benny had two grand in his pocket. According to his calculations, that meant his uncle was in for a good night. Any way you looked at it, it certainly sounded a better idea than going to have a perv at the penguins at Phillip Island with a busload of Nips. There were no prizes for guessing how Suzi would be dressed. Or almost dressed. She was wearing a skin tight micro-mini dress that clung tight around her body. It did little to hold her love jugs in, and it just managed to cover her tight muscle-bound arse. She had a high-cut thong G-string affair on under this, and nothing else. If she leant over, you could see through her cleavage right to the floor. She was fully waxed and polished like a new Mercedes, and looked like a porno star on steroids.

Suzi didn’t like to wear stilettos during normal hours, because they were her work clobber. She danced in them, and did some tricks wearing them, which drove the punters out of their horny little minds.

The poor saps got so hot when she strutted around in those high heels that they’d give her their rent money for just a quick peep at her pussy.

But she rarely wore the high heels in public because she was so tall she stood out, and the coppers would pull her over and accuse her of hooking. Most of the time they were after a perv or a feel, but sometimes it would go further. She’d blown away more coppers than Ned Kelly, and all without the rusty helmet.

Tonight she didn’t want to be too identifiable, so she slipped on a pair of white Chinese Kung-fu slippers. They went well with the white dress and knickers.

She put on her lipstick and walked out of the Caballero Night Club and got into her white Mazda RX7. She was on her way up and out. The Rabbit Kisser had bought her the car, given her a mobile phone, a small high standard .22 calibre handgun and told her not to do any more tricks, unless of course Karen ordered it herself.

Suzi was on four grand a week. Karen also insisted she do more body building, which Suzi loved, and to continue with her karate lessons. Suzi already had her black belt, first degree. Suzi suspected Karen was grooming her for some sort of personal girl Friday bodyguard role, and wondered if tonight’s adventure with Poppa Castronovo was the tester.

She was determined not to let Karen down. The Rabbit Kisser had called a Collingwood war council for Tuesday night at the Caballero. All the Aussie crime families from Collingwood would attend. They were the old school tie brigade of the Melbourne underworld, a respected group who had controlled the criminal scene for the past 100 years.

Through marriage and de facto relationships that produced children these eleven families had really become one giant clan with eleven different surnames shared out between them. If they weren’t rooting they were probably related – and in some instances they were both.

They had become scattered throughout Melbourne but they all sprang from the same street in Collingwood 100 years ago. Its name was East Street. For 40 years these eleven families had watched their city and the crime world they controlled become perverted and corrupted and then controlled by the wogs, and later the Asians. Some people considered them yesterday’s men, but they refused to lie down. Suzi was a Russian, but she was part of Collingwood in her heart. And she was always prepared to do the business with one of the old crew, with her knickers in her handbag and her legs in the air. It was called integration.

It was only sex. It was all good fun. Yeah, okay, she copped a few kickings along the way. And there was that bullshit with the German shepherd while Micky the Nut held a gun in her mouth. But, hell, she was only 15-years-old and she never told the police. She had proved herself. She was a staunch solid chick and most street chicks from Collingwood get kicked about like a footy until they start to kick a few goals themselves. Which was what she was doing tonight, she thought. Suzi parked her car in Lygon Street, and made her way to the Bowling Green Hotel.

‘HERE she comes,’ said Benny to his Uncle Sally. They were sitting in the bar, having a quiet drink while they waited.

‘Jesus, kid,’ said Sally Castronovo as he took in Suzi’s body, which reminded him of the 100 metre sprinters at the Olympic Games, except that she was as white as they were all black. ‘She’ll fucking kill me,’ he breathed, but he didn’t look as if he’d mind going out that way. ‘Shit, look at the size of this bimbo. Mama mia, Holy Mother of God.’

When Sally saw Russian Suzi he knew the cold war was over. He grabbed his dick with one hand and crossed himself with the other. Luckily he didn’t get mixed up.

‘Thank you, God,’ he said.

‘What about me?’ said Benny.

‘Yeah, yeah, you too kid,’ said Sally. ‘Now, introduce us, make sure she knows this ain’t no date, this is bingo, bango time and fuck off, okay?’ He always was such a romantic Italian gent.

Benny smiled. ‘Okay, Uncle Sally.’

Benny walked up to Suzi and slipped twenty $100 bills, tightly rolled up, into her hand.

‘There’s two grand there, Suzi. And that old guy’s my Uncle Salvatore, he’s from America and I told him yours is the best pussy he’s ever gonna get.’

Suzi smiled. ‘Well, little Benny,’ she said, ‘you know that’s true.’ She laughed, then looked at the short, thickset pot-bellied old man. ‘I reckon a good fuck and a green apple would nearly kill your Uncle Salvatore,’ she remarked.

‘Don’t call him Salvatore, call him Sally,’ said Benny. ‘And, yeah, go easy on him.’

Benny walked Suzi up to Salvatore Castronovo.

‘Uncle Sal, this is Suzi. She’s a good friend of mine and she’d like to be a good friend of yours.’ Smooth talker, was Benny. He was even slick with a hooker he’d just paid.

The old man wasn’t so smooth. He stuck his paw up Suzi’s skirt and into her panties and grabbed hold. He was much older than her. Was this the generation gap he was feeling? He left his hand where it was. ‘Suzi, you and me is gonna be real good friends,’ he growled. At his age he couldn’t waste time.

Suzi smiled and reached forward and down and kissed the little fat pig on the mouth. She acted the part but she hated it. Deep inside she wanted to kill this little dago. Unlike a lot of hookers who felt the way she did, she could do it easy.

IT was Monday night. The Caballero was closed, but inside the strobe lights flashed in the darkness as a lone, long leggy blonde danced on the bar. She wore white stilettos, suspenders and white stockings. She was not rehearsing for ‘The Sound of Music’. Suzi came through the door with Sally Castronovo. Before he had been a fat dago pig. Now he was a drunk, fat dago pig. It wasn’t an improvement.

‘What’s this place?’ he demanded.

‘I live here,’ said Suzi, still playing her part, but without much passion.

‘Ya live in a strip joint?’ exclaimed Sally.

‘Yeah,’ said Suzi. ‘There’s flats upstairs.’

Sally was transfixed by the blonde glamor girl dancing on the bar.

‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘She can dance, but what’s that all down her freaking arm. It’s like some sort of spider’s web.

‘It’s a tattoo,’ said Suzi.

Old Sally walked closer to the dancing girl.

‘Holy shit, I ain’t never seen nothing like that.”

Suzi stood back. She had spent a half hour bent over the bonnet of her Mazda RX7 letting this little pig screw her and then he wanted a blow job afterwards. She could still taste the little pig in her mouth. She wanted to watch the dog suffer. As Sally drew closer to the bar he looked up.

‘Spider web tattoo,’ he said suddenly, as if he’d just realised something. ‘Hey, you’re the crazy whore who’s been causing all the trouble with my people. I’m gonna rip your arse out, you fucking whore.’

Sally didn’t see the kick but he felt it, the white pointed toe of a stiletto high heel came swinging out and hit him dead centre in the throat. Sally choked and tasted his own blood. He gasped for air but none came. The dancing girl pulled her foot out of his neck and returned to her dancing and Sally Castronovo fell to his knees holding his neck and croaking for the air that wouldn’t come.

Blood spurted out his neck and up into his mouth. His lungs were beginning to fill with blood. He fell forward on to his face, choking to death.

Suzi turned the club lights on and the strobe lights off. Karen Phillips grabbed a towel and flicked a switch that killed the music and jumped down off the bar.

‘What do ya reckon, Suzi?’ she asked. ‘Ya wouldn’t guess I’d just had a baby, would ya?’

Suzi looked Karen up and down.

‘Nah, Karen you’re right. Ya lookin’ a million dollars. Now what about this dog?’ she asked.

‘They teach you to snap necks at them karate lessons?’ asked Karen.

‘Yeah,’ said Suzi.

‘Well then,’ said Karen, ‘let’s see ya do it. Give him a head job he’ll never forget.’

Suzi walked over to the still choking man, reached down, grabbed his head and with a giant twist upwards and to the side broke Sally Castronovo’s neck like a chook’s. ‘What do you bench press?’ asked Karen.

Suzi looked puzzled.

‘I’m only pushing 250 pounds at the moment.’

‘What do ya reckon this little slob weighs?’ asked Karen.

Suzi looked down and gave the body a nudge with her toe.

‘Ahh, I reckon 230-240 pounds.’

‘Okay,’ said Karen. ‘Carry him down to the keg cellar then tell silly Kerry and them snatch sucking stupid Bennett sisters to mop up this fucking blood, then run out and find me a really big pickle bottle, big enough for a human head.’

‘Where will I get one of them?’ asked Suzi.

‘I don’t know,’ snapped Karen. ‘Jesus Christ, do I have to think of everything? Just do it.’

Suzi looked hurt. She was just concerned at how to ask at the all night deli for a head-sized pickle bottle. Karen softened, walked over to her and said ‘Ya did good tonight, from now on you’re with me all the time, okay?’

Suzi beamed a big smile and said, ‘I reckon one of them giant pickle onion bottles would do. After all, he smelled like one.’

‘Okay,’ said Karen, ‘Fix all this up then get me one, there’s a good girl, okay.’

MURIEL Hill sat beside the baby’s cot at her house in Lennox Street. Young Melanie Wells sat beside her.

‘He’s a lovely baby,’ said Melanie.

‘Yes, he is,’ said Muriel. ‘You know, he reminds me of Billy when he was a baby.’

‘I’ll always be here to help you look after him,’ Melanie said.

Muriel took the young girl’s hand and squeezed it. ‘You’re a good girl,’ she said.

‘He’s such a quiet little boy, isn’t he?’ Melanie said.

‘Yes he is,’ said Muriel. ‘Very quiet.’

‘What’s his name again?’ asked Melanie.

‘It’s Michael Roy,’ said Muriel. ‘Van Gogh is his real surname but if any one asks, his last name is Hill.’

‘Good,’ said Melanie. ‘Then I’ll call him “Blueberry”.’

Muriel had a tear in her eye.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Little Blueberry Hill. Who will ever know. People mind their own business in Richmond. No-one will ever question it.’

‘So he’s our baby, is he, Auntie M?’ asked Melanie.

Muriel smiled. ‘Yes, sweetheart. He’s our baby.’

Melanie threw her chest out and jutted her chin. ‘And no-one is gonna kill this little fella on us, not while we’re around to protect him, hey Auntie M?’

Muriel liked Melanie to call her Auntie M. It reminded her of her Billy. ‘That’s for sure, kid,’ said Muriel. ‘Over our dead bodies.’ The two women took each other by the hand and swore to protect little Micky.

Now, wogs can be cunning and Aussie males vicious. The Jews are cold blooded, the Chinks will kill for cash and the Irish for fun or a cause, good or bad. But women will walk to Hell and back to bite out the Devil’s nuts when it comes to protecting a baby.

‘No-one’s ever gonna hurt our baby,’ swore Muriel again. ‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘He’s just about to go to sleep.’

Muriel knelt beside the cot and young Melanie joined her and Muriel started to pray: ‘And now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.’

Melanie had tears in her eyes. ‘That was Billy’s prayer,’ she sobbed.

Muriel nodded. ‘Yeah, well, it’s little Micky’s now.’

IT was Tuesday night and the Collingwood clan was gathering at the Caballero Night Club. The Rabbit Kisser was late. Johnny Go Go greeted the guests with a smile that barely concealed his concern. Karen and he had barely spoken for the past month and no longer slept together. Each thought the other could stab them in the guts while they slept.

Johnny was trying to find out where she had hidden Baby Michael – and at the same time he wanted to stop the bloodbath Karen wanted so badly. He was no peacenik but he knew that blood in the streets meant newspaper headlines, and that meant pressure on the cops.

The jacks couldn’t give a stuff if every crim went on the missing list, but there was an election in the wind and the politicians knew that headless corpses in the street made the voters windy. People might start muttering about law and order, and next thing they would be asking all sorts of tricky questions. Who knows where that sort of thing might end up? Victoria had a reputation as the cleanest, most law-abiding state, with the ‘best police force in the world’, and the Government and the cops didn’t want to rock that particular boat.

Most nights when Parliament was sitting you could find backbench hacks – half pickled from dining room port that they put on each other’s bills and never paid for – sneaking down to the Caballero and stuffing their electoral allowances down the knickers of the willing dancers.

Most of the Honorable Members were holding theirs while watching the pussy parade. But when they had to front the voters they all of a sudden became concerned about the popularity polls – not the ones threatening to poke out of their ‘Y’ fronts.

At least half the old Collingwood crime families went along with Johnny Go Go. The Collingwood crew had been pulled from the ashes by Johnny Go Go and Karen Phillips, and now the Rabbit Kisser wanted to launch it back into a blood bath that would surely outdo anything even the late Ripper Roy, Micky the Nut and Mad Raychell had ever imagined.