Chopper Unchopped (135 page)

‘Here they come,’ said Micky Twist, pointing at the big white 1954 Pontiac.

‘Shit,’ said Bobby McCall, ‘I’d love to get into that car.’

‘Yeah,’ said Normie Bennett, ‘and I’d love to get into what’s driving it. I’d love to get into her glove box.’ They all laughed, as young men with more mouth than experience often do.

‘Don’t let Roy hear ya say that,’ said Irish Arthur.

The mention of Roy’s name stopped all laughter. Most of the boys who stood in the group were older than Ripper Roy. Between 16 and 19 years old compared to Roy’s humble 15, but the murder of the gunman and standover man, Desmond Costello, by Roy when he was only 14 put him above them all. They knew Roy carried a loaded .38 calibre revolver his auntie had given him, and he’d use it at the drop of a hat. Roy was serious young man who would not hear a slight against his auntie without immediate retribution.

The big Pontiac pulled up. Roy got out and ran around and opened the driver’s side door to let Brigid out. He was well mannered, was Roy. Brigid wasn’t pleased, and she pulled Roy to one side. ‘What are these whackers doing here?’ she whispered to him, scowling.

‘That’s me gang,’ he said.

‘Yeah, I know that,’ said Brigid. ‘But let’s not beat about the bush. You and I both know why you asked me to talk to Ronnie West, and you and I both know that ten seconds after I walk into that shop he’ll lock the door and hang the closed sign in the window and in about half an hour’s time I’ll be walking out with your blinking Owen gun.’

‘Yeah,’ said Roy, ‘and I love you for all you do for me, Auntie Bee.’

Brigid smiled and said, ‘I love you too, Roy, but you don’t expect me to walk in there and do the business with this team of wombats hanging about outside clutching their tossles and giggling like a pack of silly buggers. It’s bloody embarrassing.’

Roy was puzzled.

‘But, Auntie Bee, where I go me gang goes,’ he said.

‘Look, Roy,’ continued Brigid, ‘ya know the Saint Patrick Hotel around the corner? Tubby Phillips runs it. Tell him I sent ya and he’ll let ya in.’

‘Shit,’ said Roy, ‘we’re all under age.’ He could kill a man in Bourke Street without blinking an eye, but he was concerned that he might be seen in a pub drinking something stronger than red lemonade.

‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ said Brigid. ‘You’re carrying a gun and ya all look heaps older than you are. Besides, when Tubby finds out you’re my nephew he’ll do what he’s told.’ She winked.

Roy got the picture.

‘Oh yeah. Ha ha. Okay, Auntie Bee. C’mon boys,’ said Roy all set to go to the Saint Pat. ‘Hang on,’ said Brigid and handed Roy a quid. ‘You’ll need some money. Stick this in your kick.’

‘Thanks,’ said Roy and gave her a big hug and a smooch on the cheek. The gang waved her goodbye as Brigid walked across the street to the gun shop. Every one of the pimply-faced gangsters would have given a year of his life to be in Ronnie West’s shoes. Or his undies, anyway. Brigid was thinking to herself, ‘I hope this doesn’t take long. The things I do for young Roy. I deserve a Brownlow bloody medal for the best and dirtiest.’

Most of the gang already drank in pubs in Collingwood, but for Roy the drinking caper was all a bit new. Then there was the shock of finding the great and feared Aussie boxing champs Redda Maloney and Jackie Twist going hell for leather in the bar of the Saint Patrick. It was a sight to behold.

The two pugs were both covered in blood, and the sawdust on the pub floor was such a bloody mess it looked like a butcher’s shop after a big day. Tex Lawson stood at the door. He was a tough young dockie, about 20 years old. Next to him stood the lovely Colleen O’Shaughnessy. Roy called her Auntie Coll.

She might have looked like Shelley Winters, but she didn’t look happy. In fact, she was in tears and her big bazoomers heaved up and down as she sobbed.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Roy. ‘What’s going on, Auntie Coll?’

She flew into his arms.

‘Twist tried to stamp me for ten quid and then he hit me, and Redda jumped in.’

Roy went for his gun, but a big man stopped him.

‘Ease up, kid,’ he said. It was Fred Harrison. ‘Twist will keep. Besides, there’s no way in the world he’ll beat Redda Maloney.’ Freddie ‘The Frog’ Harrison was an underworld legend and without a doubt the most feared man on the Melbourne waterfront. He was also no friend of Twist’s and had smacked Jackie about in public several times to prove the point. ‘You’re a dog and a hoon, Twist,’ yelled Harrison. ‘C’mon Redda, into him.’ And with that Maloney sent Twist to the floor with a flurry of upper cuts, leaving the heavyweight champ out cold.

Freddie The Frog walked up to the unconscious Twist, opened his fly and pissed onto the boxer’s puffy face.

‘There you go, Jack,’ he sneered. ‘Have a drink on me.’

Everyone in the pub broke out laughing. The Frog and young Tex Lawson and Redda Maloney swaggered out.

‘Are ya coming?’ Freddie yelled to Colleen.

She looked at Roy. ‘See ya later, darl,’ she said, giving him a quick hug and a kiss. ‘Here ya go,’ she said, and stuck a five pound note in Roy’s hand. ‘Have yourselves a drink on Colleen.’ Then she swayed and wiggled over to Harrison’s 1952 Chevrolet, and got in it.

The big man waved at Roy Reeves. ‘Hey Roy, your dad was one of the greatest. Take care of ya self son.’

‘Yeah Mr Harrison,’ yelled Roy as the car drove away. He didn’t know it would be the last time he’d ever see the great Freddie Harrison alive again. The Frog got croaked soon after. The funny thing was, although there were dozens of men on the wharf when it happened, not one was able to tell the police who did it. Even the ones with bits of blood and brains splashed on them.

But some of them reckoned later that if they had seen the bloke with the shotgun, it was just possible he might have looked a bit like Jack Twist. Of course, that was probably foul slander and innuendo.

EVELYN Owen was a motor mechanic from Wollongong. He invented the Owen submachine gun in 1938. At first it looked like a small Thompson machine gun. The first production models were issued to Australian troops in New Guinea as replacements for the much heavier American Thompsons in 1942, and in time the Owen even replaced the Sten gun. It had a 33-round vertical fed magazine and fired 10 shots a second.

Brigid O’Shaughnessy didn’t really need to know all this detail, but she listened politely, anyway. She was lying on the single bed in Ronnie’s bedroom above the gun shop. He had just spent a fast and furious 10 minutes of heavenly happiness tooling the Jayne Mansfield lookalike and was now standing stark naked, holding the Owen gun, and explaining the finer points of the weapon.

Brigid could afford to listen for a while – she’d talked him down from twenty quid to a fiver and a bit of the old funny business. Ronnie jumped at it, but he wanted another 10 pound for the 1000 rounds of ammo that went with the gun. She was trying to work that down to five pound with another ten minutes of slip sliding away between the sheets, but Ronnie West was a one-root wonder. He fired a shot quicker than the Owen gun.

After a while, Brigid got sick of the firepower lecture. ‘Ahh bugger you Ron,’ she said, getting off the bed and tossing the gunsmith his ten extra quid for the ammo. ‘I haven’t got all day. Stick all that in the boot of my car, will ya? And the next time you get horny it will cost you a handgun and a box of shells every time. I’m sick of you messing me about.’

‘Don’t be like that,’ said Ronnie.

‘One more word out of you, ya ten-minute pansy, and I’ll tell young Roy ya hit me and you’ll be pulling bullets out of ya bum by teatime.’

Ronnie West took a serious tone. He wanted to hit the arrogant slut for the way she talked to him, but she was right. Roy Reeves would gun down anyone who messed with any member of his family.

‘Let me get dressed,’ he said, biting his tongue. ‘And I’ll pack it all up carry it to the car for ya.’

‘Okay,’ said Brigid. ‘Snap it up will ya. I don’t have all day.’

IT was 1958 and Roy Reeves was driving a lovely FC Holden his Auntie Brigid had bought him. He was 17 years old and growing, and so was his gang. There were now 30 young hoods who’d do anything for Roy, and they weren’t the only ones. Roy had a way of inspiring respect.

He was collecting a flat two quid a week from every prostitute in Collingwood, Victoria Park, Clifton Hill and Abbotsford. He collected another ten quid a week from every brothel and a fiver a week from every sly grog operation. He was also standing over every SP bookie in the area for a fiver a week.

It all added up. Roy was pulling in 300 quid a week. Every man in his gang got five quid a week. That was 150 quid a week gone in wages. Every gang member had his own criminal interests and raised their own funds, with a flat 10 per cent going into a general gang kitty held by Auntie Bee. In two years that kitty had grown to three thousand pounds, a small fortune. At the time a new car cost about 600 pounds.

Auntie Bee’s problems with the Bennett brothers had been solved when Ripper Roy came walking through the swinging doors of the Peppermint Lounge jazz club in Smith Street, Collingwood, with a handgun in each hand. He looked for all the world like Hoot Gibson and shot like him – gunning down the three brothers with seven shots. They all lived but held true to the Collingwood code of silence. Two days later Ripper Roy and his newfound friend Stanley Van Gogh did the Murray Brothers over with broken beer bottles in Blood Lane. The Van Goghs lived in Collingwood Lane, in the worst and most evil part of the old slums – the part of Collingwood that all the politicians reckoned they would pull down later and put all the people in new Housing Commission high rise flats. They were saying the same about Richmond and Fitzroy but no-one believed them at the time. Stanley Van Gogh said to Ripper, ‘The pollies are full of shit and it’ll never happen.’

Ripper Roy wasn’t so sure about that. As the world grew more la de dah the old slums seemed more like London’s East End before the war than Melbourne in the modern 1950s. Sooner or later, he reckoned, they would pull half of Collingwood down and rebuild it. Most of the children in old Collingwood, the dark side, where they didn’t even have street lights at night, had spent their first years of life fighting for food with the rats who lived with them. Easey Street was rough, but it was posh compared with where poor Stanley lived.

‘Let’s head over to Auntie Bee’s place to watch telly,’ Ripper Roy said to Stanley.

‘Nah,’ said Stan. ‘Them TV things is bad for ya eyes. My dad reckons that they send out radio waves that can send ya blind.’

Ripper wondered at this. He didn’t seem convinced. ‘Oh well, okay then. See ya,’ he said.

He started up his new FC Holden and went over to Gipps Street to collect his two faithful right and left hand men, Irish Arthur Featherstone and Terry Maloney.

When he got to the house they shared with Bobby McCall and Ray Brown, he walked in to find Bobby McCall chock-a-block up Helen Hill, a Richmond prostitute who was another Hollywood lookalike. Helen was a big, well put together brunette who prided herself on looking like the movie star Jane Russell. Bobby McCall had failed to notice that the big girl was totally unconscious.

‘Hey Bobby,’ yelled Roy, ‘she’s out like a light, what’s going on?’

Bobby paid no heed and continued to jack hammer the poor girl. ‘It’s this stuff,’ said Ray Brown, holding out a glass vial of white powder.

‘What is it?’ asked Roy.

‘We got it from Chang Heywood over in Richmond. He got it from the Chinese. Them dagos in Carlton are selling it to the molls.’

Roy looked sour at the mention of the wogs. There weren’t many of them, but the pocket of Italian criminals in Carlton had already made their presence felt around the Victoria Market area with their secret society and dago versus dago shootings. They were yet to try the Aussies on for size, but Roy knew it would only be a matter of time. He had already shot two of them in the legs for drinking in hotels in Collingwood. They were a couple of dagos named Corsettie and Carrasella. At least they told the police nothing, which was something to their credit.

The Chinese were harmless. They stayed around Chinatown in the city and had done since the 1850s and had broadened the Aussie culture. After all, Roy reasoned, hadn’t they introduced chiko rolls and dim sims to the delicate local palate? But what made Roy ill at ease was the influx of what he and everybody else called ‘these reffo immigrant bastards’ with their slicked-back oily hair and their charm with the ladies and their waving hands around as they talked their languages you couldn’t understand.

‘Yeah, well,’ said Roy, looking at the white powder Ray Brown was holding out.

‘It’s called Mortine powder or something,’ Ray told him.

Arthur Featherstone laughed. ‘Morphine powder, you idiot,’ said Arthur. ‘You mix it with water in a spoon, heat it, then suck it up into one of these.’ He showed Roy a glass needle plunger thing, like one he’d seen in a hospital once. ‘Then you inject it into your arm or your hip in the muscle or the vein.’

‘Shit,’ said Roy, ‘sounds a bit rough, what’s the big deal?’

‘Well,’ said Arthur, ‘a lot of the crackers, the working girls, love it and they pay five pound for half an ounce, ten pound an ounce.’

‘Shit,’ said Roy, ‘ten quid an ounce? How much does it really cost?’

Arthur said: ‘About 10 bob an ounce from the Chinese, 15 bob an ounce from the dagos, but the trick is if you cut it up into small portions and sell it in little packets you can charge five bob a pop.’

‘And how many little one-person packets can you get out of an ounce?’ asked Roy.

‘From 100 to 112,’ said Arthur.

Roy couldn’t quite believe it. He was doing mental arithmetic as he spoke. ‘How much?’ he muttered. Then, as if answering himself, he said: ‘Five bob 100 times … that’s 25 pound. Shit! Have you got some of this stuff? I’ll show Auntie Bee this.’

Arthur handed Roy a one-ounce glass vial and a needle.

‘Nah. I won’t need that thing,’ said Roy, handing the needle back. ‘She can taste it by sniffing it up her nose or swallowing it with a cup of tea.’