Chopper Unchopped (157 page)

In the rush Neville and Normie Reeves were somehow overlooked. Amy Jo hadn’t gotten around to setting them up for arrest or death before she died, mainly because she had no idea she was going to die so soon, courtesy of Preston Phillips reaching out from the grave with his nice little batch of pink rock. Everyone had forgotten all about the Reeves brothers. But they hadn’t forgotten about Hector Van Gogh and Penny and Sonia. In fact, the whole of Collingwood thought they were dogs because of Hector’s and Penny’s friendship with Amy Jo, and the intriguing fact that Sonia had walked out of the bar and grill moments before Preston Phillips got whacked.

IT was a dark and stormy night, perfect for having a drink in the armed robbery squad office after work, but then again, the robbers would have a drink after work during a full eclipse, a sand-storm or a visit from Halley’s Comet. Graeme Westlock and Doc Holliday were listening to Rat Bag FM Radio while they were at it.

The radio jock was spruiking the next song. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the most requested song by our nation’s drunken child molesters is – you guessed it –
Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine
. Ha ha.”

“Who the hell is that?” said Holliday.

“Some nut case DJ named Vladimir the Russian. He’s a bloody idiot,” grunted Holliday.

“Hang on,” said Westlock, “there’s a segment coming up I’m interested in.”

“Okay!” burbled Vladimir’s voice through the tinny transistor speaker, “and now our most popular quiz contest. The winner gets an all-expenses paid trip for two for a weekend to Footscray. Yes, you guessed it, it’s time for Guess The Horse. Okay, now what is the name of Hopalong Cassidy’s horse? The first caller also has to answer three more questions on the spot with no warning. First caller is Chris from Frankston. What’s the answer, Chris?”

“Ahh, is it Trigger?” said the caller hesitantly.

“No, Chris. That was Roy Roger’s horse. Sorry. Next caller is Hector from St Kilda.”

Westlock and Holliday sat up, looking at each other.

“Okay, Hector. What was the name of Hopalong Cassidy’s horse?”

“Topper,” said Hector, quick as a flash.

“Correct,” said Vladimir. “Now for the three secret super tough horse questions.

“What was the name of the Queen of England’s favourite horse?”

“Ahh, Bess,” said Hector.

“Yes,” said Vladimir, sounding a bit surprised. “I can see we have a horse expert here, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, two more. The famed American gunfighters Doc Holliday and Wild Bill Hickock: what was the name of Holliday’s horse?”

“Ahh, hang on,” said Hector. “He rode a range roan named Old Pete.”

“You’re joking,” said Vladimir. “No-one knows that. Okay, now Hickock’s horse.”

“Well,” says Hector, smooth as you like, “the horse he had when he got shot in the Mann and Lewis No. 10 Saloon in Deadwood, Dakota, in 1876 by Jack McCall was a horse he won in a poker game from his friend Deadwood Dan Harris. That horse’s name was Sweat.”

Vladimir was stumped. “Ladies and gentlemen. This is amazing. We have a winner and, in my opinion, he is this station’s champion. Hector from St Kilda, your name will live on forever in the annals of trivial nonsense whenever a horse question is asked. By the way, Hector, you wouldn’t happen to know the name of the last milk horse to pull a milk cart in the City of Melbourne, would you?” asked Vlad.

“Well, as it happens, yes,” said Hector. “He was a racehorse Clydesdale cross named …”

“Okay Hector, I think we will leave it there,” Vlad interrupted. “And now back to a little rock and roll. Do you have any requests, Hector?”

“Oh yeah,
What’s New Pussy Cat
by k.d. lang.

“Hector, you’re a strange man,” said Vladimir. “Okay.”

Westlock turned the radio off. “Who do we know named Hector who can answer any horse question in the whole world?” he asked.

Holliday thought about it. “But young Van Gogh comes from Collingwood,” he said.

“Well, not any more he don’t. Get St Kilda CIB on the phone, if they’re not on the piss.”

SONIA and Hector stood outside an empty dance studio that was to let.

“It would make a perfect Dojo, Hector,” said Sonia. “I could start up my own karate school here, no problems.”

“Yeah, but it’s no use renting. I want to buy the whole building,” said Hector.

“God,” said Sonia. “A business property on Beaconsfield Parade, St Kilda. Ya would be looking at $750,000 or $800,000. Maybe more.”

Hector laughed. “That’s what I don’t get about Penny. She rents that penthouse apartment on St Kilda Road for $900 a week and does thirty clients a week in forty hours, charging $200 to $260. She pulls eight to nine thousand a week in whore money, she must be the highest earning cracker in Melbourne. Shit, she’s got you up there doing ten mugs a week, at $200 an hour.”

Sonia nodded.

“That’s how much?” asked Hector.

“About three grand a week,” said Sonia. “It’s good pocket money.”

“Yeah” said Hector, “but I’m getting rid of $10,000 worth of smack per day or near enough to it. I’m averaging $50,000 to $60,000 per week in heroin sales. Shit, and I’m doing a $100,000 a month in speed sales alone. I could sell a truck load if I had it. I reckon I’ll have a million bucks put aside by Christmas time, and you and Penny are getting it up the bung hole non-stop for bullshit money. Oh yeah, I know it seems like big dough, but we are in the heroin business.”

“But Penny loves it,” said Sonia.

“Yeah, yeah I know. But do you?” asked Hector.

Sonia shook her head. “I can take it or leave it,” she said.

“Well,” said Hector. “I need you with me to drive me about. I can’t be catching taxis at night time with a pound of smack on me just because you’re off sticking a cucumber up some sick bastard’s bum then blowing the poor perverted fool after you have shaken the shit out of him with a cattle prod.”

Sonia gave Hector a sly, sexy smile. “But you love them electric shock head jobs, Hecky.”

“My personal life isn’t in question,” said Hector, a bit annoyed. “I can’t have you running off at night for the sake of two or three shitpot grand. And, for that matter, I need Penny around at night more than she is. Bloody hell, we aren’t running a charity. And as for this dance studio, I’ve got the cash to buy it, whatever it costs.”

Sonia threw her arms around Hector. “Oh thank you Hecky, I’ve always wanted my own karate school.”

“Yeah,” said Hector. He was thinking of the two bedroom apartment above the dance studio. He didn’t want to live at Penny’s place forever. The residence above the studio would suit him perfectly. He had to try and get Penny with the program. To his mind, she had turned into a totally sick bitch. Her whole life revolved around dirty sex and meth amphetamine and cocaine with a touch of heroin to bring her down.

It was only due to her physical education training she maintained a strict diet and exercise program and as a result seemed to thrive on it. A sauna in the morning followed by mega doses of vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin B, garlic oil, cod liver oil and two raw eggs and milk, then aerobics for an hour, then a gram of speed. Pritikin would turn in his grave, except he was cremated, so he’d have to turn in his jar. She would repeat the same routine at night two hours before having a shot of heroin. She was hitting two to three full grams of speed a day up various veins. Vitamin E cream prevented scarring, so Hector never saw any serious needle marks. She was using two caps of good heroin a night at about one in the morning to mellow out. Meanwhile, she spent her time engaged in perverted, sick sex – catering to the most twisted psychos in town, providing they had the money to indulge themselves. Penny had become lost in her own insane world. It was a world that would kill her sooner or later, thought Hector.

Sonia, however, while perfectly willing to shake hands with the devil didn’t want to blow him at the same time. To her, everything was a means to an end. Sonia had ambitions. If she had to swim through the gutter a few times to get to the other side, so what? The point to her was that she was upwardly mobile. But Penny was different. She had started at the top and was hell bent on reaching the bottom. She was diving head first and couldn’t wait to get there.

Hector considered all the pros and cons of his female crew. Sonia, he had concluded, was the safest and more secure of the two. However, if the party had to get evil and bloody, he knew he could rely on Penny. A little bloodshed delighted her. Hector smiled at Penny’s definition of delight.

“OKAY everyone. Sit down, turn the lights off and shut up. Now pay attention. Okay, Charlie, roll the film.”

Graeme Westlock was showing a video surveillance film to the armed robbery, vice and drug squads, along with a smattering of federal police and NCA investigators.

“Now, these two clowns are our old friends, Neville and Normie Reeves, presently sunning themselves at the Laguna Quays Resort,” he snorted.

“Who’s the old girl?” asked Detective Sergeant Phil “Bucky” Barns of the drug squad.

“That’s Colleen O’Shaughnessy, their granny.”

“Oh,” said Frank James. “They took their granny with them, did they?”

“Now here they all are on a yacht in Repulse Bay.”

“Shit,” said Ben Masterson “Who’s the big black chick on that yacht? Christ, look at the tits on that. They are bloody enormous.”

Hoots and hollers went up as the video surveillance camera zoomed in on the big black chick.

“Anyone recognise her?” asked Westlock.

“Shit, yeah,” said Holliday. “The stripper at the Caballero. She ran with Karen Phillips and Kid McCall.”

“We can’t touch her,” said Westlock. “She is here on a diplomatic passport. Believe it or not, she is the wife of a knight of the realm, a merchant banker called Sir Leopold Kidd. He is back in Kingston, Jamaica, on his death bed by all accounts. Coco Joeliene Gascon – now Lady Joeliene Kidd – stands to inherit a vast fortune. It’s a bloody wonderful world, isn’t it?” said Westlock sarcastically.

“The dickhead taking a piss off the side of the yacht with the champagne bottle in his hand is none other than the missing Ronnie Reeves, big brother to the late Archie, cousin of some sort to Neville and Normie, all of ’em nephews of some sort to the late Ripper Roy Reeves,” he continued.

“Now, the big blonde you can now see to your right being screwed doggie fashion is Melissa Clarke, wife of Mr Clancy Collins, QC. But the bloke humping her is by no means Clancy Collins, as you would know. It is, in fact, an arms dealer. As you can see he is a gentleman in his late 50s with only one leg. His name is Ronnie West. The funny part is, according to rumour, it was old Roy Reeves himself who cut his left leg off. Ha ha.

“The gook is a white rat dragon named Tuyen Tran Truong. The gentleman receiving the blow job from the Asian lady is an officer from the Department of Foreign Affairs, a personal friend of Coco Joeliene’s. They met at her night club in Kingston, Jamaica. Oh, by the way, Ronnie Reeves is also travelling on a diplomatic passport. The lady doing the blow job on the Foreign Affairs chap – by the way, for the benefit of our friends from the NCA, his name is Elliot Royce, known to his friends as Roller. Very posh, hey boys?”

Laughter all round.

“As I was saying, the chick doing the blow job is a friend of Tuyen Tran Truong. She is a Hong Kong national and the daughter of Lim Fo Foy, Grand Dragon of the Mock Duck or the 14K as it is now called. I think the blow job is part of an immigration deal relating to her father, mother and fourteen elder brothers. She’s on a visitor’s visa, but that is a side issue.

“Now, here we go on a nice sail through the Whitsunday Islands, stopping off at Hamilton Island. There’s the nice Foreign Affairs chappie waving goodbye, and Melissa Clarke waving goodbye. Now here we have footage of One Leg Ronnie in the water near Hook Island. Perhaps he drowned. He couldn’t tread water. And back again to the yacht and Laguna Quays resort marina, and Coco Joeliene and the three Reeves boys all going off for drinks. And that’s the end of the video.

“Sorry, I tell a lie. We have one more video to watch before we nut all this shit out. Right, Charlie, roll the next one. What we have here is Miss Penny McMahon coming out of her parent’s home in Domain Road, South Yarra. Private school education, university degree, former school teacher at St Guztov’s Ladies College, the same school the late Amy Jo Phillips went to. Penny is educated, cultured, widely travelled and comes from a highbrow, old money family. Her mother is a Collins Street doctor. Her father is an art dealer. Both her sisters are lawyers, married to lawyers. All very la de da. Now, she gets on to her motor bike.”

“That’s a twist,” said Ray Dolton.

Westlock ignored this, and continued, “Her former boyfriend was Fritz Bartoolan, President of the Grateful Dead Motor Cycle Club.”

“Shit,” said two of the federal police, “the St Bernard’s massacre.”

“Yes,” said Westlock, “he left her in a state of poverty, heartbroken and, shall we say, in a most unvirgin like state. She went to her former student Amy Jo for help and began working at the Cromwell Street address. After the fire and death of Amy Jo she reappeared at this address in St Kilda. There she is going in. She now runs a big money bondage and domination operation in this apartment in St Kilda Road. She has a taste for meth amphetamine, cocaine and, we now believe, heroin. She is believed to be a very sick little puppy.

“Now, this little miss in the backyard by the pool.”

Cheers all round again. The boys loved cheers, beers and young ladies’ rears. And tits. They were looking at a 24-carat set of exactly those right at that moment.

“C’mon!” growled Westlock. “Settle down, this is Miss Sonia Vonchek, formerly of NSW. She is, by all normal accounts, a fish out of water. High school, one year at uni, marching girl, cheerleader, dancer, stripper, black belt second Dan Karate, held a private agent’s security licence, handgun, driver, bodyguard, the whole bit. Failed the NSW police entrance exam on the medical, believe it or not. Probably didn’t offer the doctor a sling. Actually, inside that body you’re all perving on she has a heart murmur that by all accounts might kill her in two to five years time, according to the NSW police surgeon. We don’t know if she knows this.

“She is a modest user of speed amphetamine and has dabbled in the darkness but now runs this new karate school for young ladies. She was trained by Raymond Woo Chi and calls her club Kai Woo Chi. She drives this car. Recognise it?”

“Yeah,” said Pete Younger, “it’s Amy Jo’s.”

“Yes,” said Westlock. “How stupid can you be. It’s Amy Jo’s missing 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado. Just when you think you’re dealing with the mind of a criminal genius they go and do this, hey boys? Right, now we come to the grand high master of the mentally ill, Hector The Cannibal Van Gogh.”