Chopper Unchopped (160 page)

“You’re not as dumb as you look, Georgie boy,” said Ford. “Fire, flood, unwanted visitors. I get the picture now.”

“Shit,” said Ford. “I might start slipping the wiggle-hipped mattress back a few bucks myself.”

“It will take more than a few bucks and a pat on the arse,” thought Pratt.

He’d slipped the housemaid a hundred in tips already and never touched her. The result was that Carlotta respected and liked him, whereas she thought Mr Bob was a pig. When alone or almost alone in a strange land it don’t hurt to have a local keeping a watchful eye out for your interests, not to mention health and well being.

This Yank may be CIA or PTA or what the hell ever, but it was arrogance like his that lost the Vietnam war and if Ford was any example they hadn’t changed their ways much, thought Pratt.

COCO Joeliene rolled herself onto her side under the black satin sheets of her queen size bed in the master cabin. She switched the bedside lamp on and looked at the sleeping face of young Ronnie Reeves. She had taken the kid with her all over the world since their days together in Collingwood, by yacht and by plane. First class all the way.

It had been a steep learning curve for the boy. In 16 months she’d taken him with her from Kingston, Jamaica, to Haiti to buy a small club in Port Au Prince and a house in St Marc, then on to the Dominican Republic and a cocaine deal that turned one million into ten in a week. Next, to Colombia to turn five million into fifty over six months.

A week later they hit Brazil to buy a luxury home on the Rio Branco Avenue and another on the Largo do Boticario, converting them both into bordellos and supplying them with whores, Dutch and German blondes from the finest whore house in Amsterdam on the Keizersgracht canal. This was Coco’s little exchange program. She sent fifty mixed blood South American and Caribbean girls over to Amsterdam to replace the blondes. Only fair, really.

In Rio, Coco had picked up a night club on Rio Branco Avenue. Then, when she went to New York to turn a luxury apartment on Manhattan into a high class brothel. She also bought two strip clubs, one in Brooklyn and another in Queens, to be run by Iron Mike Phillips, the American uncle of the late Karen Phillips.

Next on the itinerary was Miami and a strip club on 27th Avenue in Browns Village, then another on Sunset Drive, South Miami, and a whore house on Collins Avenue, Miami Beach. By the time she’d finished writing cheques the local real estate sharks thought she was bigger than Versace, although he had probably slept with more blokes and she was to prove a lot better at staying alive.

In Mexico City she’d grabbed a million dollar nightclub and strip joint just off the Paseo De La Reforma Boulevard. Yet another million dollar investment that turned a quick four million in a week.

And through it all Ronnie had proved a loyal protector. The three Mafia heavies from the Castronovo family found face down just off the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens each had a .22 slug in the back of the neck thanks to Ronnie and Iron Mike Phillips, who controlled the scattered remains of the old Irish Featherstone gang in Brooklyn’s lower east side.

The clubs and the cocaine connections Coco Joeliene set up for Iron Mike to manage would place him and the Irish gang back on the road to power. Not all-powerful, perhaps, but with the correct donations to the troubles back in Ireland he would be able to import enough fugitive IRA killers to combat any move the dagos made against him.

Coco had smoothed her troubles with the local Rastafarian Marcus Garvey Mafia and placed them in charge of her own cocaine network at home in Jamaica. She had recruited a ring of former Haitian secret police run by her favourite left hand man, Pierre Christophe, a former torturer and chief interrogator for jolly old Jean Claude “Papa Doc” Duvalier himself.

All her business interests, brothels, bars, and night clubs were fronts for cocaine distribution. She had invested in the heroin trade and set up arms deals with various obliging military generals. Not bad for a little black girl from Montego Bay who’d been sold into a brothel when she was a kid. The fairy tale of whores who made it from rags to riches was usually just that – sheer, make believe fantasy. But, for Coco Joeliene, it had all come true.

Her husband, dear old Sir Leopold, was recovering from his third heart attack. She would have to go home to Kingston soon to slip between the sheets and get him all hot and bothered so he had a fourth one. “You’ll be the death of me, my darling,” he would repeat over and over as she sank herself onto him and held his face between that huge set of tits. The idea was to send the old sinner to hell via heaven. It had to be better than dying all alone in an old folks home.

Sir Leopold loved Coco, all right. He’d said to the doctor after his last bad turn, “I’m not going to heaven unless she’s there.” He often said to Coco, “If I die let it be in your arms.” She wasn’t going to deny him his wish. He would most certainly die in her arms, not to mention various other bits of her anatomy. To love a man to death was the sweetest murder of all, and he would reward Coco with a fortune. She had sold herself all her life, but Sir Leopold was the highest-paying client she’d ever had. Few men marry their whores, then give them millions for killing them softly. Coco giggled as she pondered it all. It was indeed a strange world.

“C’mon, baby. Wake up,” she whispered in Ronnie’s ear. All that thinking made her horny.

APRIL 6, 1996. Big Bob Ford sat at the bar at the El Rancho Hotel. The barman, Jose Zores, was pouring him his fourth vodka for the afternoon. He had risen at midday and had a breakfast of steak and chilli peppers, and had tipped the voluptuous Carlotta two dollars for bringing him his meal in his room.

She had looked at the handful of small change, then put it down her Grand Canyon of cleavage and gave a wiggle and a shake. It fell through the gap between her tits, underneath her dress and hit the floor boards. Then she giggled and walked out.

The big man still wasn’t happy about that little incident. “That Goddam George Pratt has spoiled her with ten and twenty dollar notes,” he thought darkly.

As he sipped his vodka Pratt and McCord walked into the bar.

“G’day, mate,” said McCord.

“Hi ya, buddy,” said Ford.

Spies can be multi-cultural.

“Ya know,” said Pratt, “that Bob Ford is the name of the bloke who shot the American outlaw Jesse James?”

“Fair dinkum,” said McCord.

“Yeah,” said Pratt.

Ford screwed his face up. He had heard this conversation a thousand times in his life. “Bob Ford never shot Jesse James,” he said wearily. “Charlie Ford shot James. Bob got the blame. I’m Bob Ford’s great, great grandson.”

“Fair dinkum,” said McCord. “That’s bloody unreal.”

But George Pratt wouldn’t leave it alone. “Well, according to history books it was Bob,” he said doggedly.

“Yeah,” said Ford, “both Ford brothers were in the house when James got shot in the back of the head as he straightened a “Home Sweet Home” picture on the wall, but it was Charlie who fired the fatal shot, on April the 3rd, 1882, in St Joseph, Missouri. Let’s change the Goddam topic.”

He looked at them and grinned. “Anyway, you two gold diggers can’t talk about strange names.”

“What do you mean?” asked Pratt suspiciously, sensing a joke.

Ford laughed.

“Sam McCord and George Pratt? You two guys have gotta be kidding, or did Canberra give ya them stupid names?” he chortled.

Pratt started to get annoyed. Ford started to sing . . .

Big Sam left Seattle in the year of ninety two, with George Pratt his partner and brother Billy too.

They crossed the Yukon River and found the bonanza gold below that old white mountain, just a little south east of Nome.

Sam crossed the majestic mountains to the valleys far below, he talked to his team of huskies as he mushed on through the snow.

With the Northern lights a runnin’ wild in the land of the midnight sun, Yes, Sam McCord was a mighty man in the year of nineteen one.

Where the river is winding, big nuggets they’re finding,
North to Alaska. Go north, the rush is on.

Carlotta stood in the doorway to the bar and clapped her hands in wild applause. Even Jose Zores clapped his hands and several of the shady characters drinking at the bar joined in.

Sam McCord smiled sheepishly to hear his namesake immortalised in verse. “I never realised,” he mumbled.

But George Pratt had never heard the song before, and wasn’t having any.

“You made that up,” he said angrily. “I don’t have a brother named Billy.”

The whole bar broke into wild laughter. This was too much for George Pratt. “C’mon Sam, off to work. Let’s go,” he snapped.

He walked out, with a still laughing McCord close at his heels.

THE bordello on the Largo Do Boticario was a big old Portugese mansion. It had a luxury lounge bar and club, where gentlemen could take their ease and select a lady in a relaxed atmosphere. But, while McCord was keen to go inside to follow Elliot Royce at play, Pratt refused to enter the brothel because he was a married man with a troublesome conscience.

This meant riding shotgun with the big Nikon camera and telephoto lens from the window of the Citroen CX in the stinking hot sun, with McCord humming to the tune of
North to Alaska
the whole afternoon. As night fell, they were rewarded. A 1966 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow purred up to the front of the bordello, and Lady Coco Joeliene Kidd stepped out, with her young psycho companion Ronnie Reeves and her left hand man, the shadowy Pierre Christophe. And Mr Elliot Royce.

“Quick!” said Pratt.

“I’ve got ’em,” said McCord. Click, click, click went the camera.

“Someone has to go in,” said McCord.

“Yes, and I know who’s going to volunteer,” said Pratt. “Okay, you’ve got the company card, the American Express Gold Card in the name of Sam McCord, Scorpion Pty Ltd.” Pratt also had one in his own name with the bodgie company name of Scorpion Pty Ltd, but the gold cards weren’t to be used unless it was life or death. Agent 007 might have had machine guns mounted in an Aston Martin and unlimited goodies, but Australian intelligence had credit cards that weren’t to be used unless life was in the balance. The rule was to stick to drinks and conversation, no gambling. Trouble was, Rio bordellos had gambling.

“For God’s sake, no gambling and no women!” yelled Pratt as McCord sauntered across the road, humming the tune to
North to Alaska
.

“No bloody women!” yelled Pratt again, out the car window. He was panicking about blowing the budget sky high. The hundred bucks he’d shelled out in tips to Carlotta and another hundred to come were for a sound reason – basic intelligence tactics – but a piss up in a Rio whore house with gambling thrown in was unthinkable. “Oh my God,” groaned Pratt to himself, “McCord will get us hanged.”

WHEN McCord entered the bordello he was received by a tall, well built German woman with a giant negro standing either side of her. The woman was all blue eyes, blonde hair, big tits and long legs. She looked like the product of a Nazi breeding program. Being South America and all, she might well have been something Martin Bormann brought over in a test tube and kept in the fridge, thought McCord with a chuckle.

“Velcom to Coco’s, you have da invitation,” said the German bombshell in a loud, firm voice. “My name is Helga,” she added.

“No, actually I don’t have any invitation,” McCord admitted, with what he hoped was a sort of shy, ingratiating smile.

“You have da identification?” asked the blonde gladiator.

“Oh, yes indeed,” said McCord, and pulled out his Gold American Express with a confident flourish.

“Ahh, yes,” purred Helga, like a contented tiger that has just spotted fresh meat, “you do have da invitation after all. Ha ha. Velcom to Coco’s house, ve hope you enjoy. Lounge bar this way. If you no like girls you see, call Helga and I’ll show you more. Go in, go in, Mr McCord.”

One look at his card and she had remembered his name. There was no doubt that something was going on in the grey matter behind those Gestapo blue eyes. McCord went into the lounge bar. It was all very civilised, with men in suits and expensive clothes sitting and standing about chatting and drinking. Army generals, high ranking police, and the usual crowd of big spenders. McCord recognised American senators and noted American, English and Australian businessmen, including a couple of media magnates and polo playing playboys. The rich and famous all gathered for Rio de Janeiro’s famed carnival.

McCord sauntered up to the bar as cockily if it was his money that was paying for the gold card in his hand. He ordered a scotch from a barmaid with a mouth full of solid gold teeth, then started to mingle. The ladies in attendance might not all have been ladies, strictly speaking, but all wore tight-fitting, low cut, expensive evening gowns and without exception were Penthouse Pet beautiful. Most of the men gathered around were either black or Latin. The white men stood out like dog’s balls. About half the women were white, with what sounded like German or Dutch accents. No request would be refused for cash. McCord soon realised this was different from ordinary brothels. Any perversion would be catered for.

McCord was in another world. A dangerous, sick world of vile obscenity bordering on insanity.

He shivered with disgust. “These animals would applaud baby killing,” he muttered to himself. The American handed McCord his card. “Coleman’s the name,” he said. “ I’m with CCS Communication Control. If you’ve got the cash, we’ve got the equipment.”

McCord said “Sam” as he took the card and held out his hand. “I’m a photographer. ‘Australian Geographic’ magazine.”

“Like the show, McCord?” said a voice behind him.

McCord turned and was shocked to see the familiar face.

“How ya going?” he said.

GEORGE Pratt sat quietly in the old Citroen waiting for McCord. It had been several hours now. The twilight was long gone and it was as black as Mike Tyson’s heart. “God, I hope everything’s all right,” thought Pratt. “McCord is probably gambling or chock-a-block up some gorgeous whore at great expense,” he told himself. But Pratt didn’t quite believe it. He had a sick feeling.