Chopper Unchopped (167 page)

“That’s it,” she yelled. “I bloody well quit.”

Greco fell to the floor and was dragged out of the club and on to the footpath in front of the bar. The Peddys and their party of about twenty men encircled the fallen hood and began kicking him into a limp bleeding mass. Penny McMahon had joined the fun and was stomping a stiletto heel down into Greco’s face. The worst thing was the look on her face. It showed total pleasure.

The Peddys and the Albanians were all holding either handguns or knives. The Vietnamese had meat cleavers and one of the Yugoslavs was maintaining crowd control with a sawn-off shot gun. It was like the UN on Angel Dust. The Coughlin brothers and the Marshalartas girls beat a hasty retreat up Hoddle Street and the dagos from the Mazzurco and Bonventre clans joined them. This was public murder in the middle of the street in front of a hundred night club goers. The Tourism Commission would be seriously pissed.

It was Tyrone Kelly and Edgar Harding who ignored Clay Allison’s order to stay in the car. They got out and ran across the street to try to stop the bloodshed.

Allison and his men stayed in their cars even when Harding was sent to the footpath with a knife blade in his face, and Kelly was attacked by two Vietnamese and three Yugoslavs.

Allison picked up his walkie talkie and said, “Okay Charlie, wait for it, wait until Kelly hits the footpath. At least face down he’ll be out of the road.” With that Tyrone Kelly hit the pavement in a screaming heap.

“Okay Charlie,” said Allison, “let’s round ’em up.”

The ten remaining coppers poured out of the three cars. It was hard to say which side actually fired the first shot. Kelly and Harding, from their vantage point on the ground, could have sworn that the Peddy brothers fired the first volley of bullets. However, other eye witness accounts differed, but they, of course, were not trained detectives

It was agreed, however, that Texas Red, Graeme, Laurie and Leigh Peddy all died from blasts from pump action shotguns and that the dead Vietnamese and Albanians died from rounds fired from a police issue .38.

Susan Hilton, in spite of her earlier misgivings, didn’t let the side down. No-one knows who shot and killed Clay Allison, as he was gunned down with a .45 calibre Nastoff and such a weapon was never recovered from the crime scene, nor was the 9 millimetre Beretta used to shoot Big Jim Reeves and Frank James, both of whom lived to tell the tale of the Rocker Bye Baby shootout, as the Press called it.

Everyone agreed the showdown would become part of Melbourne criminal and police legend and folklore due in no small part to the song Charlie Ford sang as he stood over the dead body of Penny McMahon …

“I’m an old cow hand from the Rio Grande and I come to town just to hear the band and I know all the songs that the cowboys know, ’bout the big corral where the dogies go, coz I learned them all on the radio.

Adios Amigo.”

And they ride the wind together, though they ride on different sides,
And they swim the sea of blood, though they drown on different tides,
And they take their guns to town and go into the night,
And they all go down together, believing they are right.

“Adios Amigo” cry dead men to each other,
Though they stand on different sides, they still call each other brother,
And death rides a pale pony, while life rides no horse at all,
And they all go down together when they take their final call.

And the Caballero horsemen still ride the range today,
And life or death won’t stop them, no matter what men say.
South of the border where death rides that pale horse,
Don’t take ya guns to town, son, less you can stick the course.

Standover man Mark Brandon Read is released from prison. He outrages Cabinet ministers, civil libertarians and literary critics. He appears drunk on national television, makes the finals of the ARIA music awards, and is charged with firearms offences. He raises chickens, turkeys and African guinea fowl. And he continues what he does second best. Writing.

AUSSIE Joe Gravano and Salvatore ‘Fat Sally’ Gigante sat at a private booth in New York’s famed Patsy’s Restaurant in New York’s even more famous West 56th Street.

“Hey baby, ya ever been turkey hunting?”

The bored waitress looked down at Aussie Joe Gravano. Her face said she’d heard this stupid joke a thousand times from a thousand wiseguys, but Joe kept right on.

“You gobble, I’ll shoot. Ha ha ha.”

Joe roared laughing at his own comedy. The waitress worked up a passable imitation of a smile. She survived on tips and that meant smiling at idiots. She turned and walked away while Aussie Joe, still laughing, watched her hips swing in a way that suggested she was a waitress in waiting. Waiting to become either a stripper, a whore or a porn queen.

“Jesus, Joe,” said Sally, “that fucking joke is old enough to be on the pension.”

“She seemed to like it,” replied Joe. “She’d like a dead nigger if he tipped her ten bucks,” retorted Sally.

“Your trouble is you got no sense of humour,” snarled Joe.

Before the conversation could progress a third man joined them at the booth.

“How’s it going, Carmine?” said Fat Sally, shaking hands with the smooth looking, well-dressed gent.

Carmine Adonis was a big-money mob lawyer, with a law degree from Correspondence School and a Giorgio Armani suit. He sat down and looked at Aussie Joe, waiting for good manners to kick in. Joe ignored him until Fat Sally introduced him to the smiling, evil-looking thug on the other side of the table.

“I’m sorry,” said Sally after a pause. “Carmine Adonis, meet my cousin all the way from down under, Joey Gravano. We call him Aussie Joe.”

The two men shook hands.

“Australia,” said Adonis. “I was there recently for the grand opening of the new casino in Melbourne. The Crown … most impressive.”

Aussie Joe smiled, but knew this smooth lawyer was lying. Joe had been to Las Vegas, and he knew the Crown Casino could probably get a licence as a well-decorated toilet compared with some of the real estate in Vegas. He didn’t like being patronised by Americans, even if they were fellow Sicilians.

Unbeknown to his cousin Sally and the slippery silk-suit lawyer, Aussie Joe was in New York for a reason, as well as an all-expenses paid holiday. He thought he best deal with the reason in extra quick time, then attend to the holiday.

So he got into character, and smiled at Carmine Adonis the way a pit bull greets a postman.

“Didn’t they use to call you Noodles?” he asked.

Adonis went pale and choked. Fat Sally laughed.

“Hey, I didn’t know that, Carmine.”

“Yeah,” said Joe. “After Noodles Romanoff.”

Sally looked puzzled.

“Shit,” said Joe patiently. “Noodles fucking Romanoff – you know, the Roger Ramjet cartoon, you know Roger Ramjet. He’s our man, hero of our nation for his adventures, just be sure to stay tuned to this station.”

Carmine Adonis tried to move out of his seat, but Aussie Joe reached out a powerful left hand and took hold of the lawyer’s right forearm.

“Don’t go, Noodles.”

The lawyer stayed. He was very quiet and very frightened.

“What’s this Noodles shit, Carmine? I don’t get it,” Fat Sally asked, wondering why the friendly mood of a moment before had turned deadly serious.

“Let me explain, Sally,” said Joe. “When Carmine here was in the FBI his nickname was Noodles.”

“What?” whispered Sally. “But I’ve know this guy for fuckin’ years. Jesus, Joe, you don’t even come from here, how do you know anything about anything?”

“Yeah,” said Carmine, breaking his silence to try a bluff, sensing he could have Sally on side. But Aussie Joe kept the vice-like grip with one hand and reached for his Colt .45 automatic with the other. He carried it down the front of his pants in a concealed clip holster unseen by either of the others.

“You’re right,” said Joe, “I don’t know fucking nothing.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Adonis, appealing to Sally. “What would this guy know?”

“Shut up,” snarled Sally.

The lawyer was one thing, but Aussie Joe was family. Sally was starting to think. Joe could see the wheels turning in his mind, and helped the process along a little.

“Yeah Sal, who do ya reckon paid for my ticket over here?” he said softly. “Jesus Christ,” whispered Sally. “Pisciotta. Holy hell, Gotti’s under boss.”

“Gotti’s in prison,” Carmine pleaded. “He’s paranoid out of his head; he thinks everyone’s a rat.”

The lawyer didn’t see Aussie Joe’s right hand come up from under the table, but the waitress did. She was pouring coffee into the cup of a little Jewish man who would always tip her twenty bucks, providing the buttons on her uniform were undone enough for him to get a good eyeful of her rather generous tits and to slip the folded note into her ample cleavage. She screamed as Aussie Joe stuck the barrel of his .45 into Adonis’s open mouth and pulled the trigger three times, sending the back of the lawyer’s head smashing into the wooden panelling behind him. The bullets splintered the wood as they came out the back of the skull. There wasn’t a lot of blood at first. The slugs went in the size of a dime and came out the size of a quarter, and the blood didn’t really start until the body fell sideways.

Aussie Joe moved out of his seat. Fat Sally, in a state of shock, slid around the booth and then left the table the same side as his cousin, not really wanting to climb over Adonis’s twitching corpse.

As Aussie Joe walked out he turned to the waitress, who by then had stopped screaming. “Like I said, honey, you gobble, I’ll shoot,” he said, and laughed as he walked out.

Adonis slumped to the floor and the blood leaked out. There was no Quentin Tarantino shower of blood and bone, no rainbow spray flying across the room to cover the poor waitress and her white uniform with red spots. Shoot a bottle of warm beer and you’ll get that movie type shower of liquid spray, but not a human head. In real life you can take a man’s head off with a sawn-off shotgun at two feet or two inches and not even get a blood spot on the barrel. Let’s just say I know that for a fact. I learned firsthand with the late Sammy The Turk down at Bojangles in St Kilda. The reason being that slugs coming out the barrel of a gun travel at least at the speed of sound, faster unless its sub-sonic ammo, and the slug will go in and come out before the blood flow even has time to notice the new hole that’s been made for it.

People who make these bang-bang gangster movies ain’t never shot no-one, that’s easy to see. That scene in
Pulp Fiction
where Travolta shoots the nigger in the back of the car, and the whole car, including Travolta and the driver, is covered in blood ... well, I’m sorry to say, it’s bullshit.

You’d think Tarantino might stop to ask somebody about bullets and blood sprays and such. If blood sprayed forwards every hitman in the world would need a raincoat as well as a gun.

But I digress. There’s a story to be told, and I’m telling it.

“Hey, Joe,” says Sally as they walk down the street.

“Yeah, what?” grunts Joe.

“Ya wanna do me a big fucking favour?”

“What?”

“Well,” says Sally, “next time you shoot someone like that, how about giving me some sort of warning.”

“How do ya mean?” asks Joe.

“Well,” says Sally, “how about some sort of signal.”

“A signal?” says Joe. “What? Like a nod or a wink?”

“Yeah,” says Fat Sally. “Give me a wink.”

Aussie Joe thinks this is quite funny.

“So let me get this right, Sal. Next time I shoot someone you want me to wink at you first?”

“Yeah,” said Sally, seeing nothing funny in it at all. “Give us a wink first. Okay?” he repeats. Joe makes like a slow learner. “I promise next time I shoot someone in your company I’ll give you a wink,” he says solemnly.

“Thank you,” says Sally with an air of injured dignity. “I don’t think that’s too much to ask, Joe. Jesus, ya nearly gave me a heart attack back there.” Joe hails a cab. “Okay, okay,” he says. “Shut up and I promise I’ll wink at ya”.

MELBOURNE, 1977. Young Joey Gravano sat in the lounge room of old Pop Kelly’s flat in Rockley Road, South Yarra. Their weekly chess game had become a great challenge for the young Sicilian kid. In two years he had never beaten the old gentleman.

As the old man studied the chess board Joey tried to distract him with conversation and questions.

“So what happened then, Mr Kelly?” he asked intently.

Old Keith Kelly didn’t move his eyes from the chess board as he spoke.

“Well, Joey, I joined up aged 16 in 1939. The 16th Battalion, Cameron Highlanders. They made me the battalion bugler, then the bloody brigade bugler. Got injured a little bit and sent back to the 118th General Hospital. I turned 21 years old at Toll Plantation.”

As Keith Kelly said this he removed young Gravano’s queen and said “check”.

Young Joey quickly moved his king, then led him on. “Yeah, then what, Mr Kelly? What about the Japs?”

“Oh, well,” said Pop Kelly. “There was a bit of fuss on Moratai in Dutch New Guinea. Like I said, Jackeno Bay, Toll Plantation.”

“No, no,” said young Joey. “The court martial.”

“Oh,” sighed Pop Kelly as he removed one of Joey’s knights and said “check” again. Joey hurriedly moved his king again.

The old man kept talking. “That was in 1945, on a Jap casualty clearing station. It went all the way up to 11th Division HQ Major General ‘Red Robby’ Robinson . . .”

He paused. “There was this Jap major who spoke perfect English and he asked me if his men and he could go swimming, so I got permission and off we went. The problem was, I returned without the bastards.”

“How many?” asked Joey.

“Twenty-one in all,” said Pop Kelly, removing another castle from the board and saying “check” again.

Joey quickly moved his king. “Then what?” he asked innocently.

“Ah, some Pommy Red Cross officer asked me where the Japs were that I’d taken swimming. I said they swam away. He laughed and said they would be back when they were hungry. Ha, ha.”

“Why did they swim away, Mr Kelly? Did they escape, or what?”

“Nah,” said Pop Kelly. “I wasn’t too keen on the Japs, son, so I machine gunned the bastards in the surf. Ha, ha, ha. I’d killed Jap POWs before. Shit, we all did. Why feed the monkeys? Cheaper to shoot ’em.” He laughed again. “Shit, I’d taken so many Japs swimming and returned without ’em they used to call me the swimming instructor.”

“So how come they tried to court martial you this time, Mr Kelly?” asked Joey.

“Well,” smiled old Keith, “it might have been because the bloody war had been over for three weeks.”

“So what happened?” asked young Joey, amazed.

“It’s like this, son,” said the old man. “War crimes are never committed by the winners of any war, only the losers. Red Robby had the whinging Pommy Red Cross bloke transferred to shit creek and promptly lost the paper work. And, as a reward, I got sent on the Cook’s tour of Japan with the 34th Brigade on a Yank ship called the
Taos Victory
with 1100 other men, all part of the BCOF Jap holiday unit.

“We landed in Kure on the 16th of January, 1946. I spoke Japanese so I went into signals as an exchange operator, then I got picked to do the SDS run to Tokyo. Even met MacArthur several times.”

Joey made one more move, then heard Mr Kelly say the fatal words as he counter moved. “Check mate.”

Joey sat back and thought to himself, “the bloody swimming instructor. Some of these old diggers have seen more cold-blooded murder than all the gangsters in all the world ever see.”

He turned to the old man and kept up the conversation. “Any trouble in Japan, Mr Kelly?”

“Only after curfew, son,” said Pop with a smile. “Only after curfew. Ha ha.”

Joey looked down at the chess board and changed the subject.

“The more I attack, the more you win, Mr Kelly. How come? What sort of tactic is that you keep pulling on me?”

“Well Joey, your own people invented it.”

“My people,” said Joey, his jaw dropping. “How’s that?”

“Yeah,” said Pop. “It’s the art of defence; the art of winning in the face of attack. There are various variations of the tactic, but basically it’s the art of defence by using the other fellow’s attack against himself.”

“What’s it called, Mr Kelly?”

“The Sicilian Defence, son. It’s called the Sicilian Defence.”