Chopper Unchopped (58 page)

Renee tried to have it both ways in the stories she did. She tried to distance herself from me — but made it look as if I was mad keen on her. But let me tell you there was none of this shy stuff when she was over in Tassie shooting the TV interview with me.

I don’t know what it is about ladies and guns, but there is a definite psychological effect when you mix the two. They get an excited gleam in their eyes and just blast away as if there’s no tomorrow. And when the clip is empty they want to do it again. Renee Brack was a classic example of this. At first she was like a timid little kitten – frightened, yet fascinated – but when I put my Beretta in her hand and told her to pull the trigger she was scared at first but when she pulled the trigger and the blast hit her ear drums she said: ‘Shit, this is great’ and blasted away.

Off camera she must have punched 50 to 100 rounds out of that Beretta and the gleam in her eye told me was rapt. She had never fired a gun before, and here she was in the bush after a session in the pub blowing the hell out of anything she could aim at.

When she fired the .357 magnum, the noise of the blast nearly deafened her and the recoil made it buck in her hands, but she still punched six shots out of it. In spite of herself, in spite of her efforts to maintain a cool and professional attitude, she was like a little kid in a lolly shop.

The camera crew took turns blowing hell out of anything and everything, and Renee led the charge. Renee had her own personal camera with her, and we took about 20 personal photos of her in various poses with the guns. She is a former model and knows how to bung it on for the camera. I said I wanted copies of all the photos, especially the ones of her and me together, but she wrote to me in jail later telling me that none of them had turned out!

I think she was a bit worried that some of them might turn up in my book. When Renee and I said goodbye to each other in the bar of the Clarendon Arms Hotel in Evandale she jumped up and threw her arms around me like a little schoolgirl and gave me a hug and a big sloppy kiss in front of the whole bar and TV crew. I gave her my Zippo solid brass cigarette lighter engraved ‘Mark Brandon Read 1000 %’, and when they drove away I foolishly thought that I had found a new friend.

In the ‘Penthouse’ article Renee mentioned about me giving her the cigarette lighter. Margaret had always wondered where the bloody lighter had got to. Then the article went on to talk about how Renee and I had enjoyed a quiet breakfast alone at which she said I ‘confessed’ to having killed two or three men before I’d even had sex for the first time.

Margaret really loved that little lot! What was I doing having breakfast with Renee Brack? And when you deny something to one woman in relation to another woman they find you guilty without the benefit of a trial. An angry, suspicious female has no mercy.

Human nature being what it is, Margaret was not the only one to suggest I had in fact got up to no good with the lovely Renee, and all my heartfelt denials only confirmed my ‘guilt’ in the minds of the suspicious. They all thought I was either trying to save my own neck or attempting to be a ‘gentleman’. It’s a no-win situation, and it’s no use Renee telling Margaret or anyone else that nothing took place. But these little comments from Renee in these nitwit articles don’t help my ‘not guilty’ plea one bit.

The truth is this: I swear on my gunsmith’s wooden leg that I never did no hanky panky with Renee Brack, and that is a very solemn oath indeed. You ask her and she will tell you. Look at me: no ears, half my teeth missing and with more scars than Frankenstein.

Anyway, the next chick who interviews me will have to be pig ugly – with no five-hour piss-ups, no physical touching, no drives up bush tracks for drunken shoot em ups, no quiet breakfasts together, and definitely no engraved cigarette lighters as goodbye gifts.

Bloody Renee Brack. While it is true she is a magic-looking little chick with a heap of dash, guts and personality she isn’t my friend and never was.

But all that to one side, I don’t hate Renee. She’s just a sharp chick looking to kick on in her chosen field, and I hope her interview with me and the various stories she’s handed out to magazines and newspapers on her ‘Chopper Read adventure’ all help her climb up that greasy pole. And one day when she steps up to collect her Logie and gives her ‘I’d like to thank my producer’ speech, people will say: ‘Yeah, baby. Him and Chopper Read as well’.

Ha ha ha.

THIS is the story of the late ‘Donkey Dick’. I can’t tell you where this happened, when it happened, what year or even what state, as the idiot in question is on the missing list, and the police are wondering where he is and how he got there.

Now, this character was stronger than 10 fat ladies, faster than a Saturday night rapist and able to jump tall girls in a single bound. We called him Donkey Dick. He was a bit of a would-be tough guy and a dope grower and dealer and a shocking mistreater of females. He was none of my concern until he raped the wife of a friend of mine. She was, or is, a nice chick with a lovely, kind nature. But with a few drinks in her she became a full-on, out of control tease and a bloody embarrassment. But even so, raping her was not on. I don’t agree with that sort of bullshit. No-one needs to rape anyone.

Anyway, my mate, the husband of the rape victim, and myself went to see Donkey Dick. I took my gun as always, planning to give the offender a good beating and pistol whipping and kicking to help give him a little attitude readjustment.

We got to Donkey’s farmhouse and found him in the garage. He had a very cocky attitude and got smartmouthed with my mate — calling his good lady wife a moll and a toss-up. A fight started and my mate asked me to stay out of it. So I did. It lasted about five minutes, with my mate being done like a dinner. Then Donkey Dick made a strategic error of judgment. He turned towards me and screamed: ‘Come on. Do you want some as well?’ So I pulled out my hand gun (I won’t mention the precise make and model) and put one round through his head. It took off his nose and the back of his skull, as I was using ammo called ‘wad cutters’.

I don’t know where Donkey is buried, as my mate saw to the departure details, but I’m told he will never be found as he is in fertiliser heaven. I did not intend to shoot Donkey, but these things happen in even the best circles. Anyway, he was a sex offender. He got his right whack. Bugger him.

HORATIO Morris used to tell a story of a gunfight on the Melbourne waterfront back in the ’50s. Horatio was armed with a five-shot Colt revolver and was chasing another gunman in a running battle.

Horatio put five shots into the back of the fleeing gunman, yet the injured man didn’t slow at all. Morris had to re-load at a flat out gallop, as he had to kill this one. A wounding would not be enough. It was a Dockies’ dispute that had to be solved the permanent way.

Horatio re-loaded and continued after his potential Stawell Gift winner. He fired another five shots, all hitting the mark in the back and the neck. The wounded man finally tripped over. Horatio was out of ammo and had to finish the fellow off with a half a dozen blows to the head with a length of iron pipe. Amazing … 10 slugs in him and he was still alive and breathing.

Horatio figured the bloke had run about a thousand yards with 10 slugs in his back, and he only fell at the finish because he lost his footing and tripped over. The fellow was disposed of in the backyard of a house in Newport.

This was a shooting story that Horatio treated as a medical lesson. I’ve used a .32 calibre revolver myself and a .32 calibre automatic, and I can also state that unless you hit them in the head with the slug, you’d be better off to pistol whip them with the gun itself. These .32s may look pretty, but they have no stopping power.

It is interesting that most gunmen, myself included, soon learn to take an interest in matters medical. The human body is a tough thing and if you want to fix it, like a doctor, or hurt it, like a toe-cutter, you have to know what you are doing. Each profession takes skill, although it is a little hard to bulk bill as a standover man. When I shot Chris Liapis in Footscray, I used a Beretta .32 calibre automatic. The bullet went in his guts and the doctors found it in his underpants when he got to hospital. It had passed out his bottom. Amazing.

I shot another bloke in Carlton in the neck with a .22 calibre revolver. He coughed the slug up and spat it out as he ran away. Talk about spitting chips.

When using the small calibre weapons, you take a big risk. I have heard of a .22 slug ricocheting off a bloke’s false teeth from a hand gun held only a foot away from his mouth. How embarrassing. But that is the risk that you take when using .22 and .32 calibre handguns. With gear like that it has to be in the brain via the ear hole to be 100 per cent sure, otherwise you’re just wasting your time.

In late 1973, Cowboy Johnny Harris was involved in a fight with a member of the Coffin Cheaters motorcycle gang. The bikie was wearing a full face helmet, which made fighting rather hard if you were tossing punches at the head.

I fired a shot from a sawn-off .22 rifle in the face of the bikie, which didn’t even crack the protective shield of the helmet, although it sure scared the shit out of him as he ran for his bike. As he hopped on board, I fired a second shot which hit the back of his helmet. I doubt whether he even got a headache out of the whole episode.

I know I talk about guns a lot, but I get great pleasure from them. They are my tools of trade, but they are also my hobby. I must confess, although it is not much of a secret, that I do enjoy shooting a total arsewipe. But I did not shoot Sid Collins. If I had done so, rest assured dear reader, I would have shot him several times for the sheer delight of watching him squirm with pain and fear.

A bullet is the one thing which brings a man back to his real self. A truly hard man will remain hard, even after being shot. He will look you in the eye and say, do your worst. I’ve met a few tough bastards, but believe me, they are rare.

Just because a man has a few tattoos, a criminal record and a love of blood, doesn’t make him a hard man. There are some real weak men who hide their cowardice behind a gun and a tough image. And there are honest quiet men who, when pushed, have a touch of steel in their spines.

Most so-called tough guys will cry and panic and get this pathetic childlike look when death stares them in the face. They plead and beg and whimper like puppies. They beg and cry for you to spare them.

It is then that you see the real person behind the false face. I love it.

I WAS having a drink with Mad Archie, Garry the Greek and half a dozen other local gun-toting ratbags in a nightclub in St Kilda. It was April 7, 1974. Why do I remember the date? I’ll tell you. Mad Charlie took out a small gun and tapped it on the bar and called for silence. After about 60 seconds there was silence – enough for Mad Charlie to speak. He said: ‘Does anyone know what day it is?’ No-one knew what he meant. ‘It’s the seventh of April,’ said Charlie. ‘Crazy Joe Gallo got shot on the seventh of April, 1972, outside Umberto’s Clamhouse on Mulberry Street, Brooklyn, in New York on this day two years ago … and I think a moment of silence is called for’.

After an insane moment of comical silence Mad Archie turned to me and said: ‘Who the hell is Crazy Joe Gallo?’ Mad Charlie nearly had a tear in his eye by this stage. He was bloody well named. A minute of silence for the memory of Crazy Joe Gallo, if you don’t mind! Charlie lived in his own magic world. But we loved him, bless his comic-book gangster heart. And, as I said in my first book, there is still a handful of nutters around with more guns than God who love Charlie. Even though Charlie and I have gone our separate ways I still have a soft spot for ‘The Don’, as we called him.

What a lot of people in the Australian crime scene don’t understand is that Charlie could still muster a crew of head-banging mental cases armed to the arse in no time flat. If Charlie made the phone call, Dave the Jew would still take his side. Mad Archie, who is genuinely insane, would go in with Charlie, and I could easily name a dozen more who now live in a sort of semi-retirement ever since the blood war they dreamed of never happened. We all looked to Charlie as the man who could start it – and the truth is, he still could. His old crew would launch a bloodbath for the sheer hell of it. In our hearts Mad Charlie, ‘the Godfather of Giggles’, will always be the Don. Crazy but true.

JIMMY the Tooth was a raving nutter. An old mate of my dear friend Vincent Villeroy, he was a crazy pom from London’s east end. He lived in Port Melbourne and was a seaman. He was a tough bastard. I once saw him win a $100 bet in a pub by pulling out his own front tooth with a pair of pliers. He was quicker than any dentist – it took him about 30 seconds, but there was a lot of blood involved. Where do you see that sort of stuff in today’s la de da world?

We once brought Jimmy along with us on a torture job. He was supposed to grab the victim and get him into the car, but he beat him nearly to death in the street and pinched his watch. You couldn’t say Jimmy was a big thinker. That was the last time we used him as muscle. He was a bloody mental case.

IN 1974 I met a nice young kid called Kenny Knight. He had a touch of the tar brush in him – I think he was quarter Aboriginal – and he had a lot of guts and plenty of dash and style. He was a sharpie, and would follow me around looking for a good time. He was a violent young crook, and not a bad little fighter. He would do anything for me. But he was another one who was dancing on the edge of the drug world. I pulled him out of it while I was around. I was attacked once in the Woolshed Bar of the Australia Hotel in Melbourne, and while I was ripping my thumbs in and out of the eye sockets of my attacker, young Kenny sliced the offender’s neck open with a broken beer glass.

When Kenny went to jail, the silly young bugger got into glue sniffing and died with his head in a plastic bag sniffing glue in his cell in 1975. He was a good kid and it was a sad, stupid waste. He was a top young bloke with a heart of gold, and he looked up to me and I wished I could have saved him. If I don’t mention him here, he will never get a mention anywhere.

TOMMY Hodges was another young crim who looked up to me ever since we were teenage kids. He wasn’t a very violent bloke, but he was a gutsy thief and a shifty crook who could keep his mouth shut when it mattered. Tommy saw me stab another crim in the head with a screw driver. The victim couldn’t tell on me — he was alive, but half a vegie. Tommy got questioned over the matter, and I mean ‘questioned’ in a vigorous manner, but he stuck solid and didn’t say anything. He mightn’t have been violent himself but he was a hard young bloke and he could take a flogging and say nothing, which is a special brand of toughness. He never mentioned my name in connection with the screwdriver incident or anything else, and saved me a lot of legal bother. Tommy also died with a plastic bag of glue over his head in a prison cell in the late 1970s. Don’t ask me why. Another stupid waste.

LLOYD Fenner is another name I’ve mentioned in the other books. He was one of the true hard men I’d met in my life, and I’ve met a lot who thought they were hard. Old Lloyd is dead now. He was a fisherman. I wouldn’t call him a criminal, but his fishing boat had taken a few big-name crooks to sea for their last goodbye during the dockies’ wars. When I smashed Jack Twist over the head with a pool cue in the Mornington Pub when I was a young bloke, it was Lloyd Fenner who saved my neck by getting me out of the joint before Twist worked out what had happened and who had done it. Lloyd was a good mate of my uncle Eddy Miller, which was why he looked after me on that occasion. He was a legend on the Melbourne waterfront and in the Victorian fishing industry and a man I greatly admired. I was sad when he died. The story goes that he once put a man in a scallop cage, cut the body open and dropped the cage over the side of the boat in Port Phillip Bay. He was not a man to be trifled with. Take my word for it.

ANDY is a mate of mine in Launceston. He is a nice, polite, friendly, easygoing sort of chap, kindhearted and with a generous way about him, and a lot of loyalty towards me. He also has a plate in his head and gets a bit funny when he has a few drinks in him.

One night at a barbeque at my place I was showing Andy a .38 calibre automatic handgun. He was rapt. We had a few friendly gatecrashers from up the road arrive, but Andy didn’t like one of them. He put the .38 to the bloke’s head and tried to pull the trigger. The weapon was unloaded and Andy didn’t really know how to work an automatic handgun even if it had been loaded. Everyone there thought Andy was joking, but I saw by the look on his face that he was serious. Dead serious, you could say.

Andy later joined us in the ‘hole-in-the-head’ shooting club, and he proved a very dangerous man indeed. When he was handed a SKK 7.62 mm assault rifle with a 30 round clip when he was half pissed he started shooting at anything that moved – including some club members in the bush that Andy thought were wild animals. (In fact, they were wild animals – but not the furry sort Andy thought).

Andy was a dead set menace. He would hang the SKK out the car window and take pot shots as we drove along. But for all his madness he was a bloody good bloke and very true to his word. His older brother Shane is in Risdon, doing the big one for murder – in fact, two murders. I see Shane as an otherwise good bloke who just had a bad day which took a slight turn for the worse and resulted in a fatal falling out. He is a happy, go lucky, easy going fellow. Most killers are easygoing, so I’ve noticed. You’ll find very few bad-tempered murderers. The average murderer has only ever lost his temper once – resulting in the death of another person. But I stress that is the average murderer. Men who are forced to kill or be killed in the criminal world are another story, as what they do isn’t real murder. It is simply the way it is and the way it has to go … kill or be killed is not murder in my book.

THE best kick boxer ever to step foot in Pentridge as an inmate was George Zacharia, a middleweight who was ranked third in the world ratings. I used to spar with him in 1985, and let me tell you, this bloke could fight. He was the hardest man I’d ever put the gloves on with. He would hit me 20 times to my six punches. He wasn’t allowed to kick or he would have killed me. But as a puncher he was bloody dangerous enough, never mind the feet. A student of the Bob Jones karate style, George was deadly, yet he could never make me walk backwards. I would just march forward in on him while he punched my head in. He hit me with a punch one time that I’m sure exploded 10 per cent of whatever brain cells I have left. But with the gloves off George was a gentle-natured man and a bloody good bloke. I couldn’t mention kick boxing without paying tribute to George Zacharia — the best I’ve ever been in the same ring with. Thank God it was only sparring.