Chopper Unchopped (93 page)

But ‘Lord’, as Mickey loved to call him, still loved to chatter in his stupid Hugo voice.

‘What is it, that it is, that is it, we are up to now my Mickey, and why is it, that it is, that we are doing what it is, that we is doing my Mickey?’ he would say. Always ending ‘That’s what I think anyway.’ Mickey thought, and occasionally joked, ‘Byron’s getting bigger but his brain is getting smaller. God bless him.’

But Mickey’s brain wasn’t getting smaller. Just more devious.

‘How much is a pound of speed?’ he asked suddenly one day. ‘Seven grand up to nine grand,’ answered Fatty. ‘Depending on where we go to buy it. Muchie McGill sells it for seven grand, but he is also a police informer and three quarters of his customers get swapped out to the jacks. Alphonse Corsetti sells it for nine grand, but he only gives up his enemies, and we get on okay with the big dago.’

‘What about Leo Mack?’ said Lord Byron, who knew a bit more than he let on. ‘He’s a solid old bloke. The old dockie, you know him.’

‘No, I don’t. Who is he?’ said Mickey.

‘They call him Leo the Lout’ said Byron. ‘Shit, Raychell’s been sucking a grand out of him every week for the last year.’

‘Oh yeah’ said Mickey. ‘That silly old bastard. Used to be a boxer. Punch drunk old goat, works for Alphonse.’

‘That’s right’ said Byron, ‘he sells the gear.’

‘Yeah, but is he in with the jacks?’ asked Mickey suspiciously.

‘Nah, she’s sweet. Raych reckons he’s a silly old bastard, but solid as a rock. Hates the jacks.’

‘Good,’ said Mickey smoothly, with a faraway look in his eyes. ‘Can we get Raychell to fix up a meeting?’

‘Course we can, Mickey’ said Byron. ‘Raych loves you, Mickey. Ya know she would eat a shit sandwich if you asked her to, only she don’t like bread. Ha ha ha.’

Mickey smiled, whether at the joke or the compliment the others didn’t know. ‘Okay,’ he said, nodding, ‘get Raychell to fix it up.’

LEO the Lout’s right hand man was a giant named Big Steve Farrall. Big Steve was also screwing Raychell Brown, so it was easy to convince both of them that her little brother and his mates were harmless, just young blokes with eight grand to spend who wanted to score a pound of high grade meth amphetamine. No big deal.

The meeting between the Collingwood crew and Leo the Lout was arranged for 9 pm on a Monday night in the bar of the Inca Hotel.

‘Where the hell is the Inca Hotel?’ asked Mickey.

‘It’s St Kilda or East St Kilda, I think,’ said Raychell. ‘I know how to get there, but I don’t know exactly what suburb it is. It’s St Kilda or thereabouts.’

A mile in any direction outside Collingwood and Mickey might as well have been in Glasgow. Cross the Yarra and he was lost.

‘I thought the meeting was supposed to be at the Retreat, near the Inca,’ Raychell said. ‘Who do we know on that side of town?’ Mickey asked Lord Byron.

Leon Pepper broke his silence. ‘Deon and I know a bloke who lives in South Caulfield called Chicka Charlie Doodarr. Not a bad bloke, for a mad Russian.’

‘Charlie Doodarr’ said Mickey. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Is he sweet?’

Raychell cut in. ‘He should be,’ she said, smiling that dirty girl smile. ‘I’ve got a close professional relationship with him … he’s down the club six nights a week stuffing dough into my gee string.’

‘That’s no friggin’ recommendation,’ said Byron. ‘Just cos you’re doodle shaking some poor bastard to death don’t make him a good bloke.’ It was Leon Pepper’s turn. ‘Chicka Charlie’s okay, he’s on our side.’

Mickey made up his mind. ‘Get in touch with him. Set things up. Okay?’

The gang meetings were generally held in the kitchen of the Peppers’ flat, on the second floor of the Commission flats. Leon and Deon lived with their mother.

They didn’t have a father any more. Not since the twins had taken to the head of the household, Les ‘Salty’ Pepper, with a cricket bat as he slept off a big night on the grog after bashing their mother, Carol. They were only 11 years old and acquitted on self defence. Mickey Van Gogh had witnessed the whole thing and was a star witness for the defence, along with Carol Pepper.

The little flat held memories for everyone sitting in the kitchen. Raychell and Byron had also been witnesses – with Raychell adding punch to the pudding by giving evidence that Salty Pepper had also raped her.

The truth was, Salty had been screwing her for five dollars a time and there was no rape involved, but our Raychell wasn’t a great one for allowing the facts to get in the way of a good story, especially in a court of law. Half the Commission flats came forward with some wild yarn re the bad conduct of Les Pepper. Anything to get the kids off the hook for doing in their old man.

LEO the Lout and Big Steve were waiting in the bar of the Inca Hotel, along with Tommy Levidis and Eddy Cain – a couple of Richmond gunnies who came along for the ride. They were in their late thirties to early forties, all waiting to meet a 17-year-old kid and his punk gang of teenagers from the Collingwood flats. If Raychell Brown wasn’t such a good screw none of them would have bothered turning up. She was great bait, if you were fishing for scallywags. Which Mickey was.

Raychell walked through the door first with Mickey and his crew close behind. She made the introductions and the two crews moved over toward the back wall and sat down. To Mickey’s surprise, Leo had the pound of speed inside his jacket, and wanted to do the business on the spot. Mickey pulled out the cash and the change over was made. They shook hands all round and more drinks were downed, with Raychell sitting on old Leo’s knee.

The whole thing was quite cheerful. Leo the Lout and his crew had no fear: they were big time gunnies from Richmond dealing with a bunch of starry-eyed punk kids, one with a top-looking sister who gang banged like a dunny door in a hurricane. So if a one pound drug deal for her little brother and his mates made Raychell happy, then play on, thought the Lout.

The truth was the old gunnie had done his balls over her. Very close to being in love.

When he and the rest of the Richmond crew got up to leave, they all gave Raychell a kiss and a pat on the arse before heading off.

They walked outside. Leo and Big Steve got into Leo’s 1981 XJ6 Jag, and Tommy Levidis and Eddy Cain jumped into a taxi. The night and the business was over, as far as they were concerned.

But for Mickey and his mates, it was just beginning. Raychell turned to him and said ‘Will I ring Chicka Charlie?’

‘Yeah, go on’ said Mickey. ‘Let him know they’re on their way home.’

Raychell got up and walked to the phone. The whole crew turned to check out her arse.

LEO and Big Steve pulled the Jag up in front of the Australia Hotel in Richmond, got out and started to walk across the street.

A bloke just happened to be standing on the footpath in front of them. They happened to know him. ‘Hey Charlie!’ yelled Leo. ‘How ya going?’

‘Hey,’ yelled Chicka Charlie in return, looking pleased. ‘What’s goin’ on?’

‘Ahh, not much’ said Leo, grinning. ‘Just doing a bit of business.’

The three men shook hands.

‘Listen,’ said Leo, ‘we got a good sort due over at our place for a visit in about an hour. Wanna come up. Raychell Brown, it is. You know her, don’t ya?

‘Bloody oath,’ said Chicka Charlie, acting all tickled pink. ‘I’ll be in that.’

They headed on upstairs to a flat above a shop across the road from the pub …

About an hour later, when Raychell Brown arrived, Chicka Charlie answered the door. She walked in with Mickey, Byron and the twins close behind her. Chicka didn’t look surprised.

‘They’re in the lounge room,’ he said.

‘Dead or alive?’ said Mickey, not quite smiling.

‘No, they’re okay,’ Charlie said. ‘Handcuffed, that’s all.’

‘Where’s the money Charlie?’ said Mad Mickey, holding out his hand.

Charlie handed over the eight large. Mickey handed him four grand back and said ‘Whatever we get we whack up down the line, 50–50.’

‘Okay, sweet,’ said Charlie.

They all walked into the lounge room.

‘Byron. Get a knife from the kitchen,’ Mickey ordered. ‘Steve is no use to us.’

Byron got the knife. Mickey took it and slid the blade as smooth as silk in behind Big Steve’s neck, up into his brain. A surgeon or a meatworker couldn’t have done it better. The big man’s eyes closed for the big sleep.

Leo the Lout was most unhappy about this development.

‘Okay,’ said Mickey. ‘Roll him over on to his back and pull his dick out. Now, Leo. As soon as you crack a fat I’m going to cut it off. Raychell, do your thing.’

The big girl got down on all fours and went to work at the job she knew best, as if a fortune depended on it.

‘Where’s ya money, Leo?’ Mickey asked softly.

‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ the old pug blurted. ‘I got none.’

In spite of Leo’s fear, Raychell’s efforts were beginning to take effect.

‘Hold him tight,’ Mickey said.

Byron and the twins held Leo. Chicka Charlie sat on the couch and watched. As Leo rose to the occasion his spirits dived. ‘No, no. Come on, you’re joking aren’t you?’

They weren’t.

Raychell lifted her head up. Mickey handed her the knife. She slashed the blade across the base of his penis. Leo screamed, but Byron sat on his face. They rolled him over and undid his handcuffs, allowing him to clutch what was left of his groin with both hands.

‘Where’s the drugs? Where’s the money?’ said Mickey.

‘Under the fridge,’ Leo whimpered, lying on the floor, too shocked to move.

‘Trap door under the fridge in the floor. Pull the lino up,’ he said in a ghastly whisper. Then he cried and begged for help.

All this seemed to excite Chicka Charlie, who was as mad as everyone said he was. What happened next between him and Raychell made even Mickey shake his head. He looked at Lord Byron and the twins, then went into the kitchen.

They pulled 60 grand out of the hidey hole. And four pounds of speed, and seven handguns. Seeing as Chicka Charlie was still busy with Raychell in the other room they quickly tucked away half the cash and speed and all the handguns. Charlie was most happy to get 15 grand and a pound of speed as his half of the deal.

‘That was the most expensive head job he ever had,’ Byron said later to Raychell, when they told her the truth about the haul.

As for Leo, he got what Big Steve got, along with a gallon of petrol. It burnt down the flat and everything in it, and half the street as well.

And that’s how the Collingwood crew got its start.

‘I’M so bloody cold and the night is so clear. A full moon, yeah, there it is, I can see it. Where have my legs gone? They must be there, but I’m blowed if I can feel them. What happened? Where am I? Why am I lying on the footpath? Shit no, don’t do that. God, I’m pissing my pants. Stop it, stop it. How bloody embarrassing, laying on the bloody footpath wetting myself. Who are those people looking at me? Yeah, me. Come on, mate. Get up, get up. How come I can’t bloody move? God, this is ridiculous. Where have my arms gone? I’ve got this pain in the middle of my upper back, near my neck, sort of cold and numb, but with a fire in it. I can feel something warm running out of my chest and up and out and down both sides of my neck. Shit, she shot me. Shot me right in the back. Open ya eyes, ya silly bugger. Don’t go under. Come on mate, get with it. Don’t die, that’s it, one eye open. Why don’t no-one help me? What’s wrong with ’em all? How did I fall into all this? Oh no, police sirens! Or is it ambulance? I’m gone. I took his bloody face off with the shotgun and she stood there. Don’t die, don’t die. Dreaming of her, bloody strobe lights, off, on, off, on, red and white light, off, on, blue and white light, off, on. How am I gonna get out of this one? That bloody music. Ha, ha. If I only had time. Yeah, only time. There she is, look at them legs. Here I am, dying, and she can still make me feel horny. What’s she doing, talking to the police. Hey, I’m down here! I ain’t dead yet. One eye still open. Hey, down here! I’d bloody well wave if my arm would work …

‘Ahh, oxygen. Yeah, great. Oxygen mask, ohh good. That’s right, into the ambulance. Ahhh yeah, I can still breathe. That’s better. Yeah, sweet oxygen. If I only had time. Don’t die mate. C’mon, don’t die, you can make it, if I only had time, only time.

‘C’mon, get me to hospital. No, I’m not dead, don’t take my mask away. I’m not dead. Open ya bloody eyes. Yell out. Why won’t my voice work? Why can’t I open my eyes? No, no, I’m not dead. God, there she is again, look at the long-legged witch, up on that stage dancing. The wet dream from hell.

‘How did you find me? I’d spent a lifetime avoiding honeys like you, and of all the hearts in all the world you had to razor blade your way into mine. Go on, get out, leave my mind alone, let me die alone and in peace. Don’t follow me to the grave. Shit, what did that medic say? Dead! Hey, idiot. I’m not dead. Can’t ya see, I’m alive in here, look inside my brain, ya dumb bastard.

‘Look at this witch. Look at her. God, he reckons I’m dead and I feel horny. This isn’t real. She’s following me all the way inside my mind to the morgue. I’m not breathing. I can’t feel a thing. Eyes closed, yet she’s alive inside my mind. Look at her rockin’ and rollin’.

‘Yeah, who wouldn’t toss his whole bloody life on to the roulette wheel for her? Ha ha ha.

‘It makes me smile. I must look a sight. Dead as a door nail, with a smile on me face. Come on, princess, let’s go. You stay right where ya are, dancing in my head. C’mon darling, it’s grave time. Oh well, better to die with you holding the hand of my memory than to die alone. Stay there, baby. Don’t leave me, stay there. I didn’t know dead men could dream. Ha ha. Great. Blow me to the grave, princess. Who would ever have guessed it. Dead men get to dream and she is coming with me, for ever and always. The Strobe Light Dancer, rockin’ and rollin’ in my mind’s eye. It’s you and me forever, into the depths and darkness of eternity …’

HOW did it all begin? Let me take you back seven days. It seems like a thousand years ago, but it’s only a week. It’s Saturday night as I lie here dying, and I met her last Saturday. I got out of jail Friday morning. Six years prison with nothing and no-one. Days spent in violence just trying to stay alive and nights spent with my eight-day in one hand and my imagination in the other. First port of call was my dad’s place, a shower, shave, a change of clothes, the $1200 stuffed down the barrel of my sawn-off shotgun was still there, and my little five-shot .22 magnum revolver was in perfect working order.

I had half a box of ammo in reserve, so I loaded the .22 and put a dozen extra bullets in my pocket, put the $1200 in the other pocket. Then I donned my old favourite box Chester overcoat, gave my dad a kiss on the cheek and went out to see what the new world had to offer me.

I’d spent six years dreaming totally unrealistic crap and now I was free and cashed up, armed up and all set to rock and roll – but I didn’t have the faintest idea where to begin or what to do. I walked into the first pub I came to and sat lost and all alone getting quietly pissed, wondering where the world I’d once known had gone to.

My whole life had been like one giant revolving door with people passing through it. They left their mark in the waiting room of my heart and mind – then vanished. All I wanted was for someone to enter and not leave me. I walked home, a bit sad, my big first day out had been a big heap of bullshit and nothing.

I fell into bed and slept. When I woke up the sun was blazing. It was Saturday morning, and the world looked a better place than it had the night before. Sure enough, while I’d been asleep, Wazza Warren had rung my dad and invited me to meet up with him for a drink at some club in the city. It was called the ‘The Mexican Madonna’. Funny name for a club, I thought. But a lot more than the date had changed in six years.

Wazza Warren. I met him in prison about four years ago. He was doing two years. I’d already done two years when he came in, but we hit it off okay. When he got out two years ago he kept in touch.

I got up, got ready and went out. It was about four in the afternoon when I got to the club. It was closed. It didn’t open till 6 pm, but Wazza was inside. He was the live-in bar manager, not a bad job for an alcoholic street fighter who couldn’t read or write. He let me in. The joint was a vision in red, black and gold, with mirrors all over and around the walls. Chairs sat high at the stage and around various smaller platforms and stages. I’d never seen a club like it. After copping an eyeful of this for a while I looked at Wazza. He was dressed sharp – flash as a rat with a gold tooth, as my old dad used to say. He looked smug with it, as if he knew he was on a good thing and wanted me to know, too.

‘What the hell is this place, Wazza?’ I asked.

‘It’s a dance club,’ he said. Deadpan, but I could tell he was chuckling up his sleeve at my wide eyes. I’m six foot plus of muscle, tattoos and bad intentions, but at that moment I must have looked a bit like a hillbilly kid on his first trip to the big smoke.

‘What sort?’ I asked Wazza. Meaning what sort of club.

He explained that while I’d been away, the smarties had brought in an American idea called ‘lap dancing’ or ‘table dancing’. What it meant was that when the club opened for business 20 of the hottest-looking honeys you’d ever set eyes on would come out in stiletto heels, gee string and garter belt, and wiggle it and jiggle it about half an inch in front of your nose while the punters stuck cash in the knickers and garter belts.

The lights would get turned down and the whole club would turn into a strobe-lit sex machine. It was madness, magic bloody madness. Wazza told me I was in for a top night. He gave me four stay-awake tablets, the sort truckies pop, and I washed ’em down with a cold can of beer.

The ladies started to roll into the club around 5 pm and 5.30 pm. They all looked good to me. Tall, leggy, pouty looking blondes and redheads. Chinese chicks, black mammas, brunettes. They all seemed to wear dark glasses and they all, without question, totally ignored me. Except for one big, tall redhead who spoke to Wazza then turned and looked at me, took off her dark glasses and said, ‘the table with the red velvet chairs, okay?’

I didn’t say anything. Then she pointed to a few lounge chairs in the corner with a low table in front of them. It was the darkest and most private corner in the joint. Then she marched off, swinging the best set of hips I’d seen in a long time. Mind you, for six years I hadn’t seen many, but I had a good memory.

‘Who’s she?’ I asked Wazza.

‘Carolyn, she’ll look after you. I told her you just got out.’

Carolyn, Carolyn. I repeated the name over and over in case I forgot it. ‘Who is she?’ I asked.

Wazza gave me a funny look. ‘Who cares who she is?’ he said. ‘She’s a dancer and she works here. Best body in the club. You wait till she gets her gear off.’

‘What was that funny accent?’ I asked.

Wazza thought, ‘I don’t know. Scottish, New Zealand, something like that.’

‘Why did she pick me?’ I asked.

Wazza thought again, then said ‘I’d mentioned my mate in jail was due out. She seemed interested and a bit curious and told me if you ever came in to point you out.’

‘Does she know what I was in for?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I told her. ‘She never minded. After all, you’re not a sex offender. All you ever did was shoot a few arseholes.’

He laughed, ‘In fact, she went all wet between the legs when I told her you’re a gunnie from Collingwood and that you always carried a gun on you.’

Wazza was smiling. I wasn’t. There was a small silence.

‘You told her a bit too much, I reckon,’ I muttered.

‘Ahh, C’mon mate,’ said Wazza. ‘She’s a thrill seeker, a danger junkie. She loves all that gangster bullshit.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but don’t tell her nothing more.’

WHEN the doors opened at 6 pm, a few men started to come in. The bouncers and bar staff got busy for a big night, and the place started to hum. I grabbed a large scotch and went and sat in the corner. The music was loud and the place was a black, red, blue and yellow flash of on-again, off-again strobe lights. The chicks came out. Every one of them looked like she’d come out of a top-shelf porno movie.

I sat back in a big red velvet lounge chair, as instructed. Where was Carolyn? Then I saw this walking wet dream come up from out of the darkness. She bent forward and kissed me like a butterfly on the mouth with a little flick of her hot, wet tongue on my top lip. I reached out to grab her, but she was gone.

In the blink of an eye she got up on this small table in front of me and started to swing and sway to the music. The whole thing was quite sexually insane. I pulled out a fist full of money and she saw it and got down and began to dance all over me, touching me and teasing me as I stuffed money into her knickers and gee string. At the end of the dance she walked away, then turned and let me know she wanted me to follow. I wasn’t going to argue. My dad taught me to be polite to ladies at all times, even if they weren’t altogether ladylike. I got up and followed. You could have stopped me with a chainsaw, but not much else.

She went behind a red velvet curtain and through a doorway. Once inside, she closed the door and together we walked along a darkened hallway to a small, dark dressing room. It had a big mirror on the wall with a light above it, a comfy chair and a bench full of make up.

There was a small washbasin and tap. The whole thing was pretty dingy. Carolyn wasn’t. She took out the 100 or so dollars I’d stuffed into her knickers and handed it back to me.

She said, ‘I don’t do this for everybody, but you seem like a good bloke and I know ya been away for a long time and only got out yesterday.’

As she was saying all of this she had the zip on my pants undone, one hand down my jocks and the other hand undoing my belt. As she undid the belt, my .22 magnum handgun fell free and hit the floor. She looked at it and her eyes opened wide.

‘Ohh,’ she purred, ‘I think you’re gonna be a really interesting guy to know.’

We did the business with her sitting on the make-up bench, the whole thing was over before it started. Six years of dreaming about women like Carolyn – all blown in a six-minute frenzy. When it was over and she was adjusting her knickers and readying herself to go back to work, I said the most ridiculous thing.

I looked into her face and said, ‘I love you’.

It was the most childish and stupid thing to say, but I felt hopelessly and utterly in love with this heavenly creature. For a bloke fresh out of the joint, she was a vision splendid, with her suntanned legs extended – like something out of a porn movie they watch in heaven. To me, she was no any ordinary woman, she was an angel with a figure designed by the devil to tempt men. She had the sort of face that men would die for – and kill for. A pouty look with lips that looked as if they’d spent the last 20 years sucking icypoles. I’d spent the past six years having serious sex with my mattress, dreaming about glamour girls half as good looking as this pornographic princess. And I’d just blown six years of pent-up prison passion deep inside a dream come true.

In love, in lust. Call it what you will, but I was in it. I would have pulled my heart out and handed it to her. She stopped and looked at me and touched my cheek with her long fingernails and sort of stroked my face and said: ‘You’re a really nice guy, but don’t tell me you love me. You don’t even know me.’

‘Yes I do,’ I said. ‘I’ve been dreaming about you for the last six years.’

She lifted her face up to mine and kissed my cheek.

‘Can I see you again?’ I asked.

‘I’m here every night,’ she said.

‘Can I see you after work?’ I asked.

Then she mentioned her boyfriend and my blood ran cold. She stood there hitching her gee-string knickers up and told me she had a boyfriend. A jealous arsehole who loved to slap her about. If she got caught after hours with another man she’d be in big trouble. She was free from 6 pm till about midnight at the club, but then the boyfriend showed up. He would hang about till 3 or 4 am, then take her home. She’d hand over most of the cash from her night’s work to him. He was a big, good-looking wog from Footscray. The bodybuilder, all muscle and mouth type. He spent his time gambling, lifting weights, working on his suntan, selling a few drugs here and there, buying stolen property, doing a bit of security work as a bouncer at a few clubs and pubs, buying himself la-de-da Italian-made clothes, slapping his girlfriend about and whoring her arse off when he needed money. Generally just rock and rolling around town, looking good and trying to play the role of the up and coming tough guy. His name was Eros Pantanas, but everyone called him Rocky.