Chopper Unchopped (99 page)

I walked out into the hallway and into the kitchen. I could hear the sounds of flies buzzing as I walked in. Then I saw a sight I didn’t quite understand, at first.

It was Frenchy, but he was sitting at the kitchen table with his head lying in a pool of dried, thick sticky blood, face down. Very dead.

It looked as if he’d been dead for a day or two. He was dark red and black in parts. His face and hands seemed dark and swollen and his face was purple, red, black and swollen. Yes, I thought to myself, dead at least two days. He had a hole that went through both temples. The .22 magnum revolver was lying on the floor in another pool of blood underneath his right hand, which was hanging down. I picked up the gun and turned the hot water tap in the sink on and washed the gun. Then I sprayed oven cleaner over it and dried it with a tea towel. It’s very important to do the right thing and clean up after a shooting in the home.

Frenchy was a bit on the nose, I noticed as I checked over the pistol. There was only one shell in it – and it was empty. I knew then what had happened. I dimly remembered something about a game of Russian roulette with Kerry. Then Kerry played with two sheilas and then with Frenchy. I couldn’t remember the end of the game, but I was beginning to suspect that Frenchy had lost. Messy bastard.

Shit, I thought, we are going to have to clean this mess up and bury poor Frenchy in the backyard. What day was it? God, how long had I been asleep? I walked out of the kitchen and closed the door. I went into another bedroom, and found two really horny-looking girls in bed with each other, sleeping like babies.

As I walked in, one of them woke up.

‘Oh, hi Geoff,’ she said.

‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘I can’t remember a thing.’

‘I’m Tiffany,’ she said, raising her eyebrows.

‘Where am I and who are you?’ I asked.

Tiffany said, ‘I’m a mate of Kerry’s from the club and this is my place and we are in St Kilda.’

‘When did we get here?’ I asked.

Tiffany yawned. ‘Oh, about midnight Wednesday night.’

‘Wednesday. Shit, what day is it now?’

Tiffany looked at her watch and then at the sunlight coming through the window and said, ‘Shit, it’s two in the afternoon. We got to sleep sometime Thursday night, so it must be Friday.’

‘Friday,’ I said. ‘I don’t remember nothing. Do you know there is a dead man in your kitchen, Tiffany?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Bummer, that. You promised to bury him down the side of the house for us.’

‘Did I say that? Well, I guess I will but I’m gonna take a shower,’ I said.

Tiffany got out of bed. ‘I’ll come with ya,’ she said. Who was I to argue. It was her house.

She showed me to the bathroom. On the way we passed the lounge. Above the fireplace was a giant photo in a frame of a younger Tiffany, posing semi-naked, and Kerry Griffin, and a big blonde with giant tits and a full spider’s web tattoo running the full length of her left arm. They were standing show girl style behind two men who were sitting down. I recognised one man as Ripper Roy Reeves. The other, younger man I did not know, but his left hand was covered in a spider’s web tattoo. I guessed who he was.

‘Who are all they?’ I asked.

‘Oh,’ said Tiffany, ‘that’s me, Kerry, Raychell, Ripper Roy and Mickey Van Gogh. It was a big party night at the Caballero.’

‘How do you know them all?’ I asked.

Tiffany giggled. ‘I was one of the bridesmaids at Raychell’s and Mickey’s wedding.’ She laughed again.

I asked how come Kerry was in the photo. Tiffany looked at me and said ‘Ya don’t know much do ya?’

I said, ‘No, I don’t. I’ve been in jail for six years.’

‘Yeah, well, Kerry Griffin is the late Raychell Van Gogh’s cousin.’

I walked into the bathroom and turned the hot shower on, then the cold water, got the temperature right and got under. Tiffany joined me as if having a shower with a bloke she didn’t know was an everyday event. I soaped myself up, then her, and handed her the soap. She started to wash me all over.

‘There is another blonde with a spider’s web tattoo.’ I said. ‘I met her Tuesday morning. She told me her name was Sally. Do you know anything about her?’

‘Oh,’ said Tiffany. ‘That would be Karen Phillips.’

The name hit me. I thought to myself: Johnny Go-Go’s girlfriend. She was with Mickey the Nut, Mad Raychell and Ripper Roy right up until the very end. She vanished with Johnny Go-Go.

‘How come silly bloody Kerry thinks everybody she meets is someone else? I asked.

By this time Tiffany was trying to work me up to do the business, and having a bit of success. She laughed.

‘Oh, that’s just Kerry. She has known me for eight years and still calls me Simone.’

‘Ha ha ha,’ I laughed. ‘So there is nothing shifty in it?’

‘Nah, she used to call Mickey Van Gogh, Jamie. Convinced he once saved her brother’s life.’

‘Do you know her brother Garry?’ I asked.

Tiffany laughed again.

‘Her brother’s name was Graeme, and he hung himself in the tool shed at the back of their home in Collingwood 15 years ago. If Kerry wants to call anyone anything it don’t mean nothing. She’s a good chick. She’s just a bit out of it.’

At this point Tiffany turned around, parted her legs and stood on her tip toes. Like a gentleman, and reminding myself that I was a house guest, I politely offered her a place to sit. That bloody speed in my blood stream was playing havoc with my mind, and it made me so bloody horny …

IT took me until about 7 o’clock that night to bury Frenchy’s body, while Tiffany and her girlfriend cleaned the kitchen. Kerry was a bit upset about poor Frenchy.

‘He was a randy little runt. I liked him,’ she said a couple of times.

‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘You were the last chick he screwed before he died, so he went out happy.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kerry thoughtfully. ‘I’ve screwed a few blokes who have died not long after.’

I thought to myself, I bet you bloody well have, too, you mad cow.

‘Don’t forget,’ said Kerry, ‘you got to be at the Coliseum tomorrow night.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said. ‘I haven’t forgotten.’ Then I asked, ‘what happened Tuesday?’

Kerry laughed. ‘We dropped a few acid trips with our speed. Had a wild time. Do you remember shooting that guy in the nightclub?’

‘What guy?’

Kerry laughed. ‘He owed me six grand and lashed, so you shot him.’

I shook my head. ‘What happened to Wednesday and Thursday?’ I asked.

‘Don’t know,’ said Kerry, ‘but I feel like I’ve been gang banged by a herd of elephants. I’m as sore as a boy scout at a poofter’s picnic.’

‘Let’s get back to your place, Kerry. I need a proper night’s sleep. Saturday is a big day and I want a clear head.’ Kerry went all cuddly and romantic. ‘Just you and me together, Geoff?’

‘Yeah, baby’ I said, and kissed her cheek.

We said our goodbyes to Tiffany and her girlfriend and went out into the night, hand in hand, to catch a cab home.

THERE was a lot to do Saturday. I set the alarm clock for 7 in the morning. Kerry and I had knocked off a full bottle of Scotch, soaking together in a hot bath. I’d never actually been a boy scout, but I fully approved of the value of being prepared, and did some thinking about the job ahead. I’d use my sawn-off shotgun. One blast would take a pig’s head off at six paces. Good practice for shooting wogs. I rang Carolyn at the club to confirm it was all set. She was in a panic, as she hadn’t heard from me.

I told her not to worry and I’d see her Saturday night, 9.30 pm on the dot. In the bar of the Coliseum.

Kerry and I climbed into her big bed exhausted and very strung out. After a frantic session, running on nothing but nervous energy, we fell asleep in each other’s arms. I dreamt of Carolyn. She was dancing inside my dreams. But she wasn’t dancing for me. She was dancing for another woman, a woman with a spider’s web tattoo all the way down her left arm. They kissed and made love, and Carolyn turned and laughed out loud at me. Her face looked pure evil. She laughed and Sally, who I now knew to be Karen Phillips, the chick with the tattoo, pulled Carolyn away. And they made love while I looked on, helpless.

When I woke up I could remember this dream clearly. It was stuck in my head. Carolyn and Karen Phillips. I wondered what it all could mean. Kerry and I showered for an hour. I’d been in jail a long time. We had a big breakfast, got dressed and, hand in hand, walked over to my dad’s place.

As we walked I said, ‘Listen princess, I’ve got to tell ya something. My name isn’t Geoff Twane.’

Kerry thought for a moment and then asked, ‘Well, who are you?’

I told her that we did meet years ago at Mickey’s Disco, a blatant lie, because I could never recall ever meeting her, and that she had mixed me up with Geoff. He was the one who shot a couple of guys in front of the South Melbourne cop shop – and I was the one who shot Kiwi Kenny Woods and his mates.

‘So,’ said Kerry, ‘You’re the guy in the photo, and the real Geoff Twane’s the other guy?’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

She thought some more, and squeezed my hand.

‘I don’t care who you are. I reckon you’re beautiful. So what is your name?’

I told her. She was really pleased that I’d been honest with her. We got to dad’s place and spent the day with him. Kerry cooked lunch and took it upon herself to call my father ‘Uncle Alf’. Whoever Uncle Alf was. By early evening she had fallen back to calling me Geoff. I winked at my dad, but he didn’t mind one way or the other.

A good heart over-rides a scattered mind. Kerry just liked to call people either what she felt they should be called, or what she thought their names really were. Whatever the psychological reason, it wasn’t a serious flaw in her otherwise solid, staunch, loyal and loving personality. We both kissed my dad goodbye. Kerry promised to ring him and call in on him regularly, which made the old bugger most happy.

We caught a cab to the city and drank quietly in a pub till about 9 pm. I had my sawn-off shotgun under my overcoat. I gave all my money to Kerry and said, ‘If anything at all should go wrong, give the dough to my dad.’

Kerry didn’t have her little .25 calibre automatic handgun, and I’d left the .22 revolver at her place after washing Frenchy’s blood off it so carefully. All I had on me was her .38 automatic and my sawn-off shotgun. I didn’t like to think of her waiting outside the Coliseum Hotel unarmed so I gave her back the .38. We caught a cab to the Coliseum, pulled up about 100 yards from the pub, got out, and started to walk towards the joint.

‘I’m coming in with you, Geoff,’ Kerry said suddenly. ‘If it’s a set up we will go down together in one big blaze. If they kill you the slugs will have to go through my body first.’

I looked at the big, sexy, shaggy-haired blonde. She had tears in her eyes. ‘you’d do that for me, would you, baby?’

She nodded. A tear ran down her face. I bent down and licked it. It was salty. I kissed her. Time for good old mum’s ring again. I fumbled around in my pockets for the one I had taken back from Carolyn. I put it on Kerry’s finger. She hugged me. ‘No darling,’ I said. ‘You’re waiting outside.’

‘No, I’m not,’ she said. ‘If you die, I die, I love you, Geoff.’ This was getting out of hand. Me proposing to a mad woman a minute before shooting someone.

She was crazy, all right. I held her in my arms and tried to reason with her.

‘I won’t die, princess. Don’t cry. C’mon, cheer up.’

We started to walk along, arm in arm.

‘Hey,’ yelled a chick standing near an old white Holden Premier, a 1966 or 1967 model. It was ‘Sally’ – or Karen Phillips, as I now knew her.

We walked over.

‘He’s in there,’ said Karen, not wasting any breath on small talk. ‘Got his back to the door talking to Carolyn.’

I said to her: ‘Listen, I’m going in now, but before I do I want to ask you a favour.’

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘Take care of Kerry for me. She’s waiting here with you.’

‘No, I’m not,’ said Kerry defiantly.

That’s when I hit her. It was a hard, fast right hand that travelled about and six inches caught her flush on the tip of the jaw. She collapsed. Knocking girls out is easy. Kerry went to sleep like a baby.

‘Look after her, will ya Karen,’ I said.

‘Who told you my name?’ she asked.

‘I’m not stupid,’ I replied. Which was another blatant lie. But I was getting good at telling porkies.

‘If something goes wrong, keep an eye on Kerry for me, she’s sort of grown on me.’

Karen nodded. ‘Kerry will always have friends with us. Collingwood takes care of its own.’

As I walked towards the pub, Karen yelled: ‘If anything goes wrong, brother, we’ll knock whoever’s responsible, we’ll kill em all. Them and the bloody horses they friggin’ well rode in on. They’ll all die.’

I kept walking. At the door I stopped and adjusted the sawn-off shotgun under my overcoat. It was time to get into character.

I opened the door. The joint was full as a Catholic school, but I didn’t see any nuns. There were 60 to 70 drinkers jammed in. A juke box played, ‘If I only had time’ by John Rowles. It was a sad, sentimental haunting sort of song. I walked through the crowd until I saw Carolyn.

God, she was beautiful. She was standing, talking to Rocky. He had his back to the door. I walked up behind him. Still Carolyn didn’t realise I was in the bar. This would be child’s play. A lot of paranoia over nothing. Carolyn wasn’t out to set me up at all, she was setting Rocky up, she must really love me, just like she said. I pulled out the sawn-off and aimed it at Rocky’s head. ‘Hey shithead!’ I yelled.

He swung around. It wasn’t Rocky the Wog. It was Chicka Charlie.

HIS hand went inside his coat just as I pulled the trigger. His face exploded in front of me. Flame burst from the barrel and his top lip, nose and left eyeball sort of vanished back into his head in a soup of red and white. The spray of blood, bone and brains spat out a full two feet from the back of his skull. I caught a glimpse of Carolyn’s face as I turned. I couldn’t believe it. Her face was a blaze of fear and rage and her hand shot forward to catch Chicka Charlie.