Chopper Unchopped (101 page)

‘No,’ laughed Leon. So did Deon. Had a great sense of humour, the Pepper twins.

‘Okay,’ said Raychell, ‘they’ll be there, I’ll fix it. In the meantime you two can piss off. I’ve got to go and see a man about a dog.’

When the twins left the flat, Raychell began to get ready. She put on a pair of expensive, soft, black leather thigh boots that stopped about six inches short of her arse. Then she put on her big, black, full-length overcoat, and slipped a black silk scarf around her neck. She had nothing on underneath her overcoat, and liked the feeling. She was on her way to see Ripper Reeves and she wasn’t going to mess about lifting skirts and ripping knickers when he greeted her in the usual way.

Two screws guarded the contact visit area at the rear of H Division, but Ripper always had them sweet, so they’d take a walk outside for a smoke for half an hour. As soon as the screws walked out she would stand up, undo the overcoat and give old Ripper the time of his life. Not to mention making her own eyes water.

As she walked out of the flat, she yelled to Lord Byron: ‘Clean this place up, shithead, or you’re off limits for a month.’ She slammed the door, laughing at her own joke. Walking toward the lift she began to sing, ‘I’m getting married in the morning, ding dong the bells are going to chime.’ Then burst out laughing again.

ONLY two bridesmaids showed up to the wedding. Little Amber Morgan had been rushed to hospital with a Crown Lager bottle up her clacker and was in some discomfort. This meant Melissa and Tiffany had to accommodate 60 men several times over, so it was no surprise they showed up to the wedding full of meth amphetamine and enough taddies to start a sperm bank. Their faces were puffy, their legs were bowed, and they had a spaced-out look in their eyes.

Raychell walked down the aisle with old Tex Lawson at her side. She also seemed to be speeding off her head. There was something about the way she walked that gave Mickey the impression she had spent several hours sitting on a very large cucumber.

‘Every time I send her to visit Ripper Reeves she comes back looking like she’s been hit in the arse with an axe,’ he thought. ‘I’m going to have to get Fatty’s little sister to visit Roy Reeves from now on.’

A YEAR had passed. The Collingwood crew went from rich to even richer, and all their enemies seemed to have vanished. Chicka Charlie took control of the Corsetti family empire. Somehow, Deano Corsetti had the bad luck to have two pound of speed planted in the boot of his car, then was kicked to death in the remand centre. Some said this might have been courtesy of Roy Reeves, but they didn’t say it very loud. Roy was sensitive about what he called lies and foul slander. Mickey Van Gogh and his wife Raychell controlled all the drugs, prostitution and crime in Collingwood. Every speed dealer and heroin dealer from Clifton Hill to Victoria Park, Abbottsford and all other parts of greater Collingwood worked for them. Massage parlours, escort services, street whores, the lot. They all worked for the Collingwood crew. Mickey was on his way to becoming a multi-millionaire. Best of all, Alphonse Corsetti had taken his crippled mother back to Italy and had not returned.

The police didn’t seem to come anywhere near Mickey Van Gogh and his friends. He had a charmed life. Sometimes, he would use his secret key to open an old maintenance trap door to the roof of the Collingwood commission flats and stand on the roof in the rain at night and scream: ‘I’m the King of Collingwood – ha, ha, ha!’ Laughing like a nut case in the rain, he’d fire his gun into the night sky. The meth amphetamine was taking its toll on Mickey’s mental well being. He had money, power, a gang, guns, cars, and property. He owned Collingwood. All his dreams had come true – except one: He wasn’t happy. In fact, he was paranoid and going insane and he couldn’t understand why he felt so empty and alone. He was using six grams of pure speed a day. Raychell was using three a day. They were on top of their world, yet there was something wrong. The love had gone, the trust had gone, everything in their life and in their heads and hearts was empty.

Mickey and Raychell needed a rock to hold on to. A big, safe, secure emotional rock. And that rock was Ripper Reeves. He was a father figure to both. The world was closing in on them and they wanted Ripper. On the nights when Mickey stood on the roof of the flats in the wind and rain he would scream into the night, ‘Come home uncle Roy, come home!’

The pressure and the paranoia was really getting to Mickey. Then, when he thought he couldn’t take the insanity of it all any more, he heard the news. Roy Reeves due out in seven days time. he’d got his parole at last.

Collingwood went crazy. Old Roy Reeves was a legend. He was gunning men down in Smith Street when Mickey was just a kid; for as long as Mickey could remember, Roy Reeves had always been in his life. Kay Kelly, his own mother, had been old Roy’s girlfriend before Mickey was born, and they’d always been close. Kay Van Gogh used to take young Mickey in to visit Roy when he was 11 or 12 years old, and Mickey and Roy Reeves had always stayed in touch. Mickey first sent Raychell in to see Roy when she was about 16. Now old Roy was coming home after 10 years inside.

‘Shit,’ thought Mickey, ‘Raychell is 21 or 22 years old now. Hell, she’s been visiting old Roy once a month for five or six years now.’

Mickey couldn’t understand anyone being in jail for so long. He couldn’t help thinking that 10 years was half his whole life. God, how could anyone do 10 years jail? It was unreal.

Mickey shuddered when he thought about prison. He swore he’d kill himself before he ever let anyone lock him up in any bloody cage. Bugger that bullshit for a joke.

When Raychell heard the news about Roy Reeves her heart jumped into her mouth. She’d known 1000 men with their pants off, but she loved only three: her stupid little brother Byron, her husband Mickey, and Roy Reeves. Roy had once told her that she was the daughter he never had, and she saw him as a father figure. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for Ripper Reeves – and now the grand old man of Collingwood was coming home.

ROY Ripper Reeves was a big, tough, hard 50-year-old gunnie, the sort of twisted, old-time psychopath that legends were made of. In the mental instability department he was light years ahead of his time. He did 10 years of a 15-year sentence for cutting a man’s arms and legs off, then dumping the body on the steps of the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Amazingly, the victim lived to tell the tale to the police and did so, probably thinking there wasn’t much worse Roy could do. When the victim was pushed into court in a wheelchair to give Crown’s evidence against Roy Reeves, old Roy yelled out: ‘Shut up, stumpy, you have always had too much to say.’ Then, as the victim was being pushed out of the court, Roy Reeves yelled out to him: ‘Hey, dog, kiss ya mother goodbye.’

Two weeks later the mother of the victim had her guts blown out with a shotgun as she walked out to her front gate to collect the morning milk in Bendigo Street, Collingwood. This sort of coincidence gave Roy a certain reputation. Not a lot of people liked him, but most feared him, because he was mad enough to do anything.

While in jail, he controlled the most feared gang of standover men behind bars. They were nicknamed the Peppermint men, because of Roy’s love of peppermint lollies.

The gang controlled all criminal activity in the jail. Drugs, homosexual prostitution, mayhem and murder. And while young Mickey Van Gogh was a monster in the eyes of many, Roy Ripper Reeves was the master of all monsters. Only a high priest of criminal insanity could comfort and control Mickey the way he could.

The newspaper headlines screamed that ‘the Collingwood killer’ was coming home, but for Mickey Van Gogh it meant that, at long last, the only father he had ever known was to be with him.

‘Thank you, God, thank you,’ Mickey whispered to himself. Like a lot of stone killers, Mickey went a bit religious when it suited him. He didn’t mind asking for help, but he wasn’t much on turning the other cheek or treating his neighbour as himself.

ARTHUR Featherstone, nicknamed Irish Arthur, had been Roy Reeves’s right hand man since the early 1970s, but they went back a lot further. They had been to primary school together in the 1950s and ran wild together through the streets of Collingwood during the 1960s.

It was now the 1990s and Roy had been away for 10 years. Irish Arthur had left Collingwood and moved to NSW shortly after Roy was convicted, hanging around only long enough to blow the guts out of the mother of the dog who gave Roy up.

He’d bought a house in Calvert Street, Marrickville, and kept a low profile. Now it was time to return, but first he had to alert the third man who’d made up Roy Reeves’s old Collingwood crew. Arthur picked up the phone and called Surfer’s Paradise.

Terry Maloney had been living in middle-class comfort in Hanlon Street, Surfers Paradise, since being acquitted of murdering three men and a woman on Victoria Dock on the Melbourne waterfront. He had carried out the shootings on behalf of Roy Reeves, who’d ordered the deaths from his prison cell.

Terry never asked why. When Roy said kill, he killed. No questions asked. Roy was the General, and now Arthur Featherstone was ringing to tell him Roy was due out. Well, thought Terry, you can leave Collingwood but it will never leave you. It’s time to go home.

Little Benny Epstein had been Roy Reeves’s lawyer for 30 years. Getting Ripper Roy out on parole was more a fluke than good management, but Roy was over the moon so Benny would take all the credit, as always.

Little Benny had a way of making himself look good in the eyes of Roy Reeves. He was also managing Roy’s money, having invested most of it in Johnny Go-Go’s nightclub in Smith Street, Collingwood. Roy not only owned the club and let Johnny Go-Go run it, but he owned the six-storey building it was in. Including the six-bedroom penthouse apartment on the top floor, which he insisted Mickey Van Gogh and his bride take over as his wedding gift to them.

As for old Roy, he never cared for flash apartments or razzle dazzle and was quite happy to go home and live with his 75-year-old mother in the family home in Easey Street, Collingwood. Meanwhile, it was Little Benny’s job to get Roy’s financial affairs in order. Ripper Roy liked his financial affairs in cash of the hard, cold variety. And somehow the half million cash that Roy expected was short to the tune of $200,000. Never mind, thought Benny, Roy would understand. Hell, Mickey and mad Raychell would hand Roy a 100 grand cash as a getting out of jail present. Then I’ll shove 300 grand in his hand the day he gets out, and owe him the rest. Good old Roy would understand. Heart of gold, was Roy. So Benny thought to himself.

Ripper Roy’s getting out of jail party was to be held at Johnny Go-Go’s nightclub. The whole club was shut to the public. It was guests only. Mickey Van Gogh and Raychell, Lord Byron, Leon and Deon, Karen Phillips, Chicka Charlie Doodarr and his crew, Big Jimmy Jigsaw and the Victoria Park gang, Mickey’s heroin dealers and the crew who ran Mickey’s speed-dealing business. There was also Rocky Bob Mulheron, king of the Collingwood neo-Nazis, who managed all prostitution in Collingwood for Mickey and Raychell.

Every massage parlour in the greater Collingwood area had been closed, along with all escort services, and all the girls ordered to show up to Ripper Roy’s party. One lady who said she’d rather work than go to Roy’s party had a screw driver smashed into her face 17 times by Raychell, to encourage her to be more polite. Word soon got around that no-one knocked back an invitation to Ripper Roy’s party. Ha ha.

THE Club was rockin’ and rollin’ when Roy Reeves walked in the door with his lawyer Little Benny and his old friends and bodyguards, Arthur Featherstone and Terry Maloney.

Raychell ran into his arms screaming with delight, with Mickey Van Gogh close behind her, tears in his eyes. The two clung to him and wouldn’t let go. Roy had his left arm around Mickey and his right arm around Raychell, and the three remained that way for most of the night.

Raychell was wearing her uniform of jet-black, stiletto high heels, stretch micro-mini and boob tube top under her full-length, black overcoat, with a .32 calibre handgun in one pocket, and a 10 gram party pack of speed and a fit in the other. They sat at a table in the darkened rear of the club while the party goers raged and the music roared and the strippers danced their bums off.

Mickey sat on Roy’s left, Raychell to his right. Arthur Featherstone and Terry Maloney didn’t sit. They stood guard. Old habits die hard, and even though it was a private party no-one was getting to Ripper Roy unless they passed Arthur and Terry first.

As for Mickey and Raychell, Ripper Roy had become their God. Meth amphetamine had scrambled their brains so much that Ripper Roy Reeves’ importance to them inflated as time grew. Now they called him ‘Uncle Roy’, and sometimes Raychell would cry like a little girl when Roy put his arm around her and called her ‘his little caballero’.

Old Roy loved them, cared about them, and trusted them. To him, young Mickey and Raychell had become the children he never had. For them, he was their father and they wanted to make him proud.

TUPPENCE Murray sat in the lounge room of his home in Barkley Street, Footscray. He was talking to Little Benny Epstein.

‘You owe Roy Reeves 200 grand,’ said Tuppence, trying to hide a gloating smile. ‘You’ll be dead within a month if you can’t pay up, and you’ll be dead by tomorrow morning if Ripper Roy finds out you’re talking to me. Lending 200 grand to Roy’s worst enemy and getting lashed on the deal – you’re one little Jew in a whole heap of trouble. Ha ha ha.’

Tuppence Murray was the biggest SP bookmaker in the western suburbs, and when it came to money he didn’t make many mistakes. He was right. Little Benny was indeed in a lot of trouble.

‘We might be able to get rid of Roy Reeves by using his own crew against him,’ said Little Benny.

‘Featherstone and Maloney,’ laughed Tuppence. ‘You’re kidding. They are rock solid.’

‘No, no, no’ said Benny ‘Mickey Van Gogh and his wife. They are both out of it on speed 100 per cent of the time. You know how it makes them paranoid.’

‘Yeah’ said Tuppence. ‘Mickey, the nut from Collingwood. He married that big blond moll, tits like watermelons and a face like a kicked-in shit tin. Ha ha ha.’

‘Yeah,’ said Benny. ‘That’s right. But Raychell’s not that bad.’

‘Not that bad,’ laughed Tuppence. ‘I wouldn’t wear the junkie slag on a brooch. Ha ha.’

‘Yes,’ said Benny. ‘Leaving her looks to one side, she is so full of meth amphetamine and so ultra-paranoid we could use her to our own advantage.’

‘How?’ asked Tuppence.

‘Easy. We kill her numbnut little brother and make her think that Roy did it.’

‘I’ll have to think about this,’ said Tuppence, ‘playing with the minds of people who don’t have any minds can backfire. Buggers like Mickey the Nut and that insane whore he calls a wife can get a bit puzzled in the brain and decide to kill everybody, for God’s sake. I got told they call Roy Reeves “Daddy”.’

‘No, no,’ protested Benny. ‘Mickey calls him Uncle Roy. But, yes, of late Raychell has taken to calling him ‘Daddy’, in spite of the fact that he’s rooting the arse off her.’

‘God,’ spat Tuppence. ‘That’s sick. And you reckon we can play mind games with these sick arseholes. I think we will come up with another idea. But first, Benny, I’ll kill you. How about that?’

‘Please, Tuppence,’ pleaded Benny. ‘Give me 24 hours. If Roy isn’t dead you can kill me and every member of my family, I swear. I’ll fix it, okay?’

‘You got 24 hours,’ said Tuppence. ‘Now, piss off.’

The one really good thing about being a heavyweight drug dealer is that the junkies who don’t already owe you a favour would like to owe you a favour. When Little Benny Epstein walked out of Tuppence Murray’s house and hopped into his car, he didn’t see Chinese May Ling Lee, a prostitute junkie who had been called upon to service both Tuppence Murray and Little Benny in the past. But she saw him.

Now, Chinese May was curious by nature, and given to thinking about the whys and wherefores of things she saw and heard. And she wondered on this occasion, what was Ripper Roy’s lawyer doing coming out of Tuppence Murray’s house? Furthermore, she wondered if this titbit of gossip might be worth a few grams of smack.

As Little Benny drove away, May Ling Lee picked up her mobile phone and rang Big Jimmy Jigsaw. And hit the jackpot. Jigsaw Jimmy told her to get in a taxi and come and collect 10 grams – free of charge.

Which was why, when Little Benny walked into Roy Reeves’ Easey Street home in Collingwood two hours later, he found Mickey Van Gogh and Raychell in the lounge room with Terry Maloney and Arthur Featherstone sitting in the kitchen.

‘Where’s Roy?’ asked Little Benny.

‘He’s at Tex Lawson’s place in Clifton Hill,’ said Mickey. ‘Come on, Benny, we’ll take you.’

TEX Lawson was not at all pleased that yet another body was to be buried in his backyard, but the three grand cash in hand eased the pain.

Irish Arthur dug the grave while Little Benny told his whole sad story, with Mickey holding a sawn-off shotgun up his bum to encourage his recollection. Raychell went insane when she heard the plan to kill her baby brother.

‘What’s poor little Byron done to that bugger?’ she screamed. ‘These dogs are all gonna die.’

The war between Tuppence Murray and his team and Roy Reeves had been a long time coming. Tuppence controlled the western suburbs and a crew that outnumbered the Collingwood crew ten to one, but Collingwood had been the heartland of the Melbourne underworld since Squizzy Taylor was a boy.

Every criminal family in Melbourne was able to trace its family tree back to the Collingwood slums, before they pulled the slums down and built the flats. The Murray clan was an old-time Collingwood crime family before Roy Reeves had driven them all out 20 years before, and so a war had been brewing for a long, long time. And blood would flow freely.

Tuppence Murray drank in a small, quiet backstreet pub on a certain corner in Footscray. His 30-year-old son, Jamie, was his driver and bodyguard. It was Lord Byron’s job to whack Jamie without getting knocked himself.

Every Friday night, Jamie went to visit his grandmother in Dudley Street, West Melbourne. When he got there at 7 pm on this particular night, he found the front door open. He drew his handgun and called out ‘Nanna, nanna, it’s me, Jamie, are you okay? Where are you, Nanna?’ There was dead silence.

As Jamie walked through the house a cold chill ran up his spine. When he got to the lounge room the sight he saw made him scream out in horror. The headless body of his granny lay on the floor, with her six cats nibbling away at her open neck. Jamie didn’t feel the meat cleaver as it came smashing in. One slice through the brain and he was catfood, too. Granny’s pussies couldn’t believe their luck.

When the heads of his mother and his son got left on his front doorstep in Footscray, Tuppence Murray knew he had only one way out. He picked up the phone and made the call.

CHIEF Inspector Rocket Rod Kelly had been transferred out of the internal security office and was now in the tactical arrest unit. Tuppence Murray had been acting as an informer for Rocket Rod for the 11 years. Tuppence, being a bookmaker at heart, liked to play every side against the middle. This time he wasn’t his usual smooth self, as Rocket Rod couldn’t help noticing when Tuppence broke down in tears over the phone, screaming: ‘They killed them, Rod, they killed them. They killed Mum and young Jamie.’

Instead of sticking solid and saying nothing, Tuppence Murray screamed his lungs out to the police and was placed in the care of the Protective Security Office.

Operation Caballero began.

Roy Ripper Reeves had a quaint cowboy way of talking and one of his pet words was the word ‘caballero’. ‘You’re a good little caballero, he’s a bonny caballero’ and so on. During the 1970s Johnny Go-Go’s nightclub had been called ‘The Caballero’. It was this pet word that gave the police the idea for the operational name. There was already an operation into Mickey Van Gogh and the Collingwood crew, which they’d called operation Spider Web, but it sort of fell through when Raychell rang Detective Chief Superintendent Lenny Kurnow, otherwise known as Dirty Lenny, and said to him, ‘Hey Lenny, it’s me, Raychell Van Gogh.’

‘Yes Raychell, what do you want?’ said Kurnow.

‘Nothing much, Lenny’ said Raychell. ‘I just wanted to ask you if you knew how to get a dog to stop from rooting your leg.’

‘I don’t know’ said Lenny Kurnow. ‘Tell me.’

‘Easy’ said Raychell. ‘You pick it up and gobble it off. Ha ha ha.’ Then she hung up.

Four days later Kurnow received a parcel by registered post to his home address at Arcadia Street, Carrum Downs. In the parcel was a video filmed at a police function. It involved some sort of bucks’ night that the armed offenders squad and the vice and drug and armed robbery squads put on for a young policeman. The party was being held in some sort of massage parlour and the star of the whole show was Raychell Brown – now Van Gogh.

The police were taking turns, and she was taking them on two at a time. Seven of the police with interesting bit parts in the video were now fairly high up in rank, with three of them involved in nationwide taskforce operations.

The video was put away safely and Operation Spider Web was shut down. But two heads on Tuppence Murray’s doorstep couldn’t be hidden under the carpet, and Rocket Rod Kelly couldn’t give a flying shit how many porno videos Raychell Van Gogh had of herself screwing police or members of Parliament – Operation Caballero was going on, and he would not be frightened off.

When the tactical arrest unit raided the Pepper twins’ flat, both brothers came out shooting. The whole thing took less than 20 seconds.

Three police received leg and arm wounds from shotgun pellets, but Leon and Deon were finished. Eleven bullet holes in Leon and six in Deon.

Leon was dead when he hit the ground. Deon lived and was rushed to hospital, but died on the operating table that night. Rocket Rod Kelly rang Mickey Van Gogh at home and asked for Raychell. When Raychell answered he said, ‘Hey Raychell, how do you stop a dog from rooting your leg?’

Raychell spluttered, ‘Who is this, then?’

Rocket Rod said, ‘You shoot it, Raychell, you shoot it. Ha ha ha.’ And hung up.

‘That was the bloody jacks,’ said Raychell to Mickey.

‘How do you know?’ asked Mickey.

‘It just was,’ said Raychell. ‘It just was, that’s all.’

‘We gotta watch our backs, baby,’ said Raychell.

‘I reckon the jacks are going to knock us. Why don’t ya send the dogs a few dirty videos, princess?’

Raychell shook her head.

‘It will take more than a few dirty videos to get us out of this,’ she answered. ‘We gotta talk to Roy. He’ll know what to do. And tell Byron to get out of that bloody commission flat. He’s bloody lucky they didn’t get him as well. That dog Tuppence Murray’s to blame for all of this. Let’s go and see Uncle Roy.’

No-one would ever imagine that Detective Sergeant Paul Hawkins had once been an altar boy, a star turn at a Catholic boarding school. He’d spent most of his working life in the Suicide Blonde massage parlour in Alexander Parade, Collingwood, and was as bent as they come. When he wasn’t pumping meth amphetamine up his nose at 100 miles per hour, he was pumping filth money into several bank accounts, to the tune of five grand a week. And he spent his off-duty hours pumping the girls at the Suicide Blonde free of charge. Good trifecta, while it lasted.

Rocky Bob Mulheron controlled all the Collingwood crew’s prostitution interests and he also controlled Hawkins. Now it was the bent cop’s turn to earn his money.

Question: where are the protective security office boys holding Tuppence Murray?

Hawkins had his work cut out for him. He was already under investigation by the internal security toe-cutters. David Spencer was serving seven years in Sale jail, the bent cops’ home away from home, and he was next cab off the rank. But Hawkins still had some cards up his sleeve. He’d find Murray if it was the last thing he did.

RIPPER Roy Reeves sat up in bed with a tray in front of him, eating corn flakes. Raychell was flouncing around the bedroom in a silk dressing gown. She had just served Roy his breakfast in bed and was about to head to the bathroom to blast a gram of speed up her arm. She used her left arm; the spider’s web tattoo hid the needle marks.

Roy’s old mother, along with Mickey’s mother and Raychell’s mum, had all been packed off to Terry Maloney’s place in Surfers Paradise. Leon and Deon’s mother had been sent to stay with Arthur Featherston’s sister in Hay Street, Kalgoorlie. The Collingwood crew had packed all non-combatants off to safer parts, out of state.

Mickey Van Gogh was walking around Roy’s Easey Street home with nothing on, holding an SKS 30 shot assault rifle. The three had taken to sleeping in the same bed at night. Lord Byron was on the couch, with Terry and Arthur taking turns keeping guard.

Ripper Roy didn’t use speed, but he did enjoy a spoon full of methadone with his morning cup of tea. It mellowed him right out for the day. Unbeknown to Raychell and Mickey, he had put a spoonful each into their cup of tea the night before, which explained why they’d had the only good night’s sleep they’d had in a year.

Raychell came back into the bedroom scratching her tits, which was a pretty big job in itself.

‘I’ve sent Byron up the street to get some smokes,’ she said distractedly. ‘We are out of smokes. Mickey’s so strung out he can’t get his dick up. He’s on the couch cleaning his friggin’ rifle. Irish Arthur is asleep in the front room, and Terry’s out front in the car keeping guard. Daddy, Raychell’s full of speed and really horny. C’mon, Uncle Roy. Do it to me.’

Ripper Roy put his breakfast tray to one side, and Raychell pulled the doona back and sat herself across him.

‘Hey Mickey’ yelled Roy, ‘Can I borrow ya wife?’

Mickey didn’t answer. He was asleep on the couch. Days and nights with no sleep, and the methadone the previous night made the couch in front of the open fire a very warm and comfy place indeed. He was out to it.

‘I guess no answer means yes,’ said Raychell. She began to rock herself back and forth and slowly working the big, old man deep inside herself, pushing Ripper Roy’s unshaven face between her massive mammaries as she went.

Roy loved this insane slut of a girl, but he felt at times that at his age she could be the death of him. She seemed to be in a constant state of heat.

Just as Roy was getting to the funny part, the front door came smashing open. It was a very excited Terry Maloney.

Mickey awoke with a yell and grabbed his gun. Irish Arthur came out of the front bedroom, a gun in each hand. ‘They got him, they got him, it was Byron they got,’ he yelled.

‘Who?’ yelled Mickey.

‘They got Byron.’

Ripper Roy walked out of the bedroom with a towel wrapped around himself, with Raychell behind him putting on her dressing gown.

‘Who got who?’ asked Roy.

‘The police,’ yelled Terry. ‘The police arrested Byron 100 yards down the street and waved at me as they drove him away. Jesus Christ, I couldn’t believe it.’