Chopper Unchopped (103 page)

Mickey threw down the handpiece viciously and said to Roy and Raychell, ‘Charlie don’t want no part of it anymore.’

‘That’s about right,’ said Ripper Roy. ‘When the going gets tough the wogs go shopping. Ha ha.’

Raychell laughed at Roy’s little jest. She usually did.

Roy turned suddenly serious. ‘We gotta hit that pub Murray’s in tonight,’ he said, his face setting into a look that promised someone death and destruction.

‘It’s raining, so that will make you happy, Mickey,’ he said, with a mirthless smile.

‘Yeah, I love a rainy night,’ said Mickey tautly, pacing restlessly around the room. ‘It’s a good smother. The rain’s great.’

He paused a moment, face still dark with barely-controlled anger, then said what was on his mind. ‘We are going to have to see Charlie about all this when we’ve put Tuppence off.’

‘Yeah,’ said Raychell. ‘Byron always said that anyone who ain’t from Collingwood is a shirt lifter. I always thought Chicka had some guts, but it looks like he’s leaving us posted on this one. I’ll cut that dog’s dick off. To think of all the times I’ve sat on that bastard’s face free of charge and now he does this to us. Leaves us posted when we need him most.’

‘Bastard,’ said Mickey. ‘Ya can’t trust the wogs when it comes to the crunch. Piss on ’em all …’

WHEN Chicka Charlie had put the phone down, he turned to Alphonse Corsetti and made a prediction.

‘I reckon they will hit the pub tonight,’ he said.

‘Do they know I’m back?’ asked Alphonse quietly.

‘Nah, you’re sweet. They are so full of gear they don’t know nothing no more.’

‘Ripper Roy don’t use speed,’ said Alphonse.

‘No, he don’t,’ said Charlie. ‘But he got hooked on methadone in Pentridge. He’s lost his edge.’ Alphonse picked up the phone and dialled Rocket Rod Kelly’s direct line. ‘I better let Rod know they are going to hit the pub tonight,’ he murmured to Charlie as he waited for the policeman to take the call.

Charlie gave no sign that he’d heard. He stared out the window at the rain, but his eyes weren’t focused on anything. He was thinking. Thinking that he was taking the biggest risk of his whole life. Ripper Roy Reeves, Mickey Van Gogh and mad Raychell. If the Tactical Arrest Unit didn’t finish them tonight, Charlie knew he might as well blow his brains out or jump off the Westgate Bridge.

The big question for Charlie: was teaming up with Alphonse and Rocket Rod Kelly the best move he ever made, or the worst? Business was business – and Mickey, Roy and Raychell had become bad for business. But things were more complicated than that, and Charlie felt jumpy and unsure. He knew Mickey loved a rainy night, and it sent a shiver up his spine. He looked at Alphonse talking on the phone to Kelly, and knew that if it all went well tonight he’d have to kill Alphonse, because the Italian would betray him. In the end, the wogs were loyal only to their own blood relatives.

Maybe Mickey and Raychell had the right idea, after all, thought Charlie. They attacked. They didn’t do deals along the way. They just attacked. ‘Oh, what a web we weave,’ thought Chicka Charlie. For the sake of money and power he had got into bed with rattlesnakes to betray the very people who gave him his money and power in the first place. He had to keep reminding himself that it was only business. But he felt ill at ease. Trouble was, he couldn’t tell if it was his conscience, or a premonition of something bad. Conscience he could live with. The other, he might not. God, he wished it wasn’t raining.

He turned around and went into the kitchen. Tuppence Murray and a female police officer called Alison Bentley, from the Protective Security Team, were sitting at the table drinking tea.

Leaning against the fridge, drinking a can of beer, was Mario Rocca, cousin of the late Gaetano Rocca.

‘Is it all sweet?’ Tuppence asked. He didn’t look good, Tuppence. Not the same man since finding the heads on the doorstep.

‘Yeah,’ said Charlie. ‘Alphonse is talking to Kelly now.’ Suddenly, he rushed to the sink. ‘I think I’m going to be sick’ he said, just before he started retching. As he stood, hunched over the sink with his eyes watering and his guts heaving, the bitter taste of bile in his throat, a strange thought strayed into his mind. Funny how he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten bloody carrots, but there they were in the vomit. It happened every time.

‘Shit, Charlie,’ said Mario, not sure whether to be disgusted or concerned at this exhibition. ‘Go upstairs and lie down if you’re not feeling good.’

‘Yeah’ muttered Chicka. ‘Good idea.’

He went upstairs into his bedroom. Big Jimmy Jigsaw was in there already, watching TV with Rocky Bob Mulheron.

My house is full of dogs, thought Charlie bitterly. Traitors, all of us, waiting for three poor bastards to die. And then we will turn around and kill each other, fighting over the spoils and trying to stay alive.

At least Mickey, Raychell and old Roy would go out with honour, in a blaze of gunfire.

Paul Hawkins pulled up outside Charlie’s house. Chicka Charlie watched him come to the front door. Someone let him in, probably the lady cop.

‘Oh well,’ thought Charlie. ‘Another dog in my house will make no difference now.’

He went into the spare bedroom and lay on the bed. Jigsaw Jimmy knocked on the door and said, ‘Are you okay, Chicka?’

‘Yeah’, he yelled. ‘I’m having a sleep. Wake me when it’s over.’

Chicka Charlie fell into a deep sleep, but not a peaceful one. With him came the three faces of Micky Van Gogh, Ripper Roy Reeves and Raychell Brown.

Meanwhile …

IRISH Arthur and Terry sat in the kitchen with old Tex Lawson, cleaning their guns.

Mickey, Roy and Raychell sat in the lounge room. Mercifully, Roy broke the silence that had been weighing them down. ‘The three of us will hit the pub tonight,’ he said suddenly.

‘What about the rest of the crew?’ asked Mickey.

‘Arthur, Terry and Tex will hit Chicka Charlie’s place,’ Roy said, as if he was mapping out a vital campaign. He was the Churchill of Collingwood, briefing his wartime cabinet on a secret air strike.

Raychell laughed and threw her arms around Ripper Roy. ‘You’re beautiful,’ she said.

Shifty, magic old bastard, thought Mickey. He was all smiles.

But Roy wasn’t finished.

‘Also,’ he said.

‘Yeah?’ said Mickey, wondering.

‘Suddenly Rocky Bob, Jimmy Jigsaw and Paul Hawkins have vanished on us – and now Charlie don’t want to be involved. We are being betrayed. No problem.’

Mickey was puzzled. ‘If we are being betrayed, how come we are still going to hit the pub?’

‘Because,’ said Roy patiently, ‘that’s where the fun is gonna be.’

Mickey screamed with insane laughter. ‘Yeah,’ he yelled. ‘If it’s not a set up we will kill Murray. If it is a set up – well, who gives a shit. Let’s rock and bloody roll. Ha ha ha.’

Karen Phillips sat quietly listening to it all. These poor, mad, insane bastards were on their way to die – and laughing about it. She knew that she would never see them again after tonight. She began to cry quietly.

Then Roy picked up the phone and dialled a number. There was a moment’s silence, then Roy laughed and said ‘Leo, are ya all set, brother? It’s tonight, mate. Are ya with us, okay? Good. Yeah, mate. It’s been a long time. Okay. Comprendez. See ya.’ He hung up.

Raychell and Mickey didn’t want to be gigs and ask what Roy was up to, but they couldn’t take the suspense.

‘Who was that?’ asked Raychell.

She was sitting on the floor between Roy’s legs, with one arm casting a spider’s web shadow across his groin. Roy didn’t reply. With a playful squeeze in a tender place she said, ‘Come on, Roy, don’t tease.’

Ripper Roy jumped and said, ‘Don’t go grabbing a bloke on the dick like that without warning. You could do me a mischief.’

Mickey laughed. ‘She’s got a hand like a rat trap,’ he said.

‘Certainly has,’ said Roy, as he gently pushed the spider’s web hand away from his groin.

‘Don’t whinge,’ purred Raychell. ‘You love it. You know you do.’

‘I don’t like getting my dick yanked unawares. Now cut it out.’

‘Well, okay, who was it?’ asked Raychell. ‘Leo the Lout is dead, so we know it’s not him. So Leo who?’

‘Ah, my little caballero. Just because we are about to enter the shadow of the Valley of Death don’t mean we can’t have a giggle. Old Uncle Roy’s just bought himself a lion.’

Mickey and Raychell looked at each other, dumbfounded. ‘What do you mean a lion?’ asked Mickey, slowly.

‘Look, if Tuppence is there he will have Rocket Rod and his crew armed to the teeth. If it’s a set up and Tuppence isn’t there, then we are walking into a death trap. The pub will be full of coppers. We have to get the rats in the pub out of the pub. A fire would attract every householder in the street outside in their dressing gowns and slippers, with every second gig ringing the fire brigade. But what would you do if someone picked the lock on the back door of the pub with a sledge hammer – and let a full grown lion up the staircase to the living quarters above, then closed the door?’

‘I’d jump out the window,’ said Mickey.

‘Exactly,’ said Roy. ‘No-one shoots a lion at close quarters. If you don’t kill it with the first shot he’ll rip you to shreds.’

‘But where did you get a lion?’ asked Raychell, staring.

‘Ya can get anything if you got the money and I got a lion – 10 grand and it gets delivered. Full grown, 10 years old. They were going to put it down. He killed three racehorses when he got loose from the Ballan Lion Park.’

‘Shit yeah,’ said Mickey. ‘I read about that last week. Old Samson, that’s the lion’s name. Read it in the paper. He’s going mad and killing baby lions and he killed a lioness and attacked three keepers.

‘He’s been shot twice in the past and survived when he attacked visitors at the park, but the Animal Rights people saved him. How did you get him?’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Roy. ‘I got him and he’s been kept in a shed on a farm outside Gisborne for the past week. A bucket of water a day and no tucker every other day. He’s a bit hungry, bad tempered and in no mood to be messed about. Whoever’s in that pub will be diving out the window at 100 miles an hour – and we’ll be waiting in the street.’

‘You’re a bloody genius, Roy. A bloody genius,’ said Raychell. Mickey was still shaking his head in disbelief. ‘A blinking lion,’ he said. ‘Holy mother of God, a lion. No-one will ever believe this. This will go down in history. It’s fantastic.’

Raychell and Mickey were like excited children, and old Roy felt feel a bit proud of himself. When he had cut that rat’s arms and legs off years ago, then got his mother knocked, he had broken new ground in criminal insanity. But using a lion as first man in on a suicide death or glory mission was a pretty wonderful idea, if he did say so himself.

Ripper Roy stood up and said: ‘A toast.’

Raychell and Mickey got to their feet, and grabbed their drinks. ‘To old Samson!’ yelled Roy.

‘To old Samson!’ yelled Raychell and Mickey together.

Fatty’s little sister got up and went into the kitchen. ‘Did you blokes hear all of that?’ she said to the rest of the crew.

Irish Arthur, Tex and Terry shook their heads. She told them the plan.

‘A lion?’ said Tex, thinking aloud. ‘Is he serious or delirious? I’m starting to wonder if we are backing the right horse here.’

Irish Arthur and Terry Maloney both held their loaded guns to Tex Lawson’s head.

‘Dead or alive, Tex, you’re backing the right horse,’ gritted Irish Arthur. ‘Even if he’s the nuttiest bloody horse in the world, there’s no shades of grey, Tex. You’re either with us, or you’re dead on the kitchen floor. Now!’ He’d kissed the Blarney stone, had Arthur. Could charm the birds out of the trees if he put his mind to it. Would have made a marvellous recruiting agent for the IRA.

‘I think a lion is a marvellous bloody idea,’ said Tex loud and clear. ‘Only dirty I didn’t think of it myself. Three cheers for the bloody lion, that’s what I say.’

The three men began to laugh.

Karen went back into the lounge room resigned to the fact that the good ship schizophrenia was well and truly docked at this wharf.

Irish Arthur knew that Roy Reeves changed his battle plans from one moment to the next. The attack on Chicka Charlie’s was a last-minute thought, and it could all be changed at the last minute. Roy and Arthur carried their own mobile phones. Roy could cancel or give the order at a moment’s notice over the phone.

Then Irish Arthur had a brain wave. If Roy was using a lion, why not take his Irish bagpipes along on the Chicka Charlie giggle? You couldn’t beat the skirl of the pipes going into battle. They’d scared the shit out of the enemy for hundreds of years.

CURLY Bill Rowbottom and his semi-senile father, old Bob, had a bit of a battle getting Samson into the back of Curly’s breadvan. The trip from Gisborne to Footscray in the middle of the night didn’t do much to settle the uncertain temper of the rogue lion. The van had a roll-up door, which meant old Bob had to back the van up to the back door of the pub.

The idea was that Curly Bill would smash the lock on the door and open it and give the signal to his father, who would back the van right up to the door. Curly would then climb on top of the van, grab a rope which was tied to the handle on the roller door, and out would come old Samson, right through the back door and up the stairs to the hotel living quarters. Then Curly would get down, and old Bob would drive away slowly, with Curly slamming the pub door shut.

That was the plan, anyway.

They’d gone over the whole set-up a dozen times. Curly Bill Rowbottom had been handling big cats at the Lion Park for 20 years. Running old Samson up the back stairs of a Footscray pub was a doddle …

When Raychell, Roy, Mickey and Karen got to the pub, all was dark and quiet. They waited in the car at the end of Eleanor Street. Curly Bill and old Bob were running late. There was a light drizzle. Eventually, the dim lights from the old van hit them.

Ripper Roy jumped out and ran over. The van pulled up and Roy snapped a few brief instructions, then it headed for the pub and Roy came back to the car.