Chopper Unchopped (104 page)

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Karen, you wait in the car. Okay? Mickey, Raychell, let’s go.’

The three walked toward the pub. Old Roy carried his favourite gun, an old Colt Peacemaker .44 double-action revolver. Raychell had given her .32 calibre handgun to little Karen, and replaced it with a .38 calibre automatic. Mickey carried a .357 magnum revolver. It was all lightweight firepower against unknown odds – but as Roy said: ‘We got a lion. They ain’t. Ha ha.’ You couldn’t argue with that.

ROCKET Rod Kelly, John Silver and Harry Ruler were hiding upstairs in the pub when they heard a vehicle in the car park. It stopped. Then the back door came smashing in.

‘Get set,’ whispered Kelly. ‘Here they come.’

They heard the van drive away, and the back door slam shut.

‘Well,’ said Silver, ‘what was all that about?’

The three police were hiding in a room at the end of the hall with the lights out. The hall light was on, the stair light was off and anyone coming up into the hall would be seen. But as they peered out into the hallway from a partly opened door, they could see nothing.

‘What was that, do you reckon?’ asked Kelly.

‘Sounded like a light truck or something,’ grunted Ruler. ‘Diesel motor, whatever it was. Do they deliver milk at this time of night?’

Kelly was still wondering aloud. ‘Someone smashed the bloody back door in, then slammed it shut, then drove off,’ he said slowly.

‘What is this? What’s going on? What’s that bloody smell?’ complained Ruler. ‘Smells like a big wet dog or a big wet horse, some sort of barnyard animal smell. It’s a bit on the nose.’

‘What’s that noise?’ said Kelly suddenly, straining his ears.

‘What noise?’ said Silver. ‘I can’t hear a thing because you blokes can’t stop talking.’

‘Yeah, I can hear it all right,’ said Ruler. ‘Sounds like a bloody horse wearing carpet slippers. Probably the one I backed at Caulfield yesterday, coming up to apologise. Bastard should be fed to the lions.’

‘What’s going on?’ called Kelly. Then opened the door wide and stepped through. The Irish in him. And the fact he had the only shotgun in the group.

Shamed by Kelly’s reckless bravery, Silver and Ruler edged into the hallway behind him. The three walked carefully along the hall. Kelly with the pump action shotgun, Silver and Ruler both with their .38 calibre police special revolvers in their sweaty hands. They were all wearing bullet-proof vests, and they weren’t complaining because the kevlar was hot and heavy. The heavier the bloody better, thought Ruler, the realist.

Below, old Samson was nearly as twitchy as the coppers, but a lot more bad tempered. He padded slowly up the stairs, wary of the hall light, not really wanting to leave the darkened staircase.

ROY Ripper Reeves stood across the road from the pub. Raychell stood 10 paces to his right, Mickey the same distance to his left. The pub was on a corner, and they had both streets covered. Whoever was in that pub had only two ways out – and that was to jump out the windows on the Eleanor Street side or the Essex Street side.

A nerve-cracking silence. Then it happened: the unforgettable sounds of grown men’s voices raised in screams of sheer terror.

‘Ahhh, ahhh! Jesus Christ!’

The pub broke out into total uproar – followed by the sounds of a real roar. Samson was doing his thing.

Then, standing in the rain, old Roy Reeves laughed like a maniac, and began to sing:

‘Born free, as free as the wind blows,

As free as the grass grows,

free to follow your heart.

Born free, as free as the wind blows …’

Raychell and Mickey nearly fell over laughing hysterically at the sounds of the frantic panic in the pub, and old Roy singing
Born Free.
It was a classic.

Then they heard a gunshot followed by a great crashing and smashing of glass as Kelly, Silver and Ruler jumped through the pub windows. Mickey started firing and so did Raychell. But old Roy held his fire, and kept singing as the lion rampaged through the pub with a .38 calibre police special bullet in his chest.

The three cops hit the footpath and started firing at Raychell, Mickey and Roy. It was a full scale gun battle.

Then Raychell fell with a slug in her neck. Silver and Ruler went down with bullets in the legs and groin. Mickey dropped with slugs in the legs and shoulder. Only Roy Reeves and Rod Kelly were still standing.

Karen Phillips drove the car up into the middle of the street and came to a screaming halt. She got out firing her .32 at Kelly, and somehow dragged Mickey Van Gogh into the car.

‘Get in, Roy!’ she screamed. ‘Get in!’

But Roy stuck next to Raychell. She was dying, and he would not leave her.

‘Get going!’ he yelled at Karen. ‘Get going before it’s too late.’

The Rabbit Kisser took off, still firing her gun at Kelly and the fallen coppers, who fired back from where they lay. Then there was the almighty crash of Kelly’s shotgun. Old Roy took the blast in the chest and down he went. He had run to help Raychell; now he lay beside her. She was gurgling blood from the mouth and the hole in her throat. Old Roy was pumping blood out of his chest. They were goners.

Rod Kelly stood over them and looked down.

‘It never had to be like this, Roy’ he said.

‘Yes it did,’ said Roy. Mad, but staunch to the end. And still deadly. But as he lifted his Colt toward Kelly’s head to squeeze off one last shot, the shotgun rang out and blew his head in half.

Raychell turned her head toward Roy, reaching out to touch his dead hand. As her hand grabbed his she died.

Silver had managed to get to his feet and stagger over, oozing blood from his leg wounds.

‘Are they dead?’ he said thickly. It was a stupid question, but he could be excused.

‘Yeah,’ said Kelly. ‘They’re dead all right.’ Then he rambled on about the lion. ‘What are we going to do about it … we can’t let the poor thing suffer like that,’ he said, starting to shake. It was the shock hitting him.

Kelly and Silver looked down at the bodies of Ripper Roy and Raychell, holding hands in death.

Kelly said numbly: ‘He could have run to the car and got away. The mad bastard didn’t need to stay behind with her. She was done for anyway. I can’t figure it out. What was he trying to prove?’

Silver shook his head. ‘Beats me. Maybe the poor bastard loved her.’

‘Nah,’ said Kelly. ‘Roy Reeves never loved no-one. But, then again, maybe I’m wrong.’

ROCKY Bob and Jimmy Jigsaw heard the noise first. ‘What’s that?’ said Tuppence Murray to the police woman, Alison Bentley.

Alphonse Corsetti looked out the window, and Paul Hawkins and Mario Rocca pulled their guns out.

‘God Almighty,’ yelled Alphonse. ‘It’s some madman playing the bagpipes.’

As they rushed with guns in hand to the front of the house, the back door came crashing in. Tex Lawson and Terry Maloney charged, guns blazing. Rocca and Hawkins went down, but Tuppence Murray opened the front door and ran outside, Rocky Bob and Jimmy Jigsaw following him. That’s when Irish Arthur let go his pipes and started shooting, dropping all three with three shots. Alphonse Corsetti was hit next and fell hard as Tex and Terry walked through the house. Then, from out of nowhere, Alison Bentley came up behind Terry and Tex and blew daylight through both of them – a slug in the back each.

Irish Arthur came through the front door just in time to put a slug into Alison Bentley. She fell, but instinctively returned fire, hitting Irish Arthur with three in the chest. Beautifully grouped. Her shooting instructor at the academy was a very proud man when he heard about it later.

‘YOU know, they reckon Chicka Charlie slept through the whole thing,’ Kelly said to Ruler and Silver.

They were sitting in a private double room in St Vincents Hospital.

‘Yeah,’ said Ruler drily. ‘Then whatever drugs Charlie’s on, I want some, because I haven’t slept too flash lately.’

Kelly continued. ‘They reckon it was a blood bath. Alison’s okay; she’s at the Alfred Hospital. Her vest saved her. But Tuppence is dead, and so are Hawkins, Rocca, Corsetti, Rocky Bob, Jimmy Jigsaw, Tex Lawson, Terry Maloney, and Arthur Featherstone. The only ones who got through were Alison Bentley and Chicka Charlie. It’s unreal. Bloody unreal.’ He shook his head.

‘The newspapers have gone crazy. What, with Raychell and Roy and you two getting shot, and the dead lion in the pub bringing the bloody animal rights people out into the streets screaming for blood.’

Something was bothering Silver. ‘So where’s Mickey Van Gogh?’ he asked.

‘Ahh, that’s the question,’ said Kelly. ‘And who was that mad sheila? That’s what I want to know. Raychell and Roy’s bodies are still in the morgue. We’re waiting to see who claims them.’

‘Yeah,’ said Ruler, ‘that should be an interesting funeral.’

THE Rabbit Kisser hid Mickey at a friend’s home in Alexander Parade in Collingwood. The friend was a cousin of Johnny Go-Go’s. A bent doctor with a taste for sex, gambling and needling himself with morphine was called to the scene. He was able to sew up Mickey’s wounds, but couldn’t do much for his mind. He was insane with rage and grief, filled with a sense of loss. Raychell gone. Roy Reeves gone.

A suicidal sense of doom overcame him. The bodies had to be collected from the morgue and buried.

Johnny Go-Go was despatched to collect the mortal remains and arrange the details. Raychell and Old Roy would be buried as they died. Together.

A full month after the shootouts at South Caulfield and Footscray, the bodies of Raychell Van Gogh and Roy Ripper Reeves were finally laid to rest. The funeral, put on and paid for by Johnny Go-Go, was an old-style Collingwood affair. The last time the Melbourne underworld saw a funeral like it was when they buried Squizzy Taylor. A big day.

That night, when the Melbourne Cemetery in Carlton was quiet and still, with no mourners, ghouls, gigs or police and media looking on, Karen Phillips drove Mickey to the cemetery. She waited outside in the car as Mickey jumped the fence. He walked around until he came to the fresh graves. The marble headstone for his Raychell had not yet been put into place. Only a wooden marker with her name on it. But Roy’s marble headstone was there. It read:

Mickey fell to his knees and cried. ‘I’m sorry I ran, Raychell. I should have stayed with ya. We all shoulda died together.’

A voice from behind him spoke. ‘I knew you’d show up, Mickey. Don’t worry – you will all die together.’

Mickey spun around and clawed for his gun, but Rocket Rod already had his finger on the trigger. He fired first. Mickey fell back onto Raychell’s grave.

‘Goodbye, Mickey,’ said Kelly.

The Rabbit Kisser heard the shot fired and drove away. She didn’t need to find out exactly what had happened. She had warned Mickey the jacks might stake out the graveyard that night. You didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know Mickey would front.

ONE year later, Karen Phillips was drop dead glamourous. The transformation was amazing. She was the star table dancer at Johnny Go-Go’s club.

She had bleached blonde hair, and in a way she looked like Raychell Brown, except she never had Raychell’s extra large tits. Karen even dressed in classic Raychell fashion. All jet black, stiletto high heels, micro-mini, black top and full length overcoat, complete with .32 calibre handgun in the pocket. Only this time Karen was off the speed. She had cleaned herself right up. While Raychell was her mentor and her hero, Raychell’s downfall on meth amphetamine was a great lesson to Karen.

Johnny Go-Go’s nightclub had become a great favourite. Crims, cops, TV personalities, politicians, jockeys, the rich and famous, men from all over town came to perve on the collection of outrageously beautiful table dancers, and Karen was the most popular of the lot.

Apart from the blonde hair and the pouting, sexy face, the long legs and swinging hips, there was the slightly macabre attraction of her full spider’s web tattoo, from the left shoulder all the way down her left arm and covering her hand. It was as if the ghost of Raychell Van Gogh had come back to tease her way into the hearts, minds and trousers of every man in the club. As, in a way, she had.

‘How did she get her nickname?’ asked sly Freddy Garris, a sticky beak newspaper reporter, who for years had followed the exploits of the Collingwood crew.

Fatty’s little sister was the mystery missing link. Who was the young girl who drove Mickey Van Gogh to safety on the night of the ‘old Samson shoot out’, as it had become known? The night Roy Reeves and Raychell Van Gogh died along with a rogue lion from the Ballan Lion Park. Who was she? Where was she? The unknown young girl who had been a part of the Collingwood crew since her childhood, yet remained almost invisible.

But sly Freddy Garris knew that Fatty Phillips had once had a little sister, and the ‘Rabbit Kisser’ name had come up from time to time. Freddy knew that this pouting tease queen on the stage was the missing link he needed for his story.

Johnny Go-Go turned to Freddy and laughed.

‘Ha ha. When she was a kid in grade six, she got waylaid on her way to school by a gang of local scallywags from Collingwood. They pulled out their willies and said: “Hey Karen, get over here and kiss the rabbit.”

‘She was two hours getting to school that morning and once it became known, she got kidnapped to and from school daily and made to “kiss the rabbit” every time. In the end, she was known all over Collingwood as the Rabbit Kisser, and the name stuck.’

Freddy pretended to think for a minute, then frowned in mock puzzlement and asked: ‘You said Karen. You mean Karen Phillips, Fatty Phillips’ little sister?’

Johnny Go-Go looked down at Freddy and whispered: ‘They never found Fatty’s body, did they? And if you keep asking questions, they won’t find yours either.’

Sly Freddy Garris suddenly remembered an urgent appointment. A long way from Collingwood.